The way New York Times tells it, one would think that Sarah Silverman's The Great Schlep has been a failure of epic proportions. The article states that to date, about 100 people have made the comedienne-dictated aliyah, a number that pales in comparison to the seven million or so who have watched the Great Schlep video, but nonetheless, 100 people that weren't in Florida before.

The Great Schlep is the brainchild of Mik Moore and Ari Wallach, the co-directors of the Jewish voter-advocacy group, JewsVote.org. In the Times story, Moore declared the initial turnout "a really good start," and hopes for "dozens" more Jewish youths to make the trek down to Florida to encourage elderly Jews to ignore the hype and vote for Barack Obama.

Some of the group's talking points include:

While the Times seems to see the Schlep's initial turnout as disappointing, based on Moore's statements, it sounds like it is exactly in line with expectations. The fact that 100 people traveled to Florida is remarkable. Through web traffic directed through Silverman's video, JewsVote.org has also raised $22,372, through Tuesday morning. The number of people who actually traveled to Florida shouldn't be viewed as a disappointment or failure to attract a larger contingency; it is a considerable success that The Great Schlep has garnered enough attention that 100 people actually went out of their way and traveled to Florida to support the cause, and that the New York Times is reporting on such.

Between the Jewish establishment's imposition of silence and the loosely coupled throng of Jew-hater's who zealously proclaim conspiracy, the discourse over Jews and money is pure zealotry on either side.  The result is a vacuum of alternative perspectives and the absence of any shred of an enlightened public discussion, which only provides fertile soil for a perpetual harvest of rhetorical hate.

That's why Jewcy feels it's critical to highlight voices like Brackman and Jaffe, as we are doing all week, and it's also  why we're very happy that Time magazine just published an article highlighting two Jewish scholars that are publicly filling the vacuum by putting forth an alternative discourse -- one that cites Jewish law as a basis for criticizing the behavior that led to the current financial crisis. The scholars are Yeshiva University economics professor Aaron Levine and Rabbi Eliezer Diamond, a professor of Talmud and Rabbinics at New York's Jewish Theological Seminary. 

The article draws on Jewish scripture (the Torah, the Talmud, and the Mishna) as well as various rabbinical opinions to extrapolate ancient principles relevant to our current economic times:

•Bamboozling the "Blind"
Much Jewish ethical thought flows out of Leviticus 19:14, which reads "Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumbling-block before the blind." From an early date, rabbis expanded this into a general prohibition on bad advice. In time, it became part of the language specifically regarding loans, mostly regarding the need for witnesses. But Diamond says it now applies to the whole loan debacle and "any expert who tells someone who probably shouldn't take out a mortgage 'you'll be able to do it, no problem.'" There are a lot of financially "blind" people out there, and a lot of people mis-advised them.

•Hidden Flaws and the "Reasonable Man"
Medieval jurists like Maimonides identified a more specific kind of bad advice. They tackled the idea of the "hidden flaw," which, Levine points out, leads directly to a demand for fiscal disclosure. "If you sell an animal, you had to disclose to the buyer what the hidden flaw is," he explains. Not only that: "the disclosure has to be made so that a 'reasonable,' or average man can decide" whether to buy. Once again, almost the entire chain of transactors in the mortgage crisis is guilty: predatory brokers for not alerting working-class borrowers to the fine print; middle-men selling mortgage debt to investment banks sliced and diced into "tranches" that obscure their riskiness; bankers who used hard-to-fathom financial instruments that leave ultimate responsibility for a loan a mystery even to experts. Like many observers, Levine is particularly exercized about credit default swaps, a largely unregulated field since 2000.) And anyone who willfully ignored the fact that real estate prices must eventually come down.

•The Bath House Rule
An extension of the disclosure concern, Diamond reports, was explored by Jews through the unexpected vehicle of marriage law. The tractate Ketubot in the Mishna dictates that a betrothal is valid only if the bride-to-be has no hidden blemishes that would have disqualified the match, had they been public. However, there is a heavy responsibility on the groom: if he has relatives who could have observed the disfigurement by checking out his fiance in the womens' bath but neglected to do have them do so, he can't complain. This suggests (feminist complaints notwithstanding) that culpability in sub-prime crisis does not lie solely on the mortgage broker who glided over the fact that payments ballooned in the third year; but also on the buyer who happily neglected to read the fine print: : "Ignorance of the facts is no defense," Diamond says.

•Morals of the Mark-Up
Leviticus 25 of the Bible explains that you cannot charge the same price for land that is about to become useless (in this case, by reverting to its original tribal ownership) as for a parcel that still has decades of use left. Rabbinic tradition, says Diamond, interpreted that as a check on price-gouging and ruled that nobody should charge more than one-sixth above market value for anything.

[Time Magazine]

Ok,  this Jewish Alliance for Change video was sent to me so i thought i would pass it on, though i no longer appear to be able to embed videos here...

Here's the URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2VFRt5W4FM

Continue reading...

There is a very old and traditional trope in Jewish culturethat goes "it doesn't matter whether you think you're Jewish, our enemies willtell you that you are Jewish." When my grandfather used to tell me this in tones of grim foreboding itwas not hard to figure out who "our enemies" were, but I'm pretty suregrandfathers were saying the same thing in the time of the Romans. 

So if Jewishness is something that is involuntarily bestowed by one's enemies, then we have to concede the obvious:  if he is elected, BarackObama will be our first Jewish president.  Think about it. The insults that the McCain camp are hurling at Obama are not traditional elements of American racism. When American racists want to denigrate an African-American they use images of inferiority, of being sub-human , animal, violent, creatures of unreasoning appetite, After Our Women. The accusations being hurled against Obama?  He is elite, over-educated, foreign, not authentically American,...

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You need this book: or you might come down with something...Brian Frazer has used his week of Jewcy blogging to expel some common and very current political frustration.  He began with a peek at his book, telling an introspective yet entertaining tale about his brother's wedding.  Then he turned to politics, putting wrinkles on the faces of Biden's botox obsessors, reacted to the second presidential debate, begged the forgiveness of those he has insulted, and devised a painfully amusing plan for preventing another economic meltdown.  Want more of Frazer's frenzy?  Buy his book!

Does your blood pressure surge if the car in front of you turns without signaling? Do your neck veins pulsate when a cashier takes too long to ring you up? Does relaxing seem like it'll have to wait until you're dead? Then your name could very well be Brian Frazer.  On paper, Frazer is the world's healthiest guy. He eats right, exercises regularly, gets plenty of sleep, has never smoked and has missed only one day of flossing in the last five years. But inside he's a swirling vortex of angst, capable of contracting a new malady every month. Once Frazer realized that all his ills were tied to stress, he went on a quixotic quest for calm, venturing into everything from Tai Chi, serotonin blockers and Kabbalah to an unfortunate incident involving pineapple-chicken curry at a Craniosacral therapy session. Never has the road to wellville taken so many unforeseen turns.  Achingly funny, uncomfortably true and always entertaining, Hyperchondriac is just the medicine for anyone who wants to take it down a notch.
A- Entertainment Weekly

I'm not a huge fan of Slate, mostly because it's usually a
lot more left-leaning than I am (even while I proudly self-identify as
a liberal New York Republican or a conservative New York Democrat). But
this article I
came across earlier says exactly what I've been thinking in this most
recent election cycle - we don't need to be talking so much about
Israel.

Look, Israel (as tied in with "foreign policy")
is one of the top three issues for me when deciding who to vote for. I
want to know what the candidates think about Israel. But when you talk
about Israel in relation to most foreign policy issues in the Middle
East, then you make Israel look like the little cog in the machine
that's making it all run the way its running now.

I've
been primarily considering all this Israel-speak as it relates to...

Continue reading...

No more rules.  Rules suck.  Rules are for the weak. 

Tlkeajtughajer;eqwujgahhkgjadlsgfdasr;ra;. 

That's what a sentence looks like without rules.

The money experts have fucked up.  And now we're rescuing them.  And it's comical to think that the person applying for the loan is being blamed.  It's akin to a doctor taking out your pancreas instead of your appendix and then blaming the patient.  If your business is to loan money, then do your homework, don't be greedy and don't loan it to people who might not be able to pay it back.  A bank isn't a pizza place.  You don't need to say "yes" to everyone.  

A new home for bankersSo what can we do so this never happens again? 

Many child molesters have to wear electronic monitors so we know his/her whereabouts at all times.  I think all bailed out bankers need to wear shock collars around their necks and every time they try to loan out money they get 350 volts launched into their carotid arteries.  Maybe then they'd be careful.  And since we are going to bail out the banks - which with this spineless bunch of Congressional pussies was a foregone conclusion even before it was a foregone conclusion - we need to make sure that none of these people who were responsible for our economic meltdown are allowed to ever work in the banking industry again.  You get one chance to bilk people out of their life-savings and retirement dough.  For crying out loud, we don't even allow individuals to file for bankruptcy in this country anymore because that would inconvenience the predatory credit card companies (hello, Capital One!  Thanks for the 23.5% offer but I can get a better deal from my bookie) and the health care industry.

Accountability is the only cure for this catastrophe. However, just as in the Enron disaster, the fat cats will exit the building with fat pockets.  The hell with that.  Liquidate their assets and property until they're as poor as the poorest person they screwed over. 

Although there is another option. 

Let's give the $840 billion to the people and have the banks apply to us for money.  Something tells me we'll be a lot more careful with it than the assholes were.

Brian Frazer, author of Hyperchondriac, spent the last week guest blogging on Jewcy.  Want more?  Buy his book!

I wish Sarah Palin would stop beaming telepathic messages to me. I can't stand having her voice in my head. Please, would somebody make it stop?

This time you can't blame the drugs. Oh, yes, back in the day when we were driving around Spain on three-day coke jags and self-medicating with brandy of a despicable vintage, we'd often get The Voices. Everyone did. They sounded like the chorus from one of the Electric Light Orchestra's early hits, and while they weren't entirely unpleasant, they could be very annoying when you were trying to go to sleep after 72-hours of rock'n'roll stupidity.

"Hey Honey, looking for a date?"

Lately I haven't had the time for any drug adventures. Too busy writing blogs and hustling and getting ready for next week's big show. I had to learn the entire "Jews for Jesus" bit again (which recounts my days going undercover to their Bible meetings for a magazine story, and explains why Beneath the Planet of the Apes makes more sense than the Bible), and believe me, you don't need any voices in your head when you have Mr. Blues Explosion playing fuzz guitar behind you. Sarah Palin's high-pitched twang is not helping, not at all.

Ever since she winked at me during the Vice-Presidential debate, I keep hearing her voice, like a mentally-challenged Siren beckoning me across the Bering Strait. I don't know what is worse - her insipid whine or her thin grasp of the English language. 

Ya wanna fuck a shiksa, dontcha? Well, doggone it, come on out to Wasilla! We've got lots of young girls who would love to meet a real live Jew! Come on, Mike. You can see Jerusalem from my window!

Hot, hot, hot!I can't handle it anymore. I need to purge these demons.

Luckily, my old friend Larry Flynt has just the perscription I need - A Sarah Palin porno!

The maverick Hustler magnate is currently in production of a new film, called Nailin' Palin. And given the rigorous shooting schedule of your average fuck flick these days, it should be out any second now. According to Radar magazine, here's a few things we can all look forward to: Sarah riding a rocket from Russia when those nasty commies come a-knockin' on her back door; a flashback sequence wherein "young Palin's creationist college professor will explain a big bang theory even she can't deny!"; and of course, the obligatory late-night visit from the tanning bed repairman.

A more perfect Union.

Pornography, of course, is not a sin. But I have a feeling that pretty soon I am going to be feeling very guilty. 

Mike Edison, author of I Have Fun Everywhere I Go, is guest blogging on Jewcy, and he'll be here all week.  Stay tuned.

***********************************

Mike will be performing with his band, featuring Jon Spencer, in a very special evening of "Literary Mayhem and Rock'n'Roll," with special guests Jonathan Ames, Rachel Shukert, and Amanda Stern, Thursday, October 16^th,at the incredible Spiegelworld tent at the South Street Seaport inManhattan. For info, free MP3s and videos (including the infamous BongGuitar video) and much more, please visit www.rockettrain.com

Literary Mayhem!

Before certain papers report a cardboard trend story of the following fact, allow me to state it first: Debate parties are the latest ticket du jour. The Box, the oft decadent lounge more apt to stage strippers, fire eaters, midgets, Madonna, and Jude Law, hosted one last night. I won't add a lot of stale quotes to support this trend. You can get that in Sunday's paper.

So moving on, as pundits on PBS call for more debate poetry rather than prose and prescribed politics, I call attention to one Canadian poet moving around Europe right now: Leonard Cohen. The man who wrote, "So Long Marianne, Suzanne, and Hallelujah" still looking sharp in a fedora and jacket, still brings us together in a deep husk via words and stories and feelings that tie humanity across the globe.

L- R: Charley and Hattie Webb: My pick for style "it girls"When Tom Ford threw a party for the launch of his fragrance two years ago, one of his PR reps asked me who would be an A list musical act to feature in a sophisticated salon. "Hands down, Leonard Cohen." I answered. Ford's original choice was Justin Timberlake. He went with Jennifer Hudson. Cohen didn't even strike a cord. I probably spent too many afternoons on a porch swing in Tours France hearing my foreign host, a hippie graphic designer named Daniel sing Suzanne too many times. Still, I hope that Cohen opens an American leg of his tour, especially since he's employed two gals called the Webb sisters to sing along with him. I submit that these twentysomething ladies-- both British musicians, a harpist and a pianist among myriad other instruments -- replace the Olsen twins as style icons.

Not only are they gorgeous, they sound like angels or Kate Bush, whichever comes to mind first. (Any of you boys remember the ethereal Ms. Bush? How many wet dreams happened under her guise? So many of you kept her posters over the bed in the late Eighties and early Nineties! Puts lip synching Britney Spears to shame!)

I know Vogue will rip me off on this one. I'll be winking when that March issue features these two lovely Webbs. But I'll also be smiling that talent reigns out, as will hopefully happen in this presidential election. Remember, you heard it here first! Talent, not image or mainstream might should prevail. The only Bush we should recall fondly is Kate.

[Cross-posted from It's That Time Again!, a blog by Susan Miriam Kirschbaum, the art and fashion world's Jewciest commentator.]

We are at an historic crossroads.  Any environmental expert will tell you that if we do not reverse the trend of our carbon emissions within 15 years, we risk doing irreparable damage to our planet.   Given that it will take 10 years for any substantive change to come to fruition, the man who occupies the oval office for the next two terms is in the unique position to leave behind an undeniable environmental legacy.  Fifty years from now this coming administration will be viewed either as environmental heroes, or catastrophic failures.  From a global environmental perspective, November 2nd 2008 may be remembered as the most important day in the history of the planet.

When I first conceived this article, it was my intention to put aside my liberal bias and write an objective analysis of the two presidential candidates’ environmental platforms.  That was until I had the unfortunate displeasure of reading McCain’s Lexington Project.

It is important to understand that there is no surefire solution to the energy crisis.  Like any stock portfolio, the key to success is diversification.  Both campaigns have a grasp on this concept, with neither betting the future on any one specific technology or policy and both proposing an immediate price onMe with Jason Grumet at the Cleantech Forum in Washington DC.: Mr. Grumet provided insight into how policies can aid in the transition to a green economy. carbon emissions.  Given the uncertainty of the industry, it is difficult to suggest that either candidate will provide the indisputable solution to the energy crisis.

That being said, the Obama team has gone the furthest in illustrating the inextricable connection between the environment and the economy.  The comprehensive 11 page proposal coming out of the Obama camp provides calculated actions the government can take to alleviate our dependence on foreign oil without pillaging our countries natural resources, all while creating five million new “green collar” jobs.  McCain, on the other hand, seems like he asked some kid in the halls of an elementary school for help with his proposal.  I suggest you read it next time you are in an elevator, stopped at a red light, or waiting for your Facebook page to refresh.  

Included in the flimsy two and a half page proposal is the implication that one solution to our transportation energy crisis is offering “A $300 million prize to improve battery technology for full commercial development of plug-in hybrid and fully electric automobiles.”  This type of suggestion comes from a man who either A) hasn’t thought critically about a viable solution to the energy crisis or B) wants to sound like he’s making an effort without jeopardizing his relationship with Big Oil.  This proposal is like telling a poor, inner city youth that if he goes to college and gets his degree he’ll be guaranteed a $30,000 a year job when he graduates, but neglecting to provide him with scholarships, loans, or any other financial support for his education.

Offering a $300 million dollar “prize” brazenly ignores the most difficult challenge to the renewable energy movement: capital investment.  There is little doubt that the transition to a green economy cannot happen without an open dialogue between policymakers, laborers, and the private sector.  The Cleantech Group recently brought together 500 of the most influential cleantech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists at the Cleantech Forum in Washington DC.  Jason Grumet, Obama’s lead energy and environmental advisor was on hand for a riveting panel discussion.  His presence was as much to provide industry trendsetters with an overview of Obama’s policy strategies as it was to gain feedback from the men and women who will be shaping the industry in the private sector.  

What was missing from this panel was any representation from the McCain camp (despite a personal invitation), an abscence as glaring as the one in the lower Manhattan skyline.  Somehow the only person from the republican camp who could find the time to attend the preeminent North American cleantech conference, which was in Washington DC, was Hank Habicht, energy representative to the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations.  Mr. Habicht likened his experience in that role to “a javelin team captain who had been elected to receive.”

The problem, or at least one of them, is infrastructural, and that road begins in Washington and ends in Detroit.  Many people forget that the success of the American automobile industry could not have been made possible without the infrastructural foundation built by the American government.  Without roads, nobody would buy cars.  Similarly, without direct government investment in a clean energy economy, supported by policy that alleviates some of the challenges stemming from the capitally intensive nature of the technology, we are stuck in a “chicken or the egg” scenario.

Me with every member of the McCain Energy Team: who decided to attend the preeminent North American Cleantech conference while it was in their backyard. They provided insight into the value McCain puts on the environment.John McCain points out that American automakers have committed to shift their product lines to 50% Flex Fuel vehicles by 2012. His plan “calls on automakers to make a more rapid and complete switch to FFVs.”  There is no mention of what policies he will enact to do this, what types of financial support the government will give to assist with the necessary capital investment, who will train these workers to manufacture these new technologies, or most importantly, where these new cars will be filling their tanks.  McCain does offer some back end incentives in the form of a $5,000 credit to automakers for each zero emission car sold, but without significant investment in R&D or definitive distribution channels for alternative fuel, I don’t see many of these credits being issued.  Furthermore, the jump from current emissions to zero emissions is quite optimistic, and one wonders if he is aware that FFV fuels, while they do drastically cut emissions, are not in fact carbon neutral.

Obama proposes a “strategic investment of $150 billion over 10 years to accelerate the commercialization of plug‐in hybrids, promote development of commercial scale renewable energy, encourage energy efficiency, invest in low emissions coal plants, advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure… [and invest in] America's highly‐skilled manufacturing workforce and manufacturing centers to ensure that American workers have the skills and tools they need to pioneer the green technologies that will be in high demand throughout the world.”  

Beyond financial and political investment in infrastructure, the next administration must focus on policy that drives demand.  American car manufacturers have made amazing leaps in technology over the past fifty years, but almost all of that innovation has been in the realm of maximizing engine power; had these breakthroughs been made in the realm of maximizing efficiency, chances are we’d all be driving 150 MPG vehicles.  

No one can blame Ford or GM for focusing on projects like the Mustang or the Corvette decades before the word green implied anything other than a color.  R&D budgetary expenditures and output objectives from the 50’s through the 80’s were based on consumer preferences.  People wanted big, powerful cars, and Detroit was happy to help.  In the last few years the skyrocketing price of oil has created a new, indisputable era of automobile demand, but there is still room for policy to help drive consumer preferences.  

Obama is offering a $7,000 tax credit to consumers for the purchase of advanced technology vehicles, as well as a credit to subsidize clean engine conversions.  His plan also establishes a guaranteed initial revenue stream to American automakers by enacting a one year plan to convert the entire White House fleet to plug in hybrids, and half of all government vehicles to plug-in hybrid or 100% electric by 2012.  I’ve sent McCain my Economics 101 notes on supply and demand.  I’ll let you know if I hear anything.  

While this article has focused on infrastructure and auto transportation solutions, the complexity of environmental policy is so vast that it cannot conceivably be summed up within the confines of this column.  We need decisive action across the board on energy efficiency, smart grids, sustainable communities, green building, utility energy mix incentives, wind, solar, nuclear, geothermal, geosolar, cogeneration, waste management, waste energy, carbon pricing, clean coal, natural gas, maximizing efficiency from conventional energy, domestic drilling, foreign oil policy, biofuels, flex fuels, electric cars, green collar training, greenhouse gas emissions, cap and trade, water management, energy speculation, short term energy pricing relief, and more.  I encourage you to read both plans, and make an educated decision for yourselves.  

McCain – Palin: The Lexington Project

Obama – Biden: New Energy For America

Jason Grumet, lead energy and environmental advisor to Barack Obama, knows that the shift to a green economy cannot be done alone.  “The American people need to communicate the value of job creation.  Obama has said that he can create 5 million jobs, but 5 million is a crazy big number.  Write a letter to the editor, or to local policymakers, explaining how we can create 14 jobs.”  

For years a loud minority has been scraping and clawing to build out the cleantech education strategy at Babson College.  In the past three years that loud minority has grown to a deafening majority, and within the last year alone the school has added an Environmental Entrepreneurship class, a Green Consulting program, and created a Cleantech Entrepreneur in Residence position on the Board of Overseers.  These successes in cleantech management education need to partnered with commitments by trade schools, community colleges, and even private sector manufacturing organizations to develop the skilled green collar labor force that will be the foundation of our new economy.

Obama’s roots are in community organizing; with him and his 500 person energy staff working from the top down, and everyone else working up from the bottom, hopefully we can meet somewhere in the middle, at the crossroads of economy and ecology.

My fellow American Jews,

I am a member of Rabbis for Obama, along with 550 colleagues from all movements of Judaism. In this sacred season of repentance, I would like to share my reflections on some powerful messages from our tradition and their implications for the fateful choices we face.

Arise from your slumber and rouse yourselves from your lethargy..." (Maimonides)

In hearing the blast of the Shofar, we have an opportunity to wake up to the grave challenges our nation faces, and to forge a path based on our Jewish values of tzedek (justice), hesed (loving-kindness), and shalom (peace).

I believe that Senator Obama offers us a chance to build bridges across the divides of race, religion, class and country of origin. In this moment of economic turmoil and suffering, he calls on us to move beyond self-interest to extend opportunity across our society to "lift up the fallen" through lifelong education, accessible healthcare, and through involvement in community service. He urges us to reinforce the civil rights and liberties upon which our safety, and that of all of the vulnerable people in our society, depends.

I hope we will hear in the call of the Shofar an invitation to this path toward a repaired society and nation, as Senator Obama said in his historic Rosh Hashanah conference call with 900 Orthodox, Reform, Reconstructionist and Conservative rabbis, "[this is]... a time to recommit to the serious work of Tikkun Olam, of mending the world."

"For the sin we have committed...in impurity of lips" (Machzor).

Among the sins we will recount in our Yom Kippur confessional prayers is this one: "for the sin we have committed against you in impurity of lips (b'tumat sfataim)."

Far too often, I hear good Jewish people repeating slurs and calumnies without the slightest basis in truth. My 9 year-old son came home from his Jewish day school saying, "Barack Obama hates Israel." (The facts: Senator Obama's Senate voting record is rated 100% on Israel by AIPAC, and he has a long and deep partnership with the Jewish community. He has repeatedly stated that "Israel's security is sacrosanct," and that Iran must absolutely not be allowed to threaten Israel with nuclear weapons). I have heard older Jews say that they "know" that Senator Obama is a Muslim (There's nothing wrong with being a Muslim, but, for the record, Senator Obama is a committed Christian.)

Our tradition teaches us that lashon ha-ra, evil speech, kills three: the one who speaks, the one who listens, and the one about whom the untruths are told. We Jews of all people know the toxic effect of slurs based in racism, ignorance or xenophobia. As we turn in repentance, I hope we will start by refusing to listen to or repeating distorted claims about Senator Obama or any other candidate, and by asking people repeating them to refrain from this disgraceful behavior. No matter how insecure we feel, we must redouble our efforts to make critical decisions on facts, not fear.

"Hope in the Eternal, be strong and God will give your heart courage, hope in the Eternal" (Psalm 27).

The penitential Psalm, which we recite each time we pray during these days of repentance, calls us to ground our existence in hope. In this uncertain time, it is easy to succumb to fear, and to narrow our vision, or even to abandon our most fundamental values.

I hope you will heed Senator Obama's call, not only to hope for, but to realize, the hope for a society of liberty, opportunity, mutual responsibility and justice. With hope grounded in faith, and with a leader of vision and substance, wisdom and humility, our country can live up to its shining promise.

G'mar hatimah tovah, may we all be inscribed a year of sustenance, goodness and peace.

Rabbi Dayle A. Friedman
Vice-Chair, Rabbis for Obama

Damn was that town hall thing hard to sit through.

First of all, it was the second debate in a row in which Senator McCain bragged about America being the best "importer" in the world. Um... that's not a good thing, sir. That means you owe people money.  Which I guess you don't have to worry about when your wife has a few hundred million in the bank. 

Second, Mr. McCain, in order to get your glorious "preconditions" before you sit down with people ... you need to actually sit down with people!!!!

Third, please, please, pleeeeeeeaze stop saying "my friends."  Apparently you didn't swallow enough of the Bill Romanowski memory aid pills he sold you.  You just said we were friends four seconds ago.  We get it.  You're our pal.

And yes yes yes yes yes, you are a war hero.  And I commend you for the sacrifice you've made for the country.  However, what I won't give you potential presidential props for is being a prisoner of war. Sorry, but there is NOTHING about being a POW that qualifies one to be commander in chief.  Bottom line: ANYONE can be a POW.  All you have to do is be in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Sorry again, but no points for having bad luck.  I'm not going to vote for the person who has been stuck in traffic the most hours either.  It's irrelevant.

In 1970, this was fashionable.By the way, in 1970 I was in first grade and had an exhibit of my clay sculptures at the local public library.  I had a red elephant and a blue walrus that everyone marveled at and an ostrich with a pipe cleaner neck and --  What I'm trying to say is WHO THE HELL CARES WHAT HAPPENED IN 1970?!?!?  In 1970 Paul McCartney released "Let it Be" - now he kinda sucks.  What IS important is how people evolve.  It appeared that John McCain WAS evolving... until 2001 when he went back to being a Cro-Magnon man.  If he and Ms.Palin get elected, America might as well be confined to a tiger cage for the next four years.    

Oh, one last point for the racist voter out there: Why not just look at Obama as being half white (which he is) instead of all black (which he isn't)? 

And for you Alaskan Jews out there: please remember to spay and neuter your wolves so there doesn't have to be any more aerial hunting of 'em.

Brian Frazer, author of Hyperchondriac, is guest blogging on Jewcy, and he's here all week.  Stay tuned.

My Grandmother was terribly funny and I spent as much time with her as she would tolerate, usually three or four hours per visit, after which she would declare that she didn’t spend that much time with anyone, and that she was going to lie down.

But we could cover a lot of ground in an afternoon — first she would take me to a roadside clam shack, the kind of white-clapboard treyf-palace that only exists in New England, where she lived, and insist I order anything and everything I wanted. One giant pile of fried clams (the kind with the bellies intact, the whole clams, like you can Food porn for Jews.never get in New York, served on a piece of white bread, which is not for eating, but just for absorbing the grease) and a buttery lobster role later, she would tell me I eat too much, that I am putting on weight, and then insist I have a milkshake. After that we’d go back to her apartment and sit at her kitchen table and drink coffee and make fun of everyone we knew.

A couple of years ago, before she died and when she was still on fire, we began having our first conversations about politics, something we had never talked about before. I honestly had no idea what she thought about the President — mostly we spent our time making fun of my mother, who is weight-obsessed, and works out all the time and eats only steamed vegetables and melba toast. She is also hugely judgmental, my mother that is, which is not the only reason why I never introduce her to the women I date, but is one of the best. She invariably gives them the once-over, and then makes a face like the cat just pissed on her Gucci bag. No one can be thin enough for my mother. She could make a Pepperidge Farm goldfish feel fat. 

My Grandma, like most Jewish grandmothers, liked to see people eat. “You can’t go out to a restaurant with her!” she would complain about my mom. “It’s no fun!” She wasn’t too keen on my mom’s husband, either, whom she called “Mr. Personality.”

But what really put a bee in the Old Trout’s bonnet was George Bush. She HATED him.

Not Grandma's kind of people.

And she was appalled that her children — my mother and my uncle — were voting for him.

“WHY??” she wanted to know. “He’s an idiot. Why is your mother voting for him?? Is it because Mr. Personality told her to??” My mother’s new husband is a right-wing kook.  “She has a mind of her own. You better talk to her.” I tried to talk to my Mom, but it was pretty useless. You can’t argue with someone who only eats broccoli and low-fat snacks — there is not enough fatty tissue stored up in their brains, which is where the reasoning takes place. Socrates, or so I have been told, lived on pork ribs and chocolate pudding.

Like a lot of old people, Grandma had just seen too much war in her life, and she was sick of it. I know she cried for all the  young Americans who were killed in Iraq, and God Bless her, she wept for the Iraqis, too. She knew their kids were dying, and that they all had mothers and children of their own, and that it was just a horrible thing that didn’t make any sense. Besides all of the ugly wars she had seen in her life, she had also heard far too much bullshit, and she was fed up.

And then she died. Well, not so suddenly, she got very sick, and pretty soon after that it was lights out. She was 93 years old and she had seen most of her friends die, and she was very tired.

I miss her terribly. Sometimes I get the urge to call her, but never, ever when I am stoned, because she could always bust me, even long distance. When I was a teenager I could be around my mother when I was tripping on acid and she would say, “Wow! You are in such a good mood!” As an adult, one bong hit, and Grandma would call me on the phone and tell me that I was “out of it.”

I guess kids never listen to their parents, I certainly never did. Then again, even in retrospect, their advice was always shit. Actually, they didn’t offer much of the stuff. 

One reason I found the Democratic National Convention so moving was all that talk about “Americans wanting the same thing — for their children to have it better than they did, that their children would know that they could do anything and be anything if they worked hard enough, that in America their were no limits, blah blah.” It moved me because that was never my experience at all. I was always told, “You’ll never make it. Writing isn’t a job.”

Feh.

I guess it is ridiculous to think that Grandma would have been able to talk her kids out of voting for John McCain and his imbecile running mate. I don’t even know for sure that she would have voted for the black guy. She is a first generation American who grew up in a very segregated town where Jews and blacks lived quite literally on different sides of the tracks, in deep suspicion of each other. She didn’t go to college. She was superstitious.

But she read the paper every day. She was very up on current events. As long as I knew her, it was the one constant in her life. That, and coffee brewing in an electric percolator that was probably the best of its type when she got it in the late 50s. After she died I looked for it in her house but didn’t find it. I got her chopped-liver grinder, though. I am looking at it now, as I write this. It is really heavy and looks like it was hand-tooled at the birth of the Industrial Revolution. Like my Grandma, there is no bullshit about it.

Mike Edison, author of I Have Fun Everywhere I Go, is guest blogging on Jewcy, and he'll be here all week.  Stay tuned.

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Mike will be performing with his band, featuring Jon Spencer, in a very special evening of "Literary Mayhem and Rock'n'Roll," with special guests Jonathan Ames, Rachel Shukert, and Amanda Stern, Thursday, October 16^th,at the incredible Spiegelworld tent at the South Street Seaport inManhattan. For info, free MP3s and videos (including the infamous BongGuitar video) and much more, please visit www.rockettrain.com

Literary Mayhem!

After hemming and hawing over it, John McCain finally found his testicles and decided to join his running mate, Gov. Sarah Palin in attacking Obama on his involvement with the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac debacle that tax payers are now having a gun held to our heads by the Democrats to pay for their stupidity.

From Michelle Malkin:

Our current economic crisis is a good case in point. What was his actual record in the years before the great economic crisis of our lifetimes?

This crisis started in our housing market in the form of subprime loans that were pushed on people who could not afford them. Bad mortgages were being backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and it was only a matter of time before a contagion of unsustainable debt began to spread. This corruption was...

Continue reading...

The RNC has opened up it’s files on Barack Obama’s relationship with unrepentent terrorist William Ayers and it’s looking pretty cozy between the two and not just a happenstance meeting of the two as falsely claimed by Obama.

From GOP.COM:

The Relationship Between Barack Obama And Bill Ayers Is Much More Extensive Than Obama’s Campaign Is Willing To Admit

Obama’s Top Campaign Staff Have Attempted To Downplay The Relationship Between Obama And Bill Ayers:

Obama Spokesman Robert Gibbs Said That Obama And Ayers Weren’t Close And That Obama Was Only 8 Years Old When Ayers Was Bombing Buildings. Robert Gibbs: “If you read the article … it says these two men weren’t close, this man isn’t involved in our campaign. Bill Ayers is somebody that Barack Obama said his actions were despicable and these happened when Barack Obama was 8 years old.” (FOX News’ “FOX & Friends,” 10/6/08)

Gibbs...

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NBC out of fear of retaliation from Obama’s Puppetmaster George Soros sent the online video of this skit down the memory hole, but alas, fear not another copy has shown up online courtesy of Pat Dollard who chanllanges opponents of free speech to “Yank this bitches”!

CLICK HERE to view the video.

Michelle Malkin has the entire transcript of the skit posted on her website and has additional comment HERE.

A big thank you to those who kept this video alive and...

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On Sunday, the New York Post, that bastion of neutrality, had a piece about Senator Biden entitled: "Is Joe Hidin' Facial Work."  First of all, how do you "hide" facial work? Put scaffolding around your eyes? Wear a goalie mask?  This is yet another attempt by the conservative biased media to "hide" John McCain's abysmal record.  How does Biden having "definitely had Botox in the forehead region" or appearing to have had "some sort of 'Lateral Brow/Eyelid Lift'" affect ONE AMERICAN?  Actually, I take that back.  It does affect one American: the doctor who did the procedure.  Everyone else should shut the fuck up.  This is reminiscent of John Edwards and his $400 haircut.  I don't care if he'd spent $700,000 on his haircut - it's his money.  Same thing with Biden. If he wants to get a tattoo on his face like Mike Tyson, he has my blessing.  If he wants to fill his cheeks up with silicone so he looks like a squirrel, go right ahead, sir.  If he wants to invest in gold teeth like Flava Flav, he should go for it. 

He can still make facial expressions.The Republicans say they want to get government out of the lives of the American people - unless it comes down to a women's body or wiretapping your phone or telling a Senator what he can and can't legally spend his money on.  "Excuse me, Mr. Rove - is it okay if Hillary Clinton buys that dress at Bonwit Teller?  And which credit card would you prefer she put it on?"  If Joe Biden is spending his money on mink eyelashes like Madonna then I have a problem with it - but only because minks are adorable. Otherwise leave the guy alone and concentrate on fixing our country before America is transformed into a full-fledged Banana Republic (if we're lucky) or a Third-World nation (if we're not).

Brian Frazer, author of Hyper-Chondriac, is guest blogging on Jewcy, and he's here all week.  Stay tuned.

The Alaska Jewish population is 3,425. 3,425. There are more Jews at Zabar's this morning than live in Alaska. Let me ask you a question: how many of those Jewish people in Alaska do you think Sarah Palin has met, talked to, encountered?Palin inspires the Gentile masses

You can tell me that Sarah Palin has met other Jews in her travels, but she has not traveled. Not only has she hardly traveled abroad, even though she can see Russia from her window, but she has hardly traveled domestically.

One of the reasons Sarah Palin is so frightening is because her frame of reference appears to be so narrow. It would be one thing if she worked in Alaska but traveled extensively to get to know the country or the world. But she has chosen not to - which is her choice, and I respect it. Except for the fact that she wants to possibly run the country, and I am a citizen of this country, and Sarah Palin does not know people who share my background.

Another reason Palin is so scary is because not only has she not traveled, but she does not seem in the least bit curious. She may or may not read; it's hard to get a straight answer from her. She only seems to read back what's written for her, so it's hard to tell what she really thinks or really knows. If you're from a small state, far from the rest of the country, and you hardly read or travel, does that seem like a person you'd want representing you in the White House? Or does that seem like someone who, I don't know, should educate themselves in America before they try to represent America?

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Happy Tuesday Jewcers.

All the doom and gloom has me Drudged-out, and a bit down, and so it's with pleasant anticipation that I welcome Mike Edison who joins us for book club this week to talk of of I Have Fun Everywhere I Go: Savage Tales of Pot, Porn, Punk Rock, Pro Wrestling, Talking Apes, Evil Bosses, Dirty Blues, American Heroes, and the Most Notorious Magazines in the World.

Mike Edison’s résumé is a twenty years counter-cultural voyage through a slew of notorious magazines, including Screw, High Times, Penthouse, and Hustler. An Ivy League dropout, an accomplished musician, and a one-of-a-kind voice, please welcome Mr. Edison for the week.  -- TR

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It's not like my mother and I are ever going to see eye to eye on anything. For instance, she read about one paragraph of my book and it nearly put her in the hospital.

There are a lot of drugs in my book, although it is not dark at all. It is very celebratory, actually. It is called I Have Fun Everywhere I Go, and it is a memoir, in part about how much fun you can have with  pot and psychedelics and cocaine and bathtub gin and whatnot, but Mom is about as square as you get — I am sure she can't even spell "LSD,"  and this does not tickle her funnybone. (I Have Fun is also rife with tales of pornography and punk rock and professional wrestling, topics which rate about as high on her  favorability index as Ozzy Osborne and Evel Knievel, both old pals of mine who make dysfunctional star-turns in I Have Fun.)

And my mother is also still very bitter about her divorce, even though it happened almost 25 years ago, so it is a very good thing she didn't read Chapter Three, wherein at age fourteen I discover the joys of Double-Barrel Sunshine and describe with candor what assholes my parents were — a no-show dad and the Jewish Joan Crawford. That would have put her in the grave.

But I never thought my mother was a complete moron, at least not until a couple of weeks ago. 

I should make it very clear now, before ya'll start turning on me - I love my mom. She has a heart of gold, and really always truly wanted what was best for her children. She was hard-wired for an anodyne suburban life of birthday parties and bar mitzvahs. I was supposed to graduate from an Ivy League school (I did eventually go to one, but got the hell out after realizing that higher education, along with the fine art market, was the last great rip-off in America), and grow up to give her brilliant, blue-eyed grandchildren to whom she could kvetch with impunity. I guess it was around the time I got caught smoking dope in the schoolyard, right after my father split, that her world went twirling off of its access and began hurtling towards the sun. 

It was tough going there for a while, but these days we get along great, and she is generally very supportive, no matter that she still insists that "writing is not a job" (even though that's how I have been paying my rent pretty much for the last twenty years), and asks me about my band,  presumbably to be polite, but always groaning, and not-so sotto-voce, "I hope it isn't still punk rock." I guess no parent is virtuoso when it comes to hiding their disgust. Did I mention I love her?

Anyway, it was my birthday a couple of weeks ago and Mom wanted to buy me a shirt, which is how we ended up in a Target department store in suburban New Jersey.

On the way out with my new shirt, (a not-too-sporty button-down affair, dark blue with thin gold stripes, the only one we could agree on), we were walking by the rack where they have the tabloids and gossip rags, and there was the National Enquirer, God bless their soul, with the screamer headline, SARAH PALIN'S DARK SECRETS!

The National Enquirer: These Colors Don't Run

Really, who doesn't love the Enquirer?

And then Mom started in with the tongue clicking — the Jewish mother's socio-linguistic equivalent of spitting on the floor.

"They'll say just anything," she bleat contemptuously, which she does very well. 

"Well," I offered, "you have to admit they have an uncanny knack of being right. They were right about Jon Edwards. They were right about Bill Clinton and all of the women he was with."

The Enquirer's Palin story outlined her pregnant teenage daughter's pot-smoking and promiscuity; her (the daughter's) hockey-thug boyfriend, err, fiancé's, selfless dedication to ultra-violence and jailbait; her (Palin's) oldest son's love affair with recreational Vicodin (apparently he had a choice — go to Iraq, or go to jail); and it began to uncoil the smelly, moist details of her (again, Palin's) own dalliance with her husband's business partner. All in all, a very good story.

My mother glowered. "Do not talk to me about politics," she growled, and then clamped her lips tight.

But she couldn't help herself. 

"You aren't going to vote for Obama,"  she finally spewed. "He's a Muslim."

I pondered for a moment how someone so fucking stupid could have spawned me. It is genuinely heartbreaking.

"You can't possibly believe that."

"And I HATE her," she added, indicative of absolutely nothing.

"Who??"

"Michelle Obama."

"Why?? What has she ever done to you??"

A beat, punctuated by more tongue-clicking. 

"I really hope he doesn't win."

My turn: "It's because he is black, isn't it? Just say it — it's because he is black."

My mother is an old Jewish lady who generally doesn't know how to shut the fuck up, and now she has nothing to say. Go figure.

"Just admit it...." Now I am pushing her. I am not a bad child, but she knows that I have a zero-tolerance policy towards intolerance of any kind, and she should know by now that I won't ever listen to this kind of shit without some seriously smarty-pants rebuke. "Say it," I demand of her, "You won't vote for him because he is black."

And I know in my heart of hearts that this is true (it also doesn't help that she is now married to a right-wing nincompoop), and I really want to vomit, which is my version of tongue-clicking.

"You can't vote for McCain," I tried to reason. "You are a WOMAN, a JEW, and a SCHOOLTEACHER, three groups that should NEVER vote for a REPUBLICAN...  Let alone this DODDERING OLD FUCK and MOOSEBURGER BARBIE. I mean, seriously, ON WHAT PLANET IS SHE QUALIFIED TO BE PRESIDENT??"

Mom started turning purple, so I gave her a pass and didn't launch into my more erudite arguments about her granddaughter's future reproductive rights, and my desire to have a president who didn't hate my pot-smoking, punk-rocking, book-reading, cock-sucking friends.

She looked at me like she was going to cry. Her face was all screwed up. Something was going on in her brain. Maybe, just maybe, she knew that somehow I was right?

I let it lie for a while, because now we were in the car and she was driving me to the train station so I could shuttle back to my elitist hamlet in New York City, and I didn't want her to have an aneurism and drive into oncoming traffic. She was starting to get that look.

* * TO BE CONTINUED * *

Mike Edison's book is I Have Fun Everywhere I Go: Savage Tales of Pot, Porn, Punk Rock, Pro Wrestling, Talking Apes, Evil Bosses, Dirty Blues, American Heroes, and the Most Notorious Magazines in the World.

He will be performing with his band, featuring Jon Spencer, in a very special evening of "Literary Mayhem and Rock'n'Roll," with special guests Jonathan Ames, Rachel Shukert, and Amanda Stern, Thursday, October 16^th, at the incredible Spiegelworld tent at the South Street Seaport in Manhattan. 

For info, free MP3s and videos (including the infamous Bong Guitar video) and much more, please visit www.rockettrain.com.

Literary Mayhem! 

Mike Edison, author of I Have Fun Everywhere I Go, is guest blogging on Jewcy, and he'll be here all week.  Stay tuned.