Thanks to Pundit Kitchen.
ANTIGONOS' BRAIN
| Your Brain is Green |
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Saturday, April 26, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
A Confession
Wednesday night I surrendered and ate chametz.
Since the onset of Passover I had been having continual diarrhea and suffering two to three severe hypoglycemic attacks per day.
This is a bit odd, since the usual problem for diabetics with the Passover diet is that they ingest too much carbohydrates -- one half a regular piece of matzah is the equivalent of a full slice of bread. Potatoes and rice (for those, like me, who eat kitniyot) just don't satisfy the way a nice thick slice of bread, heavily buttered, and preferably hot out of the oven, does.
Maybe it was too much gefilte fish, rather than the matzah, which tied my kishkes in knots; or rather, untied all the knots and greased the intestinal runway.
Ah well, I'm sure God understands, and hey, I'm in the Holy Land anyway, so maybe He'll think I've done my bit already
Since the onset of Passover I had been having continual diarrhea and suffering two to three severe hypoglycemic attacks per day.
This is a bit odd, since the usual problem for diabetics with the Passover diet is that they ingest too much carbohydrates -- one half a regular piece of matzah is the equivalent of a full slice of bread. Potatoes and rice (for those, like me, who eat kitniyot) just don't satisfy the way a nice thick slice of bread, heavily buttered, and preferably hot out of the oven, does.
Maybe it was too much gefilte fish, rather than the matzah, which tied my kishkes in knots; or rather, untied all the knots and greased the intestinal runway.
Ah well, I'm sure God understands, and hey, I'm in the Holy Land anyway, so maybe He'll think I've done my bit already
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Nobody's Listening, Jimmy (Fortunately)
Jake Fuller Gainesville Sun Apr 16, 2008 |
Carter's become an embarrassment even to the State Department.
The Staff of Life is Beating Us Over the Head
Sometimes, folks just don't learn. See today's Haaretz.
For the past couple of weeks, there has been the annual brouhaha about selling chametz during Passover. Chametz is more than just a slice of bread -- it is EVERY kind of edible item NOT marked with a "kosher for Passover" label.
Most, if not nearly all, Jewish Israelis attend some kind of Passover Seder. It's a lot like Thanksgiving Dinner for Americans. There's a traditional meal, and usually some kind of ceremonial, although it can range from 30 seconds flat ("Why is this night different from all other nights? Let's eat!") to what Hollywood would describe as a Major Production with an All Star Cast.
The holiday is also a bit like Christmas. Israelis hit the shops with a vengeance. Most get some form of gift or gift certificate from their employers. My youngest daughter and I were in Home Center two days ago and were lucky to escape with our lives. Gift giving isn't de rigueur but not far from it. I will undoubtedly wind up with several more glass vases I'll never use and yet another set of wine glasses by the end of the week. Whereas Christians mob the mental health hotlines around Christmas, Jews are more likely to get depressed over the Passover holiday.
This year Passover begins on Saturday night, immediately following the exit of the Sabbath. This makes it a real nightmare, in Jewish Law, for those who are strictly observant, because one MUST eat bread on Friday night and Saturday noontime (don't ask me what the exact hour for the last bite of pita is, because I don't know, but I assure you there is one, right down to the second) but one is absolutely forbidden to have chametz in one's "possession" on Passover. Trust me, you don't want to know more about this burning issue, although actually, burning (or not burning) is actually part of the problem. Further, the observant housewife has to plan for the three normal Sabbath meals, the Seder meal, and the meals to be eaten on Sunday, all of which must be prepared in advance since cooking is forbidden. (Emergency rooms will see those whose preparations were less than perfect by Sunday night, as gastroenteritis and food poisoning get a grip)
But not all Israelis are Jewish. At least 20% of the population, in fact. And until recent years, those Jewish Israelis who wanted a felafel in a pita could go to places like Jaffa or other Arab villages to eat without any problem. Most Jewish restaurants which care about their kosher certificates close for the entire week of the holiday, although increasingly it pays for them to offer Passover menus (a huge undertaking, since it requires changing dishes and pots, etc.) and of course there are plenty of restaurants in Israel who don't bother being kosher at all anyway.
Then the Kashrut Nazis (that is, the religious parties in the Knesset) managed to get a law passed requiring supermarkets to cover all the shelves containing non-Kosher for Passover items during the week, to make disinterested Jews into better ones, and non-Jews totally bewildered. (I've often wondered, does eating the kosher meal provided on an El Al flight give a non-observant Jew "Brownie points" in Heaven?)Inevitably, by the end of the week, the paper or plastic wrappings over the shelves containing such sinful things as flour and yeast (or even instant coffee that doesn't have the right sticker on it) are in tatters. I don't know what supermarket managers think of this charade: so much purchasing is done beforehand (the observant will literally replace everything, including toothpaste and cooking spices, as well as cleaning substances) that business is slow anyway during the intermediate days of the holiday. But they do have to pay staff to stay late just prior to the holiday to cover all the offending items up.
So this year, the law was challenged. And, predictably, the head of one of the most religious political parties has now declared that he intends to seek a law forbidding the sale of chametz absolutely, making it impossible for even a Moslem or a Christian to have a felafel in a pita too.
My paternal grandfather was a teetotaler. Out really out of any ideological or religious conviction (he was an ordained Episcopalian minister, but preferred to work as an auto mechanic), but because he didn't like the effect alcohol had on him. But my father never forgot the day his Dad brought home a bottle of whiskey and gathered his entire family around him. After pouring himself a generous tot, and downing it in a gulp, he announced, "No damn government is going to tell me what I may or may not drink!" It was the day Prohibition came into force in the US.
Dear Mr. Yishai: No damn government is going to tell me whether I may eat chametz or not. Get a law passed prohibiting the sale or display of all chametz, and there will be bread on my Seder table (if only for show)! With "friends" like you, attempting to force observance by coercion, we ordinary Jews don't need don't need any other enemies. Please go count your tzitzit, or something, and stay out of my kitchen. I don't force you to eat treif, don't force me to eat matzah (which, by the way, I love).
For the past couple of weeks, there has been the annual brouhaha about selling chametz during Passover. Chametz is more than just a slice of bread -- it is EVERY kind of edible item NOT marked with a "kosher for Passover" label.
Most, if not nearly all, Jewish Israelis attend some kind of Passover Seder. It's a lot like Thanksgiving Dinner for Americans. There's a traditional meal, and usually some kind of ceremonial, although it can range from 30 seconds flat ("Why is this night different from all other nights? Let's eat!") to what Hollywood would describe as a Major Production with an All Star Cast.
The holiday is also a bit like Christmas. Israelis hit the shops with a vengeance. Most get some form of gift or gift certificate from their employers. My youngest daughter and I were in Home Center two days ago and were lucky to escape with our lives. Gift giving isn't de rigueur but not far from it. I will undoubtedly wind up with several more glass vases I'll never use and yet another set of wine glasses by the end of the week. Whereas Christians mob the mental health hotlines around Christmas, Jews are more likely to get depressed over the Passover holiday.
This year Passover begins on Saturday night, immediately following the exit of the Sabbath. This makes it a real nightmare, in Jewish Law, for those who are strictly observant, because one MUST eat bread on Friday night and Saturday noontime (don't ask me what the exact hour for the last bite of pita is, because I don't know, but I assure you there is one, right down to the second) but one is absolutely forbidden to have chametz in one's "possession" on Passover. Trust me, you don't want to know more about this burning issue, although actually, burning (or not burning) is actually part of the problem. Further, the observant housewife has to plan for the three normal Sabbath meals, the Seder meal, and the meals to be eaten on Sunday, all of which must be prepared in advance since cooking is forbidden. (Emergency rooms will see those whose preparations were less than perfect by Sunday night, as gastroenteritis and food poisoning get a grip)
But not all Israelis are Jewish. At least 20% of the population, in fact. And until recent years, those Jewish Israelis who wanted a felafel in a pita could go to places like Jaffa or other Arab villages to eat without any problem. Most Jewish restaurants which care about their kosher certificates close for the entire week of the holiday, although increasingly it pays for them to offer Passover menus (a huge undertaking, since it requires changing dishes and pots, etc.) and of course there are plenty of restaurants in Israel who don't bother being kosher at all anyway.
Then the Kashrut Nazis (that is, the religious parties in the Knesset) managed to get a law passed requiring supermarkets to cover all the shelves containing non-Kosher for Passover items during the week, to make disinterested Jews into better ones, and non-Jews totally bewildered. (I've often wondered, does eating the kosher meal provided on an El Al flight give a non-observant Jew "Brownie points" in Heaven?)Inevitably, by the end of the week, the paper or plastic wrappings over the shelves containing such sinful things as flour and yeast (or even instant coffee that doesn't have the right sticker on it) are in tatters. I don't know what supermarket managers think of this charade: so much purchasing is done beforehand (the observant will literally replace everything, including toothpaste and cooking spices, as well as cleaning substances) that business is slow anyway during the intermediate days of the holiday. But they do have to pay staff to stay late just prior to the holiday to cover all the offending items up.
So this year, the law was challenged. And, predictably, the head of one of the most religious political parties has now declared that he intends to seek a law forbidding the sale of chametz absolutely, making it impossible for even a Moslem or a Christian to have a felafel in a pita too.
My paternal grandfather was a teetotaler. Out really out of any ideological or religious conviction (he was an ordained Episcopalian minister, but preferred to work as an auto mechanic), but because he didn't like the effect alcohol had on him. But my father never forgot the day his Dad brought home a bottle of whiskey and gathered his entire family around him. After pouring himself a generous tot, and downing it in a gulp, he announced, "No damn government is going to tell me what I may or may not drink!" It was the day Prohibition came into force in the US.
Dear Mr. Yishai: No damn government is going to tell me whether I may eat chametz or not. Get a law passed prohibiting the sale or display of all chametz, and there will be bread on my Seder table (if only for show)! With "friends" like you, attempting to force observance by coercion, we ordinary Jews don't need don't need any other enemies. Please go count your tzitzit, or something, and stay out of my kitchen. I don't force you to eat treif, don't force me to eat matzah (which, by the way, I love).
Friday, April 11, 2008
A Timely Commentary
There are times when I think Dr. Suess and Tom Lehrer said everything worth saying.
Sunday, April 06, 2008
He Always Seemed So Indestructible...
Gordon Campbell Freelance Apr 6, 2008 |
The first film I saw Charlton Heston in was "The Greatest Show on Earth", which gave me nightmares about trains for months. I couldn't have been more than 7. I don't know how many times I have seen "The Ten Commandments". Even today there seems a reverence about it that many Biblical epics have lacked [along with considerable kitsch]. Who knew De Mille was a gnostic? ("In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was Light..."
"Ben Hur" never impressed me the way it did most folks, maybe its Christian message was the problem. And, while I liked a lot of Heston's later films ("El Cid" had me off on a medieval jag for quite a time), but not enough to want to see them again, three roles stand out for me: General Charles Gordon in "Khartoum", in which he played, with a certain irony, the part of a man who believed himself to be bigger than life, and the eponymous role in "The Private War of Major Benson", in which he displayed an unexpected talent for comedy, and lastly, as the head of the troop of players in Ken Branagh's "Hamlet" --in which of course, he was an actor playing an actor, and at the end of his career.
I feel like an era has ended. They don't make actors like him any more.
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