| So I read this in the times today: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/12/nyregion/12convert.html
I happened to ask a Rabbi (not reformed) a few years ago about the issue of gentiles converting to Judaism. His answer was essentially this: "We don't want them, we have enough of our own to worry about." He also didn't consider Reformed Judaism to be real Judaism (so make what you will of that). I do think the Anique Olivier-Mason person profiled in the article is a bad example of someone seriously considering conversion. She's more like a religious tourist (Marla, you tourist!).
It is interesting that you can be born to a Jewish mother and never practice Judaism a day in your life. But, you are still eligible for a nice Israeli citizenship and all its privileges. I wonder if converts can get in on that? But I would argue that Judaism is a choice. But Jewishness is not. So a conversion is not going to give you Jewishness. | comments: Leave a comment   |
| LJ Interests meme results
- american analog set:
band i really liked in 2002. Still like them. - colors:
i won't comment on this one. - drawing:
Wendy draws. - erik satie:
only music of the early 20th century that has really inspired me - keyboards:
have a lot of them - learning:
always - luna:
bye - music:
it's got a beat and you can dance to it - music performance:
we're on break - new york:
shit is hard
Enter your LJ user name, and 10 interests will be selected from your interest list.
| | comments: Leave a comment |
| So this is a big rallying month to keep CBGBs open. All these baby boomers trying to hold on to what once was. We just read that even the deadest of the dead punk bands are reuniting for the cause (the Dead Boys). This is bizarre to me because Stiv Bators, rock's all-time craziest front man only second to Iggy Pop, has been dead for almost 20 years. I guess it's just a joke, a reason for old friends to get together for what is most certainly a futile cause.
The club hasn't been important in 20 years. The nostalgia everyone associates with CBs is 30 years past! I don't think today's teenager who listens to bands like Yellow Cake or the Chemical Romance would be able to recognize the band Television as one of the seminal pioneers of 70s punk. But why is this older generation trying to keep CBGBs open as a shrine to preserve something as volatile is punk?
CBGB's should take a lesson from all it's deceased alumni. There is no dignity or death in a blaze of glory for these people.
Johnny Thunders – Heroin overdose in a hotel at age 39.
Dee Dee Ramone – Heroin overdose a few years ago.
Stiv Bators – Hit by a car in Paris after years of poor health due to his crazy lifestyle (the guy had no liver left!)
Sid Vicious – Heroin again, after allegedly murdering his girlfriend Nancy. Now that is a mess!
We all know these stories and that the list goes on and on. The point is true punk death is tragic, pathetic and undignified. So my solution to preserve what's left of the legacy of CBGBs? Burn the mother fucker down. | | comments: 13 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | weird | | Time: | 02:34 pm |
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| | weird. this lady I did work for through a staffing agency exactly a month ago passed away yesterday. She seemed to be in perfect health, in her early 40s maybe. The staffing agency sent a mass email out. They said she died of natural causes. I just thought that was weird. | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Wow! | | Time: | 10:19 am |
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| | So I think we played our best show yesterday at the Delancey. Thanks to all who came out. And we discovered the Parlor Scouts who have captured our hearts like few things can these days! | | comments: 8 comments or Leave a comment |
| So I think liberals are whetting their appetites over the seemingly imminent demise of Karl Rove. It's not a surprise it was Rove who exposed the identity of a CIA agent to the press. I'll assume we all know the story and I'll get to my point.
I would like to see this administration punished for the deceptions they've fed the public. Especially Rove. But I feel sad and bitter because it's unlikely anything substantial will happen to Rove. Remember Rumsfeld presiding over one of America's biggest embarrassments ever, Abu Ghraib, a little over a year ago? He even tried to resign and the president wouldn't hear it. And now it seems we've all gotten over that. So we're all going to get over the CIA leak scandal in a few months too. Sad. It seems they are masters of getting away with shit.
Hopefully I'm wrong. At the very least Karl Rove will be fired. With this administration it's unlikely. | | comments: 8 comments or Leave a comment |
| It's way too early to tell how the bombing will play out with the psyche of the British people. But I think we should all look to the bombings of Madrid from over a year ago. This was an extremely important event. The bombings occurred several days before national elections. The Spanish leadership sloppily attempted to pin the bombings on Basque terrorists amidst the obvious signs that this was the work of al Qaeda. When elections were held soon afterward the public backlash was overwhelming. I can't remember the details of which party was which, but basically, the opposing Socialist candidate won the election as a direct result of the bombings. The public sentiment that Spain should not be in Iraq was justified because the Madrid bombings were the reason why Spain was bombed. It is likely that London was bombed for these reasons as well. The new Spanish leader, Zapatero, made his first order of business to get the thousand or so troops they had out of Iraq. The point is, regardless of the debate on whether we should be in Iraq or not, the terrorists did achieved their objectives in Madrid.
Although I deplore the Iraq war, I also recognize that once you're in it you have a responsibility to finish it. The lessons al Qaeda learned from Madrid is that they can indeed shape the world through terror. I'm not very connected to Britain, but if the majority of British citizens don't have the stomach to be in Iraq this may be another watershed event. The circumstances are different. Through pure chance, this attack has dealt Britain a very painful blow in the middle of a very high point in their recent history. Blair has just been re-elected so there may not be any radical changes in policy. I think this event will draw Blair closer to Bush. But he may lose the people. Even here in the U.S. all polls indicate that American's are fed up with the Iraq situation. What would another attack on U.S. soil (heaven forbid) do to public opinion here?
The United States, Britain and Spain are democracies. We've seen how powerful public sentiment can be in Spain. We'll see in Britain. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| I wanted the Olympics to come to New York. But not passionately. I guess a lot of New Yorkers would say the same. My interest was mostly professional. Lots of work would have been needed. Lots of opportunities.
I'm still amazed the West Side stadium didn't happen. Sheldon Silver said it would hurt lower Manhattan redevelopment. That pretty much ended a 10 year campaign to bring the Olympics to NY. Ironic, greed trumps...greed!? I know, let's not forget the tragedy. But the idea that we'd forget about lower Manhattan is stupid...the Freedom tower would have been built at the same time as the West Side stadium. We all know how vested the politicians of New York are in the Freedom Tower. But now, no stadium and no Olympics. We're talking major economic development for this damned city that we've completely lost out on. No one really seems to care.
I'm not saying that the city is on a downward spiral. But it does make a statement that New York may be slipping as a leader in progress. Many, many years ago this city was able to mobilize to create some of the world's most awesome public works. And many of these, in retrospect, were very bad ideas (think Cross Bronx Expressway)! So why are we killing good ideas? Why are we apathetic to the loss? | | comments: 16 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | writing a beach boys tune in my head | | Subject: | uptodate | | Time: | 12:07 pm | | Current Mood: | lj moods are dumb |
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| fantabulous weekend camping! thank you sara for inviting us.
i think i'm adjusting well to the boots wendy got me. The old boots were about 5 years old, so maybe it was time to get some new footwear. The thing with cowboy boots is that you have to commit to wearing them for awhile before they actually start to take the mold of your foot. It can be pretty uncomfortable at first. But the payoff is that once they've adjusted, there's nothing more comfortable. I guess another downside to cowboy boots is that they encourage inflexibility. Walking is great, but at a very consistent and modest pace. But please don't ask me to bend to pick things up. Out of the question because it's more comfortable to drop to the ground than squat or bend with these things on. But the restricted mobility is kind of a comfortable feeling. I'm naturally lazy and try to consolidate my efforts. I think the boots help this dude-like outlook on things. | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| I've been watching the Dukes of Hazzard for the last few days. Daisy Duke: She must have worked in porn. But she checks out...no porn. Hard to believe.
Wendy, I'm starving. Let's gooooo! | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
| I'm looking forward to browsing through Love's Hawaiian shirts. In keeping with my new philosophy of life.
Was it wrong to go to White Castle the other day? those delicious burgers with the tiny little onions... | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| | so 4 months after i bought a brand spanking new ibook the hard drive fails. that's a tough break. Once i get it back in a week i'll have to figure out how the hell i'm gonna get all that precious software I had on it back. I had a powerbook for 2 years and even though it had problems I never had to wipe the machine. So thinking i'd have the same experience with this ibook i got lazy about getting software backups. I'd be more pissed off but having been through several dead computers by now I can deal with system loss a little better. | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| So the commute was unseemingly smooth today. I got the eery feeling that it was a holiday that I didn't know about. Then I saw a few people with ash on their foreheads. So I guess a lot of people were at church early to get the ash fingerprint. Queens must be overwhelmingly Catholic, because there was hardly anyone on the bus or train! I got seats both times! (usually impossible).
I fell asleep in the living room chair last night at around 11:30 and woke up at 5:30am this morning...Maybe i need to get more than 4 hours of sleep on the reg. | | comments: 5 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Current Music: | Smithsy | | Subject: | Collision | | Time: | 10:51 am |
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| I think I've maxed out my guitar abilities. In practice and shows I always try to transcend what my hands can actually do. When I think about it, i may have gotten more disciplined, but my actual depth of the instrument hasn't changed in 10 years. I think my songwriting ability has improved, and definitely my arranging ability. But I can't seem to liberate my hands. The music I invent in my head is totally free and dynamic. I wish I was really good on an instrument. I think I make a really solid rhythm player though. It's the forays into leads where my clumsiness shows (as the MFG girls will confirm of my ambitious but limited outros)
And come see us play tomorrow!
Friday, Feb. 4, 10:30pm
Siberia
40th & 9th (black door red light)
New York, NY, 212.313.4141
http://www.musicforgirls.com | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| The people have spoken. This is what they want. I honestly feel betrayed but my own country. I have grossly misread the intelligence and intent of Americans.
America has vindicated the corrution of the Bush administration. Now when the world looks at us for our atrocities and blames Bush, they have the right to blame us as well, because, well...this is what we want.
We liberal minded folk have an obligation to dog this administration EVERYTHING for the next four years.
This was not talked about in detail during the campaign, but the reality is, we are more at risk for terror attacks now that we've poplularly re-elected Bush. Bush was reelected because of his his shoot 'em first, figure 'em out later approach to fighing terror. This resonated very strongly with America because of anger and fear we still hold from September 11th. When you're mad and hurting, you don't want to think about the root of your problems. You just want to smash anything that moves and to hell with the consequences. Bush can no longer operate in this preemptive, misinformed, "macho" way in his second term. I see the strategy of it during his first term. Show no weakness, talk tough. It worked. However, America will be devestated by the war on terror if Bush doesn't address the root of terrorism. For every terrorist we kill, we create another. In Islam, family members are obligated to avenge the death of loved ones. This is why the insurgency in Iraq has been gaining. We're feeding the fire.
John Kerry was unable to address the roots of terrorism during his campaign. Instead he engaged in a game of who can talk tougher on terror ("kill them" "Destroy them"). Unfortunately it was wishful thinking that that a liberal can appear tougher than a hard-line, thick-headed conservative. I wish that this country could have handled meaningful discussion on how to stop terrorism. Whenever Kerry approached anything of meaning, he was ridiculed and misinterpreted as "sensative" and needing a "global test." He tried to conservatize himself and that was a lost cause.
I hope one day a democratic liberal can run proudly as a democratic liberal. Anti-liberalism has another name. It's called Facism. | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
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