Quote Time

"Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."

-Ronald Reagan

There's so much that I feel like saying about the Obama administration right now. About all the ridiculous moves they've been making, including flying an airplane through Manhattan's restricted airspace, scaring the wits out of people whose last memory of such an event was on 9/11, but I'm not going to waste my energy on whining.

This quote from Reagan, however, seems to sum my feelings up very nicely. I'd like to say that the Obama administration is just plain stupid, because sometimes when I read or hear the news these days that's exactly what I think, but doing so would show my own ignorance. Obama is not stupid, and neither are the people in his administration. But what they do know and the conclusions that they come to based on that knowledge are looking like supremely bad moves to me.

Stop crying about water boarding terrorists. Think before you send a plane that looks just like (and is used as a secondary) Air Force One into Manhattan airspace. Stop giving money away like it grows on trees.

Anyone have any other "dumb moves" that they'd like to add to the list?

Human Trafficking

Speaking of slavery, (as I did in my last post,) I have a comment\retraction that I'd like to make about my previous post, "Slavery Today." 

In that post I wrote about celebrities trying to build awareness of modern-day slavery, and I demonstrated my ignorance by saying, (ironically - or, perhaps egotistically,) "Call me ignorant but, well, I'm really not - and still I'm not sure what they're referring to."

I guessed, in that post, that the celebrities were referring to slavery in Sudan or Rwanda, and didn't take much notice of the comment from aztecqueen2000 that, "In the United States, human beings are the third most trafficked commodity behind drugs and weapons. They are used for domestic service, sweatshop labor and prositution." 

I should have taken notice, because that's a seriously frightening statistic, but it was just words to me... Until I got a view of it for myself. So to speak. It was while babysitting last week, with the child asleep, that I was doing what babysitters tend to do - watching television. (Oy gevalt! A frum girl watching television! What is the world coming to? Yada yada yada. Get over it.) 

And the movie that I wound up watching was about human trafficking. Googling it now, in fact, it turns out that the title of the movie is, "Human Trafficking." 

"It follows the fictional cases of young women around the world, lured or abducted, sometimes right off the street, into a world of unspeakable brutality--which the filmmakers show in almost overwhelming detail at times.[...]  And while sometimes almost unbearably harsh, the film serves as a reminder this terrible situation still exists and thrives; and told through the characters, is also a well-paced thriller." (-A.T. Hurley, Amazon.com Review)

I believe in divine providence to the extent that I believe that everything that happens to me happens because G-d wants it to. I believe that there is no such thing as coincidence, and that if I see something, I saw it for a reason. That's why I believe that G-d wanted me to see this movie. 

It's scandalous to say so in the frum community, where movies are considered evil, but I think that this movie needs to be seen. I imagine that it was censored for television, and am glad of that, but it nevertheless showed the pain and horror of human trafficking in a way that just talking about it doesn't. 

That's why I'm posting the trailer for the movie here. But when I say, VIEWER DISCRESSION ADVISED, I really mean it. Don't watch this if you will be bothered by images of, "Young women around the world being lured and abducted" into horrible situations. When I say that this movie needs to be seen, I'm not saying that everyone needs to see it. If you're under 18, or are very frum and haven't been exposed to such things, DO NOT watch this. 

Having said that, I still believe that people need to see this. People need to know that this is going on. In the world of politics in this country, nothing gets done unless the People desire for it to get done: publicizing this issue until we refuse to ignore it anymore is the only way that we can end it. And in the spirit of Pesach, (Passover) the holiday where we celebrate our freedom from captivity, we should remember those who are not so fortunate. 

No Christianity, No Islam, No America

Pesach (Passover) is coming and along with it comes chaos. For Orthodox Jews Passover means more just family and celebrating. It means removing every crumb of bread (rice, pretzels, bagels, popcorn - food in general) from every corner of your house. That means everything from vacuuming under (and inside) every piece of furniture to cleaning out any books that you may have gotten a crumb inside of at any time during the year.

Yes, we Orthodox Jews are crazy. 

I'm taking a moment, now, to remember that this holiday is not just about that craziness. It's about the miracles that G-d did when He freed the "Children of Israel" (we weren't "Jews" then - we were just "Israel's kids") from Egyptian slavery. 

Stop, for a moment, and think about what the world would be like if G-d had not taken us out of Egypt. There would be no Jewish nation. Chances are we would have, after another couple hundred years, have just lost our identity in Egypt and, at best, would have become lower-class Egyptian citizens. Worst case, we would have died out. Pharoah was killing all male "Israelite" babies, and without any "Jewish" boys, there would be no more Jewish families. 

Kaput. Our story would have ended before it began. 

Forget about the Land of Israel. It would never have been started. 

Forget about Christianity. Jesus would never have been born. 

Forget about Islam. Mohammed would never have met those Jews in the desert who inspired him to start his own religion. 

Would the American Revolution have been possible without its Jewish sponsors? 

No Christianity. No Islam. No America. Where the heck would the world be without the Jews?

Domestic Terrorism

If you're a Republican, you've got to love Gary Sinese. 

An Emmy-award winner, Golden Globe winner, Oscar nominee, and well-respected actor in Hollywood, Sinese is also an outspoken Republican who contributed both monetarily and professionally (by narrating a biography of a Navy Seal and Medal of Honor recipient at the Republican National Convention) to John McCain's presidential campaign.

Gary's most famous role, today, is the part of Detective Mac Taylor on CSI: NY. Aside from the massive American flag that waves at the end of the opening credits, and the knowledge that Mac's wife was killed on 9/11, (both symbols that the Republican party consider to be incredibly important) there's not really any mention of political leanings. 

And then there was, "Green Piece," a recent episode of CSI: NY which opens with a scene of a house exploding in New York. The scene, with a building exploding and debris flying through the air haphazardly, automatically brought me back to the horrible pictures of the Twin Towers on 9/11. I figured, though, that I was just being too sensitive.

The episode made it clear soon after, however, that its intention was to herald the audience back to the horrors of terrorism that we experienced on 9/11.  

For instance: The image of an FBI agent coming over to NYPD Detective Flack and offering his help in the investigation, and the NYPD detective’s skepticism that he’d actually follow through, was clearly a reference to the “Wall” that existed between security agencies prior to 9/11 that prevented agencies from stopping the 9/11 attacks.

The CSI (Crime Scene Investigator) agents’ first overt reference to terrorism in their investigation surprised me: 

Mac: In 1970 the Weathermen were using a townhouse in the Village as a bomb factory. Bomb went off accidentally, took the whole place down. Two of their members who were inside walked away. Weren't found for ten years.

The mention of the Weathermen, a domestic terrorist group whose leader, Bill Ayers, was a supporter of Barack Obama, was brief, but it caught my attention. And when the rest of the episode turned out to be about domestic eco-terrorists, it was clear, at least to me, that there was a political message in this episode.

The eco-terrorists in this episode, much like the Weathermen, claimed to be using terror as a necessary tool to stop horrors taking place in the United States. During the recent Presidential election, the discussion surrounding Bill Ayers on the part of the Democrats often led to claims that he did what was necessary in the face of a government perpetrating evil (with the Vietnam War). In this episode, the eco-terrorists similarly claimed that they needed to force Americans, through any means possibly, to recognize the harm that they were doing to the environment.

From beginning to end, the episode showed the horrors of terrorism, including the evil of the eco-terrorists’ actions, despite their “good intentions”. This message, alongside the line about the Weathermen, gave a clear message that even if Bill Ayers, and the Weathermen, had good intentions, that can never excuse the horrors that they perpetrated.

It was a brave statement to make in today’s political climate, where Barack Obama is viewed almost as a god whose friends and alliances no one would dare to question/

Good thing it came out of Sinese’s mouth.

 

Question: Am I no longer allowed to call myself "frum" now that I've mentioned I watched a TV show? 

Don't Give Up

Here's the video that goes along with my last post, "Bad News is Everywhere." Except here, let's focus on the "Don't Give Up" part.

(Fast forward to a minute or so in for the start of the song.)

Bad News is Everywhere

"Bad news is everywhere, shut my eyes, shut my ears and mouth; cause I know there's a better day coming blowing in from the North and the South." 

-Moshav Band

It's a terrible truth that bad things are everywhere. It was news of one of these bad things that made me question, as I tend to do, the the frum community's practice of marrying of their children when they're extremely young. 

The "news" was of a very young married girl who suffered a miscarriage. A horrible thing to happen under any circumstances, but when I heard of this particular case (not that it was the first that I'd heard) I found myself thinking about how horrible it was for this girl, who really is still a child herself, to have suffered such a tragedy. I asked myself, "Why are parents so eager to throw their children into the 'real world' by marrying them off so young? Yes, the wedding is a great simcha and it's a wonderful thing to celebrate, but what about after the wedding? Once married, these young children cannot be protected from the evils of the world anymore."

With bad news being everywhere, yesterday I heard another piece of "news" that broke my heart. Without going into details, a young girl in the frum community got married and almost immediately found out that her new husband was not who she thought he was. They are now discussing divorce.

This girl is still practically a child yet she is already faced with a failing marriage. She, who was sheltered in the frum community all her life, has been intimately exposed to a person and a situation that she could have been protected from if her parents had just let her have a few more years to grow up. Maybe if she'd had a little more life experience she would have been able to recognize the signs in the man who is now her husband, and the marriage could have been prevented. 

Her wedding was a great and joyous occasion, and as long as it was all lace and chocolate decadence everything was wonderful, but the "honeymoon" ended all too soon, and now the wedding is being seen as a tragedy for this girl who now has to deal with things that no child should have to deal with. 

In some frum communities there is, "a better day coming, blowing in from the North and the South," where getting married a little later (at 22, or 23 - young, huh?) is becoming more acceptable, but there are still so many communities that run to marry off their children in their teens. 

Parents, I'm begging you to look ahead for your child and consider that maybe they need to be eased into real life, instead of thrown into it abruptly with marriage. A beautiful wedding, while wonderful, is not enough to ease that transition. Children need a chance to grow up a little bit before they are married off and are immediately expected to act like adults. Think past the simcha of the engagement and the wedding (no, I'm not talking about grandchildren) and consider whether your child could use a little more time as a child before they have to start having children of their own. 

Modern Day Haman

It is tradition on the Jewish holiday of Purim to read the story\history of the holiday from a book called Megillat Esther. The story talks about the Jewish people being in exhile in Persia and about how the vizier to the Persian emperor, a man named Haman, planned to kill the entire Jewish people. 

It's a familiar story to us Jews. Evil man planning to kill us. Nothing new there. 

When we read the story of Purim, every time the 'storyteller' mentions the name, "Haman," it is customary for those listening to "boo" him. It's great fun, especially for the kids. This year, however, while I was listening to the Megillah, everyone booed at something else. It was when the 'storyteller' told about the Persian emperor levying a "mas" on his country. 

I wasn't familiar with the Hebrew word, "mas," so I quickly looked over at the English translation only to find the the word means, "tax."

I think I giggled till the end of the reading after that. Only because laughing out loud would have bothered the other listeners. 

How appropriate is it that Purim comes right in the thick of tax season? Taxes are our modern-day Haman. They come to conquer us. They come to destroy us. 

G-d save us from the evil tax-man.