Spending Time vs. Killing Time

It's ironic for me to suggest that you turn off your computer or cell phone or iPad or whatever the heck you are reading this on and go for a walk, or take a bath or read a book or do anything else for Christ's sake, since I am writing this on my computer so how else would you be reading it. But there it is. The sad truth is that technology rules the day, even though it is squashing our spirit, ruining our health, making us stupid and most probably fat. 

Take me, for example. In my younger days I would read a book at bedtime to relax, adding to my knowledge or understanding of the world in some way. Now I play Words With Friends like a heroin addict, telling myself "just one more" until an hour has flown by, or exchanging insults with strangers about politics, or scrolling videos of adorable puppies like a moron. 

Surely this cannot be good for me, especially at this point in my life. In six months I will turn 80, joining the fastest-growing age group in the U.S. (More than 12.7 million Americans are 80 or older.) Despite feeling younger, thinking younger and even behaving younger, the reality is I'm nearing the end. While I shake my head in disbelief at how the younger generations waste their time online, I'm no better.

Yesterday my friend Ted -- we have never met in person but still I consider him a good friend -- texted me that he was "taking a vacation from Facebook" because it was eating up too much of his time. I wish him well and hope he finds something worthy to fill all the hours he will gain. Still, I hope he'll keep reading this blog, although I'm not sure why it matters -- or even what matters. But surely going for a walk, reading a book or making a pot of soup are better ways to spend time, rather than killing it mindlessly online.

Good luck out there, Ted!

We're All in the Dark Together

Growing up, I can remember watching the news and believing every word of it. I never got even a whiff of how the on-air reporters felt about the things they said. In my teens, TV journalists appeared so honest and fair that I developed girlish crushes on a few of them. Garrick Utley was my favorite, but there was also Walter Cronkite, John Chancellor, Ted Koppel, Tim Russert, Jim Vance (local to D.C.), Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. I had no idea what their party affiliations were as they delivered the news without any spin.

Today journalists don't try to hide their feelings. News readers like Anderson Cooper on CNN, Jesse Watters on FOX, Judy Woodruff on NPR, and especially that most repulsive creature Caitlyn Collins on CNN make no pretense of which team they favor. Consequently I don't take any of them seriously. 

The result is that nobody knows what the heck is going on anywhere, which is a contributing factor in the ignorance of the population, myself included. Yet each biased news organization has its devotees who swear that their truth is the real deal. The New York Times may be the worst offender, with an anti-Trump agenda so huge that it clouds any legitimate information they may present concerning world events. 

Alas, "we the people" know nothing for sure. Get that into your head and you will finally stop arguing with people with opposing viewpoints. We're all in the dark together, facing a common enemy, so we might as well play nice. 

Who Cares What You Think?

Thousands upon thousands of people post their random thoughts, political opinions and undying love for their kids/spouses/pets as if anyone gives a hoot about it or them. The same is true, of course, for this blog. I am under no illusions that what I think matters to anyone except perhaps my husband, and note that I say perhaps, if it is something that involves him. Yet the internet is awash in so much blather.

I write this blog so I can have something to read when I can't sleep and more importantly, proofread and edit, two things I love doing. I don't need anyone to applaud it or approve of it or most of all tear it down. Every so often I write something funny and maybe it makes someone somewhere laugh, and that's good. It also serves as a place to vent, rant and throw up on paper instead of in real life, which I need to do every so often but refuse to do because it is so repulsive. (Throwing up.)

Today I am feeling nauseous over being surrounded by people who are so lacking in so many things, most notably driving skills, deep thoughts, common courtesy and critical thinking. In my town the ditzy Democrats love transgenders, wallow in TDS and think our recent actions in Venezuela were not nice to Maduro, who after all was just minding his own business in his own country when the big, bad Americans came for him.

On the other hand, there is no traffic here and not too much crime, although it's been gradually increasing since the influx of all those peaceful undocumented immigrants. So, nothing funny today, except the cartoon. Actually that isn't even funny, it's too cynical. Here's a better one:

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Living With FOM

Muslim women all dressed up with nowhere to go.

Some people have FOMO, which means Fear Of Missing Out, which I don't have because there is nothing worth having that I might miss out on by not attending, or listening, or watching anything. Instead, I have a shortened version called FOM, which means Fear Of Muslims. (I know they are vastly different conditions but I'm playing with the fact that they share the first three letters.)

Why do I fear Muslims, you ask? Mostly because so many of them -- not all of course -- are evil, sick and twisted, espousing the murder of every Jew on the planet. They throw gays off rooftops and chop the hands off of thieves and run over their own daughters in their own damn driveway if they engage in sex before marriage. (That actually happened in Maryland a few years ago.)

They wear sheets and towels and curtains as clothing and make their women cover their heads, faces, arms, and sometimes their entire bodies when out in public. They don't allow women to drive cars, let alone leave the house. They don't permit women to attend school and become educated. 

The misguided and dense Democrat New Yorkers, including the Jewish ones who buy bagels at Zabar's on the Upper West Side, just elected one of them to be their mayor. During his campaign he vowed to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he ever sets foot in that city. And on his first day in office (yesterday) he repealed a long-standing city law banning the boycotting of Israeli products. (I hope he doesn't rely on Waze, formerly FreeMap Israel, when he's lost somewhere in the Bronx or Staten Island, since it was made by an Israeli software company.)

I could go on I'm already worried this post will be "unpublished" by the bots at Blogger who probably also have FOM -- who doesn't? 

Kwik, It's Kwanzaa!

You say kenora, I say menorah.....

This morning as I hung up my 2026 calendar -- the only difference between this year and last -- I learned that not only is this New Year's Day but it is also the last day of Kwanzaa! OMG! Who knew?  Nobody, that's who. Did you ever once hear anyone say "Happy Kwanzaa" these last few weeks? Me either. 

The holiday was invented in 1966 by an African black separatist (how nice) named Maulana Karenga who believed that Jesus Christ was psychotic and that Christianity was a white religion that black people should shun. 

Some studies suggest that certain racial minority groups, including young Black Americans, may hold more negative views of Jews compared to other demographics, but this does not represent the views of all Black people.

-- Cambridge University Press 

Wait, it gets better. Rather than constructing their own handcrafted candleabra, God forbid a million times they should do something original, Karenga "forcibly removed two branches from a Hanukkah menorah which was then used to hold the seven candles. He called it a kenora.* (I wonder how he came up with that word.)

Karenga said his goal was "to give black people an alternative to the existing holiday of Christmas." So he invented a holiday for black people to celebrate themselves and their history, "rather than simply imitate the practice of the dominant society." * 

To all the black people reading this, get out there and celebrate yourselves today before it's too late! But please, no rioting.

* Wikipedia

Happy Tomorrow

Once again we arrive at that age-old fabrication called the "New Year." I'm ready for it, with a brand new wall calendar ready to go. But alas, that's all that will be new starting tomorrow, unless something wild and crazy happens to me today, which I doubt and definitely hope doesn't.

A new year is not really very new, except for those calendars. To make it more exciting, this year I purchased two wall calendars, one for the kitchen featuring Japanese Woodblock prints and the other for my art studio showing the paintings of Mark Rothko. I look forward to seeing both of those on a daily basis.

To ring in the same-as-always next year, my husband and I plan to have dinner at our favorite sushi restaurant where we dine about once a week, so nothing new there unless we break from tradition and order something different. (I might suggest that.)`

Like the Buddhists, or somebody like them I forget who, say: It's all one day. Sometimes it's dark outside and sometimes it's light outside. So I'm wishing a happy tonight and of course a happy tomorrow to all of my loyal friends who are reading this. 

Free Cake

"CAKE PICNIC is a global cake festival and traveling picnic where strangers gather in beautiful parks to share whole cakes and create unforgettable memories. From London to Los Angeles, Manila to Melbourne, each CAKE PICNIC brings together bakers, cake-lovers, and joyful guests who believe that cake has the power to turn an ordinary afternoon into something extraordinary."

The above paragraph is cut and pasted from "the official Cake Picnic" page. Apparently this Cake Picnic thing has gone viral, with people paying $50 for a ticket that will allow them to enter an outdoor venue, otherwise free to the public, and bring a cake to a picnic to meet people who also have brought a cake to the picnic.

Supposedly this is to facilitate friendships between members of the younger generations who, because of Covid and the societal destruction caused by social media, have lost the ability to interact with strangers, carry on face-to-face conversations and form in-person friendships.

According to an article in today's WSJ, the sad news is that these "cake picnics" have turned into little more than opportunities for people to post selfies with their cakes on Instagram, and thus make no new friends at all since that's what everyone else is doing too.

Here's an idea: Make a beautiful cake (see photo) and go to a public park on a lovely afternoon and put up a sign saying "Free Cake." That might get you a new friend for free.

Film Review: THE ZONE OF INTEREST

Hedwig and her baby enjoying their garden, next door to a death camp.

I finally watched a film released in 2024 that I had long been wanting to see entitled "The Zone of Interest." Being a Jew who has dutifully seen every other Holocaust movie and TV series and visited the Holocaust Museums in Washington, DC, and in Israel, I expected it would be familiar territory:  Evil Nazis, packed trains, gas showers, random shootings, starving prisoners digging their own graves, orange smoke rising from the crematoria — all of that. I was ready for it.

But I wasn’t. This movie is so different from the others depicting that horrible chapter of history, it’s in a category all its own. There was none of the usual stuff I mentioned above, except for muffled gunshots heard in the distance and a glimpse or two of a belching smokestack. Instead writer/director Jonathan Glazer went in a totally different direction, showing how ordinary Germans dealt with the mass extermination of human beings occurring right under their noses — in this case literally.

It's the true story of Rudolf Hoess, head commandant of the Auschwitz concentration camp, his wife Hedwig and their young children all living just on the other side of a simple wooden fence from the screams, smells and gunshots permeating their days and nights. Yet they are seemingly untouched, comfortably enjoying the high life in a lovely home staffed with numerous servants, as if nothing is at all out of the ordinary. It’s like, “Oh yeah, they’re killing Jews next door — when’s dinner? Do we have time for a swim in the pool?” 

Half of me regrets seeing it because now I‘m more depressed about antisemitism than ever. And since it’s on the rise, I’m considering staying at home until there’s a pounding on the door and they come for me.

My other half is glad I saw it because The Zone of Interest is such an extraordinary piece of movie-making. The unusual editing and sound direction alone are such that there’s no looking away as chilling images are burned into your brain. The acting, despite it being in German and Polish with subtitles, is impressive. Every reviewer I have read used the word “haunting” to describe the film, and I guess I will too.

It’s haunting. See it.

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Press enter or click to view image in full size

I Hope You Can Read This

Unknown people have been eliminating some of my posts. I have no idea why, but I suspect it might be some censoring bot at Google. 

For example, just a few days ago I wrote my Annual Christmas Letter, which was certainly innocuous. A day later it was "unpublished." The same thing happened about a week ago to another post.

In today's climate of censorship, it is pointless for me, or anyone, with views differing from those in control to speak out, speak the truth, or even speak at all. "Free speech" is a thing of the past.

I started this blog in 2007 and it's been a great run. Now, almost 20 years later, it's in serious trouble.

Merry Christmas.

God Works In Mysterious Ways

I have always believed in God. Not some old guy in a white robe with a long beard standing at the Pearly Gates, but definitely some sort of Being In Charge. However, lately not so much.

In fact, today was the day I stopped believing when I read about a nursing home in Pennsylvania where there was an explosion and two people died. Some sort of gas leak, or whatever. But anyway, two days before Christmas these people, ill and nearing the end, being cared for or so they thought, died violently, not peacefully, in an explosion. If there is a God, then in light of this and of course other heinous recent events, one must conclude that He/She/It is not very nice. 

Now I've got to go and find Something Else to believe in, because if we are all just here running our own independent shows, that's very bad news.