How Nobel in Reason...

 Good afternoon to all.

It is Friday afternoon.  Candle-lighting is in less than four hours.  The hallah is not baked.  I have two sermons to write for Rosh Hashanah, as well as a little bit of music to learn.  Naturally, I am writing a blog entry.

Nominations for the Nobel Prize close on January 31st.  Winners are announced in October.  President Obama was nominated less than two weeks after he assumed the Oval Office.  In no way is it my intention to disparage him or the award.  Still, even he was surprised at receiving it.

In the last several weeks, Israel has signed a treaty with the United Arab Emirates.  As well, Kosovo and Serbia have made economic agreements with each other, and have recognized Israel.

Today, the news reports that Bahrain has also agreed to normalize relations with Israel.

All of these events came to fruition with the help of President Trump.

President Trump was also formally nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.  The cynic in me doubts that he will receive the honour.  This is not because he does not deserve it.  It is because he would be fact-checked for saying that the sky is blue.  People will vote against him just because he is President Trump.

That being said, it is absolutely clear that the nomination of President Trump is entirely appropriate.  

Mr. President, congratulations on the nomination, and more importantly on the achievements behind it.

Shabbat Shalom to all.

R/SCG

The Importance of Proper Spelling...

 Good afternoon to all...

NYPD has throughout its history attempted to maintain good community relations.  In general, it has been successful.  I suspect further that it has been successful even in the last several months.  The reasons have finally become clear.  Besides having loyal and dedicated police officers, support staff, and up until recently, support from the city government, NYPD has also brought good theatre to the City of New York.

We observe such a commitment to theatre in the following screen shot.

Please note what I have highlighted.  Above and beyond the obligation to serve and protect, above and beyond maintaining good community relations, above and beyond the selfless willingness to pay the ultimate price in the service of the good people of New York (and the others), it appears that NYPD has a vaudeville actor on staff.  Sadly, it also appears that Mr. Chaplin is subject to the same challenges that many other New Yorkers face these days.

And more seriously, having initially seen this in the New York Post, the incident involved the chaplain.  There was no vaudeville.  Rav Jen and I happen to know Rabbi Kass.  He is a senior colleague, and has been with NYPD for as long as I can remember.  It appears he was injured very lightly.

To the nice folks at Fox, spelling counts.

Have a good day everyone.

R/SCG

Science...

Good afternoon everyone.

Throughout the COVID pandemic, there has been no shortage of people saying that the process of reopening economies and societies will be dictated by science.  I support this, I suppose.  My only question is which science will be determinative.  

Let us examine:

1.  A study conducted by a pharmaceutical company determined that the number of prescriptions for anti-depressants spiked more than 34% in the early days of the pandemic.

2.  An article in QJM, which is an international journal of medicine associated with physicians in Great Britain and Ireland, notes several studies.  On-line purchases of alcohol increased 243%.  Studies cited within indicate increases in depression, anxiety, and insomnia.  Still other research indicates significant increases in suicide when economies take significant, long-term downturns.  Here is the link to the article: https://academic.oup.com/qjmed/advance-article/doi/10.1093/qjmed/hcaa202/5857612.  

3.  Research shows a marked decrease in emergency room visits for heart attacks and strokes (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6925e2.htm).  

To those who say that we will rely on the science, well and good.  Depression, alcohol abuse, heart attacks, stroke, insomnia, and anxiety are medical issues, no less and no more than COVID.  Which science will dominate in making the decision?  Will it be the science of preventing the spread, which could lead to the other medical issues studied?  Will it be the science of combatting depression, which may mean that we have to get out of our homes?

I do not know the answer to how to balance legitimate science that per force will require different, opposing responses.  What I do know is that the folks who have to make such decisions have a significant challenge in this regard.  I also know that research organizations usually have someone on staff to deal with thorny ethical issues like these.  Science then demands an ethicist, or perhaps, a chaplain.  Science is more than data.  It must respond to the people who are affected.

May the best of the day be yours.

R/SCG

There Is Hope...

Good morning to all...

In my most recent blog entry, I expressed concern that there was very little response to DeSean Jackson's anti-Semitic postings on Instagram.  Worse, some of his friends supported him.

In that entry, I also noted that Mitch Albom had written a lovely article in one of the Detroit newspapers expressing similar concerns.  Mitch Albom is Jewish.  He went to Brandeis University.  In one of his books, he documents time he spent with an aging rabbi, as that rabbi wanted Mr. Albom to write his eulogy.  So while it was an appropriate article, I expect Jews to be concerned about anti-Semitism.

There are two other things to note though.  They give reason to hope.

1.  ViacomCBS ended its relationship with Nick Cannon due to Mr. Cannon's voicing of anti-Semitic beliefs.

2.  Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, actor ("Game of Death," "Airplane," and many other roles) and former NBA star, wrote a piece in the 'Hollywood Reporter.'  In the article, he points out the lack of outrage from Hollywood, as well as from the wide world of sports, to the statements from Mr. Jackson and others.  At the end of the article, he writes that "if we're going to be outraged by injustice, let's be outraged by injustice against anyone."

Maybe the pendulum is swinging back.  As long as one is not strapped to the table underneath the pendulum*, that is a welcome thing to see.

Have a good day.

R/SCG

* Edgar Allan Poe, "The Pit and the Pendulum"

Trying Not to Be Cynical....

Good evening everyone...

I am trying not to be cynical.  Looking at some of my recent posts, I am worried about becoming expert in finding the cloud in any silver lining.  As such, this blog entry has had a delay of several days in publishing.

Several weeks ago, the quarterback for the New Orleans Saints was forced to make several public apologies.  His crime?  He said that he would "never agree with anybody disrespecting the flag of the United States of America or (disrespecting) our country."  For that, the entire world descended on him.  He was told that he does not care enough to fight for justice.  He was called ignorant.  There was plenty more.  Thank God he is now socially sensitive.

The last week has been comparatively quiet, but that should not have been the case.  The opprobrium that Mr. Brees suffered at the hands of those who are woke should have been equally loud and equally vicious over the last several days.  It was not.

If you blinked, you might have missed it.  DeSean Jackson, wide receiver for the Philadelphia Eagles,  published some significantly anti-Semitic tropes on his Instagram page.  He has apologized for his screed, twice.  The first apology needed some work.  It took ten minutes to find the text of that apology.  He said that "when I posted what I posted, I definitely didn't mean it to the extent that you guys took it."

Three questions:

1.  To what extent did you intend these statements about Jews?

2.  Is there an extent that is acceptable?

3.  Why are you blaming the Jewish community for reading too much into quotations that you (incorrectly) attributed to a man who destroyed 1/3 of Jewish Europe, and who, by the way, refused to shake the hand of Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin?

Giving credit where credit is due, Mr. Jackson's second apology was much better.

All of that being said, people have lost jobs and reputations over the last few weeks for saying things that are far more benign than this.  Why did the woke crowd not descend on Mr. Jackson like they did to so many others?  Why was his friend, retired NBA player Stephen Jackson, not castigated for his own remarks in support of DeSean Jackson?

I have worried over the years that I am becoming more and more right-wing in my approach to the world.  Maybe, but when the social justice warriors refuse to label anti-Semitism as a hatred no less repugnant than any other hatred, it is hard to miss the double standard.  Please note that Mitch Album wrote about this far more eloquently than I can.  Here is a link to his article: Mitch Albom.

For the record, as much as it is in my place to forgive Mr. Jackson, I forgive him.  He has apologized.  He hopes to do better.  Let's give him both the chance and the support.

And with that, I add the following: yes, in every respect, Black lives matter.  What happened that sparked the current craziness in the US was appalling.  But now, I must also add: Jewish lives matter.  Women's lives matter.  Men's lives matter.  Mexican lives matter.  Russian lives matter.  All lives matter.  The failure to call out hatred when it happens to someone else is not social justice.  It is merely selective justice, which, in another word, is racism.

Good day everyone.

R/SCG

When Enough Is Enough...

Good evening everyone....

You may remember that back in May, a woman in Central Park called the police on a black man who was bird-watching.  He had asked her to keep her dog on a leash, in accordance with posted signage.

This turned into a whole big mess.  The woman lost her job.  She temporarily lost her dog.  This week, the DA in NYC filed charges against her for falsely reporting an incident.

Mr. Christian Cooper, the gentleman who was the victim of her racist tirade, publicly forgave her soon after the incident.  Today, the New York Post reported that he has refused to cooperate with the DA in the investigation.

"She's already paid a steep price."

Mr. Cooper, thank you.  Thank you for taking a public stance about forgiveness in a world that seems to have lost that ability.

Have a good evening everyone.

R/SCG

When Does It End?

Top of the evening to all...

Jewish Law forbids bowing down to statues.  I wonder if the vandals who keep toppling statues everywhere realize that they are helping to avoid the challenges of idolatry.

The latest...

A statue of Frederick Douglass was toppled damaged beyond repair in Rochester.  Frederick Douglass was an escaped slave.  He spoke eloquently at the 1848 Seneca Falls convention for women's suffrage, believing that he could not advocate for his own suffrage without advocating for others.  I do not get this one.

They also got the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen.  Written on the statue was "racist fish."  One wonders who the target of that graffiti might have been.  That was English.  It would have been "racistiske fisk" in Danish, if google translate is correct.

Given the destruction of one and the damaging of the other, I have realized that other statues and monuments must go the way of the world.

We go then from Copenhagen to Brussels.  In the town centre, there is a statue called "Manneken Pis."  It is a statue of a small child answering the call of nature.  This statue is glaring sexism.  Men do not have to wait in long lines to go to the washroom.  It must go.

Michelangelo's "David" must go, as it is anatomically incorrect.

In the Boston Public Garden, there is a statue of a mother duck and her ducklings.  The statue comes from the story "Make Way for Ducklings."  The statue must go, as it points to the absolute lie that the police could ever be so nice.  By the way, I would like to add in that the statue and the story are both sexist.  Ducks mate for life.  Where is the father?  Something is a-fowl here.

The legend (probably not right) of the naming of the city of Buffalo is that it got its name from French explorers.  Upon seeing the Niagara River, they exclaimed "what a beautiful river!"  They would have said that in French though - "quel beau fleuve!"  Say 'beau fleuve' a few times.  It probably did not happen, but since a statue was defaced with the words "probably racist" thereupon, we need to rename the city just in case.  Explorers were horrible to indigenous populations.

We must also rename the Nobel Prize.  While it is named in fact for the man who first endowed it, that man did extensive work in military-grade explosives.  His sins in creating weapons of war far outweigh the utter change of heart based on a newspaper mistake.

Please note: some of what is written above is tongue-in-cheek.

There are no perfect people.  If the only people we wish to honour in our statues, our currency, our stamps, and our building names must all have been perfect, then we will remember nothing about our past.  Demanding perfection will only leave us in a void, unable to build a future due to lacking a past.

I support having statues of imperfect people.  I would even like to consider a statue that is quite out of the ordinary.  A statue of Mikhail Kalishnikov would be appropriate.  In his closing years, he wrote a letter to the Russian Patriarch: "I keep having the same unsolved question: if my rifle claimed other people's lives, then can it be that I, a Christian and an Orthodox believer, was to blame for their deaths?"  That is a man whom we should consider.  He was accomplished, and troubled by his accomplishments.  He struggled.  That is real.  That is human.  And that is coming to terms with the imperfection of humanity.

Have a good evening.

R/SCG