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. 

Escaping, Explaining, and Still Not Getting It

Boy, America has a short memory. 

A scant year ago, We, the People, were watching a century of diplomacy unravel before our very eyes. We read the GOP's laughable platform on Afghanistan, and witnessed the dismantling of the emergency visa program. We groaned in unison at the expectation of chaos should a timetable be set for withdrawal from Afghanistan even though we pretty much had majority agreement that withdrawal had to happen. Anyone who thought this was going to be a happy, fun-filled event was already living deep in LaLaLand. Anyone with half an ounce of both memory and forethought knew this was going to be a chaotic shit-storm when it rolled out. 

Seven months ago, Joe Biden inherited that shit-storm along with an attempted coup d'etat and the lowest international esteem American has had since the 19th century. Gee, I wonder why that is.

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The withdrawal is routinely panned as a debacle. It is chaotic, to be sure, badly executed, and near as I can tell, horribly planned. Can't disagree with any of that, other than to wonder: What was plan B? Was there a plan B? Or C? D? E? Or even F? I have no idea and neither does anyone else.  A year ago, Feckless Leader would've been blaming Nancy Pelosi for the plan gone wrong. Or Chuck Schumer. Or Antifa. 

This year, we have a president who points out that the Afghan government discouraged beginning the evacuation sooner, and that the government and armed forces basically allowed the Taliban to enter Kabul unopposed. But he goes on to say:

I am deeply saddened by the facts we now face, but I do not regret my decision.

MY DECISION. These are the two most important words said to the American People this week. We have a president who OWNS his actions. Indeed, the buck does stop with him.  Does anyone think Feckless could've done better? That if he was in charge,  the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan would be any less chaotic? Is anyone stupid enough to believe Feckless Leader had a workable plan...or did Ivanka eat this homework, too? It must've been in the same notebook with his plan for affordable health care that wasn't Obamacare. 

No, President Biden isn't perfect, and his performance isn't flawless, but for G-d's sake! Look what he's been handed. You cannot clean up a mess four years in the making in just seven months. You can make inroads. You can improve relations with our allies, but it's neither clean nor easy. There is a whole lotta make-up work to be done. 

I'm not delusional about our government, and I'm certainly not expecting Biden to be a miracle president. All I want is a guy who understands how a country is supposed to work and works toward that end. You would think after 4 years of non-stop drama bullshit, the armchair quarterbacks in the press would say, "Hey, he's cleaning up the mess. Let's see how this goes." 

I am so tired of all the complaining because it makes We, the People, look petty and small. I really want to wait a year to see how much is quick-fix and how much requires the long haul. It's like the vaccine approval granted to Pfizer today: we knew it was coming, it doesn't change the efficacy of the vaccine, but maybe now that there's a new stamp-of-approval some of the troglodytes will go get vaccinated instead of trying to get veterinary grade Invermectin. 

Yeah, yeah, you can't fix stupid and you can't convince whole swaths of people that science is real. 

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

...manscaping has been an endless source of amusement. A number of people came forward to express their preference for my original definition of men escaping responsibility.  I've also been told by a member of the clergy that manscaping is "an important part of a man's personal hygiene and good grooming." Too Much Information!!!!!!!!! The senior son is getting endless laughs outta how I asked him about it. Who knew this was such a hot button issue?  

Ultimately, what really surprised me was the even split between people who knew what it was and who didn't know what it was. Sure, that made me feel less like a naïf, but it also brought forth the idea that language is changing more rapidly these days. I got into a discussion about manscaping and mansplaining with several women, all of whom felt there was a certain artifice in both words, that neither captured the essence of the thought. Which, in turn, made me think about all those other new-fangled words and pronounceable acronyms that are basically meaningless to me sans Google search. 

And oddly enough, that brought me right back to Afghanistan and President Biden. The Taliban  has long suppressed all modernity for the masses. Leadership might get internet et al, but unless you are in an elevated position, you are back to fire pits and mud huts. Women will lose even more standing under Taliban repression. The knowledge they acquired during the brief "freedom" years will be obliterated by non-use. The subjugation of women is practiced; it is not a theory.  An entire population will be denied the right to think. The odds of the Taliban stepping into enlightenment are slim to none. President Biden knows that. Where he screwed up was reading Feckless Leader's assessment of Taliban leadership. They sold him a bill of shoddy goods, and, like every other one of his endeavors, it was worthless. 

In an interview with CNN, former Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, said:

...My concern was that President Trump, by continuing to want to withdraw American forces out of Afghanistan, undermined the agreement, which is why in the fall when he was calling for a return of US forces by Christmas, I objected and formally wrote a letter to him, a memo based on recommendations from the military chain of command and my senior civilian leadership that we not go further -- that we not reduce below 4,500 troops unless and until conditions were met by the Taliban. Otherwise, we would see a number of things play out, which are unfolding right now in many ways."

If you get the chance, read the transcript of the interview with Christiane Amanpour. Epser continued to blame President Biden, but read what he says...outta both sides of his mouth. Talk about mansplaining. Are the billions spent on training Afghan troops worth it? Apparently not. Trained in western tactics, they were never trained to their strengths. It should come as no surprise to anyone that they walked away from Kabul. 

Nor should it be a surprise that the people of Afghanistan got the government they ostensibly wanted. Will a movement rise up to throw off the shackles of fundamentalism in favor of modernity? Who knows. 

But here's the thing: it's not very different in many Muslim states. Saudi Arabia claims to be moving in the direction of equality for woman, but when your starting point is fundamentalist sexist slavery, the journey is long. Wanna talk about Yemen? How about Iran? Iraq, Syria? How about Gaza? 

Googling just about anything I want, is not a right, human or civil. I can do it because I live in a country that does not routinely subjugate women and cut off access to the outside world. Sometimes, I forget that. Sometimes, I think we forgot that not every country is western, full of tablets, laptops, smartphones accessing the vast ocean of information on a whim. 

Yes, Afghanistan is chaotic at the moment, but flights are leaving and people are getting out. I suppose the real issue will be what they do with the new freedom. Someone should tell them they won't be the first group to establish a government-in-absentia. Maybe that's how they begin the fight for themselves. 

Or not.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

The lead-up to the Jewish High Holy Days has begun.

The shofar is sounded at morning minyan

Be aware, gentle readers, Rosh HaShanna and the Sukkot holy days all start on 

Monday nights, which mean I won't be publishing on Monday nights. 

Look for a revised WP schedule next week.

Manscaping, Mansplaining...Apparently Not.

I learned a new word this week: manscaping.

When I first heard it, I thought it was what men did when they didn’t want to take responsibility for something...kinda like man-escaping. My naive little mind classified it alongside mansplaining. Made sense to me. 

Apparently not. 

This is about waxing and unsightly hair removal for men. Buck Naked Waxing, a gentleman's waxing service in Ventura, California offers a variety of services, including but not limited to:

• Baseball Wax (bat, balls & dugout), 
• Dugout Wax (just inside the crack), 
• Full Monty Wax (butt cheeks & dugout)

I mean, I knew about Brazilians and lady parts, but this???? This was news to me. Thankfully, no one tried to mansplain it to me. 

But, as usual, I digress; I actually want to talk about the news today, oh boy.

Real love beads

Much of my misspent youth was spent protesting a variety of things: bras, the treatment of Jews in the Soviet Union, civil rights for all Americans,  but mostly, the war in Vietnam. Yeah, I still have my love beads...all three strings...and a few other mementoes of those bell-bottomed days gone by. I passionately believed we had no business in Southeast Asia, the US needed not to be fighting a lose/lose war that had nothing to do with the United States. And in the end, when the troops were removed and Saigon fell to Hanoi, I fervently believed the movement had prevailed and we learned our lesson. The chants, the marches, the strikes, the free-press newsletters were the social media of our day. We believed if we were loud enough, we would be heard. If we persisted enough, we could change our country. For a while, we almost believed that we had. Sorta. 

We were the by-blows of World War II and the Holocaust and we were not going to permit another war to go unchallenged. We were too young to protest Korea, but not too young to take on LBJ, Nixon, and Vietnam. We changed the course of history as we stormed the streets and public spaces of America. We were determined to be different, to not allow senseless brutality to take the day. They shot us, we put flowers in their gun barrels. The war ended. The draft ended. We were beginning to elect our own to congress. We were coming of age and we believed we were a force for good, a new wave to upend the status quo.

Apparently not.

When President Bush I began the Gulf War, we, the protest generation, were eerily silent in the streets, Many of us were railing at home, but the protest movement was slow in taking this on. 

President Dubya Bush's foray into the morass of the Middle East after 911 was an exercise in self-aggrandizement run amok. War in Syria and Iraq was pointless, expensive, and did nothing to vindicate Daddy's misspent tax dollars in Gulf War while the real bolt-hole danger zones of Afghanistan and Pakistan were ignored for far too long. And when the US and her allies went into that region, it was clear from the beginning this was not a winnable war. Hell, even the USSR gave up trying to control Afghanistan in 1989, ten years after they invaded the country. What in G-d's name was Bush thinking? What, we were gonna do better than another totalitarian regime? Seriously?

Apparently not. 

When President Obama took out Bin Laden, he should've taken us right the hell outta Afghanistan. If I have any major criticism of his administration it is foreign policy in South Central Asia. We had no business being in there for the long haul. Sure, to break up Al Qaeda, sure. But beyond that, we had no mission there, we had no right to be there, and staying there was an exercise in futility. 

Ziggy was still alive when Obama was elected, which meant he was alive when the US was screwing around the Levant and South Central Asia. If he went nuts with Dubya's first dick-waving extravaganza in Iraq, which he did, he was winding up to make protest signs as Afghanistan was winding up. He would rail at the television, hollering, "DIDN'T YOU LEARN ANYTHING THE FIRST TIME?" 

Apparently not.

I went back to read GOP's statement (which has since been pulled but exists in the archive) on his fabulous Nobel-worthy peace initiatives. Talk about mansplaining! This is the section was not to be believed:

PRESIDENT TRUMP HAS CONTINUED TO TAKE THE LEAD IN PEACE TALKS AS HE SIGNED A HISTORIC PEACE AGREEMENT WITH THE TALIBAN IN AFGHANISTAN, WHICH WOULD END AMERICA'S LONGEST WAR

• On February 2, 2020, the Trump Administration signed a preliminary peace agreement with the Taliban that sets the stage to end America's longest war.
  • Under the agreement, the U.S. will withdraw nearly 5,000 troops from the country in 135 days in exchange for a Taliban agreement to not allow Afghanistan to be used for transnational terrorism.
    • Time Magazine reported that other components of the agreement included an agreement that U.S. counterterrorism forces stay in the country, permissions for the CIA to operate in Taliban-held areas, and details of how the Taliban's promises to reduce violence will be monitored and verified.
  • The deal has been called the " best chance to end this conflict ," a " decisive move " towards peace, and " the best path " for the United States.
  • The war in Afghanistan is the longest in U.S. history, a conflict that has killed more than 3,500 U.S. and NATO troops and cost U.S. taxpayers nearly 900 billion dollars.
  • As part of the peace agreement, the Taliban and the Afghan government recently began historic peace, talks which would end decades of war that Afghanistan has consumed.
    • The negotiations will cover the terms of a " permanent ceasefire, the rights of women and minorities, and the disarmament of the country's many militia groups ."

Sure. Like any of this could ever have happened. (I left the links in just in case you want to look deeper into that morass for bull-oney.)

The images in the media were, for me, like watching updated instant replays. I didn't see the plane at Kabul airport, I saw the embassy in Saigon with a helicopter on top. The line, the bodies, the panic...all instant replay of those horrifying scenes from 1975. 46 years ago telescopes into an instant because I was cognizant enough to sit in front of a tiny black-and-white television in my dorm room watching the culmination of all those protests, all those chants, all those signs. And while I was glad to see it was finally coming to a close, my heart, like all the others around me, wept for those betrayed by our government...once again. It wasn't enough we could not live up to any of the promises that were made, we left our allies to face a hostile regime change. The bottom line in Afghanistan is, however, that no outside force can prop up a government indefinitely. 

And yeah, we just did it again. And the same thought ran rampant through my brain as I watched NBC Nightly News followed by PBS Newshour reporting on the abandonment of Kabul. One of the reporters, I'm not sure which one, said the Taliban was going door-to-door in Kabul looking for young girls and unmarried women. 

I wanted to vomit. As should the rest of the world. But it won't.

One might think the more moderate Islamic states would be intimately involved in saving their community from tyranny. That they would have been actively involved with keeping the oppressors at bay, whether they are Chinese, Taliban, or Caliphate. One would think it was in their own best interest to see a free, modern state emerge from the morass that was the last decade in South Central Asia. 

Apparently not.

Once again, the entire Islamic world remains silent in the face of inhuman behavior toward other Muslims, most especially women. As they are silent about Chinese cultural destruction of the Muslim Uyghurs, the Islamic world remains silent on the women of Afghanistan. Would they be silent if it was their mothers, wives, and daughters being abducted? Maybe. I can only guess. 

To be sure, there is a moral imperative that should come into play. The West embraced that moral imperative and attempted to help the Afghan people lay the foundation for the emergence. Not that it worked. In all honesty, we were misguided in the belief that world outrage funneled into humanitarian aid would make a difference. Instead, we gave lots of glimpses into what might be, but no way to do much more than dash dreams. 

Listening to Mitch McConnell and every other Republican blaming President Biden for today's debacle was stunning. Sure, there are things he coulda, woulda, shoulda done differently. He stands by his decision to finish pulling troops out, a deadline set by his predecessor, and as painful as it is, I am on the side that says it was long overdue and needed to be done. This was a yank-the-band-aid kinda moment. But what really got to me is how these assholes were all supporting this war with one side of their mouths while decrying increased government spending with the other. Truth was, it didn't matter what President Biden did or wanted to do: he's a Democrat therefore he is demonized. 

For the record, President Biden doesn't own this debacle, he's just ending it. And as such he takes responsibility for the mess on the ground....something his predecessor would never have done. He would've blamed someone else. As painful as all this is, leaving Afghanistan is necessary. At some point, the Afghans must use the tools provided. At some point, they must take control of their own national destiny. That is not the responsibility of the US.

But have we learned anything from the experience?

Apparently not.

 A wise man named Vizzini once said"

I guess Dubya didn't see the movie. Nor did any of his successors. More's the pity, y'know. The entire government coulda learned something.

The WP's Tip o'the Week

Complacency is the mother of inertia.

Inertia is not your friend.

The Way We're Not Anymore

Back when I was a young whippersnapper in high school and still dreamed of digging in the Mideast, I got to have lunch with a prominent woman archaeologist. We had an amazing conversation. She talked about the places she'd been to dig, and I got to ask a gazillion questions. Then she asked me what I was planning for a speciality. Being the idiotic teenager I was, I told her: ancient semitic written language. Oh, she thought that was great, until I told her I wanted tomb walls and buried spaces. She tsk-tsked at me, sighed, and said, "you are ill-equipped for digging in the places you would need to dig."

I was stunned at her response. "Why?"

Her answer was perfectly blunt....and correct for 1968. She said, "You lack a penis." She explained there were other women with that speciality, but they were primarily attached to labs, libraries, and existing sites. None of them were actually digging because they were unable to get local permits. She said she hoped this would change, but probably not soon enough for me to do what I wanted to do.

As luck would have it, I left the world of archaeology in my sophomore year of university to pursue theater. My mother once told me she and dad got whiplash from the switch. Yeah, it was sudden. I decided to leave Oakland University in Michigan (for a variety of reasons) and applied to 6 schools: 5 archaeology programs and one theater program. I got into all of them and chose Skidmore College, still pretty much a girls' school at that time, where I studied directing, playwriting, and swearing-like-a-sailor.

You can't see me, but I'm there

Junior year, I had the unique opportunity to "intern" for a couple of weeks on a major motion picture. (6 nominations, 2 Oscars) and had a grand time doing it. Everyone was so nice and dragged me from meeting to meeting so I could get a real taste for film. Everyone except one actor, an ugly, pimply pig, who hit on and tried to grope me one too many times. The executive producer dealt with him on my behalf. The pimply actor still has acne scars and is a right-wing asshole with a MAGA hat. (Use your imagination; it's not hard.)

I chose the University of Minnesota for grad school because their directing program was supposed to be top notch: brand new theater building (lovingly called Rarig High) and ties to the Guthrie Theater. During my first week at the U, I was asked by three different people who I was going to sleep with for a fellowship. Turned out all the girls were asked the same question by the same three guys in basically the same fashion. A friend from Skidmore was a year ahead of me and I asked her if she had been asked. She said yes, but to ignore the assholes that asked me. Then she added that if I liked any of the assholes who had sway in any of the programs in which I was interested, fucking them would, indeed, help to speed any application. 

While there still may be place in the Mideast where owning a penis is a requirement for heading a dig, the other stuff is gradually fading away....or so we would like to think. 

Donavan's Reef (1963)

Rejecting sexual harassment is a pretty recent phenomenon. Women have been treated as chattel, objectified, abused, threatened, brutalized, and humiliated simply for being women. Women attempting to get ahead these days may not be as readily abused, threatened, or humiliated in the workplace AS MUCH, but it happens and tolerating that class of behavior is becoming increasingly unacceptable. This is a good thing. Depicting that kind of behavior in art is not as easy as it once was. How do you tell the story now? Do you wipe away film and plays which show women being treated as they once were? Anything with a rape scene is forbidden? I'm not sure what you do with the past, much less how to tell a story in the future. 

Do hugging, air kissing, and shoulder squeezes constitute sexual contact and harassment? I suppose if you are uncomfortable with close physical contact from huggers, then yeah, it does. If you're okay with a hug greeting, probably not. But where is the line? If you're an exuberant hugger, you probably wanna start asking permission to hug. Or is that weird?

But that's not really the question I have in mind tonight as I listen to interviews with Andrew Cuomo's accusers. If some of this stuff happened 30, 40 years ago, I would have to say the climate has changed; what was "acceptable" misbehavior is no longer tolerated and is now deemed criminal. Should Andrew Cuomo be held accountable for his inappropriate actions? Hell, yes! He portrayed himself as a champion of women while his hands were doing exactly what his mouth said should not be done. There is a contradiction here that must be reconciled by not just the citizens of New York State, but by the court of public opinion in this nation.

[UPDATE: Governor Cuomo has resigned.]

Everyone knows at least one hugger and probably at least one squish-hugger. You know what I mean. And there are some people you really don't want to hug for a variety of reasons, and you shouldn't have to apologize, explain, or feel weird about stating as much. You learn to deflect and avoid. Everyone should have that skill...even little kids. If they don't want to be on either the giving or receiving end of a hug, they shouldn't be. That's their right as a sentient human being. 

But what do we do with the portrayals? GONE WITH THE WIND has huge problems, but in 1939, civil rights had not moved into the forefront of our national collective conscience. Is it still a good movie? Do we reevaluate it from our perspective? What about THE BIRTH OF A NATION, with its black-face performances and treatment of the Klan? Does that these were even produced and were popular in their day require reevaluations? Yes, but not to ban them. 

If you've never seen the 1939 version of THE WOMEN, you should find it and watch it. For women of the 21st century, it's 2 hours and 20 minutes of non-stop mixed messages. Norma Shearer is a joy to watch, you want to kill Joan Crawford, and Rosalind Russell is bonkers. It's a total period piece and the ending sets me off every time, although it's supposed to be a comforting, happily-ever-after kinda thing. But what's important about this film is that it captures rather succinctly the condition of upper middle class women of the period quite well. You get a glimpse into a different kind of life with expectation. Hardly modern for us, but at the time? It was a total leap forward. How do we judge those characters? By their standards...or by ours?

There is a certain amount of necessity in watching old movies to see how the relationships between men and women unfold according to the period. There are going to be scenes that are intolerable today, but do we discard the images, or just note that the portrayal is not reflecting modern values? I keep thinking about Debbie Reynolds popping out of the cake in SINGING IN THE RAIN. The subsequent scene with the cake is really funny in context, but scantily clad women popping out of cakes is objectification, is it not? Just because we don't pop outta cakes these days, does that mean we have to give up the Good Morning dance scene?

Which brings me to the last station on this railroad. Is there a cutoff for prosecution? Is there a point before which we just have to accept much of that questionable behavior as normative? I'm not talking about rape, violence, or sexual slavery; I'm talking about the casting couch, the "friendly" groping, and involuntary squish-hugging. I'm not suggesting they were okay at any level, but at the time they took place, was an action normative as opposed to aberrant? 

I cannot see me marching into Minneapolis City Hall with a complaint about being propositioned 40 years ago. Yes, it was as despicable then as it is now, but the difference is back then, it was SOP: Standard Operation Proposition. Did I complain about it back then? I was warned off of that scenario. On the flip side, when my MFA degree application was declined because I was "another Jew in the department" I did take action, and yes, I have an MFA. While similar in harassment and verbal abuse, the antisemitism thing was actionable. The sexual innuendo was not. At least not at that time.

In coming to grips with today's expectations and environment, one has to come to grips with the past, recent and long term, as well as the present before a future for behavior can be standardized. This may sound simple, but it's not. I believe there needs to be demarcation in the timeline for culpability. 

At the same time, I believe if we are going to move forward as a culture, a community, and as human beings, we need to set our sights on current positioning and future behavior. Teach the kids, accept nothing less than fairness and equitable behavior from our leadership, and most of all, stand up to walk the walk. Talking isn't good enough anymore. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

If you have a 23 years old furnace and air conditioner,

have them checked routinely for safety.

Being proactive saves time, money, and lives. 

A bit of catch-up ...and a plea for understanding. Not.

 Let's start with the good news today: the new book has a cover:

If you click on the picture, you can probably read the blurb on the back cover, and yes, that is me in the lower left-hand corner. But there it is in all its glory. Now, the work of designing the interior begins. Have two other books out there, I can tell you that getting the format right ain't easy. Talk about constantly moving parts! There's a glossary in the back, a cast of characters, and a definite need for at least one line map of the Mediterranean basin. My designer tells me not to worry, it's all doable, but this is like sending your baby to kindergarten: you know you hafta, but it's hard to let go. Really hard. Meanwhile, there are two other books awaiting my attention on my desk, and if the truth be known, I am anxious to get cracking on one of those. It's time. I simply have to stop obsessing about this book. With any luck, it will be published in October. 

I hope. 

Meanwhile, back on the planet, Delta Force is taking over, infecting people willy-nilly regardless of age, race, religion, nationality, gender, language, musical preferences, or tolerance for pain. The only thing that seems to get in its way is THE VACCINE. Seems that if you're vaccinated and get a break-through hit of COVID, your illness is significantly less severe, you probably won't end up in a hospital, much less an ICU, and you'll recover more quickly. According to a variety of news sources. As per CNN on August 2, 2021

The CDC reported 6,587 Covid-19 breakthrough cases as of July 26, including 6,239 hospitalizations and 1,263 deaths. At that time, more than 163 million people in the United States were fully vaccinated against Covid-19. 

Divide those severe breakthrough cases by the total fully vaccinated population for the result: less than 0.004% of fully vaccinated people had a breakthrough case that led to hospitalization and less than 0.001% of fully vaccinated people died from a breakthrough Covid-19 case.

Folks, those are some interesting stats. IF you are fully vaccinated AND you test positive for COVID-19, very, very few people land in the hospital...as the article states, less than 0.001% of fully vaccinated people. That does not mean, however, that you cannot carry the disease even if you are completely asymptomatic. You can. And you can still infect others. 

As we approach the new school year, vaccinations are still not available for the under-12 set, so there is a large population who is not vaccinated, nor can they be. Yet. They may not be as susceptible to the disease, but they can still carry the virus. Which means they can pass their little viral friend to the next person. Logic demands that we be especially aware of this possibility and be supportive/respectful of families with younger-than-12 kids. 

On the other hand, families who refuse to vaccinate over the age of 12 also need special consideration. When dealing with a family or individuals who refuse to vaccinate, respect their rather misguided wishes and socially distance at least 300 feet from them. To be perfectly blunt, they should be protected from all family gatherings. You must respect their desire to remain COVID-free by providing them with a zone of anti-contagion. While you are safest wearing a mask in public, you MUST wear a mask around them to prevent them from getting the disease. Schools, malls, public gathering places such as houses of worship or ball parks would be best requiring the unvaccinated to either sit in their own outside section from the vaccine crowd, or not to come at all...for their own protection. They are vulnerable and can easily pick up the infection.

While hospitals cannot turn away the unvaccinated, an unvaccinated person entering a hospital zone should automatically be directed to an area separated from the rest of the ER or lobby. Again, this will lessen their chance of picking up the virus from an unsuspecting vaccinated person. 

What actually worries me the most about the recent uptick in infection and hospitalization is not knowing the unvaccinated are the ones bearing the brunt of this outbreak, it's what comes next. I talked to my cousin Dr. Tom tonight about a number of pandemic issues...and for the record, he agreed with BBBruce who said hospitals cannot just turn away unvaccinated people (my idea for triage.) But Dr. Tom did talk about something that's been niggling at the back of my mind: what comes next. 

Viruses mutate. That's what they do. Delta is but one mutation. There will be more. They will all do something ever so slightly different. Are we nimble enough, scientifically, to match that mutation? Or are we looking down the road to worsening contagion as the new mutations develop? There is so much "we" don't know, that the most reasonable way to prepare for the next wave is to pay attention. To mask when we are advised to do so. To be agile enough to have teams working on vaccine boosters and variants. Every year, the flu shots are tweaked for the latest version of that disease. Perhaps that's what will happen fo COVID: each year, a new booster ups the game against the latest mutant. By the way, that's what science does. It's what they're supposed to do. Scientists are supposed to investigate problems and find new solutions. 

If you are not vaccinated, that's your choice. I can respect that. In turn, you should respect your need for separation and stay away from those of us who have vaccinated, both in public and private settings. We are safe unto ourselves, but we can still infect you. This is for your own protection as much as ours. I would hate to learn I inadvertently infected, sickened, or worst case, killed you because I was an unknowing carrier and I was physically close enough to pass the virus to someone with no defense. And wouldn't that just be a shame. 

Just get the damn shot and save your world. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Next time you find yourself at a cemetery, take a walk until you find the old graves,

the ones from the mid-20th century and before. Notice all the baby and children's headstones. 

Then walk back to the modern section and notice how few baby and children's headstones 

can be found amongst the more recent graves. Sure there are some, but very few.

This is because of advances in medications and vaccinations.

Almost no one dies of pertussis, measles, or polio in this country, do they?

From Chesed Shel Emes Cemtery