Musings of a Bald Guy

Jews gone wild?

2011-06-10T14:59:00.000-04:00

Two seemingly unrelated incidents occurred over the last two weeks. The unfortunate violent incident in New Square and the Anthony Weiner scandal seem to have little or nothing to do with each other, besides having Jews involved at the heart of each matter. Or do they?

Those who attended my Shavuos night shiur learned that nothing happens on this Earth without God's will - not even (possibly) what seem to be random evolutionary processes. As the Zohar says, there is not even a blade of grass that does not have the voice of God behind it, saying "Grow!" When incidents occur such as the two mentioned above, we need to try to find a message buried inside and heed that messages well. Jews, especially Orthodox Jewry, are taking it on the chin. The media coverage of these two incidents is incessant and so negative that we must take a lesson from what's been perpetrated and work from that silver lining towards some kind of tikkun.

There is a famous story told over in the Talmud, in Avoda Zara 17a, about a serial sinner, Elazar ben Dordia. Elazar had visited every harlot he could think of or reach. He found out about one that he hadn't visited yet and decided to make the journey. Once reached, she rebuked him sharply and told him that he had no share in the World to Come, whereupon Elazar laid down, cried and repented until his soul left him and died. A voice from heaven then announced "Rabbi Elazar has merited life in the World to Come". Rebbi, the great redactor of the Mishna, wept when he heard this and proclaimed "some labor an entire life to merit a share in the World to Come, while some do it in a single instant!"

The message, I think, is clear: these two incidents are examples of the Rabbi Elazar ben Dordia story in reverse. Anthony Weiner had accomplished much as a politician, had his whole political life ahead of him; all gone, in a puff of smoke, because of a few minutes of indiscretion. New Square is renowned for its pious works - its charity, chessed, and spirituality have few rivals, yet with one extremely brief incident all that is nearly forgotten, at least to the "outside world", at least for now. Or, to put it another way, "yeish mi she oveid es olamo besha'ah achas" - there are those who can lose their share in the World to Come in one instant".

We need to weigh everything we do, everything we say, against the measure of desecrating God's name. We Jews can labor our entire life doing good works and establishing a good name; the memory of those deeds and that good name can easily vanish with astonishing swiftness with one brief word or action.

???????????????

2011-03-16T15:09:00.002-04:00

We've all heard about the terrible events that occurred over the last week both in Japan and the earthquake there, and in Itamar regarding the horrible murder of nearly an entire family.
As most of us folks know, pur'anios (negative events) can occur in the world "because" of us, the Jewish people. That's not to say, like those medieval Europeans did during the Black Plague, that we actively cause bad things to happen, rather what it does mean is that we need to look inwards with intense introspection to see how we can improve on something, do something, refrain from doing something. These are messages to us that we need to critically look inward.

Which brings me to this opinion piece on matzav.com about the Japanese earthquake. I generally agree with the sentiments of the author - that we need to examine ourselves thoroughly in the wake of such tragedy and set our priorities appropriately. But then he sticks this paragraph in the middle. I posted the article link, but I'm posting it here in part to save for posterity because Matzav will probably "edit" this article in time. This is copy/paste, not a paraphrase:
"Hashem’s revenge on the Japanese people, whether because they were allies with the Nazis in WW2 or because they incarcerated and cruelly treated three innocent Yiddishe neshamos whose innocence is clear to all except for their kangaroo court, was all enveloping utilizing all the elements to demonstrate His decisive omnipotence. No man made advanced technology could stop or even slow the earthquake, tsunami, nuclear meltdown and volcano. Everyone stood helpless, stunned and paralyzed as Hashem with one swift blow used His elements to demonstrate as He did to Pharaoh in Mitzrayim that in merely seconds what seems to be one’s reality is no longer. "

This is a terrible, dreadful and grossly hubristic thing to say, let alone hypocritical. Who are we to understand WHY Hashem chooses to do what He does with the natural world? Traditionally, we can only know the reason Hashem has done something to someone or some people through prophecy, which we no longer have. Do the Jewish people have no issues, no public desecrations of God's Name, to account for?? And if you deign to think that you know exactly why Hashem does what he does, why no explanation for the Fogel family, A"H, or the residents of Itamar? What did they do "wrong" to deserve such punishment as "hashgacha pratis"?! This paragraph has taken what could have been a wonderful piece and twisted it into something abhorrent, ugly, and despicable. Who are we to purport to be judge, jury, and executioner for the Japanese people as a whole, when we as a people have been quite successful lately at dragging God's name through the mud?

It goes without saying that we all should have the remaining Fogel family in in mind during our tefillos. It should go without saying as well that we should have the people of Japan, also creations of God, in our mind as well. It should go without saying that these tragedies should force us to shine a flashlight on ourselves, not outside.

OMG

2010-11-12T09:51:00.001-05:00

Haven't blogged in a while... sorry, all 3 of my loyal followers!

I just saw this and I HAD to put it up, I almost snarfed my coffee...

What what that famous quote again attributed to P.T. Barnum...?

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=280586670476&ru=http://shop.ebay.com:80/%3F_from%3DR40%26_trksid%3Dp5197.m570.l1313%26_nkw%3D280586670476%26_sacat%3DSee-All-Categories%26_fvi%3D1&_rdc=1#ht_574wt_934

Bravo, NJ!!!

2010-07-13T12:16:00.002-04:00

Governor Chris Christie succeeded in getting a 2% property tax cap in NJ. Bravo!! Job well done, guv'na! It's not the most earth-shattering thing to happen in NJ vis a vis tax relief, but it's a start.

Read what NYS Governor David Paterson had to say about it here. Looks like NYS (at least some people in NYS) is looking south of the border and is starting to learn from their more progressive neighbors. Too bad that the impetus for reform has to come from outside stimuli...

Look carefully at Paterson's last sentence: “Now it is time for a similar agreement in New York, where families have waited long enough for property tax relief. And if Albany fails to deliver once again, those New Yorkers may be forced to look to two of our neighbors now – New Jersey and Massachusetts – to find the property tax relief they deserve here.” He's not implying that New Yorkers may actually leave the state and take their potential tax revenues with them, should the tax burden become to great to bear, is he? IS HE??? Nah. Why would anyone do that...??

Wow

2010-07-02T10:20:00.000-04:00

I normally don't come up with back to back posts - I'm not THAT brilliant. But an article on Matzav popped into my Google Reader this morning that looked interesting. After reading it, I'm pretty shocked - I mean he's essentially saying the same thing I am - even better because his readership is like 1,000x bigger than mine! Everyone should read this article; I really like the way this guy thinks.

I'm shocked that this actually made it through the censors though... Wow...

Of beverages, hedge funds, and... bullies?

2010-07-02T08:51:00.001-04:00

There's been a lot of buzz about New York State's proposed beverage tax lately. The proposed tax, backed by both NYC Mayor Bloomberg and NYS Governor Paterson, would be levied at a penny/ounce rate on sugary beverages and the like - though I'm not sure how they'll define what would be taxed and what wouldn't. The tax would be expected to theoretically bring in around $465m, ostensibly to combat obesity and help offset the state's rising healthcare costs due to obesity.

I can agree in theory (GASP!) with the reasons behind the tax - legislators wants to reduce obesity and help stem the (allegedly) spiraling healthcare costs that rampant obesity can cause. Sounds noble. However, I totally disagree with the methods and don't believe for a minute that the many a**holes who run the state have any noble intentions whatsoever.

Let's analyze for a minute. Remember when I said that all NYS knows how to do is tax, tax, tax? This certainly bears this out. There is certainly a problem with obesity in the state - so what does NYS do about it? They instinctively reach for the tax button to wipe it out. Did they think of alternatives to taxing the hell out of NYS citizens? Of course not (well, maybe some Republicans did). Instead of adding to the burgeoning state tax burden on individuals, elected officials might have considered other methods to go about their business, like using tax as a reward instead of a weapon. They might have weighed the option of creating a state-wide "weigh-in" with tax incentives tied to positive, long-term results (don't laugh - this was tried with some success on a city-wide level in a city in Oklahoma, I believe). They might have allowed deductions or tax breaks on gym membership fees or gym equipment purchases to encourage people to sign up for gyms or purchase fitness equipment (of course the problem of whether the purchasers would actually use the membership or equipment would still exist and have to be addressed). They might have given tax breaks to businesses who purvey healthier foods or businesses that can prove they reduced sales of sugary foods and increased sales of healthier options. These are just a few ideas that floated to the top of my head. I'm sure that they have their flaws, but they reflect a general idea - using the tax code as a reward, not a punishment.

The truth is that I really don't believe one word the hot air comes out of any of these NYS officials' mouths. They say this tax is noble in nature and would be levied to help make everyone healthier and alleviate health care costs. Eventually, we will all live in happiness, harmony and in peace with our new, physically fit selves and we'll get on our knees and thank the great State of New York everyday for helping us cope with a problem we couldn't deal with on our own - thanks, NY!!

More likely, instead, are the reasons why this tax is truly nasty. It's not really about health - that's just a by-product. It's really just an obscure and obtuse way to help plug budget holes, plain and simple. All the state is really doing is balancing their horrendously bloated budget on the backs of people who can ill afford it. This is a regressive tax in the worst way. It's the lower strata on the economic scale who tend to buy more of these drinks and foods, because they're cheaper than the healthier alternatives. With the tax, they'll still be cheaper, but significantly less so, so these families will continue to purchase these foods and drinks despite the tax. They'll just have to squeeze more out of an already strapped budget. Richer families, on the other hand, will easily absorb the extra couple of bucks and their household budgets will barely crack a sweat with this tax.

The state is being a cold, calculating, son of a b**ch with this tax. They know their demographics quite well; in fact I'd go so far as to say that, despite what these two-faced lying bastards say they want, they actually want these families to continue buying these drinks because the revenue that will accrue to the state from the tax will accrue NOW, whereas the health problems and increased costs (if this is even true) will accrue to the state MUCH LATER. The state will not "save this revenue for a rainy day". They will take the money as it comes in and throw it down the sh***er that is the state's bloated, current budget. This is their dirty little (well, not so little) secret. "Who cares about the next generation's problems" - that's one of the state's creeds with which the incomepetents in the legislature and executive branches live by. They are balancing their ruinous budget on the backs of households that can ill afford it because a) they can get away with it - those households don't have the powerful lobby or under-the-table representation that the higher socio-economic demographic does (fact o' life, people) and b) those households are far more in number and buy far more of this stuff - this tax works for the state's benefit in volume of items purchased, it's not like income tax. The truth is that the state purports to be primarily interested in the public health. That's utter bulls**t. No one ever became healthier from higher taxes. In fact, a serious argument can be made that higher taxes for those that can ill afford them carries it's own health hazard - rising stress levels, which can lead to the same place obesity can - cardiac problems. So all the state may be doing is leading people down the garden path to hell, just via a different route. Bravo, NY!!

Let's talk about hedge funds. The state has been mulling over taxing hedge fund managers who reside out of state that commute into NYS for work. While this has been dropped (for now), this is a further example of how the state operates and thinks - just reach for that tax handle, guys!! The fact that the governor didn't even seem to think about some of the repercussions when proposing this tax - these funds would simply relocate, DUH - shows how myopic these 'leaders' can be. Notice how Connecticut Gov Jodi Rell responded by trying to poach hedge fund firms who would try to escape the tax by relocating. Did ANY of this occur to Gov Paterson...???!!!

This is the direction that NYS has been inexorably moving in for years. Use the state's taxing power as a weapon and blunt instrument to fix problems that are only in front of your nose with total disregard to repercussions, both now and in the future. Bludgeon the vast majority of your residents with idiotic regressive taxation policy while refusing to cut the most wasteful spending. Nothing seems to change; it just gets worse with the passing years.

So much for beverages and hedge funds. Let's talk about bullies. Lets go down, south of the border.

Ah, New Jersey, a state that has historically shared NYS's distinction of being synonymous with corruption and incompetency. A state where cars still have "Dump Florio" bumper stickers, a state that will never forget the sordid McGreevey episode, etc. But, unlike "same ol'" New York, there's a whiff of change.

New Jerseyans woke up one fine day late last year and decided they've had enough. Enough of the same problems that plague New Yorkers to this very day. They threw out the ineffective Democrat Jon Corzine and elected a Republican, conservative governor in Doug Christie, and seemed ready for the beginning of a sea change in policy. They may be getting that.

See this article and video interview by CBS News. I like Christie's tone and demeanor; it speaks volumes as to where he wants to pull the state. This guy has balls. He is tough. I like how he says "I'm not a bully... just direct" - in truth, I'd love a bully in my (the taxpayer's) corner, bullying those pesky interest groups and unions that tend to hold NYS and NJ budgets hostage. I like how he is determined to reform the state's biggest issue - property tax, and wants to get it done NOW. We've heard this tired proclamation many times from NJ governors through the years, but this time, the governor seems to truly mean it and has the balls and fortitude to actually follow through. Something's changing in Jersey - that landfill stink is slowly ebbing away. Best of all, he really seems to mean it when he says he's not interested in any higher office than where he is right now. If he really does mean it, that just bolsters the impression that what he wants to do in his turn at playing guv'na is truly reform NJ to make it a streamlined, efficient, tax-friendly state.

So, to echo Dickens, it's a tale of two governors and two states. Both have creaking, antiquated fiscal policy structures. One state refuses to acknowledge its failings and continues to contribute to its demise. The other seems hell-bent on reform and improvement. One governor seems fiercely determined to right the ship and do what's best for the state's residents. The other probably wants to do something, anything, but is too spineless and weak to take on the entrenched, Tammany Hall-like "boss" system that seems to run New York these days.

If NYS keeps on its current route to hell, it'll find businesses and households turning their taxpaying, revenue-generating backs on the joke they call NYS, raising both middle fingers in a time-honored "F*** YOU!" salute and never looking back. New York can very easily be an economically poisonous environment in which to live and do business. It sucks money from your pocket and promises the world to you but gives appallingly little back in return.

I'm sure many people will accuse me of just being whiny. Do those people think I'm the only one who thinks and writes this way? Yeah, me and 10 million other taxpaying citizens. Let's not forget - Gov Christie was probably a whiny bastard, harping on the same things over and over. And look where he is now and what he's doing... Just sayin'...

Communists

2010-06-24T10:33:00.004-04:00

It used to be a ritual for many New Yorkers who wanted to buy clothing - hop in the car, travel to your nearest NJ or CT mall, and buy clothing there, at a lower (read: zero) tax rate. New York State lawmakers (read: a**holes) realized that their exorbitant tax rates were doing much to drive commercial activity away from the state, and were enabling business and economic growth in the surrounding, out of state areas. So NYS legislators passed a law exempting tax on clothing articles under $110 each to bring that business back.

This law is may be about to change - see this article on VIN. Legislators are seriously considering bringing back sales tax on all clothing and doing away with so-called "tax holidays" - periods of time during the year when certain items are exempt from sales tax - in order to plug a multi-billion dollar hole in an overdue budget.

As usual, NYS legislators are showing their true colors: RED. These communist bastards think that the solution to nearly every problem lies in the state's power to levy all manner of taxes, fees and excises. In reality, these blowhards aren't really solving problems by throwing money at them as much as creating new problems by refusing to cut the state's freakishly bloated, corrupt entitlements system. All these idiots know how to do is tax and spend, not cut and save. Want to get fat people slim, and earn some revenue in the process? Tax sugary foods and drinks. Want to help otherwise undeserving people obtain mortgages so that they, too, can live "the American nightmare" (oops - I meant "dream")? Tax mortgages and home financing. Want to throw more money into a failing school system? Tax local properties. And on and on and on.

I have a great idea for Paterson, Silver, Espada, and their rag-tag cast of spineless communist idiots. How about cutting entitlement programs instead of throwing money at them? How about tightening fraud detection to crack down on abuse of the system so people who really need state aid can get it?
How about growing a pair of balls when it comes to dealing with the teacher's union? How about passing a school voucher system to inject a little competition into the education market? How about learning from states like Texas, New Hampshire, and Florida as to how to effectively run a state with minimal individual tax burden (granted the demographics are different but there must be something that can be learned and adapted).

The sad fact is that the lazy, whiny babies in the NYS legislature and the idiots who represent this state in Congress seem to view themselves in unassailable positions and therefore have little incentive to change. All these people know how to do is tax and tax and tax, I truly believe this. They don't even think of drastically altering the state's time-honored tradition of raising and creating taxes by actually cutting programs. This is why I look into my crystal ball and see NYS becoming a failed, bankrupt state in the future - its tax structure is such that it creates little to no incentive for firms to do business in the state and ultimately drives established firms from the state. The individual tax burden that exists to fund all these wasteful entitlement programs will drive residents from the state, leaving fewer households to fund ever growing deficits. That spells doom.

Adam Smith was right. The 'invisible hand' has it's flaws, but it works. It's not by accident that the US has become the economic and political powerhouse that it is in such a short span of time. Capitalism has its flaws, but it WORKS. Reagan had it right - people should be given as much freedom as possible to decide what to do with their money, not governments. Income redistribuition just does not work. Governments have proven time and time and time again to be extremely poor decisors on how to spend other peoples' money and they have little moral right to tell individuals how to spend theirs. Free markets do a far, far better job in apportioning resources than do "central command", essentially government-run economies, such as exists in New York right now.

New York state, as it exists today, is not a state that's worth residing or doing business in from an economic point of view. The return on ~~your~~ the average NYS household's tax investment is staggeringly miniscule. Taxpayer dollars - whether business, sales, or personal - are funding programs that will bring the state to economic ruin, a la California. This article on VIN is just another example of how myopic these legislators can be. They either don't realize or don't care that all they're doing is, to use a tired cliche, rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

POSTSCRIPT - while I obviously have nothing but vile contempt for the elected nincompoop babyish a**holes that make up the great state of New York's legislative and executive structure, I would somewhat exempt Governor David Paterson from my ire. He's not too bad a fellow and doesn't seem much like all the others: greedy, power hungry, and grasping. He kind of seems to want to do something right by NYS citizens and taxpayers (this is because, in part, he's not elected); he's just terribly weak and incompetent as governor and completely the wrong person for the job.
As for all the other elected officials: if the aliens from Close Encounters of the Third Kind would come to take them away tomorrow for aeons of experimentation, I'd be very happy. Good riddance.

FNY!!

2010-06-22T20:22:00.001-04:00

Testing on microblogging from the EVO

Lessons from the Rubashkin trial

2010-06-22T13:27:00.001-04:00

The Rubashkin trial is now officially over. Yes, there will be appeals of the 27 year sentence, but that could take years and may not be successful, unfortunately.

It would be easy to feel dejected and to say that all the prayers, gatherings, tehillim recitals, and letter and phone campaigns were all, in retrospect, for naught. That the Jewish community expended all that energy, time, and money and came away with nothing to show for their trouble. That, I think, would be a grave mistake.

It's a fundamental Jewish belief that things don't just happen arbitrarily. Judaism believes that God runs the world and that He will make things happen or not happen for our ultimate good, hard as it is for us to see. Therefore, there must be something, some good that can come out of the Rubashkin sentencing, some message that we're meant to take. So what could it possibly be?

There are probably many messages and hints that we can glean from this episode. One of the big ones I can think of is, despite whatever your opinion of the matter itself, the sheer achdus that we are capable of when we want to be mis'ached. I think that the one theme that overarches many others, though, is that of honesty and integrity.

Let's call a spade a spade. Nobody (or nearly no one) is saying that the guilty party is or was completely innocent in this case, now that the case itself has been laid to rest. The trial, conviction, and sentencing occurred and is occurring over a time period marked concurrently with relentless chilulei Hashem of legal and financial flavors splashed across all manner of media outlets. Is it beyond the pale of reason to suggest that maybe, just maybe, for whatever reason, God is telling His people to keep their noses clean, that He's had enough of seeing His name desecrated in the NY Times, the LA Times, the London Times, the NY Post, etc? Maybe God is, for whatever unknown reason, using this particular case as a warning message to His people to look within themselves, to better themselves regarding this aspect of life - to strive to act with utter honesty and integrity when dealing within the legal and regulatory system with each other and non-Jews alike, and to take the grave sin of desecrating His name a lot more seriously.

This is not meant to be an argument for or against Mr. Rubashkin's innocence or whether his sentencing was fair or not. That's been argued ad infinitum and the trial is over and done with. The question is, what will we take from this episode? Is this a test, a nisayon, from God? If it is, will we pass it or pass it up?

Food for thought...

Thoughts at a Bar Mitzva

2010-06-22T12:30:00.000-04:00

I was attending a family bar mitzva recently and was struck by a thought after the music started up and people started dancing.

What other group of people or religion can you find a bunch of virulently homophobic Orthodox men get up and dance with each other, sweaty hand clasped in sweaty hand??

MI KE'AMCHA YISRAEL!!!

;-)

Censoring...

2010-05-13T12:27:00.000-04:00

I've been getting involved in what's turning out to be a nice, lively, healthy discussion on tuition over at YWN. I've put a few posts up there and the tone of the discussion is suprisingly civil and intelligent.

I made some interesting comments in a few of my posts. I suggested that our entire community (laymen and leaders alike) have possibly had our collective heads in the sand in ignorance of basic economics vis a vis our current and future tuition obligations and burdens as they relate to COLA (cost of living). I merely brought up the issue of family size, without really alluding to it as such, but did not advocate or condemn. I suggested that perhaps the very likely burden current and future families will have may not be the true ratzon Hashem (chas rachmana al m'mona shel yisrael), as the tuition issue and crisis is largely of our own making.

My posts got posted, oh yes. But these salient points which I INTENDED to be included to merely stir discussion and which I tried as carefully as I could to word innocuously got left out; lost in the cyberspace mail perhaps? Hardly. I saw a big fat EDITED at the bottom of all my posts that contained this "salacious" material.

This really P***** ME OFF. I don't think anything I wrote is beyond the pale at all. What, I'm not allowed to even obliquely suggest mild criticism of communal leaders? Not even when I lump everyone, the whole community in together?? What, is a subsection of Yahadus so perfect and omniscient as to be beyond any human reproach whatsoever?? Is merely suggesting that leaders are human and may take, from time to time, constructive criticism from the klal a heresy? Or do we live under ideals that Kim Jong Il would be proud of...? I'm not allowed to suggest issues and thoughts that are intended to get discussions moving, such as ratzon Hashem, number of children, etc? Not allowed to mildly inject things into the discussion just to try to open people up and face and tackle tough issues in an attempt to consensually solve a very serious problem??

It's not the censorship itself that really bothers me. It's the thinking behind it: All leaders are completely beyond reproach. Their actions are inviolable and not subject to even mild questioning or gentle criticism. They are all knowing and can see into the future. Tough, gnarly subjects such as family size, the will of God, etc are to be avoided at all costs in any discussion. These are inviolable, even if they're used as a tool to hash out issues and help with possible solutions to very complicated questions. I'm not suggesting that our leaders are doddering, that we should all have no more than two kids, and we can always deign to know exactly what the razton Hashem is. But these are complicated and tough issues, the introduction of which may help in opening up other issues and helping solve problems within the discussion. But for fear that someone may get the wrong idea about all this and be 'porek ol', etc, etc, etc....

The faint sense of paranoia just seems to linger on and fester and suffocate our ability to dialogue and thrash out very complicated issues and complicated answers. And, as Steve "Turtleneck" Jobs would say, oh, and one more thing. This was in reference to a discussion on tuition. If we pay so much $$$ for quality education, why the paranoia that even the slightest hint of a suggestion of a hint will cause 'prikas ol' en masse? If we are so convinced of the frailty of our billion-dollar chinuch system's message, wouldn't it then be better to just have cheaper, "1984" and "Brave New World" style education modalities where subliminal messages are played into our kids' ears as they sleep and all our kids sit on chairs in an auditorium and throw garbage at the Satans of this world as they appear onscreen...?

A good idea, part II

2010-03-26T12:00:00.003-04:00

I came across another good idea (boy, the web seems to be full of them).

The Tax Foundation has an article posted regarding complete (as in, not only medical), taxed, controlled legalization of marijuana for personal consumption and use and for cultivation. I think this is a great idea. I think it's ridiculous that we allow (controlled and taxed) consumption and cultivation of tobacco and alcohol which are substances that can do significant damage to a person's body and can impair one's activities - but criminalize and stigmatize marijuana use. Legalized marijuana use and cultivation is now actually a ballot initiative in California.

Billions upon billions of dollars are completely wasted in the law enforcement and counter-terrorism areas of federal and state governments in waging a "war" on marijuana (among other drugs). I say wasted because approximately 100 million Americans admit to have used marijuana in the past - that's one third of the entire population. More and more will use as time passes, I have little doubt. Yet we wage a "war" on this use and spend billions upon billions doing it, with almost zero results. People still use and all manner of crimes still get committed in relation to the cultivation, sale, and use of the drug.

Legalizing marijuana could have numerous beneficial effects. It could increase tax revenue significantly to the states who so desperately need income. It could serve as a cost savings to the federal, state, and local governments by reducing the costs associated with the "war on drugs". It could remove the undeserving social stigma from casual users of marijuana, whose use parallels a casual drinker or smoker (do we stigmatize they guy or gal who goes out for a drink every week??). It could allow easier access to those that need the drug for medical use. It could help reduce or eliminate the violent crime, trafficking and other nasty activities associated with the current cultivation and trade of marijuana (though also eliminate and entire Hollywood genre in the same stroke). Lastly, it could help provide secondary or alternative streams of revenue for individuals, thereby producing more tax revenue for federal, state, and local governments.

No one's proposing that we just legalize all willy-nilly; that would be inappropriate. What the state of California's ballot initiative proposes is a controlled and taxed legalization, similar to how the state (or almost any other state for that matter) controls and taxes alcohol or cigarettes (no sale, gift, or smoking to or around minors, require license to sell, minimum legal age, can't use while driving or operating machinery, etc). I urge everyone to read or skim through the actual text of the ballot proposal, found here.

I think it's utterly ridiculous that we the people have no problem with allowing people to drink alcoholic drinks and smoke or chew tobacco, and that we don't view a (casual) smoker or drinker as 'bad', but are unwilling to allow a person to smoke marijuana or remove his or her social stigma. Part of that stigma comes as a result of the illegality of the act. Marijuana doesn't have the same horrible side effects as do cocaine, heroin, etc; those substances should be and are illegal. I do understand that allowing marijuana could lead us down a "slippery slope", but we need to recognize that the cost/benefit analysis could probably end up a net positive and that the reality is that many people can and do use the drug.

This post isn't meant as a personal statement on whether or not I think marijuana is good for you or not, or whether smoking it is a great thing or not. I'm just saying that we need to see the realities on the ground and adapt to them, and pursue the policy that's in America's best interests.

A good idea...

2010-03-24T13:06:00.001-04:00

See this post on HonestlyFrum's blog:

A good idea... will we run with it?

So it continues...

2010-03-04T12:32:00.003-05:00

The sad, twisted saga of Martin Grossman's "sainthood" continues. Kolel Shomrei Hachomos recently established a tzedaka fund in memory of Mr. Grossman. The fund is a g'mach that makes free loans to various families and individuals in need in Jerusalem. It says that mishnayos will be learned and a candle l'zecher nishmas will be lit for his soul, and, presumably, some of the merit of the fund will 'rub off' on his soul as well.

This is madness; it just goes on and on. At least the comments here on VIN seem to tend towards that sentiment. These comments in particular (sic)- "When a chashover Tzaddik Kollel Yungerman dies leaving over yesomim Kollel Shomrei Hachomos does nothing yet when a convicted murderer gets executed they open a gmach lzecher nishmaso? What on earth?" and "This is a Purim gag, right? I have to go. The Jeffrey Dahmer Community Center near me is having a party" - struck me as particularly poignant. The guy MURDERED someone, for God's sake!

Well, I can strike this tzedaka from my list. I know, I know - "but they do good work!". So what? I have plenty of other tzedakos doing works just as good to which I can contribute that aren't hoisting a murderer up on a pedestal, no matter how deserving or undeserving he was of his ultimate fate.

As long as we're on the discussion of tzedaka mosdos that I can cross off my list, did anyone see the latest Kupat Ha'ir mailing? I mean, did the all those gedolim really 'instruct' all of us to give all our matanos l'evyonim (and presumably, maos chittim) dollars to Kupat Ha'ir exclusively? Don't think so. Did Kupat Ha'ir lightly twist something that those gedolim actually did say or write? Probably. Granted, Kupat Ha'ir does very good work. But I don't appreciate deceptive, dishonestly tinged marketing practices. Sure, we all know that mosdos and tzedakos are hurting because of the recession. That doesn't give any one of them a right to lie, cheat, or steal their budgeted revenue in any way, shape or form.

Follow up...

2010-02-25T15:34:00.002-05:00

Just noticed this post by the woman who drafted the letter to Mrs. Margaret Park that I posted on this blog a few days ago.

It's nice to read. Nice to see that our signatures made a bit of an impact.

Please read

2010-02-23T12:39:00.008-05:00

I was alerted to a post on Matzav.com by a Mrs. Miriam Pearlmutter, who lives in Mrs. Margaret Park's neighborhood. Mrs. Park is the mother of deceased Florida Fish & Wildlife Officer Peggy Park, whom Mr. Martin Grossman was just executed for killing. Don't read the comments section if you just ate lunch.

Miriam Pearlmutter, I guess, was shocked at the amount of abuse and invective leveled at Mrs. Park from elements of the frum community. She composed this letter of deep regret and apology to Mrs. Park on behalf of the Jewish community to attempt to reverse this terrible chillul Hashem.

I urge EVERYONE who reads this to sign this letter. I don't think it makes a difference whether you believed in clemency or not for Mr. Grossman, or if you signed the petition itself to save his life. It certainly makes no difference at all that the harassment was probably (dear God, I hope) perpetrated by a miniscule segment of the Jewish community; that's not a fact that Mrs. Park, who has been grieving over her slain daughter for 25 years, is likely to realize. What she sees is that Jews are behaving abhorrently - and we need to correct that misrepresentation by showing her the humanity and sensitivity that Judaism demands, whatever the positions we had on the clemency appeal itself. I admit, the letter is a bit slanted towards the "no clemency" camp. I don't think that matters though - that's not the point of the letter. I think we all know what the point is and what we can accomplish.

Please sign the letter. Mrs. Pearlmutter has given us an opportunity as a community to right our wrongs.

http://matzav.com/a-letter-to-mrs-park

One word comes to mind...

2010-02-22T12:52:00.002-05:00

See this Youtube post.

I'm not going to say anything philosophical or theological about it - all have different opinions about what this signifies, is it right, etc. We can all debate about that separately.

I just bring it to everyone's attention to one historical word that comes to mind - I just found it humorous, that's all, and to show that history does repeat itself and IS important to study and understand...

Luddite.

Barrabbas redux????

2010-02-18T10:43:00.044-05:00

I assume that most people have been following the Martin Grossman story. If you weren't, Mr. Grossman was convicted and sentenced to death by lethal injection around 25 years ago for his 1984 murder at age 19 of Florida Fish and Wildlife officer Margaret ("Peggy") Parks. The facts of the case as sealed by the verdict are as follows, in summary. Officer Parks found Mr. Grossman and a friend in possession of a stolen firearm, which violated the terms of a prior probation. When she tried to radio in the violation from her car (some allege that Mr. Grossman pleaded with Officer Parks to not report the incident), Mr. Grossman attacked her with her flashlight, beating her numerous times on the head and shoulders. Officer Parks tried to fight back (some allege she fired a warning shot); Mr. Grossman took her gun away from her and shot her in the back of the head, killing her. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. He sat on death row for 25 years, (ed. - presumably held up with appeals), until he was executed by the State of Florida on February 16, 2010. Jewish organizations (as well as the Pope) such as Agudah, etc, led a grass-roots campaign to petition FL Governor Charlie Crist for a 60 day stay so as to submit an appeal for clemency, sparing Mr. Grossman's life and allowing him to serve his debt to society with life imprisonment instead. The appeals claimed the support of gedolim and called on a public communications blitz (email, phone, etc). Governor Crist sent out a response to the 50,000 some-odd callers and emailers - you can read it here, on YWN.

The death penalty, which FL revived in 1976, can be an extremely emotional and sensitive topic and this post is NOT meant to argue it's merits and demerits, nor am I intending to offend anyone's sensitivities. With that said, I don't have a problem with appeals for clemency per se, but I believe the nature and tone of this whole clemency campaign to be a misguided, poorly conceived project that was doomed to accomplish absolutely nothing and cause some unintended consequences in the process. There are problems with the campaign that I see on many levels that I'll attempt to tackle point by point.

Point 1 - The methods of the clemency seekers seem somewhat deceptive. Please read the campaign's official petition very carefully and compare to the facts of the case, as stated by Gov Crist (link posted above - these facts are documented elswhere - they aren't exclusive to Gov Crist). Do you see a difference? The petitioners obviously have an agenda (not necessarily wrong) and lightly twisted the facts of the case in such a way that softens the heinousness of what Mr. Grossman actually did and insinuates that Mr. Grossman can't be held that responsible for his actions. They say that Mr Grossman was said to have an IQ of 77, possibly lightly insinuate that the act of murder may have resulted from a (minor) epileptic seizure, and suggest that Mr. Grossman acted out of (self-perceived?) self-defense ("...which resulted in the officer reaching for her own gun. Then Martin panicked, snatched her gun and shot her."). All of these aren't necessarily problematic in and of themselves; they can be re-interpretations of a "he-said, she-said" situation where nobody really knows what exactly happened or what was going through Mr. Grossman's mind. But the petitioners deliberately leave out other salient points of the case, like the fact that he brutally beat the officer with her flashlight, some 20-30 times on the head and shoulders, which she almost died from (deep lacerations and fractured skull points attest to this in the autopsy).
Hat tip to Orthonomics for pointing this out.

Point 2 - The argument that clemency seekers make doesn't stand firmly on it's own logic. The main thrust of the argument (the official and unofficial arguments) to me was that Mr. Grossman didn't really have full control over his faculties and didn't realize the enormity of his actions, has served enough time and paid his debt, and is remorseful and repentant. He was young (19), possibly high on drugs, maybe had a seizure prior to the act, his acts were triggered by deep-seated psychosis stemming from bad upbringing, the murder wasn't premeditated (intent to kill), he has served enough time, etc etc etc etc. OK. He was young, only 19. So what? He's over the age of a minor and can be tried as an adult. He was mentally deficient for various reasons (low IQ, 'bad upbringing', high, etc) and therefore should be imprisoned for life instead of being executed. Why exactly should he rot in prison for life? This basis for clemency would logically call for an appeal for retrial (never going to happen) or transfer to a psychiatric facility instead of cold, hard life behind iron bars! His actions weren't premeditated, they were a spontaneous, psychotic act. So he gets scared he's going to get thrown in the clink again (she's going to report probation violation). So he beats her with flashlight to "silence" her ("OK, that didn't kill her..."). Then he grabs her gun and shoots her in the head ("OK, that worked"), then he covers up the murder ("Oops, I did a baddie. Gotta make sure I don't get caught"). That doesn't add up to premeditation at all??? Not a possibility for a jury to mull over? Premeditation doesn't have to necessarily refer to a case where a murderer carefully plans out his (or her) act over months or years. And, isn't any act of murder, I mean the act itself, a psychotic act?? "Mr. Grossman has been on death row for over 25 years!" He has served enough time already, he's paid his debt to society. Wait a minute - if he's served enough time, why are we asking for life imprisonment as an alternative? And, he hasn't paid his debt to society! His debt requires him, as far as the State of Florida is concerned, to be executed, which he would've been right away had there not been numerous appeals keeping him on death row for 25 years. All in all, arguing vs the merits of the death penalty itself (while it wouldn't have accomplished anything anyway) would've been a better route than making an argument with holes so big you could drive a truck through them. He was repentant, he has expressed regret and remorse for what he's done. So, does that make his debt to society any less? Many murderers feel remorse down the line - should we allow them to truncate the severity of their sentence (whether death or life imprisonment) because of it? We certainly don't believe that in Yahadus. The only kappara for taking a life is to part neshama from body, isn't it??

Point 3 - Involving the "plebeian" masses in this campaign and making it such a public spectacle was a very, very, very, very, very, very big mistake. This a most important point. OK, it's possible this point is a "20/20 in hindsight" sort of thing. But, an issue IMHO nonetheless. Appealing for clemency for a person who, let's face it, spontaneously OR premeditated, brutally beat and murdered a young woman is always rife with the toxic danger of PR fallout, no matter what. This is a "gimme" that those smart people who have leadership brains should have seen beforehand, period; even a person who doesn't have "daas Torah" could have spotted this. But somehow this was overlooked. Instead of recognizing the grave PR danger of making a public appeal on this very sensitive case and doing it quietly and firmly, those seeking clemency threw caution to the winds and created a ripe atmosphere in which this case could be blown up into a PR nightmare by snowballing a hysterically urgent, very public message that sites like YWN picked up on; messages there like Call NOW!!! There's not a MOMENT TO LOSE!!! on those sites seemed to have rapidly snowballed into messages such as PIDYON SHEVUYIM!! and THE GEDOLIM HAVE SAID THAT HE WHO SAVES THE LIFE OF A FELLOW JEW SAVES THE WHOLE WORLD!!! and WE MUST DAVEN FOR REB MICHOEL YECHIEL BEN AVRAHAM'S (apparently Mr. Grossman's name) HOLY, REPENTANT NESHOMA!!!! and HIS DEFENSE WAS INADEQUATE; THOSE MAMZERS ARE KILLING HIM BECAUSE HE'S A JEW!! and other such nonsense. If you don't believe me, just search for articles relating to the appeal on YWN, Matzav, VIN, and general Google searches. Read the comments extensively; heck, read the comments on Gov Crist's response to callers - some of them paint the Gov as some anti-semitic hack who is just a total, evil bastard. What? Read this article for more of the same. Are you kidding me? Then, the piece de resistance, read this article, where Gov Crist attempts to explain his rejection of the appeal, and the comments that ensue. They are a bit nauseating and stomach-turning. Some comments bash Gov Crist by totally sidestepping the issues ("he's an incompetent governor on the way out"). Some just dismiss any legitimacy Gov Crist has because of... his name ("sounds like Christ, that MAMZER!!"). Some comments actually contain a voice of sanity. In reading many of these comments though, I don't know whether to laugh or cry (or both). The comments are so riddled with words of insanity and idiocy that I can't possibly list them all here.

Then we have reports of people calling up Officer Parks' (the victim) family, harassing them, possibly calling them 'Nazi' for supporting and invoking the death penalty, and other such terms.

There are comments, websites, newspapers, etc publishing sentiments that are elevating Mr. Grossman to quasi-saint status (!!!), calling him a 'true baal-teshuva', a person who died a 'kadosh', and other blathering. These are too numerous to post - just search around the web and you'll see what I'm talking about. We have footage from the funeral - held in Monsey, NY - that can seem to paint Mr. Grossman (if this footage is true and relates to the story at hand) as some sort of "lamed vav-nik" or something given the size, scope, and raw emotion in the eulogy. IT'S ON YOUTUBE, FOR G-D'S SAKE! How more public can one get?

Then we get the Pope involved. I see. So we're not allowed to have anything to do with the Pope vis a vis dialogue on interfaith relations (not interfaith doctrine), but we'll gladly take his support when it suits us.

The bottom line really lies in an article written by R' Yair Hoffman for VIN and a well written response written here. ED. COMMENT - I just came across this interview of R' Hoffman on the Dov Hikind show where he respectfully defends his strong opinion - it's not long as is worthwhile listening to. There are others - just search. Not all that possess "daas Torah" are on the same side of the fence; others far greater than I (such as R' Hoffman above) have expressed publicly and in open forums much shock and dismay at the lack of preparation for the campaign as well as disgust for what it's become. The bottom line is that the man brutally murdered and snuffed out the life of a young woman. The bottom line is that many people are erroneously, too vocally and publicly, elevating the status of the murderer to some sort of sainthood. The bottom line is that there is another (non-Jewish) family suffering terribly because of Mr. Grossman's actions, and we as a people need to be sensitive to that. The bottom line is that the Jewish community, as a unit, acted in a horridly insensitive, non-sensical, hysterical and inappropriate way, whether you believe the appeal for clemency itself is appropriate or not.

The bottom line is that this campaign sowed the seeds of potential chillul Hashem and too many of our brethren may very well reap that foul harvest.

I am not arguing the merits or demerits of the death penalty. I'm not even discussing whether or not Mr. Grossman deserves clemency, philosophically or otherwise. What I am is critical of the way this campaign was waged and utterly disgusted of what it's become. I never thought I'd say this or feel this, but I am truly ashamed of many of my fellow Jews who so ridiculously and hysterically hijacked this "cause" and transformed it into what could very well be a public circus and chillul Hashem, as if we needed more of that. This could have been done in a dignified manner, but it degenerated into a circus. I am appalled and astounded at the horrid lack of foresight shown by those we deign to call and who deign to assume the mantle of "leaders". Haven't we learned from the various chillulei Hashem scandals in the past? Haven't we learned from the kidney scandals, the pedophilia "cover-ups", the conversion firestorms, the financial frauds, etc etc etc about the importance of political fallout? When will we wake up and realize that we need to be cognizant of every action, reaction, word and turn of phrase that we engage in and utter??? The notion that "'the goyim' are just going hate us anyway and what do they know and they'll never treat us fairly" needs to be discarded or modified, because it's not that simple, has gotten us in more trouble than it's worth, and may very well have done nothing but besmirch the standards of Judaism in the public eye.

Like one of the blog posts I linked to above, I didn't want to discuss this. I'm trying to wind down my "rantiness" here because that does nothing any good and isn't always appropriate. This is also a sensitive and emotional issue itself and I don't want to tread on anyone's toes. But the Jewish people as a unit have gone too far, from what I can see. People will see the youtube videos. These comments and sentiments elevating Mr. Grossman to sainthood will make their way around the internet and print media, like it or not. It's not Jews I'm worried about reading these things - it's non-Jews Googling the story and stumbling upon some pretty weird and vile comments in cyberspace. The way many people acted just makes me so sick and disgusted I feel like I have to write about this.

In the end, I hold Yahadus dear. Besides everything else, I love and am grateful to HKB"H for blessing me with a wonderful wife and child. I will not stand idly by while His name could be dragged through the mud, again.

This will rattle the Jewish world!

2010-02-12T14:31:00.002-05:00

Interesting article posted on VIN today...

OK, the headline is sensationalist. But this is an interesting statement nonetheless. Is it accurate? Revisionist? A Torah troof?

You decide...

I found THE solution to the tuition, economic, and tznius "crises"!

2010-01-12T16:19:00.004-05:00

I stumbled across this while browsing the very funny frumsatire.net. Brilliant! This will solve all economic and tznius "crises" in one fell swoop!

ExCUSE me????

2010-01-05T16:34:00.009-05:00

Neither baby nor house nor rain nor snow nor shine nor... whatever, will keep this blog from it's appointed route!!

I saw this article this morning on my Google Reader (which you can now use to follow my blog quite easily). A man asks a great Rav whether he should sell his kidney (!) to fund his child's wedding.

I felt like both laughing at the ridiculousness of the question, but crying at the bitter desperation that the person in this dire situation must feel. I think I can sum up the comments on VIN with... ??????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know whether this speaks to the problems we as a community have in being able to decide certain things independently or to the unsustainable economic model that many of us delude ourselves into thinking still works...

I mean, why do you need to even ASK this question?? Are you KIDDING (or, shall I say, KIDNEYING...) me??

I could go into a whole long, booming discussion about an ingrained culture of dependency, entitlement, dina d'malchusa, appearances, unrealistic, anachronistic expectations etc, etc, etc that could possibly lead to such a shaileh, but I'm too tired. All I know is, DON'T sell your kidney, heart, liver, gall bladder, toes, eyes, fingers, brain, or intestines to fund your daughter's wedding, I couldn't care how angry your mechutanim will be (unless your liver or intestines are really tasty, then you can make some nice gehakte liver or some good kishka for the wedding for cheap). Make a wedding (or bar mitzva or bas mitzva or bris or kiddush or whatever) you can truly afford, even if it's just chicken, soup, cake and a few close friends.

That's what my wife and I plan on doing... right, dear? Oh. Wait. No need to stoop so 'low'. We can sell off a coupla shaitels and make one in the Marina del Rey off the proceeds... ;-)

Great article

2009-12-31T13:22:00.008-05:00

EDIT
I want to clarify something right off the bat: the article's words are not mine. I do not agree with every nuance, jot and tiddle (is that a word??) and my posting a link to it should not be construed as such. HOWEVER I think the author makes some valid, important points, if nuanced rather than said outright, that need to be taken into account in the rapidly changing, fluid world around us. Please see the comments for some good discussion on that and please add to the discussion by commenting yourself. Thanks.

I read a really insightful article that's been making its way around the J-Blogosphere, plus the Jewish news sites as well (well, not YWN, naturally, as you'll see if you read the article). I urge everyone to read it. Link to it here.

I'll leave it up to the comments section to spur discussion and thought about the points raised.

Happiness and...Taxes

2009-12-31T12:04:00.012-05:00

I haven't posted in a while. Let's get back to business, shall we? People will call me cranky, but somebody's got to recognize these issues and shove them into the limelight, no?

There's an interesting article on the Tax Foundation's website. I like it because it has this to say about taxes and lifestyle. Much of this culled from a Wall Street Journal editorial:
"The study finds that New Yorkers are the unhappiest people in America and their neighbors in Connecticut come in a close second, followed by Michigan, Indiana, New Jersey, California, and Illinois."

Then this:
"...According to the Tax Foundation 2008 analysis, three of the top five unhappiest states—New York, Connecticut and New Jersey—have the highest state-local tax burdens. On the other hand, four of the top five happiest states—Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee and Arizona—are among the states with the lowest state-local tax burdens. True, correlation doesn't prove causation, and high taxes alone don't always make people miserable, but there's something going on here."

So in New York State, we work really hard to make a living. We then see an enormous percentage of that money out the door by spending a disproportionately higher portion of our dollars on state, local, and property taxes, and receive a much, much lower return per tax dollar collected than other states, because of huge budget allocations that behave like Robin Hood. So say you spend like $15-$20K a year on NYS, you get in return... garbage collection, plus sleepless nights wondering about family finances thrown in for free! Maybe a bit of street repair thrown in, too. Maybe. And a bit of schooling. If you're not an Orthodox Jew. Mr. and Mrs Illegal Immigrant spend nearly $0 per year on NYS and receive, say, $20-$25K worth of assistance per year (if you game the system right), if not more. Yay. That makes me... happy??

Rinse, repeat for NJ. At least NJ residents had the good sense to recognize the problems and throw out garbage leadership, while New Yorkers continue year after year after year after year to vote in complete and utter self-aggrandizing grandstanding self-centered avaricious petty idiot nincompoop babies (I can say more but this is a FAMILY FRIENDLY blog!) who treat public office as a profitable enterprise and spy on each other (with state money) and hire nice fancy limousines and drivers (with state money) and grind state activity to a halt and hire prostitutes and get in bed with money launderers and have fun in session engaging in really productive name-calling (all while getting paid with... state money) and spend huge amounts of time and effort in lofty thought on legislation that truly means almost nothing practical or material to nearly everybody (did someone say same-sex marriage?) instead of working together, rolling up their sleeves, and hammering out reforms that materially affect massive amounts of people that most agree on like, uh, for example, TAX RELIEF and SPENDING REFORM.

Something's going on, indeed.

Hodu l'Hashem Ki Tov!

2009-12-31T12:02:00.002-05:00

HODU L'HASHEM KI TOV!
We said this at the bris of our son at 8 days old, Daniel Tzvi, born 10 days ago. We actually said it twice, if I'm not mistaken.

And we MEANT it!!

Thanks to everybody for everything!

Change

2009-12-21T09:53:00.002-05:00

I'm going to be removing the auto-email feature from the blog today - that means that my posts will no longer be automatically sent to the email addresses I specify.

I'll still be posting to the blog, so if you want to follow it, either periodically visit the website (musingsofabaldguy@blogspot.com) or add that web address to an RSS reader like Google Reader or something like that. For the uninitiated, an RSS reader is just a web tool that aggregates items, pages, articles (all referred to as 'feeds'), etc that you want to follow on the web. You can do a search on 'RSS reader' and learn all about it there.

Thanks for reading and continuing to read!

My wonderful wife...

2009-12-14T14:48:00.003-05:00

I've got a lot to be thankful for (despite my crabbing!). But nothing more than having a wonderful wife!
I mean, look at what she does for me:
She cooks
She cleans
She carries our baby
She works
She makes calls
She allows me time for my chavrusa
She lets me sit at the shabbos table with slippers!
She tolerates my tech geekiness
She listens politely as I rant and rave about taxes

There are many, many others. But there's one thing that she does do that trumps them all: she allows me ample time on the can so I can write these blogs!!

THANKS DEAR!!

Taxes and Texas

2009-12-14T11:41:00.009-05:00

First things first - everyone must read my response to Anonymous's comment on this post before reading this current post and before posting comments such as "why don't you just move?" Read what I wrote in my counter-comment. Now for the post itself.

Many here know of my excoriations, despite my new place of residency, of the financial and tax burdens of residing in the NYC metro/tri-state area. I stumbled upon this website that I think just solidifies my thinking in my mind.

First. I encourage everyone to click on the 'About Us' link and read what this place is all about. Obviously, this place is Republican (or conservative) funded that advocates a decidedly conservative agenda, and some of us may hate Republicans. But that doesn't mean that the Tax Foundation's mission or list of things they stand for don't make sense. I don't agree fully with everything they stand for (their 'Neutrality' section for one), but I definitely find my thinking generally aligned with theirs.

The Tax Foundation has an interesting concept called tax freedom day, which is an interesting concept that I encourage everyone to read about here. I'll wait a moment until everyone's done.

Finished? Ok, good. Now click on this link to see the Tax Freedom Day for 2009 depending on which state you live in. Note that the higher the rank #, the better, a higher number ranking (47 vs 3, for example) means you have to work less days in order to pay off your federal, state, and local tax bill. Look at New York, New Jersey, and Texas. Notice the difference?

Now look at this link, which shows a Tax Freedom Day trend over time (you have to download an Excel file). Can't be bothered? Well see below for a 10-year trend comparing US average, NY, NJ, and, of course, TX. If you do the math, the differences between the states average out to something like over TWO WEEKS worth of wages. Heck, Texas even beats the US average each year! This may not show properly so I encourage all to download and look at the Excel table to see for yourself. But take my word for it:

State

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

United States

April 30

May 1

May 3

April 30

April 19

April 16

April 17

April 24

April 26

April 27

April 21

April 13

New Jersey

May 14

May 16

May 17

May 15

May 4

April 30

May 8

May 10

May 11

May 8

April 29

New York

May 8

May 9

May 11

May 1

April 27

April 28

May 4

May 7

May 8

May 4

April 25

Texas

April 25

April 24

April 26

April 23

April 14

April 10

April 8

April 14

April 18

April 20

April 15

April 6

Now, check out this link, which ranks states by tax climate for business (basically a measure of how favorable the tax climate is for growing businesses). Again, look at NY, NJ, and, naturally, TX.

Check out this, this, and this for a one stop shop for all that ails NY and NJ.

Do you see anything interesting? I do, if these figures are accurate and correct. Am I going somewhere with this? You betcha. NY and NJ residents have consistently shouldered a possibly (we DO make a bit more $$$ in NY/NJ, after all) disproportionately higher tax burden than do Texans. And what have we got for forking over our hard-earned money to Unca Empire and Garden state? A business drain to states like... Texas. So we in NY and NJ hand over lots of cash to local and state gub'ment and get in return... a loss of one of the greatest drivers of economic growth. Consistently.

Yay!

What's wrong with this picture?

2009-12-10T09:52:00.012-05:00

I heard a story the other day that is probably of some interest to those of us who work for a living and pay our fair share of taxes.

A woman, we'll call her Shaindy, has one kid, is relatively young (20's I think) and has a husband in kollel. She works at an office job somewhere in the NY metro area. She was complaining to someone I know about how she's tired of working, getting up early, rushing to commute, dealing with the day to day work headaches that all of us working folk deal with. She's just plain tired. She mentioned that she was seriously considering stopping to work and going on Section 8/HUD assistance, Medicaid, and food stamp welfare programs and staying home with the children.

Is something wrong with this picture?

Uh... yes. What she should do is either suck it up like we all do (This is the choice she made when she got married) or encourage and convince her hubby to get a job (or a yob ;-)).

Welfare programs already eat up a massive portion of NYS's and NJ's budgets, and are partly to blame for our (NY/NJ metro area for one) ludicrously high state and local taxes. Welfare programs are there IN DIRE CASE someone NEEDS them, they are not there as an "opt-in" lifestyle. No one has the right to choose to go on welfare to live one's religious ideal, and CERTAINLY nobody has the right to go on welfare just to shirk responsibility. This is one of the many problems with our welfare programs today. Welfare programs are noble and necessary because a nation as rich as ours has the responsibility to ensure that people don't die or live sickly lives from starvation and poverty, and FDR was correct in institutionalizing them rather than keep the Hooverian belief that personal and private charities will "come through". These programs have become bloated though and viewed almost as entitlements! They create perverse incentives to not work and not take risks and not pursue jobs and responsibilities. They easily create an indolent attitude that eschews trying to better one's lot and rise from poverty either for fear of losing benefits or from laziness and a belief that that good ol' Unca Sam should take care of me.

This kind of thinking might just not be limited to one individual, unfortunately. There are many things about government waste from the municipal level on up that make me want to scream. But this really makes me mad - my tax $$$ are continuing to support this! It should make all of us honest, hardworking taxpayers really mad, too! While NY and NJ taxpayers groan under onerous tax burdens, while state budgets are in deficit and state governors declare bankruptcy, these programs get more bloated!

Wow, it's funny how you become politically self aware after buying a house and having a kid! ;-)

Speaking of taxes, stay tuned for an eye opening post regarding that issue, BTW. I found a wonderful website that I just HAVE to share with everyone.

Decisions, decisions...

2009-10-30T11:37:00.003-04:00

As many people know, I (and my wife) have Verizon Wireless cell service. I've been really disappointed over the last few years or so at Verizon's so-so rate plans and especially disappointed with their pathetic line-up of handsets, the bulk of which you can probably label as 'feature-phones', or phones that look cool but don't really do much.
I've been getting ready to ditch Verizon for Sprint or (gasp) AT&T and the iPhone. But Verizon just launched a game changer a couple of days ago that's making me rethink that decision (sorry, Ben).

By now, everyone must have heard of Verizon's new handset that was just released, the Droid. This device is, IMHO, a very, very serious competitor to Apple's iPhone 3GS. It has a better higher res screen, removable battery, 16-32GB micro-SD card memory, multitasking, free turn-by-turn GPS, physical keyboard, etc. iDon't think it's an iPhone killer, though.

There are three things that I'm on the fence about with the Droid, now that I've used an iPod touch for a while:

iDon't - like Android 2.0's media app, it really looks horrible and pales in comparison to iPhone OS 3.1's app. You can't even mention the 2 in the same sentence. Will Google update this in a later update (Android 3.0, perhaps)? Who knows. But it's important to me, plus there is as of yet no viable syncing software for Android that can compete with iTunes.

iDon't - like the lack of multitouch. Come ON, Verizon, Moto, and Google!! Google, you build multitouch capability into Android. Verizon & Moto, you release the Milestone in Europe (essentially an overseas Droid) with this capability. Palm's Pre has it, Verizon's own Droid ERIS has it; come ON! How did they miss this? My guess is that the Droid CAN do multitouch, but was released without it for some inexplicable reason. I can only hope that it can get 'turned on' through some over the air or software/firmware update. I was playing with the Droid on Friday and found myself instinctively trying to pinch to zoom and not being able to REALLY was annoying. The Droid does have zooming soft buttons onscreen but their functionality is really limited when comparing to the iPhone.

Last, iDont - like the severely limited podcast search and playback options. Note - I just found out about Google Listen, so this iDon't may turn out to be an iDo.

So, I'm sitting on the fence to see what happens in the next 6-12 months with Apple, Motorola, and Verizon. I'll see how the device and OS landscape shakes out before iDecide what to do.

What does everyone else think of these two devices and their respective networks?

Like a kid in...

2009-10-22T10:43:00.002-04:00

Oh boy. I'm like a kid in a candy store! Look at all these juicy, tasty morsels for me to chew on! Oh my, where will I find the time??

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/the-importance-of-yiddish

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/couples-having-shabbos-guests

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/modern-orthodox-judaism

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/colored-shirts

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/eruv-in-brooklyn

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/college-secular-studies-038-judaism

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/is-the-fbi-anti-semitic

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/coffeeroom/topic/jeans

Wonderful speech

2009-10-22T09:32:00.002-04:00

Just saw this - thought I'd pass it along. It's the text in full of the Beth T'filoh Rabbi's Rosh Hashana speech in Baltimore, MD.

GREAT speech. And very true. Worth reading through in its entirety.

Hat tip: Cross-Currents.

Great story!

2009-10-15T12:23:00.005-04:00

An interesting thing happened to me over Simchas Torah, I thought I'd share because it's such a great story...

So I'm standing in shul during hakafos in Monsey, NY, rather yeshivish place, minding my own business on the side reading through an interesting pamphlet (more on that later) authored by a chashuv local rav. I'm wearing my brown srugie, brown sportjacket, striped shirt, no tie, white tallis. You could say I stood out (yay!) like a sore thumb. I notice a chassidishe bachur, about 13 y/o, approaching me with a gemara Gittin in his hand. He opens it up to the first mishna and asks me if I could discuss p'shat in one of the Tanaim's statements in the mishna. We proceed to have a lengthy discussion right then and there about it.

I felt like asking the kid - of all people in shul, you come to me? I mean, I really stuck out like a sore thumb. I didn't ask him though. I didn't need to get into that discussion since the moment was just really wonderful - here were two Jews from totally different backgrounds who probably disagree on a myriad of different lifestyle kleinekeit - sharing the beautiful Torah that really binds us together.

It was a great feeling.

If only...

2009-10-15T10:30:00.002-04:00

If only I had known about this during my life as a single...

Come on, all us recently former and current singles know that "Im yirtze H"m by you" is the single (ha, no pun intended) most annoying and infuriating thing that anyone can say to anybody.

hat tip: frumsatire.com

Hello!

2009-10-14T12:48:00.003-04:00

Hey everyone! Sorry for the long hiatus.

Anyway, short post, but...

HERE WE GO AGAIN...

Do they ever get tired of this...?

Amazing!

2009-09-24T09:44:00.002-04:00

Just saw this on VIN. It reads a little like a Jewish novel - at first, I was wondering if I was reading an advance excerpt from a soon-to-be-published book! But, I have to say, that this is AMAZING. Mazal tov on both counts.

Shana Tova to all

2009-09-18T10:26:00.003-04:00

I just wanted to wish a Shana Tova to all and sundry.

I hope HKB"H will shower us all with brachos of peace, prosperity and happiness this year and in all coming years, and will hasten the coming of the geula, b'mheira b'yamenu.

Shana tova u'mesuka to all!

Good for us... or not?

2009-09-04T11:41:00.003-04:00

I saw an interesting story on VIN about Madonna visiting the tomb of a famous Kabbalist in Safed.

I'm really curious what everyone thinks about this? Does this new spotlight help or hurt Judaism on the whole?

I'm kind of on the fence about this. On one hand, it 'legitimizes' Judaism in the minds of non-Jews, on some level. On the other, I don't think the Arizal wanted someone like Madonna dabbling in what is really a very holy subject matter (and should be kept that way).

Comments?

Oh, the horror!!

2009-09-03T09:23:00.012-04:00

I have something to confide in you. It's... well, it's... it's really just... just really embarrassing. Traumatic even. You see, well... oh boy this is hard... you see, well, um, uh, well... I'm scheduled to be raped in a couple of months.
It's OK, don't gasp like that! Really, I'll get through it. I'll be OK, shaken and shocked, but I'll pull through. I know I will because the perpetrator has struck hundreds of thousands of other people, if not millions, and they seem to have come through their ordeal just fine, maybe a little shaken, but OK. So I know I will.
But you see what's galling is that none of the perpetrator's victims really were ever able to seek justice. See, there was nothing that could be done, no recourse. So while I know I'll pull through, I have to resign myself to the facts of the situation. Wait - what's that? You say you know a good lawyer that could help me, break new ground in bringing this despicable rapist to justice? I'd have to disagree, see, because the perp here is a real baddie, remorseless and cruel, and he's got lawyers on his side up the wazoo to kingdom come. See, his name is NEW YORK STATE.
Yes, I see your face blanching at the mere mention of his despicable name. But it's true. He's going to get me, I know it.
See, Mr. NY State will be forcibly relieving me of some thousands upon thousands of our hard earned, blood sweat and tears dollars, for absolutely no real reason I can discern. Maybe deep down, in his brooding, loathsome heart he fancies himself a modern day, perverse Robin Hood. But I really can't tell, his very thoughts and actions are constantly shrouded in a veil of secrecy and mystery. He calls this despicable act of rape - oh, the horror of its name! - New York State mortgage tax. Can you even comprehend the heinousness of the crime!? He even lends his name to this despicable act, as if it's his signature, his calling card move! It's not enough for him that he violates me year after year after year after year after year, like clockwork, on April 15. Now he wants more with this disgusting crime, the bloodthirsty savage that he is. I guess I should take some kind of perverse satisfaction that I draw so much of his attention, no? Then again, hundreds of thousands of innocents have fallen victim to this dastardly crime. But still. Each time leaves its scar and pain. There is no justice that can be served. One day, maybe, sometime in the future, I'll run and hide somewhere, into the nurturing arms of one of the other State family brothers or cousins, of which my perp is a member, where he can never touch me again, the dirty b**tard. May he be smitten one thousand times!

Those crazy French!!

2009-09-01T15:49:00.002-04:00

I was reading Ikea's 2010 catalog last night on the train home, trying to find some Scandinavian inspiration for home decor, and I noticed a woman and her daughter pointing at my catalog.
Turns out they were French tourists, from Paris, on a 5 day visit to NYC as part of a 3 week North American tour.
So they took 5 whole days out of their 21 to see this stinkhole!!??? They were staying in Queens, even better!!! So they couldn't afford a pricey Manhattan hotel, the city even prices those crazy enough to want to visit out of it's touristy areas! I asked them how they liked Queens - they said it was a nice hotel, but the area was loud and dirty. Um, YEAH, that pretty much describes all of NYC!
I couldn't get over why someone who lived in freakin PARIS, FRANCE of all places would want to shlep all the way across the Atlantic to visit this hellhole??!!!!

I guess it's just those crazy French.

A little housekeeping

2009-09-01T15:45:00.002-04:00

Got a request.

Can everyone just post comments to the blog itself? Just click on 'comments' under each post or, if you click on the title of each post, look for a window that says 'post your comment' or something like that.

Please do this vs responding to the blog email. Makes for better management of the whole thing + encourages & facilitates discussion.

Thanks!

Watch out

2009-09-01T15:41:00.003-04:00

Watch out, makeup artists! If this spreads around, it'll eat a chunk out of your revenue!! Somthing tells me this won't be very popular though. Girls don't like to look like hell on their wedding day and I for one don't blame them.

I don't think the funding for this is really big $$$ at this point, but if it gets larger, wouldn't you think of 1,001 better uses for this tzedakah money?

Arggghhhh..... The (potential) waste of $$$ continues.

Postscript - it looks like there's already a lively discussion on YWN about this. Wow, news travels fast in the Jewish world! Viva la Internet!! Viva la blogosphere!

The happiest day of my life!

2009-08-31T09:12:00.003-04:00

Today's our anniversary. I just wanted to publicly thank my wife for making August 31, 2008 the happiest day of my life, and every subsequent day even happier.

And... I also want to thank her for putting up with me and all my... shall we say misheggassim. Including this blog.

THANKS DEAR!!!

Why, O why????

2009-08-26T09:25:00.018-04:00

So we're moving close to buying a house. The whole process is nerve-wracking - making sure you get a good price, inspections, and last, but not least, making sure it's an affordable undertaking.
I've found that budgeting for a house is a tricky thing, especially if your expenses are lower now (aka having no kids yet) but will shoot up later (aka having KIDZ). It costs an enormous pile of cash just for basic monthly expenses around here. It costs a HELLA lot of money alone just to piss it away to fund our wonderful and bloated state and local services, much of which we'll never avail ourselves of (public school) and a lot that many of my fellow brethren defraud with gusto (here and here and here, for starters). What I also found is that you really can't get a decent house that you'd want to grow into in a NY Metro, tri-state area, frum community for less than $450,000 - $475,000 or so. Sure there are houses for less, but they tend to be out of the Jewish area, fixer-uppers you need to pour like $75,000 at least just to not wake up each day staring at an eyesore, or just plain POS properties that no one would want to live in, unless they're desperate (which if you're coming from anywhere in NYC, you might be).

Anyway, that's not the point of this post. Budgeting for a home purchase here as gotten my ever-fertile mind thinking. And when I think, I blog.

We orthodox Jews around here are constantly bellyaching (often times rightfully so) about the prohibitive costs of living. We all know that frum living, while giving us deep meaning and direction in our lives, comes at an enormous price tag, what with tuition, utilities, taxes, housing, kosher food, yom tov gouging, and communal obligations all thrown into the mix. Many people I know can't hit their head on the pillow at night without either worrying about their negative financial situation or about something that may likely happen down the road that will put them into such a position. The truth may very well be that most frum Jews in the NY area are one kid, tuition bill, stock market drop or tax hike away from turning an affordable lifestyle into a financial nightmare. News and comment sites abound about this problem and about the rising cost of tuition and how to deal with it. It may well be possible that the "silent holocaust" isn't intermarriage at all, reducing the number of Jews in the world - it's the annual tax and tuition bill. But, there is an answer. It's so simple and clear, I don't know why no one else thought of it. It's not for everyone, but it works.

What if I were to tell you that you could put say, $15,000-$30,000 annually back into your pocket? You think I was a crazy man, right? Wrong.

This event holds the key. The OU sponsored a forum this past June allowing emerging, vibrant, flourishing Jewish communities to showcase themselves to NY area residents. A whopping 1,000 people attended to explore freeing themselves from the financial shackles of frum life in metro NY/NJ. For many, simply moving your butt from one locality to another can dramatically change your quality of (frum) life. I did some searching on housing, tuition, and tax costs and the cost differences of living in town vs out of town are staggering - it could translate to tens of thousands of dollars a year in cost savings, with possibly only (depending on your industry) a small dip, if at all, in salary and income.

We get a raw deal living in NY/NJ metro. We pay some of the highest income and property taxes in the country, and we don't even use most of the state services and programs that we're paying for!! Especially education. For those living in NYC itself, I think anyone who reads this blog knows how horrible it is to live in the city and the direct and intangible costs city living imposes. Just see my last few posts. We pay criminally high costs for taxes, housing and utilities in this area, plus higher costs for child care, tuition, and just about everything else.

So why the hell do we stay here? Is there some perverse relationship between the amount of financial suffering one has and one's share in the afterlife? Don't think so. So what do we gain by staying here? Let's look at some of the possibilities:

Reason 1 - family and friends. OK, I'll concede a lot on this one. Moving away from one's family and/or friends can be traumatic, unless you hate your family or get into a snit fit with your friends that festers forever. But with the amount you save in costs you could freakin' fly once a month to see the fam, you can always make new friends, and keep well in touch with the old via social networking, email, phone, etcetcetc. This is a personal choice though that only an individual and spouse can weigh for themselves.

Reason 2 - job and salary. I'll concede a little here. Many people have businesses here that they can't just pick up and relocate; for them, they are chained to this area. Those who are salaried employees though have less standing here. If you can't get a job somewhere else or don't want to leave a (possibly) sure thing in NY/NJ in this economy, I understand. But if your sole reason for staying put is you think that your salary would, hands down, be higher, that's not necessarily the case. Look up your salary and the salary you'd command in an out of town location on salary.com. Depending on the industry and other factors, you may be surprised at how little a pay cut you may take, if at all. At the worst, telecommuting may also be an option (though you'd still be paying those criminally high NY/NJ income taxes) should your job duties and employer allow for it.

Reason 3 - quality of life. Don't even get me started. Quality of life here SUCKS if you live in NYC. If you live just outside NYC and drive to work in NYC, quality of life still SUCKS. If you live in the NYC metro area and ever drive near the city for anything, that alone makes the quality of life go right down the tubes as well. Plus the aggravation of paying your hyperinflated mortgage and taxes and getting no tangible benefit from either is enough to put a little damper on anyone's existence.

Reason 4 - Jewish amenities. OK, I can hear this one, a little. It even sounds plausible at first. The NY/NJ metro area has, bar none, the richest menu of Jewish amenities you could think of. Mikvah lady's been eyeing you a little to lasciviously for your taste? Go to the one down the road. Don't like the fact that your shul 'inserts the names' for the mi shebeirach for cholim? Go down the block to another one that does. Want to go out to eat but want Chinese food tonite instead of pizza? Go to the local kosher Chinese place. Don't like the haavara (accent) in which your child learns Hebrew? Send him or her to another school. And on and on and on, you get the picture.
The issue is that all this choice really isn't as advantageous as it seems. Having a new school, kollel, shul, and mikva on every block costs the community at large money that isn't necessary to begin with. Having 110 flavors of shul and school within a 30 mile radius gives you choice, but it doesn't do much to promote achdus in the community at large, either. And having 20 different schools in a small area doesn't really drive down costs either as they're not really competing with one another as much as filling a perceived need within a small subsection of the community. So you've got cost redundancies up the wazoo. Plus these are all in no small part donor (read: you and me) funded through hidden tuition subsidies, the ominous, wasteful 'building funds', etc.
Think about the tradeoffs you're making here. Do you really want to forgo cost savings of tens of $000's just so you can have the choice of saying the tefilla for the medina or not? Do we really place such a high value on having like 15,000 pizza places in one square mile and kosher sushi in every corner?

Reason 5 - many more Jews like us. The argument is that there are so many more Jews here than anywhere else. We're 'the Man' over here where out of town, we're nothing, and the KKK is just waiting around the corner to nab us. Plus, us NY/NJeans are just a more sophisticated, less backward lot. This argument, to put it succinctly, is b******t. In fact, it's a reason NOT to stay around here, since all of the financial pressures of frum living plus being cooped and self-ghettoized into these small geographic areas has mutated us average NY/NJ metro area frum jews into a stereotype of being yentish, pushy, self-aggrandizing, money-hoarding conservatives. I'm not saying ch"v that everyone is like this, just that the need to out gun and 'get ahead' and survive in an arid and hopeless financial climate creates a pall over life in this area and is a necessary attitude to have when faced with such a bleak economic future. It's no coincidence that it seems that the bulk of the fraud and money laundering and deception and the stealing and cheating and dishonesty that seems to be going on in our community under our noses originates or has some significant connection to this area.
The common NY/NJ perception that your average out of towner is a more moronic, backward individual is just self-compensating for our own pitiful existence here. Out of town communities can be more low-key, laid back, nicer, more pleasant and less rife with divisive politics than we have here. And no. The KKK is not waiting, rubbing hands with glee, for us to move house to New Orleans or Atlanta or whatever so they can set fiery crosses on our lawns and molest our young 'uns en masse. And there are plenty of anti-semites in the NY area.

So what do we really gain as a community by continuing to cling to the NY/NJ metro area? I think that the current, younger generation has been asking the same question and finding that the answer is: not much, essentially. If the attendance at the OU fair mentioned above is any indication, many young couples and families are starting to realize that there is, for many, a better, vibrant world outside of the self imposed NY/NJ ghetto and are actually contemplating breaking out. Kudos to the brave ones that take responsibility for their families' financial future and do.

Continued dominance of the NY/NJ metro area as the go to place for frum Jews will wane with time - it had better. The tortured and deeply flawed economic model we've created for ourselves here cannot and will not be sustainable. My prediction is that you'll see a vastly changed demographic landscape in this area in the next 20-30 years as younger, more dynamic families realize they owe no allegiance to this northeastern ghetto.

Warning follow up

2009-08-20T16:56:00.001-04:00

I've been playing around with my blog, and I added a feature which lets anyone subscribe easily through RSS readers like Google, Yahoo!, etc. See the options on the upper right corner. Have fun!

Warning

2009-08-14T14:37:00.003-04:00

Just to let everyone know, I'll be removing the auto-email feature of my blog soon. I think everybody's weaned, almost.

To continue to follow my blog, all you have to do is use an RSS reader. For those who don't know, an RSS reader is a program - either accessed online or install on your desktop - that aggregates 'feeds', or items/articles of interest to you, in one place. Google Reader is an excellent RSS reader and is so easy to use your pet fish can do it. Just go here, to access Google's account page, click 'create one for free', and create an account. Sign in to the account on the top right when done, then click the 'More' drop down link on the top of Google's home page, click 'Reader'. You should be able to access a 'help' link or something like that that shows you how to add 'feeds'. Add my blog - musingsofabaldguy.blogspot.com - and every time you sign into your Google account, fire up the Reader, you'll see my blog and all the updates.

Thanks.

Les Paul, R.I.P.

2009-08-14T14:28:00.003-04:00

So Les Paul died yesterday. Just found this out last night - my wife actually told me.
If you don't know who he was, see this article. One could say that he was the single person literally, technically responsible for rock and roll. He seemed to me to be a really interesting fellow, dedicated to his art. I met him once at Iridium a few years ago. He had just turned 86, I think, and still played a full 1.5 hr set, bantering and joking with the smallish crowd all the while. He stayed behind after his set for another hour or so, signing autographs and just shmoozing with whoever wanted to shmooze. He didn't have to; the guy's a celebrity, for crying out loud, PLUS he was over 85! But he did, and I never got the impression he felt he had to stay, he wanted to do that.
He seemed to me to be a real, sincere, great personality and the music world will be forever diminished without him.

I love NY!!!!!!?????? part deux

2009-07-31T09:43:00.002-04:00

Sorry I couldn't finish all my ravings and rantings on life in the big city in one post -
All in all, the city is a horrible place to live, more for couples or couples with kids, than singles. If you're single, it's not as bad since you probably don't have a car, all your friends are in the same area, you don't worry about groceries, errands, etc since you just basically live out of chinese food cartons and never bother with laundry.
If not, then you're in trouble. Don't live in the city. It ain't worth it.

I love NY!!!!!!??????

2009-07-29T15:58:00.007-04:00

You see it on bumper stickers. You see it on t-shirts. You see it on pencils, magnets, mugs, backpacks, stickers, billboards etcetcetcetcetc:

I used to think the same. Then I moved here. Living in NY is truly for the pitiful poor or the rather rich. Otherwise, it's a hellhole that you'll find yourself screaming to escape from.

We live in Queens, NYC. We've been living here for almost a year, and at this point I consider myself fully qualified to dump my bowels on the hellish experience that they call living (if you can call it living) in "the Big Apple".

Why would I hate living in the big city, you'd ask. Such culture, arts, bars, concerts, stuff to do, why WOULDN'T you want to be where it's all at? Ahh where shall I start... let me give you a taste of what daily living is like.

You own a car or two? Yes? GOOD for you! You want to live a normal life, go out every so often, get groceries, run errands? GOOD for you! Guess what? You are a prisoner in your own home in NYC (and you pay 3x normal rent for the privilege) and will curse your errantry EVERY TIME YOU GO OUT! Once you've experienced trying to find a spot to park your car, you will park that car and NEVER take it out until the next alt side day. You can or will seldom go out, if ever, out beyond your own pathetic little dirt strewn noisy 'hood. Sure, you'll take a nice, relaxing stroll through your picturesque neighborhood, listening to the soothing sounds of racing car engines and honking and cursing, and soaking in the atmosphere of litter and smelly exhaust. But you'll never venture beyond. Because you will never take that car out for fear of losing that spot...unless you go on an errand.

Ah, the errand! What is so tame, mundane and routine in the 'burbs turns into a rage inducing, hideous outing in NYC. You need groceries for the fam? What do you 'burb peeps do? You go to Acme. Park the car in the 1,001 car lot. You buy. You roll the shopping cart to your car. You load. You drive to the house, pull in the driveway. You take groceries in house. Done!
Now, for the NYC'er. You get in the car, after walking the 1/2 mile to where you parked it. You get in. You accumulate exactly 34 scratches on your front and rear bumpers while wriggling out of your pathetically tight space. You drive to the store and... drive around the block and... drive around the block, and repeat and repeat and repeat... because there are NO parking spaces to park in because there are NO lots. You park (1/2 mi away). You go into the store and buy (prices inflated 20%!). You are forced to leave your ghetto cart by these bars in front of the store since they obviously don't trust YOU to bring it back. You shlep 55lbs of groceries the 1/2 mile to your car. You return to your place and park 1/2 mi away from your place. You shlep 55lbs of groceries 1/2 mi to your place. You remember you forgot keys. You stop. You scream. You bang your head so many times against wall that you develop amnesia, if not death.

Let's say you need to get from point A to point B all outside of NYC. You get in your car and go. The trip takes 20 minutes. You find yourself on the same journey 2 weeks later; it takes 20 minutes. What do you infer?....... Anyone? Bueller?..... OK, so you infer that it takes, drumroll please, about 20 mins to drive that distance! So next time you need to go that distance, you allow, drumroll please, 20 minutes to get there! And you're usually on time, within reason.
This ain't so in NYC. If your starting point or destination or both is NYC, fuhgeddaboudit. It could take 2 hours to move 5 miles. It could take 20 minutes to move 20 miles. It could take 1.5 hrs to travel 7.25 miles. It could take 6 hours to travel 11 miles. It could take 5 minutes to drive 3 miles. It could take 3.75 hours to drive 10 miles. It could take.. I think you get the picture. You have to deal with this EVERY #$@& time you want to go anywhere in NYC or to NYC or from NYC. You have to build in 2 hours of 'traffic time' because on any given day there could be any amount of construction/accidents/volume just waiting to turn a joyful jaunt into a heart attack inducing traffic jam. Yet another reason to just stay home and do nothing.

There's a lot more. To be continued.

Degeneration

2009-06-17T15:57:00.002-04:00

Here's a good post to watch from YWN. What began as an innocuous, fairly tame post seems to be going down the slippery slope here.
It's so funny to me how predictable the direction of these posts can be, this one at least so far. Act I - innocent question. Act II - seemingly innocent question about tznius. Act III - clarification that seemingly innocent question about tznius is really a thinly veiled impetus for tznius flame war. Act IV - tznius flame war degenerating to immature, idiotic personal insults.

How Shakespearean. Let's see how this plays out.

Shabbos

2009-06-17T15:52:00.003-04:00

Just wanted to let the world know that I am so looking forward to two meals of good food on Friday night that I'm running 15 miles a day instead of 4.

Just kidding. But I'm still salivating.

Also, looking forward to seeing a long lost friend - let's hear it for V-I-C!!

Judging a book by its cover - and a whole side rant

2009-06-15T14:29:00.008-04:00

I came across this article on a nice, juicy Jewish news web site. Read the article title, look at the comments, then actually read the article.

I love the the way sites like this portray the 'news' with attention-grabbing headlines that have little to do with the actual article. VIN news knows exactly how people react once they throw the word "gossip" into the equation. It's really just a way to stir up idiotic discussion in the comments section - barely anyone, except for one lone comment, noticed that the study's definition of "gossip" as an activity with health benefit is not quite synonymous with what we would call lashon hara. Take a look at comment #4 for a nice, hearty laugh, if you need a pick-me-up today, BTW.

I'm surprised tznius wasn't dragged in to the discussions here, given the propensity of these sites' commentators to link the most obscure news story with that topic. Which brings a slowly spreading evil smile to my face that my wife knows all too well as a thought flashes across my mind - look at some of the posts that elicit tznius discussions on that other font of journalistic wisdom, YWN. Seriously, if innocent stories or posts about bubby's beano cholent recipe (OK, I'm exaggerating, but not much) elicit virulent posts on the decadent degradation of tznius amongst our holy bnos yisroel, there's something screwy in YOUR brain, my friend. If you're thinking about tznius that much, get professional help. My guess is that something other than normal bodily functions are going on in your bathroom, and you just gotta be defensive. I apologize for the, um, inappropriateness of that remark, but probably true to some extent.

Which brings me by way of natural segway to another pet peeve. Can't we let or leave discussions or lamentations on or of tznius issues or problems to women??? Or include them in the klal's discussion (besides the usual classroom lectures on inches, hemlines, and bodily areas)??? We read about kol koreh after asifa after speech after proclamation after blah blah blah on or about this issue, largely uttered by men to men instructing men on how to be manly about 'bettering' our wives. I'm not ch"v saying that achieving the highest levels of tznius in dress is not desirable. Nor am I denigrating those who make the decision to approach the issue this way. I just think it don't WORK. Does anyone really think most women want to be dictated to? Does anyone really see that constant harping on just one corner of the concept of 'hatzneia leches' can distort the chinuch we should giving our kids on what it really means?
Please comment - will this approach likely and generally turn our women onto or off of at least to attempt achieving a higher level of tznius than they already may observe? Does the incessant drumbeat of the "tznius = long sleeves and skirts" credo REALLY educate our children on what tznius means, in totality? I'm curious.

And I have absolutely no idea why this even crossed my mind at 3:00 PM EST.

Who's singin' in the rain?

2009-06-15T10:22:00.004-04:00

I think this "post" went out without a post - I hit the enter button after typing in the title (very witty, I must say), thinking it'd get me to the actual post section, when it really just posted the title - and nothing else, I think. If that happened, sorry.
Anyway, with all the glorious, wonderful, life giving rain we've been having, that's been turning NYC into a beautiful babbling brook of brown sludge (oh, how I love NYC! but that's a different post), got me to thinking. Who is financially benefiting from all this rain (even if it's just a few $$$) right now or sometime in the near future? I'll start a short list here; please comment and let me know what you think and add to it! Here it is, no particular order (actually in order of which came to my mind first):

Umbrella sellers - duh
Street sweepers, if they get paid hourly
Vacation package companies (if they're adept enough at marketing to convince ppl to get away from the rain to a lush paradise)
Movie theaters
Movie rental companies
Drug companies who manufacture antidepressants
Indoor paintball
Retailers
Gutter cleaning services
Landscapers (or teenagers roaming the streets with lawnmowers)
Places that sell windshield wipers
Bowling alleys

Please add. Thanks!

First blog post - now I'm cookin'

2009-06-11T14:59:00.004-04:00

I've finally fulfilled a lifelong dream of mine - before retirement age, even, wow! - by starting a blog. Actually, I finally started one after months of dithering whether I'm 'blog-worthy', mostly because my good friend started one called Since1978 (I highly recommend everyone check it out) and I was just spurred on to create one. I'm calling it "Musings of a Bald Guy" partly because I'm bald, partly because I muse a lot, and partly because I'm not sure what exactly I'll blog about yet so I can't pick a title any more specific than that.

Prepare yourselves for a mind-bending journey through the musings of... the Bald Guy. It'll be fun, hopefully. Please comment and spread the word around about my blog. Thanks for looking in.