Pillow Talk: The Ultimate Conversation

 If I had any brains at all, I would write: NO INTRO TODAY a la Ziggy, and take the day off. 

The past week has been stressful in the best possible sense, and Sunday, the proof copies of THE POMEGRANATE arrived. Holding the book in my hands is always a total turn on and thrill. There is something uniquely satisfying about holding that physical entity in your hands. Of course, I refuse to read it. Not that it's not good, but I immediately start editing in my head and that's not good. Nope. You just gotta stop when the words are printed on the page. 

The journey of this book from inception to completion has been a long and, for the most part, exceptionally thrilling one for me. It began with a tiny story about a 12th century Jewish girl. Almost nothing is known about the lady except she was snatched on the way to her wedding and ultimately returned to Al-Andalus as an old woman. No one knows what happened to her or how she got from one place to the next. But I was intrigued by the snippet. 

There were years of research involved. The Third Crusade was a strange event even in Christian history. Richard the Lionheart was there. Salah Al-Din was there, Maimonides was in Egypt, and despite all the movies and TV dramas, there were a whole lotta Jews in Palaestina during the period. Tiberias and Tzfat were alive with Jewish erudition. It wasn't a stagnant period at all. And Jews came to the aid of Salah Al-Din in an effort to rid the land of the European Crusaders. The more I learned, the more I appreciated the risks taken to retain control of what was then called Palaestina. 

I also came to a deeper understanding and profound respect for women of the period. Eleanor of Aquitaine was a huge presence in the period. She was a piece of work and I love her to bits. She married then annulled her marriage to France's Louis VII, married Henry Plantagenet, produced a passel of kids including Richard the Lionheart and King John (aka Prince John of Robin Hood infamy) amongst others. She outlived Henry II despite his repeated attempts to get rid of her. She was tough, she was direct. She was Queen, and then Regent. No one messed with Eleanor.

Batsheva's (the protagonist) ability to speak her mind is central to THE POMEGRANATE. She had no trouble telling people where to get off the cart. I am equally certain that conversations similar to the ones she has in the book happened between husbands and wives just as they do today. Pillow talk is as ancient as marriage itself. There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to loving partners. That Batsheva can make her opinions crystal clear is not an unheard of skill in any generation; there have always been women like her. G-d willing, there always will be. 

Recently, I was in a conversation about the appearance of the women's rights movement. I maintain that while women's rights have been an issue from day one, it's only in the last 100 or so years, with the advent of mass  media, that our voices have been amplified enough to be heard. This is a no brainer. Granted, the printing press is a big deal if not the actual foundation for mass media, but a bigger deal is having your voice go out over the airwaves to millions of listeners. 

Thinking back to my misspent youth, I can recall with alacrity the first time I heard Bella Abzug giving a speech. Or, rather, a snip of a speech. It was on the evening news. Right around the time she announced she was running for Congress. I don't remember what she said, but I remember how she sounded: like  one of us... a card carrying  member with all the women around me who were beginning to emerge from centuries of gender repression. She said a lot of things during that run, but a couple have remained with me:

People need change. No congressional seat belongs to anyone. It belongs only to the people.

And 

A woman belongs in the house...the House of Representatives 

Battling Bella was my kind of politician: frank, blunt, and open. I even liked her hats...especially her explanation:

I began wearing hats as a young lawyer because it helped me to establish my professional identity. Before that, whenever I was at a meeting, someone would ask me to get coffee.

At one of my first jobs, even though I was a buyer, I was asked to get the coffee at every meeting. I resented it like hell.

The real trick was, Bella didn't say anything new; she said what women were thinking and actually saying for a very long time. Sure, there were glimpses of women who made the system work for them, women like Eleanor of Aquitaine, Elizabeth I, Catherine the Great.....but until mass media happened, no woman ran for and won elected office.

Let me define mass media: anything that can be seen, heard, or read with days of publication or elocution. Books are the beginning, but until women were quoted (and usually vilified) in the press, heard on radio, and ultimately seen on television, gender roles were pretty much immutable. But that did not mean women were silent. 

The story of Batsheva Hagiz may be fiction, but what she demands of herself and of the people around her is neither new nor anachronistic. The bedtime conversations she has are ones that any woman could've had with an intimate partner at any time during history. Just look at Lysistrata. Sure, it may be an ancient Greek comedy, but it didn't spring from the brow of Aristophanes without some basis in reality.

Here's a fun-filled factoid you probably didn't know. The same year, 411 B.C.E.,  that Lysistrata was produced, another one of Aristophanes plays also made it to the stage: Women at the Thesmophoria. This one is a parody of Athenian society, focusing on the subservient role of women in Athens. Euripides is totally targeted by Aristophanes because of the way women are portrayed in his works. That the second play exists oughta be proof enough that women have been on the edge of revolt for a long time, and the men knew it. 

Even though the plays were produced and audiences attended, we don't know much about public reception because no one printed up the reviews and posted them on FaceBook or Twitter. We may have the scripts, which is a good thing, because that's shining a light onto the sneaky notion that none of this is really new. What is new is the aspect of broadcasting gender inequality. That really only goes back to 1869 when John Stuart Mill, a member of the British Parliament, published his essay on THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN. The key word here is PUBLISHED. In print. On paper. Available to read. This is a huge step. But he does something else revolutionary as well: he credits his wife and daughter:

As ultimately published it was enriched with some important ideas of my daughter’s and some passages of her writing. But all that is most striking and profound in what was written by me belongs to my wife, coming from the fund of thought that had been made common to us both by our innumerable conversations and discussions on a topic that filled so large a place in our minds.

If you think they didn't lie in bed discussing this stuff, you've never been married/partnered. 

Women have been subjected to subjugation since the beginning of time. There may have been a reason back when the goal was to be reproducing at a rapid rate because children died. Sure, pregnant women probably needed some measure of protection, although in some cultures, you deliver and go back to work the same day. (At least I had a week off when Senior Son was born.) And I get why men felt compelled to protect their families. This is a survival thing. But once clans, towns, villages, and cities are in place, the need diminishes while the subjugation continued unabated. After all, what guy doesn't wanna be an alpha male? Right?

Yet, by the middle of the 19th century, it was pretty routine for women to work. Men died; women had to support families. Necessity demanded women take on other roles. By the middle of the 20th century, the June Cleaver model was already wearing thin. Father did not always know best. And men still died...or just plain left...and women were de facto head of household. And as late as 1977, I could not get a car loan in my own name. Don't get me started about that.

Them days are gone. But not completely. There is a whole class of deviant men who are working very hard to turn our clocks back to 1902. They call themselves Republican Congressmen. If only their paramours would use pillow talk constructively. 

Read THE POMEGRANATE when it comes out later this week. Next week, there will links to the book and the new website. You'll be richer for the experience. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Learn to spell SCHWAIDELSON.

Before  you know it, that will be a very useful skill.

A Week of Years

I was thinking about a bunch of  random things when I realized Little Miss will turn seven at the end of this month, which means FIL is gone, on the secular calendar, 7 years today. He missed meeting his great-granddaughter by 17 days. That always bothered me, and sometimes, when I write about "Little Miss," the phrase has a slightly sad twist to it: he missed meeting her by just a little miss.

Seven is a week's worth of years. So much has happened in that span of time, yet FIL's departure seemed to have happened only yesterday. There's a whole bunch of stuff I am relieved that he missed, and he's probably relieved that he missed it...if he's still thinking about this place. I'm certain he would be thrilled with how the boys are now. And that weird laugh he had would be heard often in response to Little Miss and Young Sir. That Little Miss is a budding scientist/engineer would launch him over the moon. 

John and Rudy. Great couple.

What would launch him over a different moon is the investigation into Feckless Former's attempted coup. Yes, it was an attempted coup. As the investigation digs into the events leading up to January 6, 2021, a name emerged most people hadn't haven't before: John Eastman. This is a guy we need to know more about, but Americans of all parties need to know about the memo he wrote and provided to the Feckless White House. According to multiple sources, including CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, the memo was obtained by Bob Woodard and Robert Costa. I am reprinting it in its entirety because it is not to be believed that a lawyer provided this to the White House and Department of Justice as a roadmap for overturning the presidential election:

PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL

January 6 scenario 

7 states have transmitted dual slates of electors to the President of the Senate.

The 12th Amendment merely provides that “the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted.” There is very solid legal authority, and historical precedent, for the view that the President of the Senate does the counting, including the resolution of disputed electoral votes (as Adams and Jefferson did while Vice President, regarding their own election as President), and all the Members of Congress can do is watch. 

The Electoral Count Act, which is likely unconstitutional, provides: 

If more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State shall have been received by the President of the Senate, those votes, and those only, shall be counted which shall have been regularly given by the electors who are shown by the determination mentioned in section 5 of this title to have been appointed, if the determination in said section provided for shall have been made, or by such successors or substitutes, in case of a vacancy in the board of electors so ascertained, as have been appointed to fill such vacancy in the mode provided by the laws of the State; but in case there shall arise the question which of two or more of such State authorities determining what electors have been appointed, as mentioned in section 5 of this title, is the lawful tribunal of such State, the votes regularly given of those electors, and those only, of such State shall be counted whose title as electors the two Houses, acting separately, shall concurrently decide is supported by the decision of such State so authorized by its law; and in such case of more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State, if there shall have been no such determination of the question in the State aforesaid, then those votes, and those only, shall be counted which the two Houses shall concurrently decide were cast by lawful electors appointed in accordance with the laws of the State, unless the two Houses, acting separately, shall concurrently decide such votes not to be the lawful votes of the legally appointed electors of such State. But if the two Houses shall disagree in respect of the counting of such votes, then, and in that case, the votes of the electors whose appointment shall have been certified by the executive of the State, under the seal thereof, shall be counted.

This is the piece that we believe is unconstitutional. It allows the two houses, “acting separately,” to decide the question, whereas the 12th Amendment provides only for a joint session. And if there is disagreement, under the Act the slate certified by the “executive” of the state is to be counted, regardless of the evidence that exists regarding the election, and regardless of whether there was ever fair review of what happened in the election, by judges and/or state legislatures. 

So here’s the scenario we propose:

1.  VP Pence, presiding over the joint session (or Senate Pro Tempore Grassley, if Pence recuses himself), begins to open and count the ballots, starting with Alabama (without conceding that the procedure, specified by the Electoral Count Act, of going through the States alphabetically is required).

2.  When he gets to Arizona, he announces that he has multiple slates of electors, and so is going to defer decision on that until finishing the other States. This would be the first break with the procedure set out in the Act. 

3.  At the end, he announces that because of the ongoing disputes in the 7 States, there are no electors that can be deemed validly appointed in those States. That means the total number of “electors appointed” – the language of the 12th Amendment -- is 454. This reading of the 12th Amendment has also been advanced by Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe (here). A “majority of the electors appointed” would therefore be 228. There are at this point 232 votes for Trump, 222 votes for Biden. Pence then gavels President Trump as re-elected

4.   Howls, of course, from the Democrats, who now claim, contrary to Tribe’s prior position, that 270 is required. So Pence says, fine. Pursuant to the 12th Amendment, no candidate has achieved the necessary majority. That sends the matter to the House, where the “the votes shall be taken by states, the representation from each state having one vote . . . .” Republicans currently control 26 of the state delegations, the bare majority needed to win that vote. President Trump is re-elected there as well.

5.  One last piece. Assuming the Electoral Count Act process is followed and, upon getting the objections to the Arizona slates, the two houses break into their separate chambers, we should not allow the Electoral Count Act constraint on debate to control. That would mean that a prior legislature was determining the rules of the present one — a constitutional no-no (as Tribe has forcefully argued). So someone – Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, etc. – should demand normal rules (which includes the filibuster). That creates a stalemate that would give the state legislatures more time to weigh in to formally support the alternate slate of electors, if they had not already done so.

6. The main thing here is that Pence should do this without asking for permission – either from a vote of the joint session or from the Court. Let the other side challenge his actions in court, where Tribe (who in 2001 conceded the President of the Senate might be in charge of counting the votes) and others who would press a lawsuit would have their past position -- that these are non-justiciable political questions – thrown back at them, to get the lawsuit dismissed. The fact is that the Constitution assigns this power to the Vice President as the ultimate arbiter. We should take all of our actions with that in mind. 

But wait, there's more. According to the Woodward/Costa book, PERIL  Eastman met with VP Pence and his chief counsel, Gregory Jacob

Mr. Eastman recalled getting in touch with Mr. Pence’s legal counsel Mr. Jacob the next day about whether Mr. Pence could delay the certification.

“I think Jacob was looking for a way for he and Pence to be convinced to take the action that we were requesting, and so I think he continued to meet with me and push back on the arguments and hear my counters, what have you, to try and see whether they could reconcile themselves to what the president had asked,” Mr. Eastman said.

When do we get to use the word, TREASON?

One would think I have had enough of the bull-oney.

Yes. More than enough. 

However, we came very close to a coup. Waaaaaay too close. 

Now, I know a lot of you called me alarmist and other fun, yet similar, names back when I was hocking about this two years ago, but the bottom line is that I was spot on in calling the lead up to the election and the actions subsequent to November 3rd, 2020 groundwork for a coup d'etat. 

Doesn't really much matter to me what one's politics are so long as they are pro-democracy. Hell, my dad was a Republican. The party ain't the point. My biggest worry right now is that come the next election, a large swath of the US population won't remember what democracy is about and will attempt to put the Orange Tide back in the White House.  

As I write, I know there is a damn good chance Feckless Former is going to try to block the memo and other documents from being entered in evidence in the investigation. I can only trust the Federal Court system to do its job and allow the investigation to proceed. This may be optimistic thinking, but I really want to be right on this one. 

Meanwhile, we remain standing at the very edge of a precipice and as such, we have choices: we can be lemmings and hurl ourselves over the ledge, or we  can stand up, turn around, and take this country back in another, more voter-oriented direction that would require the rollback of voter suppression laws. 

And that's a whole 'nother issue by itself. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Like maps? 

Have I got  a map for you!

Welcome to the world of The Pomegranate
Thank you, Martin Jan Månsson!

You Didn't Know Bubbe, But...

Of all the Jewish big holidays, Sukkot is my favorite. Not the first and last two days that are Yom Tov, but the in-between days of chol hamo'ed. At minyan, there is lots of singing, a bit of parading with the lulav and etrog, and a general feeling of camaraderie and thankfulness. Congenial and convivial. It's nice. It's long for a morning minyan, but it's still nice. 

Even though my dad said waving a lulav and etrog around is about as pagan as you can get and refused to do it, I find myself sneaking a sniff of etrog when the opportunity presents itself. (Etrogs are citrons and they smell really good.) I love the sound the lulav makes as it's shaken during Hallel and other parts of the service. And on the last day, Hoshanah Rabbah, the BIG prayer for rain is recited and then you beat willow branches on the ground in a symbolic attempt to free ourselves of any remaining sins that might cause G-d to allow a drought. Clearly, we have some serious praying to do here because we are in a terrible drought cycle in this country.

But there's serious part of the holiday cycle that cannot be overlooked. Granted, the cycle itself is a bit intense; besides the High Holy Days of Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur, the three harvest festival holidays come with their own idiosyncrasies. Passover has matzah, crazy cleaning, seders, Uncle Davey's death, and Yizkor. Shavuot has all night study, cheesecake, a week later, Ziggy's death, and Yizkor. Sukkot has sukkot in the backyard, lulavim and etrogim, Grandma Bessie's death, and Yizkor. Each one of these joyous holidays, as happy as they are, is tempered by the recitation of Yizkor, the memorial service when we recall the lives of our loved ones. Used to be, kids were not permitted to stay during Yizkor...it's bad luck according to my own mother, so I never stayed for Yizkor until a year after Ziggy had the poor form to leave me upright and breathing. [Traditionally, one does not say Yizkor in the first year of mourning. I didn't understand it until that first Yom Kippur. I could not be in that place.]

We don't really need Yizkor to remember those we loved; most of us do it regularly, like breathing. No one has to remind us of their names, those names are engraved on our hearts and on our souls. Or on plaques in the shul. Jewish death rituals begin with caring for the body, then move to care for the survivors. The seven-day mourning period runs concurrently with the 30-day mourning period that also runs concurrently with the 11-months of mourning. On the surface, it may sound excessive, but if you have ever grieved for a loved one (and who amongst us has not) you already know grieving takes time. Letting go takes time. Learning to breathe again without that other person takes time. Death is a rupture in the fabric of our lives, regardless of how you felt about a particular person. 

The recitation of Yizkor 4-times each year (the three harvest holidays and Yom Kippur) gives the living a contained chance to recall those who had a part in shaping us, for good or for bad. Doesn't matter. What matters is that we recall the sum of that life. I cannot speak for others, but my remembering lets me revisit the things I want to keep and the things I need to let go...without being mired in endless grief. It's as much about searching my soul as remembering the souls I've lost. In the sacred space of the sanctuary, I wrap myself in the sacred time that is Yizkor. I let myself remember, I let myself feel. For me, that's a big deal because I'm not good at that. (Just ask my sons.) When I was a kid, I did not understand the weepy exodus from shul after Yizkor, what we called The Tissue Brigade. Now, however, I am overwhelmed by the power of those sacred moments and thankful that the grief part is contained in the context of Yizkor.

The older I get, however,  the more I crave that feeling of connection between me and those who came before me. I retell the stories: the ones about Grandpa Ben who died when my mom was a kid, tales of Great-grandma Nechama and Great-grandpa Tzadok. Their pictures just don't hang on my wall, they hang on my heart. I pass them every morning, and their names roll through my head as naturally as the names of the ones I knew up close and personal. Their stories matter because they are part of our family story. Both my grandmothers told me on numerous occasions: when you talk about them, they live. 

And in the context of family history, I want them to live.

When Little Miss barrels through the front door and says, "I need a Grandma Don't story," my heart sings because she may not have known my Grandma Bessie, but oh, how she loves her anyway! I tell and retell the stories of challah covers embroidered by Grandma Sarah, kiddush cups that belonged to my father, my Grandpa Moishe, and my Uncle Sam. And just as I tell the stories, Little Miss  has her own to tell Young Sir. They all begin with "You didn't know Bubbe, but..." I feel my mother's smile in my heart. 

Yizkor isn't necessarily about the past; it's about carrying our history forward. Not all important histories end up in textbooks. Most are simple day-to-day stories about how we lived, how we loved, how we survived, how we endured. Torah tells us only part of the big story. A bigger part is the stuff we actually remember ourselves. Both are important, but the stuff we carry forward needs to be passed to the next generation so they don't have to reinvent our wheels.  And if we're lucky, they will learn from our mistakes and do stuff better. 

For the record, I do remember the ugly and the painful. We all have those less than stellar memories. Those are recalled, and if one is lucky, one uses them in constructive ways. That's the best you can hope for. 

The rest of it? It's who we are. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

If you live above the Mason-Dixon line,

now is the time to get your furnace checked.

Trust me on this one:

don't wait until the first frost. 

The Abundance of Fools...I Mean Fall

Well, here we are in the middle of Jewish Holiday Season. For those of us who observe, the period between Rosh HaShana and Simchat Torah usually feels like 24-days of endless holy days. You are so tired of cooking by the end of Sukkot, that the shabbat dinner that this year follows Simchat Torah by a day is usually pretty basic shabbat dinner. I have long suspected the Jewish holiday cycle is the real punishment for whatever went down in Gan Eden. 

Beth Jacob's Sukkah 2021

Still, there is something magical about Sukkot. If you're observant, you might build a sukkah in your back yard, and maybe even sleep in it. The roof is not solid; you have to be able to see the stars. Eating in the sukkah is always fun. It's a harvest holiday kinda thing, and no matter where you are in the world, you have to think about agriculture because this is what the holiday is about: first fruits. And by extension, you have to think about growing seasons, the land, the weather, and all the rest of the natural world that allows us to eat. 

If you know your Bible well, you know there is a call for a jubilee year for the land, and this year, 5782 is one of those years. In Hebrew, it's called shmita ...return:  

             Leviticus 25:1-7

1 The LORD spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai:

2 Speak to the Israelite people and say to them:

When you enter the land that I assign to you, the land shall observe a sabbath of the LORD.

3 Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyard and gather in the yield.

4 But in the seventh year the land shall have a sabbath of complete rest, a sabbath of the LORD: you shall not sow your field or prune your vineyard.

5 You shall not reap the aftergrowth of your harvest or gather the grapes of your untrimmed vines; it shall be a year of complete rest for the land.

6 But you may eat whatever the land during its sabbath will produce—you, your male and female slaves, the hired and bound laborers who live with you,

7 and your cattle and the beasts in your land may eat all its yield.

Shmita is still observed in Israel today. For example, Jewish National Fund does not plant trees during the shmita period unless it's an erosion emergency needed to protect the land. This year, however, medical cannabis is a new issue facing Israel. Read the article; it's fascinating.

See, it's like this. stewardship of the land is nothing new. The idea that we need to take care of the land so the land takes care of us was codified thousands of years ago. That concept was taken pretty seriously back then, long before university ag departments and rural extension services. The drafters of the bible did not overlook the relationship between earth and humankind.

The weather events of the past couple of weeks are more indications of an imbalance in our atmosphere. The increased power of hurricanes and typhoons coupled with what we know about rising ocean temperatures should be a pretty serious warning, especially for all those evangelicals who are busy with climate science denial. I wanna know if any farmers in places like Iowa, Alabama, Florida, California, or even Minnesota are observing the Jubilee Year for their land. Or is this just another one of the inconvenient laws tossed out along with observance of kashrut or the sabbath on the seventh day? 

NY TIMES

Meanwhile, back in Washington, D.C., everyone is asking What if we threw a rally and nobody came? Apparently, only 400-500 people were there although a permit had been granted for up to 700. Earlier in the week, the word was out that a far larger crowd was expected, and the U.S. Capitol Police prepared and executed a significant show of strength at the event. However, the crowd was peaceful and nothing of note took place. A friend in DC said they strolled over to watch, and she thought there were more reporters than protesters. That might not be strictly true, but the comparison she drew was rather telling. 

Kids watching soldiers at Second Bull Run

She mentioned that during the Civil War, it was popular to take a picnic lunch to some of the battles, sit on the nearest hill, and watch as soldiers slaughtered each other. It was a fine afternoon's entertainment if you didn't mind the smell of death. She said it was  like driving on the Belt Parkway and seeing a car crash off to the side. The Belt is so narrow that you are right on top of the scene, making rubbernecking inevitable. Gross, but human nature. I did not doubt her assessment for one New York minute. As we talked about the lack of a rally, she admitted that they had, indeed, gone to see the blood and gore, figuring they could join a counter protest if necessary. 

I know she is reading this, and I can hear the guffaw when I shamefully admit to thinking they are fair weather patriots. And I know there will be another phone call in my future. 

But It got me to thinking about what we take for granted. We assume democracy will save us when, in fact, we are watching it erode. The recent attempts, some successful, to restrict access to voting is clearly an attempt to control what should be a free election. We assume Roe v. Wade is settled law when it is clearly under attack in Texas, with a dozen or so states waiting to see what happens before passing their own draconian laws. So much for settled law.

And about those laws. Do any of them hold sperm providers responsible for this? Are there laws preventing men from inseminating women willy-nilly? Or taking responsibility for those offshoots? A woman can have sex once, conceive, and bear a single child in 9 months. A man can fuck a swatch through a population, inseminating hundreds of women, yet there is not one law on the books telling him that's illegal or that he is responsible for the care, feeding, and raising those hundreds of children. That, by the way, is a really BIG hint about what those laws are really about. And it ain't about the children. 

In a 2017 interview, Margaret Atwood, the author of The Handmaid's Tale, said:

Sometimes people have to live their dream. So if living their dream means a lot of dead women and orphans, maybe they're going to have to live that dream and maybe they're just then going to have to figure out, 'Who's going to pay for this?'" Atwood asked. "Who's going to pay for the orphans and the dead women, because that's what you're going to have. And I'm waiting for the first lawsuit. I'm waiting, you know, in which the family of the dead woman sues the ... state and I'm also waiting for a lawsuit that says if you force me to have children I cannot afford, you should pay for the process. They should pay for my prenatal care. They should pay for my, otherwise, very expensive delivery, you should pay for my health insurance, you should pay for the upkeep of this child after it is born. That's where the concern seems to cut off with these people. Once you take your first breath, [it's] out the window with you. And, it is really a form of slavery to force women to have children that they cannot afford and then to say that they have to raise them.

It is a form of slavery to remove self-determination from a person. And it's a red herring. If a legislative body can do this to women, what other groups can and will be targeted? I don't think we have to think real hard for that answer. The demise of democracy in this country will not be with a bang, but with a whimper. (Thank you, T.S. Eliot, for The Hollow Men.)

But I digress. This week's episode is supposed to be about the abundance of fall...not the abundance of fools. 

So, at this juncture, I want to point out that fall is a great time of year for changes. The weather is a bit snappier, the bugs are slowly disappearing, the fruit is ripe, and the colors are grand. Take a moment to think about the gift that is autumn. Take a walk. Go to an orchard. Visit your local farmer's market or farm stand. Then remember that all of this comes from the earth to you. Be aware. Be cognizant. Be considerate of the planet. 

As a very young Junior Son once insisted, "Be ecowogicawy fweindwy." (Yes, he really did sound like Elmer Fudd.) And that drive toward ecological responsibility continues to this day as he and Mrs. Junior Son teach Little Miss and Young Sir how to be ecologically friendly. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Check your living footprint.

Work to make it as small as possible.

Your children and grandchildren will thank you.

All Vows, Obligations, Oaths, and Anathemas...

 Well, Yom Kippur is just about here. Wednesday night we begin with Kol Nidre:

All vows, obligations, oaths, and anathemas, whether called 'ḳonam,' 'ḳonas,' or by any other name, which we may vow, or swear, or pledge, or whereby we may be bound, from this Day of Atonement until the next (whose happy coming we await), we do repent. 

May they be deemed absolved, forgiven, annulled, and void, and made of no effect; they shall not bind us nor have power over us. 

The vows shall not be reckoned vows; the obligations shall not be obligatory; nor the oaths be oaths.

It's generally accepted that the prayer first appeared in Spain in the 7th century, documented in use by the 8th century, and specifically addressed the problem of forced conversion to Christianity. For those of you who think persecution began in 1492 with the Inquisition, guess again. It's older than that. The words are not about the world at large; they are about promises between the individual and G-d, the ones that cannot be fulfilled in the hearts. It is highly personal and, at least for me, very intense. 

Every year at this time, I think about that prayer, recited three times in Aramaic, not Hebrew, why it's there, and why we still say it. For Jews around the world, Kol Nidre is an annual moment frozen in time. A lot of Jews who are totally secular will attend Kol Nidre at the start of Yom Kippur even if they do nothing else. It's like a silent shofar drawing us all in. It's the moment that even if you don't believe in G-d and have done nothing Jewish all year, you confront yourself. Kol Nidre is a visceral response to the challenge of living. 

Last week, Rosh HaShana services at my little shtiebl, Beth Jacob, were held outside in an open-sided tent, but you couldn't miss our armed security officers standing nearby. We, too, have installed new security measures this past year. If someone wants to get to us while we are praying, they will; we can only hope the new additions will slow them down enough for people to take cover. How grotesque is even considering that as a necessary option? But wait....it has to be. 

Last Friday, Beth-El Synagogue in St. Louis Park received a credible threat of attack. The synagogue was immediately closed, pre-school cancelled for the day, and additional security measures kicked in. That's right. Kicked in. They were already in place, ready to go. In Saint Paul, a Jewish cemetery was vandalized. 

Events like these add up on the trauma scale. You become more watchful, more suspicious, more cautious, and less trusting. Kids on the lawn now have parents casually guarding the space not because it's official, but because there are credible threats that are not delivered per se. Don't let anyone tell you antisemitism doesn't exist here. It does. 

Meanwhile, back at the CDC:

As we face another year even in partial isolation, social distancing, and masks, I have to be thankful for the progress we've made. There ARE vaccines. If you have enough brains to behave responsibly, your chances of staying healthy are vastly improved. If you behave responsibly toward others in public places, their chances are improved because you are being sensible. Not radical. Not over-the-top. Just merely sensible. Is that so much to ask?

FOX News may go down in history as the only network that actively sought to kill its own audience, but the bottom line is that they're stupid and you can't fix that. And I'm getting awfully cynical when I think, sure, don't wear a mask. Get sick. If you all die then there will be fewer GOP voters at the polls. That's a terrible thought....but I catch myself thinking that every time I watch the news about how stupid people are. And there ain't a damn thing anyone can do about it.

Al Drago/NY Times

And oh, I did want to say something about President Biden. I caught some of his vaccine mandate speech the other day. He had that disgusted parent voice going, and boy, I was impressed. He was so parental it was amazing. Not condescending or mansplaining: he was matter-of-fact and spot on. Was he overstepping Presidential authority? Maybe. I don't know. But I know that voice was really effective when I was growing up and my Dad used it. I thought this was particularly good:

Third, if you wonder how all this adds up, here’s the math. The vast majority of Americans are doing the right thing. Nearly three-quarters of the eligible have gotten at least one shot. But one-quarter has not gotten any. That’s nearly 80 million Americans not vaccinated. In a country as large as ours, that’s 25 percent minority. That 25 percent can cause a lot of damage, and they are. The unvaccinated overcrowd our hospitals or overrun the emergency rooms and intensive care units, leaving no room for someone with a heart attack or pancreatitis or cancer.

I'm developing a serious like for Biden's style. He is the Anti-Orange. He speaks calmly even when he's mad. He puts out vetted information. Sure, sometimes stuff comes out wrong, but he has a better track record with facts. The more I read about the previous administration's negotiations with the Taliban, the more I think Biden did what had to be done and did it as well as could possibly be expected. Yeah, there's more to do getting people out, but that's what diplomacy is for. And now, Kim Jung-Un is playing with his missiles again...frankly, it's an AGD: Attention-Getting Device. Someone oughta figure out what he's really after. Probably a bigger winkie judging by the way he poufs himself up. If he has done nothing else, at least Biden is appointing qualified diplomats to crucial posts. I am so okay with that. There is a lot of damage to undo, and the back-biting-back-seat-driving-armchair-quarterbacks just need to sit down and shut up. There. I said it.  

And if in the course of certain events I have pissed anyone off, too bad. That's my job. I cannot/will not apologize for speaking my mind. Even I get to have an opinion. It might be wrong, or screwy, but I hope not. I really do try to be somewhat reasonable. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

An easy fast to all who do. 

May you be sealed in the Book of Life 

for a happy and healthy new year. 

Just In Time For 5782

A couple of weeks ago, I said my initial reaction to the word manscaping had something to do with men abrogating responsibility. I think that is exactly what manscaping means. I like that better than personal grooming. And it really does sound like man-escaping.

And speaking of men escaping responsibility...

This past week, the Texas legislature passed the most draconian, arcane, and downright moronic law that bypasses the Constitution to allow individual miscreants to sue a woman, the driver of her ride to her clinic appointment, the doctors, the nurses, the providers, and anyone else who helps her to LEGALLY terminate a pregnancy. Never mind this has to happen before 6 weeks into the pregnancy when very few women even suspect they are pregnant. 

In case you think I'm making this up, political historian Heather Cox Richardson explains it well:

In May, Governor Abbott signed the strongest anti-abortion law in the country, Senate Bill 8, which went into effect on September 1. It bans abortion after 6 weeks—when many women don’t even know they’re pregnant—thus automatically stopping about 85% of abortions in Texas. There are no exceptions for rape or incest. Opponents of the bill had asked the Supreme Court to stop the law from taking effect. It declined to do so.

The law avoided the 1973 Supreme Court Roe v. Wade decision protecting the right to abortion before fetal viability at about 22 to 24 weeks by leaving the enforcement of the law not up to the state, but rather up to private citizens. This was deliberate. As Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern explained in an article in Slate: “Typically, when a state restricts abortion, providers file a lawsuit in federal court against the state officials responsible for enforcing the new law. Here, however, there are no such officials: The law is enforced by individual anti-abortion activists.” With this law, there’s no one to stop from enforcing it.

S.B. 8 puts ordinary people in charge of law enforcement. Anyone—at all—can sue any individual who “aids or abets,” or even intends to abet, an abortion in Texas after six weeks. Women seeking abortion themselves are exempt, but anyone who advises them (including a spouse), gives them a ride, provides counseling, staffs a clinic, and so on, can be sued by any random stranger. If the plaintiff wins, they pocket $10,000 plus court costs, and the clinic that provided the procedure is closed down. If the defendant doesn’t defend themselves, the court must find them guilty. And if the defendant wins, they get…nothing. Not even attorney’s fees.

So, nuisance lawsuits will ruin abortion providers, along with anyone accused of aiding and abetting—or intending to abet—an abortion. And the enforcers will be ordinary citizens.

But I'm not here to talk about the ridiculousness of citizen spies on personal choices for health care; I want to talk about the most obvious oversight in the rush to judge: the impregnators. 

Nowhere in this clearly unconstitutional aberration is so much of a mention of the universal cause of  pregnancy: sperm. Excuse me for being a bit clinical here, but it seems to me that you cannot get pregnant without it. And near as  I can tell, sperm only comes from one place. 

In this new Texas scenario, the sperm is not held accountable at any point in this process. The impregnator has no responsibility here, even if he wants some. Which should tell you about the basis of this abortion of a law. 

According to a number of polling sources, over 60% of Texans believe abortion is a women's health issue and should remain legal. Apparently, the Texas Duma feels otherwise. They clearly don't represent their constituency if the data is correct. They only represent their own penises. 

My cousin Karen Hinton uses the phrase Penis Politics. In an op ed piece in the New York  Daily News, she wrote:

In Cuomo’s world — and he would never admit this even to himself — working for him is like a 1950′s version of marriage. He always, always, always comes first. Everyone and everything else — your actual spouse, your children, your own career goals — is secondary. Your focus 24 hours a day is on him.

If you need more time with your own family, he will treat you like you are cheating on him. If you have your eye on another, better job, he’ll try to make that job disappear. Escaping Cuomo is tough because he has to exercise total control. 

Which makes me think Texas is about Vagina Politics and it has  nothing whatsoever to do with the owner of the vagina. In fact, it has nothing to do with the family of the owner of the vagina. It has to do with some teeny-tiny dick in Austin (which is a pretty liberal part of Texas) telling women what they can or cannot do with their vaginas in order to control their lives. This is a matter of controlling what a woman does not just with her body, but with her time and energy. This is a form of enslavement by a government. 

Obviously, I have a problem with that concept. My vagina, the vaginas of my daughters-in-law and my granddaughter are nobody's business but their own. NO ONE....and I mean NO ONE has the right to tell them what to do with their own vaginas...unless......

UNLESS THEY START PENALIZING PENISES for irresponsible behavior...stuff like incest, rape, domestic abuse, predatory sex acts, anything that ends up with an unwanted pregnancy.  Not really. But if you're gonna insist on legislating sex, it had better be quid pro quo. 

And speaking of irresponsible behavior, this week Texas also passed a no-permit-required conceal-and-carry law. Wow. Can you imagine some self-righteous zealot pulling a gun on an uber-driver taking some miscarrying woman to her doctor's appointment in a quest to collect that $10,000 bounty on pregnancy termination. Oh, wow, indeed!

The way I see it, Texas should just secede from the union and get it over with. Or  we can attempt to boot 'em out for total disregard of the Constitution? Can we do that? But wait! A whole bunch of other states are waiting in the wings to see if the impotent (as in no balls for defending the rule of law at all) Supreme Court just stands there while women are reduced to unprotected chattel while penises run amok. Yup, there are a whole bunch of rubber-stamping dumas waiting to see if they can legalize attacks against women. 

Folks, make no mistake about it: Texas is the bellwether here.  This is a map of the reality of abortion availability:

And if Roe v. Wade falls, this is the expected result:

The right to an abortion as guaranteed by the US Constitution is not just about abortion. The bigger picture is how states can and will limit freedom. Voter rights are currently in the crosshairs for more restrictions. Every day we read some other GOP attempt to overthrow the election. The attempts to stop the investigations into the attempted coup on January 6th should be sending very real shivers up your collective spines. Tip o'the iceberg, people.

If state dumas can erode the Constitution on women's rights, what makes you think they are going to stop? Or do you need to see the "no-working-while-pregnant" rules be reinstated? How about the one that says a husband cannot rape a wife? Or a man can beat his children for disobedience?

Have you figured out how really angry I am yet?

On April 16th, 2012, I wrote:

But it’s becoming increasingly clear that there is a growing political movement that would quash the gains we have made. Candidates Perry, Santorum, and Romney stood behind their podia and made pronouncements that would limit the choices women have. They would penalize us for having that which they don’t have: a uterus. We can grow new life and they cannot. That, dear readers, is not penis envy; it’s uterus envy. And we’re on to them.

Now, who hasn’t heard of LYSISTRATA? This is a little play written about 2500 years ago by a Greek guy named Aristophanes. In the play, the women want the interminable Peloponnesian War to stop. So when other methodologies fail to convince the guys running the war to knock it off, Lysistrata convinces the women to do what comes naturally: cut the menfolk off in the bedroom to force them to negotiate for peace.

If our male politicians want to use our sex against us, I would suggest that we follow Lysistrata’s example. If they want to inhibit access to birth control, we inhibit access to the birth canal.  If they want to limit our choices of what we can do with our bodies, well, I suggest we limit what they can do with theirs.

I am holding to my suggestion that women of Texas take up Lysistrata's mantle and start weaponizing their vaginas the same way these dickless wonders are attempting to weaponize their dicks. 

Or is it really their attempt to bring back the past? Are vaginas such a dreadful threat? 

You betcha.

A wise social studies teacher once told our class that even if man cannot control the weather, he can control the rivers. Once he controls the rivers, he controls accessibility to water for fields, villages, towns, cities, the nation, and ultimately the world. Eventually, however, every dam erodes and crumbles. In the  end, water always wins.

Women are rivers; we do what we need to do when left to our own devices and we do it well. You can harness our energy, or you can attempt to control it by damming us up. But like water, we will eventually wear you down, wash over you, and you will disappear. It's what we do best.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Day

Beginning Monday night, Jews worldwide celebrate the birthday of the world.

A very nice birthday present would be kindness toward the planet.

That will go a long way to ensuring we get to celebrate next year, too.

L'shana  tova u'metukah 

Ready.....Set......

a shofar...kinda like Dr. R's

Well, Rosh HaShana is a scant week away, and I'm already entering chicken-without-a-head mode. Not like this is anything new, that I haven't done this for the last 40+ years, but every year brings its own challenges. That Dr. R blows the shofar every frickin' morning at minyan...a traditional wake-up call to remind us we have a whole lotta thinking to do...is a given and today was enough to make a 2 year-old scream in terror. It's not like she hasn't heard the shofar almost every day since the beginning of the month of Elul that began weeks ago, but Dr. R was on a roll this morning and boy, was it loud! 

No matter how many times I hear a shofar, the initial sound always pierces me. I know this is a visceral reaction; I've been having the same reaction since I was a kid. Is it the sound of 5000 years of Jewish history in a series of 3 distinct blasts? Is it the battle cry we hear before confronting our enemy? Is it the sharpness of the blast that grabs my attention and turns my innards toward the ten days of repentance? Whatever it is, it happens at daily morning minyan during Elul, every year on Rosh Ha'Shana (when it doesn't fall on Shabbat) and at the last moments of Yom Kippur when the gates of the prayer are closing. 

Some years are easier than others. I tend to turn inward to examine the pluses and minuses of the last year. To be sure, there were some high points and some pretty low ones. I'm beginning to believe I will never see Barcelona. Going to Israel is off the table again this fall. I really need to pop down to Delray to see my aunts, but even that is looking less likely. I can't believe my big brother is coming next Sunday for the holiday. At least, at this moment I have his flight information and every expectation this country will not have shut down again by next weekend. 

With the arrival of Hurricane Ida, hospitals along the Gulf Coast are in real danger. All of New Orleans is blacked out. Other parishes are flooded. The situation is dire; people will be in need of medical attention for a variety of maladies, not just COVID-19 and the Delta variety. ICU beds are already scarce. In states with the lowest vaccination rates in the country, can you make decisions that take vaccination status into account? (For the record, Louisiana has a fully vaccinated rate of 41.4%, Mississippi is at 37.7% and Alabama is at 37.9%. All three have been hit hard by the storm and are experiencing medical shortages.) 

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about hospitals and the unvaccinated. Dr. Tom, who I cited in the last round, sent me an article that appeared in the Washington Post: When medical care must be rationed, should vaccination status count? The author, Dr. Daniel Wikler, is a professor of Ethics and Population Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The article takes you through his thought process and it's quite compelling. So, I will stipulate this guy knows what he's saying when he writes:

When patients like these are evaluated for health care, their priority depends on how serious their condition is, how urgently they need help and how well they are likely to do if they’re treated. What does not matter is culpability, blame, sin, cluelessness, ignorance or other personal failing. Doctors and hospitals are not in the blame and punishment business. Nor should they be. That doctors treat sinners and responsible citizens alike is a noble tradition, an ethical feature and not a bug. And we shouldn’t abandon it now.

As much as I would like to say vaccination matters, I cannot. Treating all comers is the ethical and correct action. In other words, it's the right thing to do.

And speaking of ethics, I cannot help but be relieved our troops are officially out of Afghanistan. The ISIS bombing was just one more reason not to be there. I thought President Biden's "We'll hunt you down," remarks were a bit over the top, but I suppose he had to say something. Look, the guy inherited a lose/lose situation and nothing he did was ever going to make it completely right, so let's take a breath here...and try to ignore the xenophobic/schizophrenic GOP as they carry on about Afghan refugees. Yes, we must rescue them; no, we cannot bring them here; yes, we've failed as world leaders; no, we need to put them in immigration camps. Please. Make up your minds the rest of us can get on with helping those who risked life and family to help our troops. 

POTUS has enough on his plate between increasing COVID rates and now Hurricane Ida to keep him busy. Oh, and let's not forget that North Korean appears to be firing up their nuclear arsenal again.  

The older I get, the more I think being POTUS is about morals and ethics. I don't mean the Christian right kinda morals where IOIYAR is the line in the sand, the kind that thinks it's okay to grab a little pussy on the side, or have serial wives and mistresses, some concurrently; I mean the classic kind, the ones about doing right by one's neighbors, community, nation, and the world. Maybe a little bit of repairing the world, leaving our campsite cleaner than we found it, caring for the health of the planet? Turning health care into a for profit industry manipulated by insurance companies is morally reprehensible. Taxation that favors 2% of the population while shifting the major burden to the middle and lower classes is highly unethical. Allowing large corporations to pay virtually nothing in taxes is both morally and ethically bankrupt. If POTUS can begin to address the ongoing inequality experienced by the bulk of America, he will have taken a step in the right direction. I do not think President Biden can fix it all with a wave of his magic pen, but what I do believe is that he can open the conversation. 

As I head into the 10 days of repentance, I will once again evaluate where I have fallen short, and where I can do better. Even if you're not Jewish, take a moment to think about the same thing. Take an inventory; it's a good thing. Maybe you'll find something you want to change. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Always start a diet the day after Yom Kippur.