"Never Again" Is Now

"Never again" is a phrase or slogan which is associated with the lessons of the Holocaust and other genocides. The phrase may originate from a 1927 poem by Yitzhak Lamdan which stated, "Never again shall Masada fall!" So says the Wikipedia entry about that phrase. To me, growing up in the 50's in a Jewish family, it assured me that our people would never again have to worry about the threat of extermination inherent in rampant antisemitism. 

But waddya know -- here it is again in 2023, alive and well on college campuses all over America. And not just any college campuses, but some of the very finest and prestigious, among them Cornell, NYU, Brown, George Washington University, Stanford, Columbia and UC Berkeley.

It's beyond shocking that affluent young Americans with the grades, backgrounds and financial ability to attend such schools are siding with terrorists and marching against the state of Israel. I know, I know -- Palestinian mothers love their children too, and blah, blah, blah.

Palestine is run by Hamas. Hamas cuts off the heads, hands and any other body parts they choose of whomever they choose. There is simply no defending them. Just like Adolf Hitler, who I bet was a real pussycat at times.

The Cruelty of Stardom

R.I.P. Matthew Perry

Actor Matthew Perry has died at the age of 54. Since this was announced yesterday there has been a huge outpouring of grief from fans the world over who loved him as Chandler Bing on the sitcom Friends, which ran for ten years (1994-2004) and earned him awards, accolades and millions of dollars many times over. Despite all that, Perry battled addiction to alcohol and painkillers for much of his adult life. In his later years he dedicated himself to helping others battling addiction, and for a time turned his Malibu home into a sober living facility called The Perry House.

Chandler Bing might have been everyone's favorite character on Friends; he was certainly mine. Self-effacing and sarcastic, he was a successful Everyman, despite being well above average in looks and wit. The fact that he died relatively young has shocked the entertainment world and touched a nerve with many of his fans, most of whom are likely his same age today.

So it was especially gruesome when Kevin Brennan, a failed comedian and former writer for NBC's long-running sketch show Saturday Night Live, posted several incredibly cruel comments just a day after Perry's death. Maybe he thought he was being funny when he posted on Instagram, "I love it when junkies die," but I guess that's why he's no longer employed as a comedy writer.  He also wrote, "Hahaha" about Perry drowning in a hot tub, explaining that he found it funny because "a hot tub isn't very deep." So he's ignorant as well, since people can drown in a foot of water.

It's grievous that the dark soul of Kevin Brennan walks among us while the bright light of Matthew Perry has been extinguished. The good news is that the endearing Chandler Bing lives on in reruns: just this morning I watched a couple of episodes of Friends and he made my day.

Wussy Mainers

One man with a gun shot and killed 18 people two nights ago in a small Maine town. Since then the entire state has been locked down. It's shocking really, to see the reaction of what was always thought to be the strong New England character.

Here's something for all the scaredy-cats to ponder. They could catch this guy today, and all the stores and doctor's offices and schools and retail establishments would open up, and another guy with a gun could do the same thing tomorrow. Then what?

I say Mainers need to grow a pair.

Another Bad October

I live in Maine, not far from the town of Lewiston where a madman went on a rampage last night, first walking into a bowling alley armed with an assault rifle and opening fire, then driving to a bar 11 miles away and doing it again. In all, 18 people were killed and 14 remain hospitalized with critical injuries. 

Today, the gunman still at large, much of the state is virtually on lockdown. Schools and colleges are closed, as are government offices, gyms, many supermarkets and retail establishments including LL Bean and the entire Maine Mall. Naturally, people are freaked out, including me. So far today I have not ventured out my front door, and it's almost three in the afternoon. All because of one man.

Oddly enough, this is not my first rodeo, and I was much less frightened during the last one. In October 2002 I was living in Washington D.C. during the 3-week long siege of the "Beltway Snipers." Two men, one in his 40s and the other just a boy of 17, drove around the city and surrounding suburbs shooting -- and killing -- people at random on the street.

Yes, I feared for my safety, as did everyone, but still life went on. My son, then in high school, went to classes each day. I shopped for food. My husband and I went to the movies, went out for dinner and filled our gas tanks, even though one murder happened while a lone woman was doing just that.

This time, nobody has the courage to do much of anything. On TV, the authorities, urge us to "shelter in place" and "hunker down." What's happened to make our society so much more wary in the ensuing years? Has the increase in mass shootings since the days of the D.C. Sniper -- there have been 36 so far this year -- made us smarter, or have we simply grown more fearful of our fellow man?

Just the Facts....

At least 16 dead in Maine shooting and dozens injured, law ...

PBS

https://www.pbs.org › newshour › nation › at-least-10...

9 hours ago — Police were searching for the man who opened fire Wednesday at two locations in the Maine city of Lewiston.

At least 22 killed, dozens wounded in Lewiston, Maine ...

UnionLeader.com

https://www.unionleader.com › news › crime › at-least-2...

10 hours ago — At least 22 people were killed and 50 to 60 wounded on Wednesday in mass shootings in Lewiston, Maine, NBC News reported, citing a Lewiston ...

Maine Shootings Live News: At Least 7 Dead in Lewiston ...

The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com › live › 2023/10/25 › lewiston-...

2 hours ago — Maine ShootingsPolice Search for Lewiston Gunman, Saying Death Toll Is Likely to Rise. The city was on lockdown early Thursday with an “armed ...

Through the Looking Glass

In recent weeks, more than a few of my Christian neighbors I've run into on the street -- God forbid they should ever invite me into their homes -- have stopped to ask, in hushed tones and with a sympathetic look one might receive upon the death of a family member, how Mitch and I are "doing" since the Israel-Gaza war began. I always give the same reply: "As bad as anyone feels when war is ravaging anywhere on earth, why do you ask?"

I am a Jew, that's so. But my homeland is Brooklyn, New York, not Israel. If war were going on in Brooklyn, I'd probably feel worse. After all, it's a lot closer to Maine.

The rise in antisemitism is sickening, to be sure. But no worse than the already rampant hatred for all white people, who are considered to be colonizers, white supremacists, slave owners, Klan members and whatever other nonsense and garbage the "people of color" and their misguided, severely woke defenders conjure up.  

Hate me for being white, hate me for being Jewish, I don't care. There's nothing I can do to change either of those things, and personally I wouldn't if there were. As Louis C.K. said in one of his stand-up routines, "Given the choice, I'd be white." I would add that I'd also be Jewish.

Those who defend Hamas are morons. I heard one pro-Palestinian leader on the radio trying to explain that headless babies found in the rubble of bombed Israeli villages "might not have been beheaded by Hamas terrorists, but rather their heads most likely came off some other way." And these are the people our spoiled rotten college students are supporting by the thousands in protests at Cornell, NYU, Harvard, Boston University, MIT and other allegedly fine schools.

Down is up, up is down, through the looking glass.

Pity the Poor Muslims?

Muslim woman dressed to kill.

At a White House press briefing yesterday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre sai, in response to a question about the recent documented rise of antisemitism in America, “But look -- Muslims and those perceived to be Muslim have endured a disproportionate number of hate-fueled attacks.”

Oh, boo-hoo -- the poor Muslims! Forget the Jews, who could not love a Muslim? After all, their religion is so wholesome, including such things as praying five time a day to Allah (God), no alcohol ever, fasting for a month every year and disallowing all gambling and fraud. This are all pretty commendable, if you ask me. However.....

At a Muslim wedding, the bride does not even have to be present. All that is needed are two witnesses to a signed document. How fun for her, and what a load off! Meanwhile, the lucky groom can take up to four wives! How fun for him!

As for engaging in sex outside of marriage, which is called adultery even for the unmarried, the punishment for the woman only may range from nothing at all to 80 lashes, or jail time, or stoning, or execution, depending on the circumstances. (I wonder what "circumstances" get you dead.)

Concerning thievery, the punishment is amputation of the offender's right hand. Armed robbery may be punished by execution, crucifixion, or amputation of hands and feet from opposite sides of the body. I bet that keeps the crime rate down.

Really, who could hate such imaginative, fun-loving people? Not me, Hamas, in case you're reading this.

What's On Your TV?

This morning I had the TV on during a morning news show, which I usually do while tidying up around the house from the night before. I was only half-listening, but still I sensed the war in Israel was the subject under discussion among several talking heads. After about five minutes of the 200 still-captive hostages and the pro-Palestinian protests in major cities and the threat of Iran jumping in, I was becoming quite depressed so I switched the channel to an old rerun of Friends.

It was the one where Rachel sleeps with her ex-fiance Barry and her best friend from high school who is now engaged to him finds out about it. So she then tells Rachel that she slept with Barry when Rachel was engaged to him. They both go to his orthodontics office to confront him. 

Obviously, neither of those two situations described above involve me; not the war in Israel or the love triangle on Friends. The fact that one of them is real and the other is fiction doesn't change anything: I'm still not a player in either scenario and am powerless to change events.

The major difference is that hearing details about the war in Israel -- and the war in Ukraine and all the other wars going on right now in the world -- makes me deeply depressed and physically exhausted, spurring me to eat cookies until I'm nauseous, whereas hearing details about the sitcom lives of Rachel and Ross and the whole Friends gang makes me laugh and thus feel better about being alive.

At my age, I have to try really hard to make the most of every day. Spending my limited time weeping over dead people I never knew and centuries-old feuds I cannot impact is both pointless and painful. Why do I do it?

The Joy of Silence

We all read the news, or hear it or see it on TV, and start yakking to one another about events taking place very far away from us and about which we can do nothing. We speak as if what we think matters even a tiny bit. But it doesn't. 

So why do we do it? To make other people think we are smart, even though we know inside ourselves that we are not. 

My advice is to do your own thing and do it well enough so when you speak about it, it has value and merit for the listener. Otherwise, keep quiet about the mountains of stuff you know nothing about.

What, Me Jewish? Don't Be Ridiculous!

I was planning to write a movie review of GOLDA, the semi-documentary starring Helen Mirren about the 1973 Yom Kippur war between Israel and Egypt now streaming on AppleTV and which I watched last night, but have decided against it in light of certain recent events, most notably the stabbing death in Detroit of a 40-year-old synagogue president who was found in her own driveway at the end of a trail of blood coming from inside her home.

No more Jewish stuff, no more about Hamas, no more about Israel and Palestine. Apparently anti-semitism is as rampant in the US as it is in the rest of the world, and I'd rather remain alive with my head attached to my body than be a martyr for the cause. 

I wish them all well, really. Hey, Hamas, in case you're reading this, I love your outfits! Those eye bands with the slits are very cool! You guys just go ahead and do what you have to do to get into Heaven, don't expect me to stop you.

Be Careful Who You Google

On a whim I googled an old friend -- in fact a very close friendship spanning from my late 20's through my early 60's -- who I had lost touch with, I was never really sure why. I entered his name in the search engine and suddenly was face-to-face with his obituary. He died two-and-a-half years ago and I hadn't heard.

The obituary did not mention cause of death although it did mention it was during the height of Covid. I wanted to know so I googled another friend from those days long ago who would likely know the details, and suddenly I was reading his obituary. He died last month.

I am not googling anyone else. Ever.