Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Oh, go ahead and laugh

"Hi. This is Sarah Palin. Is Senator Lieberman in?"

"No, governor. This is Yom Kippur."


"Well, Yom. Can I leave a message?"



Saturday, November 27, 2010

Thankfully Thanksgiving

Traditionally my mother or Aunt Judy hosted Thanksgiving - until the year my son was born. He was born December 1st. That year my wife said "no" to attending Thanksgiving away from home. She knew she would not be able to sprawl out and be comfortable (in only the way a very pregnant woman needs to do) if she weren't at home. So that year the family came to us. My mom, dad, my mother-in-law and . . . well, I don't remember who else was there. The tradition never left our home. And over time the guest list changed. When it was at my mom's the attendees were exclusively from "our" side of the family. Now our guest list is built around a foundation of central cast members and other guests. This year, for the second year in a row, our dear friends Steve & Ellen joined us with their two kids. They are the friends that you can go years without seeing and upon getting together you pick up as if you saw each other just yesterday. This year, for the first time in six years, my sister-in-law, her husband and their three kids joined us. It was great to see the five cousins hang out together. My kids are 15 and 14, their kids are 9, 8 and 5. The seedlings for future traditions taking root. This year as we were about to say Grace I looked around the table. Uniquely I was overwhelmed with a feeling of thankfulness for each guest at our table . . . Bruce & Mary: Mary is a lifelong school friend of my wife's. Bruce has become a treasured friend of mine. Whenever we get together I have a sense of calm. They share with us life lessons and warning signs for what's ahead (their 3 kids are a older than ours). This past summer they gave us their summer home for a very much needed vacation which we couldn't otherwise have afforded. Andi & Howard: For the past couple of years Howard was on dialysis. He fought hard to stay alive. Andi was supporting him in every way possible. Through their hard work and tenacity Howard found a private donor recently and is now well on his way to a healthy and much longer life. Carole (Howards' mom). She is unique and she is a lesson in how small the world really is. She is a dear friend of my former bosses mother and has known him most of his life. She is also the long time neighbor of my colleagues parents and watched him grow up too. She is also a phenomenal baker and brings the most delicious of desserts!  Alan, Andi's brother, comes in from California every year. He's a lesson to my kids about making time for family. Aunt Judy and Uncle Lou - while they don't host Thanksgiving they do make the meal possible. Judy brings bags of side dishes and Uncle Lou is the master carver of our turkeys. After the meal Judy reigns in the disaster of a kitchen so that by the time she leaves we can once again see the sink. Missing from our table is my brother and sister. For each their own reasons they do not join us - ever. Every year my mom wonders out loud if they will join us "this year". In a few days my son turns 16. In a couple of years he's off to college. My daughter is just a year behind him. As I looked at them, next to my wife, I realized that all and everything that I am thankful for was within arms reach. And this year I had a silent prayer, a prayer with the sincerity like no other, a prayer of hope and passion. That our children, and their spouse and families, are always at our Thanksgiving table.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

It's A Trick I Tell You!

Yesterday I received an email from our Rabbi. A benefactor had donated 4 tickets to the White Sox game including parking. Wow! The game is on a Friday evening. The Rabbi asked me if I'd like to use the tickets.

Of course I responded that there is absolutely NO WAY that I would EVER consider missing services or the ALWAYS riveting sermon!

The truth . . . my son has a football game that afternoon and we wouldn't be able to make it to the Sox game in time. ;)

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Screwed by 545

How our current political debacle came to be . . .

Charley Reese is a former journalist for 49 years including at Orlando Sentinel Newspaper. Over the years he has revised an article he originally wrote in the 1980's. This version below ran March 7, 1985.

26 years later we, the voters, continue to fail.

Charley Reese wrote:
Politicians, as I have often said, are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Everything is a problem created by Congress.

Too much bureaucracy? Blame Congress.

Too many rules? Blame Congress.

Unjust tax laws? Congress wrote them.

Out-of-control bureaucracy? Congress authorizes everything bureaucracies do.

The annual deficits? Congress votes for them.

The multi-trillion plus debt? Congress created it.

To put it into perspective just remember that 100 percent of the power of the federal government comes from the U.S. Constitution. If it's not in the Constitution, it's not authorized.

Then read your Constitution. 100 percent of the power of the federal government is invested solely in 545 individual human beings. That's all. They wield 100 percent of the power of the federal government.

That's 435 members of the U.S. House, 100 senators, one president and nine Supreme Court justices. Anything involving government that is wrong is 100 percent their fault.

I exclude the vice president because constitutionally he has no power except to preside over the Senate and to vote only in the case of a tie. I exclude the Federal Reserve because Congress created it and all its power is power Congress delegated to it and could withdraw anytime it chooses to do so. In fact, all the power exercised by the 3 million or so other federal employees is power delegated from the 545.

All bureaucracies are created by Congress or by executive order of the president. All are financed and staffed by Congress. All enforce laws passed by Congress. All operate under procedures authorized by Congress. That's why all complaints and protests should be properly directed at Congress, not at the individual agencies.

You don't like the IRS? Go see Congress.

Congress is the originator of all government problems and is also the only remedy available. That's why, politicians go to extraordinary lengths to make you think they are not responsible. Anytime a congressman pretends to be outraged by something a federal bureaucrat does, he is in fact engaging in one big massive con job. Federal employee can only enforce laws and procedures passed by Congress.

Partisans on both sides like to blame presidents for deficits, but all deficits are created by congress. The president may, by custom, recommend a budget, but it carries no legal weight. Only Congress can authorize and appropriate and levy taxes. That's what the federal budget consists of: expenditures authorized, funds appropriated and taxes levied.

Both Democrats and Republicans mislead the public. Throughout the years each party has held the majority, if they choose, the could have passed a balanced budget. Every president, Democrat or Republican, could have vetoed appropriations bills that did not make up a balanced budget.

Every president can recommended a balanced budget.

(Remember - Congress is who approves the budget.)  We have annual deficits and a huge federal debt because that's what Congress wants.

We have troops in various Third World rat holes because Congress and the president want them there.

Don't be conned. Don't let them escape responsibility. Use the only power you have - vote!

Source: snopes.com

Monday, September 20, 2010

Wet Pants

A nine-year-old is sitting at his desk and all of a sudden, there is a puddle between his feet and the front of his pants are wet. This has never happened before. When he is discovered he will never hear the end of it from his classmates. 

The boy believes his heart is going to stop; he puts his head down and prays, 'This is an emergency! I need help now!"
 
He looks up and sees the teacher coming, the look in her eyes conveys he has been discovered.
 
As the teacher is walking toward him, a classmate named Susie is carrying a goldfish bowl that is filled with water. Susie trips in front of the teacher and inexplicably dumps the bowl of water in the boy's lap.
 
The boy pretends to be angry, but says to himself, "Thank you!"
 
Now, instead of being the object of ridicule, the boy is the object of sympathy. He goes to his gym locker and puts on shorts while his pants dry out. The other children help clean up around his desk. 

The sympathy is wonderful . . . but the ridicule that would have been his has been transferred to someone else. Susie.
 
She tries to help, but is told to get out. "You've done enough, you klutz!'
 
At the end of the day the boy walks over to Susie and whispers, "You did that on purpose, didn't you?" 
Susie whispers back, "I wet my pants once too . . ."

May your Faith give you the empathy and courage to realize opportunities to do Gods works.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Humor - Lessons in Life

Sometimes, we try too hard to get to the "greener grass"

In the process, we end up in trouble



And when you find yourself in trouble and stuck in a situation you can't get out of, remember one thing . . . 

Not everyone who shows up . . .
is there to help you!




Thursday, September 16, 2010

BATY - Food Pantry Sorting

My son's youth group is donating their time to sort through thousands of donated can food items for our congregations food pantry. This is the flyer we created to build awareness and seek volunteers to help. I hope his group is successful. There sure are a lot of families in need.

BATY - Food Pantry Sorting

Humor - Man & Wife

A couple was in a terrible accident where the man's face was severely burned. The doctor told him that they couldn't graft any skin from his body because he was too skinny. So his wife offered to donate some of her own skin. However, the only skin on her body that was suitable would have to come from her buttocks.

They agreed that they would tell no one about where the skin came from. After the surgery was completed, everyone was astounded at the man's new face.

He looked more handsome than he ever had before! All his friends and relatives just went on and on about his youthful beauty!

One day, he was alone with his wife, and he was overcome with emotion at her sacrifice. He said, Dear, I just want to thank you for everything you did for me.

How can I possibly repay you?

My darling, she replied, I get all the thanks I need every time I see your mother kiss you on the cheek.

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

BATY - Youth Lounge 092110

 
Posted by Picasa

My son is the VP of Publicity for his youth group. We are having fun working together and creating PR pieces for promotion within the group and for the congregation.

BATY Yom Kippur Food Drive

 
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Friday, September 10, 2010

Humor - Father & Son

Two sharks come upon a group of people swimming . . .

"Follow me, Son!" the Father Shark said to the Son Shark and they swam to the mass of people.

"First we swim around them a few times with just the tip of our fins showing." And they did.

"Well done, son! Now we swim around them a few more times with all of our fins showing." And they did.

"Now we eat everybody." And they did.

When they were both gorged, the Son asked,
"Dad, why didn't we just eat them all at first?

Why did we swim around and around them?

His wise Father replied,

"Because they taste better without the shit inside!"

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Humor - Jewish

Rebbitzen: Hebrew for "Rabbi's wife"

Just before Rosh Hashanah, a man hears about a gay synagogue in San Francisco.

He's very excited, as this sounds like what he's been yearning for. He gets there, and sure enough, there's a gay cantor and a gay rabbi, and the Congregation too is mostly gay.

He joins in the service, but is terribly distracted by the handsome young man sitting next to him.

(There's really no good place to put a divider in a gay synagogue.)

Finally, he gives into temptation and puts his hand on the young man's knee.

Immediately two large men rush over, pick him up, carry him out of the sanctuary, and toss him down the stairs onto the street.

"Why did you do that?" he cried. "I thought this is a gay synagogue!"

"It is," replied one of his ejectors.

"But nobody messes with the rebbitzen."

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Questions UnConscious People Never Think To Ask

Leviticus 18:22 states homosexuality an abomination . . .

I have questions though . . .

When burning a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them.
Q: Should I smite them?

I want to sell my daughter into slavery (Exodus 21:7).
Q: What is a fair price for her?

I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15:19-24) Q: How to find out? I try asking, but most women take offense.

Lev. 25:44 says I may possess slaves, if purchased from neighboring nations. A friend claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians.
Q: Why can't I own Canadians?

My neighbor works on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 states he should be put to death.
Q: Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?

Eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev.11:10) . A friend feels it is a lesser abomination that homosexuality.
Q: Are there "degrees" of abomination?

Lev. 21:20  states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I wear glasses. My wife wears contacts. 
Q: Is there some wiggle room here?

Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed including around their temples. This is forbidden (Lev.19:27)
Q: How should they die?

Lev. 11:6-8  states that touching the skin of a dead pig makes you unclean.
Q: Can my son play football if he wears gloves? (Made from cow skin of course)

My uncle farms and violates (Lev.19:19) by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). They also curse and blaspheme a lot.
Two Questions:
Is it necessary to get the whole town together to stone them? (Lev. 24:10-16) 
Can't we burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev.20:14)

Borrowed (with editing) from a circulating email regarding a statement made by Dr. Laura Schlesinger a radio talk show host, an observant Orthodox Jew, and the open letter response penned by a US resident James M. Kauffman, Ed.D. Professor Emeritus, Dept. Of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education University of Virginia

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

When We Were Kids . . .

(thanks to Mitzi)
. . . adults used to bore me with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were. How they walked twenty-five miles to school every morning.... Uphill... Barefoot... BOTH ways… yadda, yadda, yadda

And I remember promising myself that there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on my kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it!

But now that I'm over the ripe old age of (never you mind how ripe my age is!), I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a damn Utopia!

And I hate to say it, but you kids today, REALLY don't know how good you've got it!

I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet.  If we wanted to know something, we had to go to the damn library and look it up ourselves, in the card catalog! But first we had to get past the nasty librarian who was a Tri-Fecta Specialist in glaring, finger shaking and shushing.

There was no email!! We had to actually write somebody a letter - with a pen, on paper! And our parents made us write thank you notes for every gift we received! Then we had to walk all the way to the street corner and put it in the mailbox, and it would take like a week to get there! Stamps were 10 cents!

When it came to cutting the grass, raking the leaves, shoveling the snow it was us kids who did it. There was no lawn crews circling the neighborhood doing what our parents considered the work of teenagers. The happiest I ever saw my dad was the summer afternoons when he'd sit on a lawn chair with a cold Coors in hand and watch my brother and I work on HIS lawn!

Child Protective Services didn't care if our parents beat us.  As a matter of fact, the parents of all my friends also had permission to kick our ass! Nowhere was safe!

There were no MP3's or Napsters or iTunes!  If you wanted to steal music, you had to hitchhike to the record store and shoplift it yourself!

Or you had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio, and the DJ would usually talk over the beginning and @#*% it all up!  There were no CD players! We had tape decks in our car..  We'd play our favorite tape and "eject" it when finished, and then the tape would come undone rendering it useless. Cause, hey, that's how we rolled, Baby!  Dig?

We didn't have fancy crap like Call Waiting!  If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal, that's it!

There weren't any freakin' cell phones either. If you left the house, you just didn't make a damn call or receive one. You actually had to be out of touch with your "friends". OH MY GOD !!!  Think of the horror... not being in touch with someone 24/7!!!  And then there's TEXTING.  Yeah, right.  Please!  You kids have no idea how annoying you are.

And we didn't have fancy Caller ID either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was!  It could be your school, your parents, your boss, your bookie, your drug dealer, the collection agent... you just didn't know!!!  You had to pick it up and take your chances, mister!

We didn't have any fancy PlayStation, Wii or Xbox video games with high-resolution 3-D graphics!  We had the Atari 2600!  With games like 'Space Invaders' and 'Asteroids'.  Your screen guy was a little square!  You actually had to use your imagination!!!  And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen... Forever!  And you could never win.  The game just kept getting harder and harder and faster and faster until you died!  Just like LIFE!

As for TV - don't get me started. First, we had 1 (one!) TV in the house. And you HAD to sit with your ENTIRE family to watch a show from a choice of 6 channels (ABC, CBS, NBC, WGN, WTTW and WFLD) You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! You were screwed when it came to channel surfing!  You had to get off your ass and walk over to the TV to change the channel!!!  NO REMOTES!!!  Oh, no, what's the world coming to?!?! There was no Cartoon Network either! You could only get cartoons on Saturday Morning.  Do you hear what I'm saying? We had to wait ALL WEEK for cartoons!

And we didn't have microwaves.  If we wanted to heat something up, we had to use the stove!  Imagine that!    

And our parents told us to stay outside and play . . . all day long.  Oh, no, no electronics to soothe and comfort.  And if you came back inside... you were doing chores!  

And car seats - oh, please!   Mom threw you in the back seat and you hung on.  My brother and I used to ride in the way back of our VW beetle. Our butts would get hot because we were sitting right over the engine. If you were lucky, you got the "safety arm" across the chest at the last moment if mom stopped suddenly, and if your head hit the dashboard, well that was your fault for calling "shot gun" in the first place!  Even worse - we had to talk to each other! Sing songs. Make goofy faces at the people in other cars.  Why you ask?  Because we didn't have TV's in the car, video players, gameboys, yada, yada, yada.

See!  That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy. You're spoiled rotten!  You guys wouldn't have lasted five minutes back in 1980 or any time before!

Regards,
The Over 30 Crowd