Harry Potter Is A Jew

It's laughable that antisemitism is on the rise in America today, or so it is said. So many actors, movie producers, inventors, business leaders, scientists, biologists and writers are Jewish, it's hard to imagine what life would be like today without all their efforts. And of course, no bagels. Everyone would be eating what for breakfast? Crumpets and plum pudding?

Instead, people should get busy and start hating that one ethnic group that has contributed almost nothing to society. (Google it.) That would at least make some sense.

Videos To Die For

Fat people are helpless and pathetic addicts, no less than someone who shoots heroin. But there are no videos of anyone doing that online. I guess give it time.

I've known about mental illness since I was a very small child. My first introduction to it was seeing the classic 1948 film, The Snake Pit, starring Olivia de Havilland, who became my favorite female film star of those old black & white days. I must have been very young, having been born in 1946, and it stayed with me. There were lots of people in strait jackets, with dirty, stringy hair walking around with dazed expressions like zombies. Starring the usual manic depressives, schizophrenics, bi-polars and psychopaths, some of them were confined to cages.

Today's crazies are more fortunate. They are not only free to be their looniest selves, but they are actually online "influencers" applauded by a vast number of "followers" on TikTok and Instagram who enjoy watching their insanity. Their output is called "mukbang", wherein they eat large quantities of food and post videos of themselves doing so online. The name comes from two South Korean words and literally means "eating broadcast." 

Very obese people -- and even some who are not overweight at all -- eating unimaginably large amounts of terribly unhealthy foods is beyond disgusting. Several of these mostly young people, in their 20s and 30s, have actually died while eating online from a heart attack or some other obesity-related disease. Almost worse is the enormous cult of people, called "Feeders," who get off on watching people stuff themselves and actually send them food and money to support their addiction. 

The pro-obesity sub-culture makes me feel sorry for the entire human "race", which apparently has already been lost.

Open Letter to All Dumbocrats

Connecticut's Democrat Congresswoman, Rosa DeLaurio

Okay, come on. Maybe you don't like Donald Trump because he's a braggart who is rich and successful with bad taste in furnishings and a penchant for self-aggrandizement. I get it. But he's very smart, and very accomplished, and has great political instincts, and he's done a great job as POTUS.

Now let's look at the contenders for president on the Democrat side in 2028: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a goofy bartender-turned-socialist cheerleader, Pete Buttigieg, a one-time small-town mayor who's gay and that's about it, Governor Hair Gel, a good-looking jerk with a bad political record, and worst of all, loser extraordinaire Kamala Harris,who cannot even speak plain English and is clearly a mental midget of monumental proportions.

How anyone can be a Democrat anymore is simply beyond my comprehension. Really, what are you all thinking? 

Series Review: CLARKSON'S FARM SEASON FIVE

After what seemed like an eternity (but was really only 11 months), the gang at Clarkson's Farm has returned this month on Amazon Prime. I hadn't realize how empty my life has been without them until I watched the first episode of Season 5 last night. There are seven hour-long episodes left, and I'm thrilled at the prospect of watching them and already sad that they will come to an end.

If you've never seen the show you are missing out on something totally unique and exhilarating. First of all it's a documentary, so you're seeing real lives play out, not some Hollywood writer's inner, often drug-induced, fantasy world. The series is set on a thousand-acre farm in the Cotswolds, perhaps the most beautiful part of the English countryside. (You'll want to drop everything and go there immediately; we did exactly that last year, eventually making our way to the farm.) 

Just the color-drenched photography alone makes it all worthwhile. Some of the stunning images that take your breath away include drone shots of impossibly-green farmland, all species of farm animals living their best lives -- growing, having babies and running free, birds soaring in flight, darkening clouds gathering for a storm, magical sunsets and sunrises, and intense close-ups of flowers and vegetation. 

The accompanying music is great, and the characters are even better. Jeremy Clarkson, the star, is a total hoot and it's easy to see why he was, and has remained, such a fan favorite all across Great Britain. His partner Lisa is adorable and funny, adding a feminine slant to the basically all-male cast. The assorted, sometimes wacky, locals who help Jeremy make a go of his farm and the village beer pub he opened in Season 4 will soon become your favorite neighbors. 

Best of all, the show is free of evil drug lords, monstrous murderers and rapists, racism, flying wizards, international spy rings, wild car chases, political infighting and violence -- although last night's episode did show the aftermath of a wild dog attack on a poor, innocent sheep that was quite gory and all too real. But in general you can watch Clarkson's Farm with your children without worry. They'll likely want to be farmers when they grow up, which in our current economy and with AI taking everyone's jobs away, isn't such a bad idea.

Sex Is More Popular Than Death

News Flash: You will die someday. I know -- you don't like thinking about it, or talking about it, but it's true. And lately it's been on my mind more than usual because my husband has recently plunked down many thousands of dollars for a burial plot and headstone in a local cemetery, along with the promise of someone putting him into it, because he knows that if he dies first I won't do it, finding it barbaric to enclose a body inside a box and lower it six feet down under the dirt, leaving it there to rot. I prefer cremation, which seems more ethereal -- angelic, almost -- and a whole lot cheaper.

I wanted some opinions on the subject and so asked ChatGPT, "Are there any websites that discuss the subject of death?" The answer came back that yes, there are several, and it listed three, only one of which opened when I clicked on it. Then I asked ChatGPT, "Are there any websites that discuss the subject of sex?" The answer came back that yes, there are thousands of websites that discuss sex. (Big surprise.)

I was disappointed, since I don't need any advice or opinions or instructions or information about sex, but I'm clueless about death. I'd love to know if spending money that could be used for something charitable or beneficial to society or educational or just plain fun in this lifetime trumps buying a hole in the ground and some people to lower you into it sometime in the future.

Crazy Rich

Today's New York Times contains a full-page ad for an auction company claiming to be "The world's largest collectibles auctioneer." It shows a note with scribbled lettering on it, which are actually John Lennon's handwritten lyrics to the 1964 Beatles hit, "If I Fell," from the album "A Hard Day's Night." The estimated sale price for this piece of note paper is between $500,000 and $1,000,000. There are three phone numbers to call if you are interested.

Despite loving that song, if someone came to my home and presented me with that particular piece of paper, it would change my life not one bit. I would still have a terrible backache from pulling a muscle at the gym last week which kept me up all night alternately weeping and drinking Tension Tamer tea (which BTW doesn't work). I would also still be ten pounds overweight, and my dear friend Janice would still have pneumonia and my cat Lurch would still be 19 years old and skinny as a rail. 

Nothing in my life would be any different, except I'd have to figure out what to do with that silly piece of paper. Yet somebody, somewhere will likely respond to that ad and purchase that piece of scribbled-upon note paper for an unbelievable sum. 

The only possible explanation is that rich people are nuts.

The Perks of Aging

The former love of my life is back!

Getting old is not all bad. It's mostly bad, but once in a while something good comes along. For example, forgetfulness is seen by most people as a negative. Losing your memory about something that happened, or entering a certain room and having no idea what to do when you get there, is playfully dubbed a "senior moment." Ha, ha, not usually funny. But having a gigantic senior moment can be beneficial. Like watching the entire series The Sopranos for the second time and not remembering one thing about it means you get a whole new show.

My husband and I first watched The Sopranos in 2005, in its entirety. We were addicted, rushing through dinner every night to put it on. Since then we've seen hundreds of other shows, movies and documentaries. But one night we thought, hey, let's watch an episode of The Sopranos again -- it was so good. So we did, and were certain we had missed that episode since we remembered nothing about it. We tried another, and the same thing happened. So we started at the beginning and are now in Season Two, and loving it. Remembering nothing. 

It's a small thing compared with arthritis and heart attacks and hip replacements, and of course impending death, but hey -- it's something.

Seeing God: Blink And You'll Miss Him

As a child growing up in an observant Jewish family, I often found myself sitting in a synagogue for one reason or another, searching the hidden recesses for a glimpse of God. I never saw Him. My mother told me that God was not in churches or temples, He was at the ocean, and in fact, He was the ocean. 

That seemed more plausible, and she and I went to the beach often, sitting quietly on a blanket and staring at the great expanse. Since then I've witnessed the harm of tsunamis and have decided that a benificent God must reside elsewhere. Somewhere that does no harm. He's got to be in flowers. (And babies, of course.)

With that in mind, I recently went to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. Flowers of unimaginable shapes, colors and sizes were in full bloom. All the visitors who had ponied up the entrance fee ($31 for adults, $28 for seniors) were stunned by their beauty, leaning in close to take pictures, trying to capture the essence of God within them, whether they knew it or not.

But then I did some research and found that there are many, many toxic blooms, at least 35, that can cause serious illness, skin irritation, nausea, vomiting, paralysis and even death if touched or consumed. Lots of them are in my own backyard. Who knew?

So I guess we're down to babies. If you happen to have one right now, be grateful and treat it with reverence. They don't last long and ultimately turn into people, and a quick look at the news tells you that at some point Satan takes over, earlier than you think.

Normalizing Insanity

This woke bullshit concerning the widely accepted mental illness of transgenderism is getting so out of control. Today I searched a few medical websites for possible reasons why a friend of mine has been losing weight without trying. She's down to an alarmingly low number and her various doctors, while aware of the situation, are not doing anything except "keeping an eye on it."

In my reading I came across this sentence: "People with vulvas should pay close attention as unexplained weight loss may have to do with menopause." People with vulvas? Exactly who are people with vulvas? Could they be, um, maybe WOMEN?

Meanwhile, New York's lame Governor Kathy has decided to change all the official written crap in her state to say "gestating parent" and "non-gestating parent" instead of MOTHER and FATHER. Somebody, somewhere, with still functioning brain cells, should outlaw all this insanity before it's too late and our maternity wards turn into that scene in The Matrix with all the babies being manufactured by the state.

Film Review: DISCLOSURE DAY

Emily Blunt and Josh O'Connor star.

The latest "are we alone in the universe or not?" saga from director Steven Spielberg enticed me to a movie theater for the first time in about two years. My husband and I were expecting big things from Disclosure Day -- things that would benefit from being seen on a large screen, rather than our TV in the den. (We were wrong. You can wait til it's streaming.)

Starting out, not much that's happening is comprehensible, just a lot of sci-fi mumbo-jumbo between the good guys who want the world to know the TRUTH and the bad guys who are keeping it secret. Close attention, and possibly a copy of the script, is required to figure it all out, so I nodded off a few times. No problem  as I was awake for the parts that mattered, most of which take place in the last quarter of the two-plus hours run time.  

Suffice it to say that Spielberg is stuck back in his E.T., Close Encounters, Raiders heyday, and thus borrows heavily from himself. Some of what he chose to include is more suitable for Indiana Jones, like a car-train-crash scene that is totally off the subject of this film but is fun to watch. The final payoff is that we eventually meet "E.T." in his dotage, and not surprisingly he looks exactly the same, but older and with a bigger head. Also, the two lead actors (Josh O'Connor, Emily Blunt) are superb as strangers who share a uniquely common path that began in childhood and who finally meet as adults.

Things Nobody Needs

I wonder what themes were on their dashboards.

About my new car. It's a 2026 Audi, and while it drives great it's full of crap that nobody needs. Much of this crap surely adds to the high price tag, not to mention the waste of design talent of those responsible. In fact, there's so much of it that I had to go back to the dealership today for a tutorial on how to work all the bells and whistles -- really they are buttons, it's just an expression -- that I couldn't figure out.

For example, one of the headings on the changeable dashboard is "Themes." Hmmm, what could that mean, I wondered. Turns out it's like wallpaper on your cellphone, only for your car's "infotainment screen." You can choose from about 25 different background images to personalize your vehicle, as if your license plate isn't enough. Things like New York City, dolphins, Disney, the ocean, sports team logos, animals, favorite movies, landscapes, and blah, blah blah. Talk about distracted driving.

Technology keeps improving everything but our lives.