when is satire not funny?

another magazine cover featuring barack obama engenders an hysterical response. inside the magazine is a major article about the democratic candidate. meanwhile the new yorker asserts its right to freedom of the press and a whole bunch of people get their knickers in a twist. i don't think it's a very good cartoon, and the corner where an american flag is burning in the fireplace certainly pokes people with a stick (i am a bad american because i just don't get all stoked up when someone burns a piece of material with a pattern on it). the sad truth is that when one is a candidate, one is also a target. they all know that. this incident will probably be seen as great publicity. i am much more upset by the fuss about this publication filling up air-time and pages that might otherwise look more carefully at bush lifting the offshore drilling ban or the nine u.s. soldiers killed in afghanistan yesterday.

telegraph perspective
not on the times page yet, nor the indy
grauniad

angelina and doctor seuss

we may all now relax, for angelina jolie has given birth to her twins. one is a boy and one is a girl. the boy has been named knox, which means that all of her boys have names that end in 'x'. i wonder if this may cause some confusion when calling for one or the other ... maddoX, paX, knoX? reminds me of my second favourite doctor seuss (the first being 'what was i scared of?'):

Too Many Daves

Did I ever tell you that Mrs. McCave
Had twenty-three sons, and she named them all Dave?
Well, she did. And that wasn't a smart thing to do.
You see, when she wants one, and calls out "Yoo-Hoo!
Come into the house, Dave!" she doesn't get one.
All twenty-three Daves of hers come on the run!

This makes things quite difficult at the McCaves'
As you can imagine, with so many Daves.
And often she wishes that, when they were born,
She had named one of them Bodkin Van Horn.
And one of them Hoos-Foos. And one of them Snimm.
And one of them Hot-Shot. And one Sunny Jim.
And one of them Shadrack. And one of them Blinkey.
And one of them Stuffy. And one of them Stinkey.
Another one Putt-Putt. Another one Moon Face.
Another one Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face.
And one of them Ziggy. And one Soggy Muff.
One Buffalo Bill. And one Biffalo Buff.
And one of them Sneepy. And one Weepy Weed.
And one Paris Garters. And one Harris Tweed.
And one of them Sir Michael Carmichael Zutt.
And one of them Oliver Boliver Butt.
And one of them Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate . . . .
But she didn't do it. And now it's too late.

ps my favourite name is marvin o'gravel balloon face. luckily i have never had any pets.

a very bad song i cannot get out of my head (earworm)

you know when a song gets stuck in your head, and the only way to remove it is with an even worse song? yesterday i got the song "samovar the lawyer" from 'a day in hollywood, a night in the ukraine' stuck. "halle-lawyer!" but it has now been replaced by this:

Oh, what did
Tenna-see,
boys, what did Tenna-see?
Oh, what did Tenna-see, boys, what did Tenna-see?
Oh, what did Tenna-see, boys, what did Tenna-see?
I ask you men, as a personal friend,
What did Tenna-see?

She saw what Arkin-saw, boys, she saw what Arkin-saw.
She saw what Arkin-saw, boys, she saw what Arkin-saw
She saw what Arkin-saw, boys, she saw what Arkin-saw
I'll tell you then, as a personal friend,
She saw what Arkin-saw.
Where has Ora-gone, boys?
She's taking Okla-home, boys.
How did Wiscon-sin, boys?
She stole a New-brass-key, boys.
What did Della-ware, boys?
She wore a New Jersey, boys.
What did Io-weigh, boys?
She weighed a Washing-ton, boys.
Where did Ida-hoe, boys?
She hoed in Merry-land, boys.
What did Missy-sip, boys?
She sipped her Mini-soda, boys.
What did Connie-cut, boys?
She cut her shaggy Mane, boys.
What did Ohi-owe, boys?
She owed her Taxes, boys,
How did Flora-die, boys?
She died of Misery, boys.

ok, ok, that is one big OUCH. have pity on me, i have been unwell ... :-)

y viva espana

although bullfighting continues to be an acceptable 'sport' in spain - viz the current plethora of photos of gored participants in pamplona - news has reached ravaj towers of the granting of legal rights in spain to the ape community.

the times reports:

"In what is thought to be the first time a national legislature has granted such rights to animals, the Spanish parliament’s environmental committee voted to approve resolutions committing the country to the Great Apes Project, designed by scientists and philosophers who say that humans’ closest biological relatives also deserve rights.

The resolution, adopted with crossparty support, calls on the Government to promote the Great Apes Project internationally and ensure the protection of apes from “abuse, torture and death”. “This is a historic moment in the struggle for animal rights,” Pedro Pozas, the Spanish director of the Great Apes Project, told The Times. “It will doubtless be remembered as a key moment in the defence of our evolutionary comrades.”"

the rest of the article is here.

i am quite glad that spanish apes will now have some protection against those humans who mistreat them. cannot help but wish that the same kind of concern be applied to other humans being mistreated by humans. poverty, disease, injustice, prejudice, etc. *sigh*

panda lows and highs

jane macartney reported in the times a couple of weeks ago that 90% of pandas are in jeopardy after the earthquake in china:

"Nearly all of China’s endangered pandas are in jeopardy after the earthquake last month devastated the remote mountain corner that is their last remaining habitat. Already boxed into these steep and thickly forested hillsides by the advance of Man, its numbers limited by a slow rate of reproduction and with its food supply threatened by the scarcity of its favourite arrow bamboo, the panda is now facing its most severe crisis in decades. Chinese officials, usually reluctant to reveal the real extent of a crisis, have announced that the last 1,590 pandas living in the wild face a very uncertain future after the earthquake. Yan Xun, an official at the State Forestry Administration, said: “Their living environment is completely destroyed. Massive landslides and large-scale damage to forests triggered by last month’s earthquake are threatening the existence of wild pandas.”

The fate of the pandas has been a cause of concern since the May 12 earthquake, which cut off access to large swaths of mountainous areas, including China’s largest panda breeding centre in Wolong. One giant panda from the reserve was buried this week after its body was found crushed under the walls of its pen. Another is missing. The other 51 are safe, including 14 cubs that were carried out of the reserve by keepers. The fate of the 1,400 pandas living in the quake-hit regions – about 88 per cent of the total – remains unknown and a source of growing anxiety. The tremor damaged 1.9 million hectares (4.7 million acres), 83 per cent of China’s total panda habitat. The real extent of the damage could be even worse because landslides have blocked roads, preventing officials from assessing some areas. Mr Yan said: “Caves and tree hollows where giant pandas live may be damaged, water in the habitat is polluted, and some of the bamboo is buried or smashed.” He said it was almost certain that the earthquake had claimed more pandas among its victims. “There must have been wild pandas crushed to death during the quake and in the aftershocks. But we do not have the number.” It was still far too dangerous for researchers to venture into these remote mountain areas to try to assess the ravages on a population that had grown in recent years.

Of the 55 protected reserves where wild pandas roam, 49 have been affected by the earthquake. Landslides have toppled whole mountainsides, possibly burying many of the animals. Zhang Zhihe, head of the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, the headquarters of China’s hugely successful campaign to save the panda through artificial insemination, said that he was also anxious that the devastation of the mountain terrain could deprive the wild panda of access to bamboo. He told The Times: “The pandas now cannot make their way between different mountains because of the landslides and so they may not be able to find food.” It has taken China years to create these reserves, linked by corridors along which the pandas can move with the minimum of encroachment by man. Now these corridors will almost certainly have to be recreated. Mr Zhang said: “As a wild animal, the panda has the capacity to survive in the short term. But the danger lies in its longer-term survival with the damage to the ecology.”"

on a positive note, tai shan just turned 3 years old at the national zoo in washington d.c.

bee news

busy bee at wimbledon
what with this bee that was bugging venus, the bee theme in the most recent series of doctor who that was finally revealed to be (sorry) that some of the bees were aliens and their disappearance left a trail that helped the doctor figure out some important plot point, and this reuters report:

"A truck containing 330 crates of bees, about 12 million of them altogether, overturned on a major highway near the town of St Leonard, New Brunswick, in Eastern Canada on Monday, setting free thousands of irritated stinging insects. Police sealed off the vehicle and called for expert help with the millions that were left inside. "Trying to unload 12 million agitated bees out of the back of a truck would not be a good situation," said Derek Strong, a local spokesman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. A team of beekeepers arrived and poured smoke into the truck to calm down the bees, which will be moved later in the day. Police said there was no general danger to the public. "If there's anyone in St Leonard who is allergic to bees, we're recommending they leave town for a couple of hours," Strong told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp."

at least now we know where some of the bees are.

rabbi a. stanley dreyfus z"l

3 generations of rabbis in brooklyn
this picture shows me with my two greatest mentors after my late father. to my left is r. stephen arnold, and in front is r. a. stanley dreyfus. today we are mourning stanley's death. i am finding it hard to accept that i am not fit enough to get to the funeral in brooklyn tomorrow. am finding it hard to accept that i will no longer hear stanley's gentle voice telling me to "be good" at the end of a phonecall. meanwhile, here is a brief overview of his life taken from the union temple website. baruch dayan ha-emet.

"Our esteemed Rabbi Emeritus, Dr. A. Stanley Dreyfus, is one of the luminaries of the American Reform Rabbinate. He hails from Youngstown, OH and received his early Jewish education at Rodef Sholom Temple there. He attended a joint course of study through the University of Cincinnati and the Hebrew Union College, which led to a BA in Classics with High Honors and a Bachelor of Hebrew Letters. He also was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In 1946 he earned a Master of Hebrew Letters degree along with his ordination from Hebrew Union College. Awarded the Heinsheimer Fellowship for graduate sutdy at the College, Rabbi Dreyfus taught Liturgy and served as Director of the Reference Department. Serving as Counsellor to the College’s Interfaith Program, he worked with graduate Christian clergy who were preparing themselves to teach Hebrew, Bible, and Jewish thought in their own seminaries. Rabbi Dreyfus earned a Ph.D. degree from Hebrew Union College in 1951, and twenty years later, the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinty.

Dr. Dreyfus served Congregation Beth El in Beaver Falls, PA from 1946-50, and during the summer of 1949, as visiting minister at West London Synagogue in London, England. Subsequently he served as Rabbi of Congregation B’nai Israel in East Liverpool, OH, United Hebrew Congregation in Terre Haute, IN, and Congregation B’nai Israel in Galveston, TX. In 1965 he was called to the pulpit of Union Temple of Brooklyn, where he served with great distinction until his retirement in 1979, when he became Rabbi Emeritus of the congregation. From 1979-1991, he served as Director of the Rabbinic Placement Commission of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, becoming Emeritus upon his retirement.

From 1975-1979, Dr. Dreyfus chaired the Liturgy Committee of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, helping to compile Gates of Prayer: The New Union Prayerbook; Gates of the House; Gates of Understanding; and Gates of Repentance.

As a member of the Central Conference of American Rabbis since 1946, Dr. Dreyfus has served on the Admissions Committee, the Committee on Patrilinear Descent, the Committee on Homosexuality and the Rabbinate, the Reform Jewish Practice Committee, and the Rabbinic Population Committee. He was a member of the Governing Body of the World Union for Progressive Judaism, the Board of Governors of the New York Board of Rabbis, the Commission on Jewish Chaplaincy of the National Jewish Welfare Board, Chairman of Home Service for the Galveston Red Cross, and Honorary Chairman of the Brooklyn United Hospital Campaign. He was an active member of the Galveston County Biracial Committee and the Human Relations Committee and a number of other organizations devoted to community welfare.

Dr. Dreyfus has served on the faculty of the New York School of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion since 1967. He also served as Chaplain, U.S. Army, from 1953-1955, and as an instructor in the Active Reserve for twenty-one years on the faculty of the Army Chaplain school, attaining the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He was President of the Zacharias Frankel Lodge of B’nai B’rith of Galveston, the Association of Texas Rabbis, the Association of Reform Rabbis of New York, the Brooklyn Board of Rabbis, the Association of Jewish Chaplains of the U.S. Armed Forces, and the National Association of Retired Reform Rabbis. He was co-Chairman of thne Catholic-Jewish Relations Committee of Brooklyn and Queens.

In 1950 Rabbi Dreyfus married Marianne C. Dreyfus, daughter of Ruth and Dr. Hermann L. Berlak of London, and Granddaughter of Rabbi Dr. Leo Baeck. Marianne holds a Master of Science degree in organic chemistry from London University. Their sons are James Nathaniel, M.D., who is married to Rabbi Ellen Weinberg Dreyfus; their children are Benjamin William, Lina Ruth, and David Marcel. Their younger son is Richard Baeck, J.D., married to Helen Bagot Dreyfus. They are the parents of Daniel Bagot and Adam Berlak. Richard died after a long illness on March 12, 2005."

huc press release

the ravaj may be back. a bit.

have been off sick. lots of things i wanted to blog, but did not have enough oxygen to the brain to get it done :-) here are links to some obits that caught my eye:

alexander courage - a composer who was responsible for the theme tune of the original star trek tv series

"“I have to confess to the world that I am not a science-fiction fan,” Courage admitted in an interview eight years ago. “Never have been. I think it’s just marvellous malarkey.” That malarkey, in turn, found something defining in an A-flat for flute that led into a piece born out of optimism and a belief in the progress of mankind. Courage’s Star Trek theme achieved its effects with endearing simplicity and ease. The celebrated “whoosh”, for instance, accompanying the first appearance of the swooping USS Enterprise is a sound that was, in fact, voiced by the composer himself."

will elder - a cartoonist and colleague of jules feiffer and rene goscinny

"Born the youngest of five children to Polish Jews in the Bronx, New York, the slight Wolfgang Eisenberg fended off bullies and garnered popularity by honing his caricaturing skills and playing pranks. Once, when he failed to turn up at school, his teacher found him in the cloakroom, seemingly hanged by the neck, his face pale with chalk dust. At home, he put the blackened soles of his father's shoes on the end of a broomstick to capture footsteps walking across the ceiling. His relatives called him Meshuggah Villy, Yiddish for Crazy Willy."

kermit love - costume designer, and creator of big bird

"Love, who also appeared from time to time on Sesame Street as “Willy the hotdog man”, was not the inspiration for Kermit the Frog — Henson said that he did not adopt Love’s first name for his frog, which had already been so named before Love and Henson began to collaborate."

elizabeth spriggs - actress (and my favourite from the children's programme 'simon and the witch' )

"But the performance which stuck longest in most playgoers' memories came with the whip and riding breeches she sported opposite Donald Sinden in London Assurance. As Lady Gay Spanker in Dion Boucicault's 19th-century comedy in the Restoration style, she addressed her friends and relations as if they were quadrupeds; her acting was a triumph of high comedy."

rest in peace one and all.

rabbi albert h friedlander z"l

today, the 8th of july, is the fourth yahrzeit of my father. there are still so many of us who love him and miss him. while we feel the holes in our lives that once he filled, i am glad that he did not have to suffer the indignities of old age, or endure a slow and painful death. i only have one true regret: it is a shame that he never got to meet his darling grand-daughter, or she him. baruch dayan ha-emet.

nuala o'faolain

here is a transcription of a cutting sent by the mother of the ravaj with the comment "how far the times has come". it is from the past month, but there is no date on it. it is in the 'lives remembered' section:

"nell mccafferty writes: your obituary of nuala o'faolain (may 21) declares that she had a 'lesbian affair' with me and 'romances with men'. please explain how you arrived at the conclusion that love between two women is not romantic and that living together for 15 years, as nuala and i did, is a mere 'affair'.

also, you write that she had 'sexual encounters' with a lorry driver and a jewish lawyer. you do not state if the lorry driver and the lawyer were female or male.

you describe me as being 'a militant journalist from the bogside, the catholic area of the city of londonderry'. what exactly does a militant journalist do - hold a petrol bomb in one hand and a computer mouse in the other?

you say that i was a 'fellow columnist' of nuala's. now there, sir, you have really gone too far. i am no fellow.

nuala was, as we say in gaeilge, 'mo bhean cheile' - the woman of my togetherness, a term that existed in ireland thousands of years before the invention of the institution of marriage, and the later imposition of the english language, which translated it as 'wife'. (i am not trying to start another war here, between sexes or countries. brian friel's play 'translations' will explain all.)

your description of nuala's life has left me quite exhausted, trying to figure out what exactly you were trying to tell readers.

allow me to guide you. did the deceased consider herself or himself beloved? the beloved nuala and i loved each other, for quite some time, in the ordinary way of two people."

interview with marian finucane 1 month before nuala died.
newspaper report on funeral mass

colin murdoch r.i.p.

the telegraph had this to say about the pharmacist from new zealand who patented 46 inventions including a plastic disposable hypodermic syringe, a tranquiliser gun and a silent burglar alarm that alerted the authorities:

"Murdoch won many awards, among them, in 1976, one at the World Inventors' Fair in Brussels for his design of a childproof bottle top. This device required a digital strength and technique that was beyond a child's capabilities. Murdoch never became a rich man. He declined to pursue through the courts those who violated his patents, taking the view that if the products were benefiting humans and animals it would be wrong to sue. "

it's a pity, but the mold may have been broken when this guy was made. o yeah, and he was dyslexic.

read more about him here.

frank blackmore r.i.p.

never heard of the guy until he died. then i found out that he invented mini-roundabouts. the times says:

"Blackmore’s controversial solution, developed at the Government’s Road Research Laboratory (today known as Transport Research Laboratory), was a smaller roundabout with a 2 to 4m-wide mini-island in the middle that minimised the curve for the vehicle driving around it, thus aiding traffic flow. The mini-roundabout was also safer than its large counterpart because drivers tended to approach it with greater caution. The new roundabout, which first appeared in Peterborough in 1969, revolutionised junction design that had up to that point been characterised by large unwieldy roundabouts with huge traffic islands in the middle. Blackmore developed the concept further with the painted traffic island first used at Benfleet, Essex, in 1970. This was “over-runnable” by traffic, making it easier for larger vehicles to manoeuvre the junction."

the rest of the obit is here.

i for one am extremely glad that someone moved beyond the big roundabouts - i failed my driving test the first time i took it because i was not aggressive enough at a honking great roundabout (after that eddie, my instructor, offered me a fiver if i could run over a pigeon. one time i found one someone else had splatted, but eddie had already seen it). i like the mini ones. so thank-you mr. blackmore.

poor old thierry

a picture of sadness - thierry henry cannot believe what just happened to him and his team. he goes and puts france back into the game at 1-2 and within 45 seconds the opponents score again. whatever an english upbringing has taught me about france, e.g., this lovely web page, i still think henry is a great player and cute also. however, since the opponents were my oranje chaps, i was delighted by the final score of 4-1. lest anyone think i am jumping on a bandwagon please note that i know who this is:

birthday greetings ...

... was e-mailing a note to a facebook friend on his birthday to wish him many happy returns of the day, and suddenly wondered what that actually means. i've not heard it here in the states, but it used to be around quite a bit i think when i was growing up in london. anyway, wiki and a couple of other googled sites have this to say:

"Many Happy Returns is a greeting, usually reserved for birthdays. The term itself refers to the passing year. Since the 18th century this has been used as a salutation to offer the hope that a happy day being marked would recur many more times. It is now primarily used on birthdays; prior to the mid 19th century it was used more generally, at any celebratory or festive event.
Current usage is often as a more formal option than 'Happy Birthday'. It is also often to be found on greetings cards.

Its earliest attributable use was by Lady Newdigate in a letter written in 1789 (and published in Newdigate-Newdegate Cheverels in 1898)[1]: "Many happy returns of ye day to us my Dr Love.""

bathroom reading update

nu - i returned from my last visit to london with a fistful of books gleaned from the shelves my mother wishes to decimate. since shelf space is also at a premium in our flat, the tomes are double-stacked right opposite the bathroom door, which makes them handy when reading material is required. so it is that i am currently dipping into poetry. yehuda amichai, t carmi & dan pagis, john betjeman, william blake and the faber book of comic verse. there are also a couple of newish asterix books lying around, and an english translation of struwwelpeter. the israelis are also in translation, although perhaps looking at the original might be more helpful re the bathroom part of bathroom reading. finally, there is a selection of midrashim by my father's old friend hyam maccoby z"l with the lovely title of 'the day god laughed'.

aspiring novelists beware!

while checking a fact for a project I've been working on with the children, i came across the following quote from the author allegra goodman:

"creative-writing teachers are always telling to you to write about what you know, so now we have countless novels that sound like unedited therapy sessions. At some point you have to move beyond that. You have to know more, you have to learn more. If we all wrote about our childhood forever, books would be rather monotonous." (ny times 15th jan, 2006)

well, there goes two-thirds of the novella so far :-)

uncle barack's cabin?

outrage yesterday at this front cover picture from a german paper called 'die tageszeitung'. i found it in the times, here. read the comments for a spectrum of responses!

i have to admit that i am starting to become rather confused. when is it ok to say something and when not? who may say it and who may not? what counts as satirical, and when am i allowed to laugh?

i have not written about the end of hillary's campaign - too many others have already covered the plusses and minuses. i am very disappointed. i also listened to her speech and am following her wishes to transfer my support to the chosen democratic candidate. thus i now support senator obama. this means that i have to worry about fist-bumping, and possible videos of mrs o saying something politically incorrect, and other incredibly minutial occurrences that will be blown up into vote-denying importance.

meanwhile, the quest to find believable information continues.

the ainu of northern japan

the last of my bear-related posts for the morning: after 140 years of repression, the ainu, original inhabitants of hokkaido island, are to be officially recognised by the japanese parliament as an indigineous people. the telegraph reports:

"The Ainu are one of Japan's most marginalised groups. Government estimates put the number of people with half or more Ainu ancestry at around 50,000. The century-long repression of the Ainu has all but rendered their dialect extinct. The cultural differences are also significantly at odds with mainland Japanese culture. Ainu men preferring full beards and long hair and women tattoo around their mouths for decoration. Traditional clothing is made from tree bark and the Ainu are animists – believing that everything in their rugged homeland contains a spirit. They worshipped natural landmarks and animals, especially bears."

the rest of the article is here.

paddington bear falls foul of immigration

michael bond has written a new book: "paddington here and now". in it, paddington has to deal with issues of the modern world, e.g., being an undocumented alien. the bbc reports:

"Bond, 83, told BBC World Service's The World Today programme that Paddington's roots - and his new life in London - had always been the essence of his character, and that he wanted to make it the heart of the new book. "Refugees are very much on people's minds and in the newspapers," he said, adding that his creation was partly based on his seeing evacuees from London with labels round their neck. "It always stuck with me, because I thought it was a very sad sight," he added. "Equally, going to the cinema in those days, one saw so many pictures of uprooted families - that kind of thing is still with us, and I think it's very sad.""

the rest of the article is here.

skidooooosh!

as a first step back into the outside world, the ravaj accompanied her friends lily and eli to the cinematic performance of 'kung fu panda'. apart from the fact that she never wanted to leave the movie theatre ever again for the summer because of the wonderfully meat-freezer level of a/c within, she also has to admit that she really rather enjoyed the film. not a big contemporary cartoon fan (except maybe for 'dexter's laboratory'), she was delighted to see that this was quite beautifully drawn. the characters were ok - the scenery and backgrounds were stunning. and the panda ends up as a proper hero, so we all lived happily ever after for the rest of the day.

ps the image above is of a kung fu panda cake made specially for the hollywood opening of the movie. i include it because of the random connection that the guy who made it is the son of a woman who was married to her first husband by my friend r. steve!

hup holland!

wesley sneijder scores a stunning second goal
and the ravaj is back. a week or so of medical issues, and much personal experience of the variety of testing methods currently available to the medical community, and at last it is once again possible to post.

we begin with the european championships that do not include a british team. the ravaj has had a soft spot for the netherlands since the early seventies era of cruyff, rep, neeskens et al. she has thus chosen to follow them this year, and they began with a stunning 3-0 defeat of italy in the so-called group of death. it would have been even more exciting if she had managed to remain awake during the live presentation on espn but, alas, this was not to be.

these championships are played every four years. that means that it was almost exactly 4 years ago that the father of ravaj died. as you may recall, the last words she ever heard him say were: "the greeks have won!" since he was watching the final while she was talking to her mother on the phone. *sigh*

j.r.simplot r.i.p.

mister simplot was definitely not one of the world's nicest men. he fell foul of the law a couple of times for tax fraud and manipulating the stock market. i must, however, note his passing, for this man was known as the spud king of america. as you may or may not know, my grandmother's grandmother was from minsk - the potato capital of all the russias. i have a genetic love for this tuber. yahoo states in its obituary that:

"He all but invented the first commercially viable frozen french fries in the world."

actually, i am not sure whether to laud him or blame him :-)

more schadenfreude

a winning entry from the grauniad photoshopping blog brought a smile to my face and energy to my recovery :-)

from peter brookes, a british political cartoonist

it is often strange to be an american with a european upbringing living in the usa , or maybe it just makes it easier to hate myself. seeing the way the current political situation is portrayed is both depressing and amusing. o well, at least this inspired me to look up some robert burns poetry:

O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!

the end of to a louse.

a deodorant by any other name will smell

unilever wants to make more money, pots more money, so the company has decided to try and make 3 billion asians feel self-conscious about the way they smell. omg. this story in the times has got me spitting (unlisterined spit i should mention) spitting mad.

"Russell Taylor, global vice-president for Axe, the Unilever-made deodorant marketed as Lynx in Britain, said that no one had yet found a way of making Asians self-conscious about body odour. “Asia is a market we have never really cracked. They don’t think they smell, but people everywhere smell,” he said. He said that the region was a billion-pound opportunity – “the last empty space on the map”. He estimated that only 7 per cent of Asians used a deodorant, with consumption in India virtually nil, and his team is dreaming up advertisements that will induce shame about sweat stains and odour across the region."

and the shareholders looooooove russell taylor. i suppose in a capitalist world these guys are free to have a shot, and we consumers are free to say no. yeah, right. the article refers to the russian market:

"“Attracting a man is fundamental to Russian women so we told them, ‘If you don’t use a deodorant, you won’t look beautiful’,” Mr Taylor said. Unilever also tapped into the competitive spirit of Russian women in PR campaigns, which pointed out how little deodorant Russians used compared with their neighbours in Eastern Europe. “They took even more offence when they were told they used less than British women.”"

excuse me please, i need to go find a bucket ...

just like everyone else

from the scandalmongering pages of the mail on sunday come the latest "details" of jodie foster's breakup with her partner cydney. the mail claims that jodie has fallen for the soon-to-be-ex partner of melanie mayron (the cute jewish photographer from 'thirtysomething' with the unfortunate sartorial penchant for braces (us translation: suspenders)), cindy mort:

"‘It’s not easy to be dumped for the most famous lesbian in Hollywood. It is the biggest lesbian love scandal to grip this town in years.’"

*sigh*

lunchbreak at the building site

... or pandas rescued from the wolong reserve take time out for a bit of a snack. guess who has been checking out the bbc pictures of the day?!

german bees

not that i wish to bee boring, but news just in from germany that the bee population there has dropped by 25%. is anybody listening?

what's that? a yankees win?!

darrell rasner pitches against the orioles
in last place, and seven and one half games behind the dread red sox, the yankees haven't had a very good may. as always, it is the pitching that seems to be the problem, although a lack of run support may also have something to do with it. however, a-rod is back, and the lesser-known mr. rasner is now 3-0 with this shut-out. a day of sporting cheer for the ravaj!

joba preserves the shutout

ultimate schadenfreude

poor old john terry slipped as he took his penalty
cannot help it. my reaction to manure's european cup final win on penalties with drogba being sent off as well just proves how shallow i am. the scummers lost and i, along with all my qpr friends, am ecstatic. football transcends reason once again.

pics of panda rescue

some of the devastation near the wolong reserve
the pandas were terrified and had to be coaxed down
most of them were saved - only 3 reported missing

being sad

so i talked to my rav the other day. the rav of ravaj put it to me straight. people you love die, and it hurts like hell, and you keep going. why? because that's what you do. it is all you can do. and you do it again the next time. and again. and again and again.

in the middle of all this, i watch a doctor who episode about agatha christie and an alien lifeform and rather enjoy it; i buy some packs of baseball cards and pick out the red sox ones to trade with the 3rd graders for their yankees rejects; i eat mango someone else (or a machine) has peeled and sliced; i play scramble on facebook and i listen to a novelty record by david bowie ('the laughing gnome'). and now and then i cry.

it has ceased to be

the dead parrot that john cleese tried to return to the pet shop turns out to have really existed. a fossil expert in norfolk, england, has discovered evidence that parrots lived in scandinavia 55 million years ago. read about it here.

"Michael Palin was amused when told about the discovery, saying: “All I can say is that it just shows that nothing is original.”"

pandas can anticipate earthquakes?

the ny times reported yesterday that the pandas in the wolong nature reserve in chengdu "were agitated and pacing" just before the earthquake. so far it would appear that while the human toll is utterly horrific - over 50,000 deaths currently estimated - no dead pandas have been found. the story of the escape of both humans and pandas is recorded in the article. *sigh*

an introduction to janis ian

janis ian last night in concord mass
at one point janis said that sometimes she wonders why she is not more famous, like joan baez. all i can say is thank goodness she is nothing like joan baez (you may remember i have a particular dislike for this woman based on her effing and blinding me in front of a packed hammersmith odeon). janis has a great sense of humour, and sang gentle and beautiful folkie songs plus a cool cover of 'love me do' by the beatles. this was my first exposure to any of her music except for the famous song ('at 17') and i had a very pleasant evening. i did not fall madly in love with her like my dear friend lg, but i am also in a bit of an emotional limbo right now as i come to terms with the loss of janet. i did notice that i was probably one of the youngest people there, which was utterly strange.

a plaque

my dear departed father now has a plaque on the door of the leo baeck college library at the sternberg centre in london. it was affixed earlier this week, and the mother of ravaj was there to observe the affixation. hurrah.

ps after consultation with the mother of, i have learned that the plaque is not on a door but rather the end of a stack of bookshelves within the library. it is a custom of the college so to do.

janet kohen r.i.p.

the marx sisters, purim 2003
many times i have blogged obituaries of interesting women about whom i had never previously heard. today i write with tears dripping all over my keyboard about an amazing woman that i knew well. she only died today, and the funeral will be tomorrow, so this will not be an obituary. i just wanted, ok, needed to say out loud that my friend janet was a mensch, and the world is poorer for her departure. later i might share stories of her strength and her kindness. today i mourn wife, parent, grandparent and dear dear friend. tomorrow we bury the vessel that was her body. may her soul be enfolded by the wings of shechinah.

rabbi albert h friedlander z"l

ahf by kitaj
yesterday, hrhg would have been 81 years old. this is a drawing kitaj tore out of his notebook (and apparently he did not usually do that). it is in the hall to the left of the front door, so it is one of the first and last things one sees upon entering or leaving the flat. *sigh*

manure on top

cristiano ronaldo puts utd in the lead vs wigan
in the end, the title goes to manchester, and i have to admit that the pics of the grieving chelski fans broadcast on sky alongside the triumph at the jjb stadium were quite enjoyable. schadenfreude got the better of me!

a weepie for you

ok the presentation by sportscenter is full of schmaltz, but the story is worth suffering the oil. tip o' the keyboard to ms snarker for posting this vid and story about the soul of sport. a young woman hits her first-ever home run, and tears her acl running the bases. the umpire rules none of her team may touch her, and if a sub goes in then the home run becomes a single. nu - two players from the opposing team pick her up and carry her round the bases so she will get her homer. brought at least three tears to my left eye. watch it. go on, watch it and weep :-)

to be or not to be

yes a cultural reference but not to the famous soliloquy from hamlet but rather to my all-time-ever-most-thoroughly favourite movie starring jack benny and carole lombard as poland's greatest shakespearean actors. my thoughts were drawn to it just now because of a reference by dick cavett in his latest ny times column:

"Or maybe you know and revere as I do the classic Jack Benny/Carole Lombard/Ernst Lubitsch comedy “To Be or Not to Be.” (If you’ve never seen it, first things first: forget reading this and rent it.) I chose it as one of my all-time favorite films when it was my night to do so on Turner Classic Movies, getting to sit alongside the all-knowing and distinguished Robert Osborne."

wiki notes: "The film flopped upon its release, mainly because the American audience of the time was shocked at what they perceived as a film poking fun at the Nazis' 1939 invasion of Poland. They were especially offended by Colonel Earhardt's line: "Oh, yes I saw him [Tura] in 'Hamlet' once. What he did to Shakespeare we are now doing to Poland"."

do not, i repeat, DO NOT be fooled into watching mel brooks' remake. ok, the first scene where he and anne bancroft sing 'sweet georgia brown' in polish is passable. after that, however, it is a travesty of my beloved lubitsch creation. it's like he was trying to do 'springtime for hitler' all over again, and it does not work. i do not know how many times i have said this (worrying i blogged this a couple of years ago and am repeating myself). mel has made lots of lovely films. this is not one of them. listen to dick cavett. and listen to me!

the asteroid of wrath

from the times at the end of march:

"A clay tablet that has baffled scientists for 150 years has been identified as a witness’s account of the asteroid suspected of being behind the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Researchers who cracked the cuneiform symbols on the Planisphere tablet believe that it recorded an asteroid thought to have been more than half a mile across. The tablet, found by Henry Layard in the remains of the library in the royal place at Nineveh in the mid-19th century, is thought to be a 700BC copy of notes made by a Sumerian astronomer watching the night sky. He referred to the asteroid as “white stone bowl approaching” and recorded it as it “vigorously swept along”.

Using computers to recreate the night sky thousands of years ago, scientists have pinpointed his sighting to shortly before dawn on June 29 in the year 3123BC. About half the symbols on the tablet have survived and half of those refer to the asteroid. The other symbols record the positions of clouds and constellations. In the past 150 years scientists have made five unsuccessful attempts to translate the tablet.

Mark Hempsell, one of the researchers from Bristol University who cracked the tablet’s code, said: “It’s a wonderful piece of observation, an absolutely perfect piece of science.” He said the size and route of the asteroid meant that it was likely to have crashed into the Austrian Alps at Köfels. As it travelled close to the ground it would have left a trail of destruction from supersonic shock waves and then slammed into the Earth with a cataclysmic impact. Debris consisting of up to two thirds of the asteroid would have been hurled back along its route and a flash reaching temperatures of 400C (752F) would have been created, killing anyone in its path. About one million sq km (386,000 sq miles) would have been devastated and the impact would have been equivalent to more than 1,000 tonnes of TNT exploding.

Dr Hempsall said that at least 20 ancient myths record devastation of the type and on the scale of the asteroid’s impact, including the Old Testament tale of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Ancient Greek myth of how Phaeton, son of Helios, fell into the River Eridanus after losing control of his father’s sun chariot. The findings of Dr Hempsall and Alan Bond, of Reaction Engines Ltd, are published in a book, A Sumerian Observation of the Köfels’ Impact Event. The researchers say that the asteroid’s impact would explain why at Köfels there is evidence of an ancient landslide 5km wide and 500m thick.

Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of Heaven; and he overthrew those cities and all the valley, and all the inhabitants of the cities . . . [Abraham] looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah and toward all the land of the valley, and beheld, and lo, the smoke of the land went up like the smoke of a furnace.

Source: Genesis 19:24-28"

how does it make me feel when another scientific proof is discovered for an event previously considered by many to be an act of god? i certainly have no great need to know for sure whether it is one or the other. i also have no interest in a war between science and religion - for me they may co-exist peacefully. i do think it is kind of cool that people today have managed to crack a code of cuneiform symbols and understand a message from the past. kind of like someone in the year 5008 figuring out what a txt msj mns. or not.

cecilia colledge r.i.p.

for those of us who are ice-skating fans, i'd just like to note the passing of cecilia colledge. i'd never heard of her until reading her obit in the telegraph. it tells us:

"Cecilia Colledge, who died in Massachusetts on April 12 aged 87, was one of the finest exponents of British figure skating. She was world champion in 1937, British champion on five occasions (1935, 1936, 1937, 1938 and 1946) and thrice European champion (1937 to 1939 inclusive). She is credited with inventing the camel and layback spins, and the one-foot axel jump, to which she gave her name. She was also the first woman to execute a double salchow, when she performed it at the European championships in Berlin in 1936"

so would that axel jump be called the colledge or the cecilia?

could it bee?

am catching up on the latest season of doctor who. in two separate episodes now donna has mentioned the disappearance on earth of the bees. am wondering if this is a hint for a future episode.

o i do enjoy doctor who. and torchwood. maybe torchwood a little more because there are more welsh accents and of course eve myles. i do not watch much tv these days, but these are two programmes to which i always look forward.

nu - as my thesis professor doctor d. always says - bee good.

happy 60th birthday israel!

yesterday we observed yom hazikaron, and remembered all those who have died in order to preserve our right to a country of our own. today we celebrate the birthday of that country. i will not contradict any arguments that mistakes have been made along the way, by all parties concerned. i have, however, come to realise that i will not abandon the beliefs that israel has a right to exist; and that no matter what happens elsewhere in the world, there is one country to which jews may always return.

poor old gordon brown

why is it that nice, decent, kind intelligent people find it so hard to succeed in leadership positions in the modern western world? in the us reform rabbinate, it has finally been realised that it is almost impossible to succeed in a post immediately following a charismatic leader, and now they try to place temporary rabbis to bridge the gap. poor old gordon brown just jumped right in there. and now look at how things are :-( i feel rather sorry for him.

avram at auschwitz

grant and his family observe yom ha-shoah
a story in the telegraph by yakov ziv lifted from ma'ariv attempts to balance the continuing media attacks on avram grant and his personality and abilities. while i believe ma'ariv printed it in the context of yom ha-shoah, the telegraph seems to be offering it up as another perspective in the continual comparisons with jose 'the special one' mourinho:

"Avram Grant is a totally different person to the one portrayed in the media. To see him as the opposite to Jose Mourinho is a big mistake. He knows as much about football as his glamorous Portuguese counterpart but he also knows how to make allies of people. On the surface he looks dull, unimaginative, sour, grim - seemingly the most worried man on earth. But to see him back in Israel is to see a different man. He likes laughing, he likes good humour, he likes the good life. But don't underestimate his ambition. For an Israeli football manager to be leading Chelsea is like walking on the moon or finding a new planet. To understand his determination one has to understand his family's background. His 80-year-old father, Meir, is a Holocaust survivor and his whole life has been influenced by the horrific experiences his father suffered during the Nazi Holocaust."

either way, i am still in conflict about for whom i am rooting. while grant has already done more than his predecessor in europe, calls for his head do not stop ringing. it will be an interesting european cup final to watch! i'd better have a good supply of baby aspirin on standby in case my heart gets too excited.

puh-leez (part 43)

recently from the bbc:

"Lesbos islanders dispute gay name
By Malcolm Brabant

Campaigners on the Greek island of Lesbos are to go to court in an attempt to stop a gay rights organisation from using the term "lesbian". The islanders say that if they are successful they may then start to fight the word lesbian internationally. The issue boils down to who has the right to call themselves Lesbians. Is it gay women, or the 100,000 people living on Greece's third biggest island - plus another 250,000 expatriates who originate from Lesbos?

The man spearheading the case, publisher Dimitris Lambrou, claims that international dominance of the word in its sexual context violates the human rights of the islanders, and disgraces them around the world. He says it causes daily problems to the social life of Lesbos's inhabitants. In court papers, the plaintiffs allege that the Greek government is so embarrassed by the term Lesbian that it has been forced to rename the island after its capital, Mytilini. An early court date has now been set for judges to decide whether to grant an injunction against the Homosexual and Lesbian Community of Greece and to order it to change its name. A spokeswoman for the group has described the case as a groundless violation of freedom of expression, and has pledged to fight it.

The term lesbian originated from a mythological goddess and poet called Sappho, who was a native of Lesbos. Sappho expressed her love of other women in poetry written during the 7th Century BC. But according to Mr Lambrou, new historical research has discovered that Sappho had a family, and committed suicide for the love of a man. "

not v. articulate at the moment but my most intelligent response to this especially the last part is yeah, right. don't these people have something else to do with this energy? i hear the nation of myanmar could do with some help ...

diana barnato walker r.i.p.

the story of another incredible woman - diana barnato walker was the first woman to break the sound barrier. the telegraph obit is one of the finer ones, containing many amusing and impressive vignettes. my favourites include:

"she described an occasion when, delivering a Spitfire, she decided to try some aerobatics but got stuck upside down: “While I was wondering what to do next, from out of my top overall pocket fell my beautifully engraved silver powder compact. It wheeled round and round the bubble canopy like a drunken sailor on a wall of death, then sent all the face powder over everything.”"

"The two girls were brought up by their mother and an army of nannies and governesses in a large house on Primrose Hill, but often went to stay with their father, who indulged them by allowing them to stay up late for dinner. Once Diana was placed next to Dudley “Benjy” Benjafield, the 1927 winner of Le Mans with SCH “Sammy” Davis. Noticing that her neighbour was nodding off into his soup, Diana politely tapped his bald head with her spoon. Later he presented her with a fine cashmere scarf for “saving” him from drowning."

"One evening in 1963 in the mess at RAF Middleton St George, the Wing Commander Flying, John Severgne, idly suggested that Diana might like to fly one of the RAF’s new supersonic Lightnings. She jumped at the chance and on August 26 1963, following clearance from the Ministry of Defence, she took off and reached a speed of Mach 1.65 (1,262 mph), making her the first woman to break the sound barrier."

another amazing aviatrix - may she rest in peace!

grauniad obit

the season is over

rowly sees red
the season is over and the game was pretty much over after rowly was sent off for a clumsy tackle that may have deserved a booking but not a sending off. game over. season over. roll on august!

gazza gives his all

fanfare flop

the new club crest
after all the build-up over the past week about how this is the start of a new era, with the wildest rumour being that zinedine zidane would be revealed as the new qpr manager, it turned out to be only the introduction of a new club crest. *sigh* and in typical qpr fashion, when flavio made the announcement from the pitch, the awful tannoy system failed him. someone is going to find a horse's head in their bed tonight. finally, poor old zesh rainman is the core of our defence today, against a team about to win the league and move up to the premiership. am not very optimistic.

ps on the qpr listserve, mention has been made of how it is not difficult to look at this logo and see fallopian tubes and ovaries

news from my uterus

did i miss the semester when we learned about the changes in female bodies throughout our lives? for an educated woman, i am embarrassingly ignorant about such things, although being nulliparous i see no need to ever learn what an episiotomy is.

warning: if you are squeamish now may be a good time to leave this blog and check out something milder. a panda cam, perhaps, or a nice game of boomshine.

still with me? ok. so recently i've had a bit of trouble with menorrhagia (aren't medical terms useful for distancing oneself from the messy facts?). look it up (i did). the ob/gyn i was originally scheduled to see is called dr. courbain. pronounced 'korban'. which is hebrew for 'sacrifice'. sadly she was not available the day they rushed me into the office. instead i got the divine dr b.p. i usually get a bit anxious in the stirrups, but dr. b.p. was magnificent. he is a gay ex-mormon with a degree in modern german lit. thus it was that i calmed down as we sang together in german the 'kanonen song' from 'the threepenny opera'. he then gave me a first-hand account of the special underwear that mormons wear and before i knew it the exam was over. surreal.

the gist of it was that the spectrum of possibilities ran from hormonal issues, e.g., perimenopause; through polyps and cysts and suchlike, to endometrial cancer which is 96% curable and relatively rare. cancer is a horrible word. at that moment, perimenopause seemed somehow worse. "WHAT?" I exclaimed. it is hard to accept that i am waaaaay old enough for something like that.

on the way home i saw a car with a bumper sticker that said "crone" on it and thought i might have to get one for myself.

nu. the next step was an ultrasound. that was yesterday's exciting adventure. imagine the situation: a waiting room in brookline, mass. it is full of women, who are full of the 40 oz of water they have drunk in preparation for this visit. There is a door right by reception that says 'restroom'. the toilets in most doctors' offices are nowhere near the waiting room. there is a water fountain next to the restroom. the heating is up, and there is not even an ancient bridal magazine lying around for distraction. they are running about half an hour late. there is two-hour parking on the street. we are waiting. we cannot pee. we must wait. the sense of urgency makes it quite hard to be polite.

when i go to reception, they tell me that my appointment is tomorrow. i say o no it isn't. the computer says yes it is. i say o no it isn't. they are magnanimous and say i can wait and they will fit me in. i go back to my seat full of magnanimosity. and 40 oz of water.

30 minutes later, i go back to the desk and ask, please, just give me an idea how long i need to hold on. the nurse tells me that if i am uncomfortable, "you may release". but what about the examination? she tells me she will give me some more water. if that is how it works, then why have i been drinking all bloody morning, eh? although this is new england, so i didn't say 'bloody'. or anything else. i just went back to my seat.

eventually i was called, and prepped, and in came the doctor. he probed, and we looked at the pictures on the screen. he seemed to find them quite interesting. i thought it looked like snow on a television, but i found that interesting also. i could see a smiling face, and the outline of a cartoon donkey.

the news was that there is a fibroid. good to know. the doc took lots of pretty pics which will be sent back to dr. b.p. i called my friend lldoc who explained that a fibroid is made of muscle. what i want to know is how i ended up with muscle in my uterus instead of my biceps or calves where it belongs? as slb said, did it get lost?

meanwhile, as if i have just joined a new club, older women are now sharing with me many stories of their experiences at this particular time of life. this seems to be the welcoming ritual. and thus endeth the news from lake womb-begone.

another cutie patootie

the niece of ravaj last october (the spitting image of her mother at that age). edible, eh?

tyburn piglet

this sign, marking a shortcut for double-decker buses around marble arch from park lane, is all that is left of tyburn, which was for centuries the main location for the execution of london criminals. they were hanged upon the tyburn tree. piglet has suspended himself, temporarily, so we may memorialise the spot.

black and white and royal blue

avram grant celebrates
what do you do when two of your core beliefs collide? on the one hand, as a lifelong 'r's fan, there is an all-encompassing hatred of all things chelski. on the other hand, there is an all-encompassing desire to fight antisemitism wherever it rears its ugly head. this photograph is the place where they clash. avram grant is having a terrible time as the manager of chelski. statistically he is doing better than his predecessor, yet he is constantly vilified. he receives hate-mail for being a jew. so i want him to triumph over the buggers that taunt him. but the team that he serves, o the team that he serves is the chelski. today they beat man u. i am in conflict with myself.

norwich 3-0 qpr

here is the incident that changed the game - a norwich player is brought down in a professional foul on the edge of the penalty box. someone must pay for this crime! the referee makes a decision: it shall be damion who is red-carded.

the thing is, looking at the first picture again, it would seem that the goalie is the one at fault. obviously a case of mistaken identity. as for the match - it didn't really count, so it didn't really matter. except it counted for people like the sister of ravaj, who spent good money to take the train to norwich and buy a ticket. so boo for losing qpr, especially since my akos wasn't even on the bench this afternoon!

spring piglet

endlich, finally, at last it seems as if the time of the ice and snow and cetera is past and the daffodils rule. they certainly rule in the flat of the mother of ravaj, especially since marks and spencer have had a special on them recently. piglet also found a lovely little enclave just next to the arch of marble that joins park lane, edgware road and oxford street.

a london vignette

driving back from the very far east of london, we found ourselves behind this van on the embankment, and i was rather amused by the name on the van and the name of the business. or maybe it was just the general joy of being by the river and it spilled over ... maybe.

o akos, my akos (live)

risking the affection of my dear mother in the hours before the seder was to begin, i set out early to loftus road for the express purpose of righting a wrong from my last trip when i let akos walk by without asking him for a picture. this time, as you see, i highlight his elegance with my jet-lagged hair.

akos was named as a substitute for this game against charlton (i'll save you the suspense - we won 1-0. hurrah.). thus it was that i tested the limits of my lumix digital camera with regard to action photos:


sadly, although he was brought on as a sub in the second half, we were attacking the school end, i.e., far away from me, and with the skies beginning to darken i was unable to take any pics of the boy in action.

noam says akos is her boyfriend. i acknowledge that i cannot argue with that. it does not, however, detract from the chaste love that i have for this player. he is doing well enough that rumours abound re his imminent departure to a more successful club. say it ain't so, ako (s)

ok, i have to stop this because jetlag will not be a good enough excuse :-)

bad carma

look at this. this was a car parked in a brandeis lot this morning. parking is at a premium, and look what s/he did.

my question is - howcome i was the one to get a parking ticket?

no to a google account!

no no no no no no no no NO!

i hate being forced into making these kinds of changes. don't want a google account. don't need one. leave me alone!

you can tell ravaj needs a break. well, this time tomorrow she will be uncomfortably ensconced on the sofa bed in her mother's flat in london and looking forward to seder.

chag sameach to all of you who will be celebrating a chag this weekend!