Bah Humbug! or Fear & Loathing On Santa Claus Lane

I'm sorry, but I've HAD it with this buying frenzy I see all around me. Is THIS what Chanukah will become? God, I hope NOT. Already, in cities like NYC it's starting to happen. I saw the very beginnings of it back in the late 70's, when I still lived there. You know, those huge plastic menorahs next to the Christmas trees in the store windows? So far, we haven't caught up to our frenetic and frazzled Christian neighbors, but not from lack of trying. Retailers are moaning that they haven't had a "record season" this year, and that it means THE END. Nonsense. Still, I'm sooo glad I'm not a Christian, or married to one. Pity the poor Jews, Muslims, Buddhists who ARE married to Christian spouses, and who must slog along as their loved ones dash madly from store to store, buying all kinds of stupid gifts nobody really wants but everybody must have. Why? Because it's EXPECTED, they'll say. Heaven forfend someone might not get SOME idiotic "stocking-stuffer", or the world will come to an end! Sure, right, and I think I'll just hide somewhere till all this idiocy is over.
The sweet story of "no room at the inn" has been bastardized into a gift-giving extravaganza that passes all commonsense. Okay, so HE was poor, yet why do people with loads of stuff they'll never use and won't need stuff themselves with MORE junk? Why not give to the POOR instead? After all, are your kids REALLY going to appreciate all those things you squandered your precious time and money getting? Yeah, for maybe the first five minutes. After that, they'll get bored, and about ten minutes after THAT it'll get broken, or they won't like it and you'll have to return it on the 26th. Was it Wilder who said "Nothing succeeds like excess"? Well, folks, it DOESN'T, not when a wonderful holiday is turned into a "gimmee" slash-&-rip exhibition. All you're teaching your kids is how to be greedy, and that they're ENTITLED to whatever they covet---no matter HOW outrageous or expensive. Is THAT the meaning of your religion? And do you actually ENJOY the holiday? Fat chance, after all that running around! I go to the mall just to watch you scramble insanely through store after store, and I thank God I'm a Jew, because Chanukah is NOT our major holiday and the rabbis always discouraged excess. I feel sorry for you, too---yanking behind you a screaming toddler who needs a nap while, wild-eyed, you stumble blindly on, oblivious to the purse you just left behind on that bench. I've seen women sobbing hysterically, still yanking the same screaming toddler along, when they suddenly realize they've lost all their money and credit cards, and can't remember where. This isn't necessary. And yet it goes on, year after year. One thing we Jews have learned is that NO holiday is, has, or ever WILL be "perfect". Then again, we have enough of them that, should one turn out rotten, there's always hope for the next, and we don't have to wait a whole YEAR for another one, either.
You know, there ARE more holidays in the Christian religion, and not just Easter. Take a look at an old English calendar, for instance, or ANY old European calendar, for that matter. It's NOT the end if Christmas goes awry, believe me. You've just been brainwashed, that's all. Stop, take a deep breath, and exhale slowly. Now repeat after me: "NObody's perfect, and I have a RIGHT to relax, dammit!" Feel better? Good, now go and enjoy yourself, sloooowly. And don't forget to thank God for all you have, too. Be well.

Uncle Bill

I have been informed that I'm "too obsessed with" politics, and I suppose I am. It's just that, having lived through Watergate, Whitewater-gate, Lewinsky-gate, and Dubya-gate (I'm STILL hoping we'll impeach him), I tend to be rather under-whelmed with politicians---especially Republicans. This is to show all of you that I'm not biased, and I wish Clinton had kept his pants ZIPPED so we wouldn't have to be going through all this "God is my co-pilot" nonsense from the Right at the moment. I have nothing against Dubya believing in God, mind you, but when I hear pronouncements such as "I believe God wants me to be president", it kind of reminds me of similar delusionary beliefs whose "originators" came to learn weren't true---the hard way (remember Joan of Arc?).
Having said that, I promise to keep my rants to a minimum from now on (although I'll still include satiric photos of these bozos), so we can all enjoy eachother's blogs without feeling harangued (too much). It's Chanukah, after all, when we Jews can escape the insanity of THE SEASON for eight short days, and we NEED a time-out from "reality" (especially in Ohio, where the recount runs on like a bad sitcom) before Dubya announces the SECOND COMING at his inaugeration next month (look for a bearded, long-haired guy in sandals and a toga, and watch as the cops arrest him as an Al Qaida opperative). In this era of Homeland Security, any "messiah" had better come dressed in a three-piece business suit, or else. I'm JOKING, okay?
At any rate, let's all stop screaming at one another and realize the world WON'T end if every Liberal isn't silenced. And those on the LEFT should stop crying like babies, too. Remember the story of the Maccabees? So they DIDN'T really "do it all" in eight days, so what? They kept plugging away, hitting the enemy's weak spots, and finally won. Thank God, Republicans are NOT "the enemy", we can agree to disagree, and still have a Congress that works (at least MOST of the time). America is still a great country, for all our faults and shortcomings, and I'm certainly not moving to Canada any time soon, if ever. Just wanted to let you know that, however deeply I may distrust Republicans, I don't hate them. They're poor, misguided souls, but I'm confident they'll learn fast. Nothing changes so drastically as politics; a generation ago, we rebelled against "fascist" parents, and here our kids are rebelling against us "commie-pinko ex-hippies"! The world turns, folks. As they say "Man tracht und Gott lacht". Man plans and God laughs.
And on that note....it's time to bentschlicht. Shabbat Shalom and Chanukah Sameach!

HAPPY CHANUKAH!

No ranting today. This photo comes from StockxChange, a free photo-hosting site where some very talented photographers post, and MOST of them allow anyone to download their photos with little or no restrictions on use. The photographer's name is Al-ex (I hope I spelled it right), who has posted many fine images concerning Isreal and Jewish life there, and I urge you to check out his stuff, plus all the others---because these images are NOT snapped casually, but done quite professionally, and are usually high resolution to boot! I THINK the url is http://sxc.hu, but I'm not absolutely sure. If you google it you'll have no trouble. Now I MUST get over there myself to tell Al-ex how I used his photo, as it's only right. Be well and enjoy the holiday!

Mrs.D---A Closeup

Mrs.D, originally uploaded by Reva49.

I loooove using PhotoPhiltre! It's a free photo-enhancing program that doesn't hog memory or resources, as so many of them do, and just does such wonderful effects. You'll remember this as part of a larger photo posted here previously as "Mrs.D, May You...", but I wanted to do just a portrait of her. Yes, I made her look a TRIFLE younger here; still, I think I've managed to be truthful without overdoing it. I only wish I had photos of all my other teachers and friends. Sigh. This is what happens when you're a frustrated artist!
My novel is coming along----sloooooooooowly. Unfortunately, my laptop isn't behaving very well and I'm looking to replace the damn thing BEFORE the hard drive poops out again. The volunteers at Comcast Forum are the most wonderful, patient (well, not FRED, at least) people you could hope to find ANYWHERE on earth, when it comes to explaining what SHOULD be common-sense computer practices to us am ha-aretzim (dummies). I'm soooo ignorant I often can't explain what's wrong in an intelligent manner, and end up sounding like a five-year-old making up words as I go along. Poor Fred was reduced to titling one of his replies "...what the f*** are you talking about?" the other day, when I described how bad my hard drive was messed up. For those of you old enough to remember that MY FAVORITE MARTIAN show on TV back in the early 60s, my explanations must have sounded like "Uncle Martin's" when he described his ship to Bill Bixby, the actor who went on to become THE INCREDIBLE HULK.
At any rate, I'd advise AGAINST installing XPsp2----unless you've cleaned out your drive and updated everything BEFORE adding it. I THOUGHT I had, but probably I forgot to do something, as usual. As for those FBI and CIA files, I've been told by several computer technicians they ARE exactly that. Nothing earth-shattering, of course, but it IS annoying. I still can't rule out the possibility that those programs, automated or not, had something to do with my laptop problems. Like I'm gonna go sue the government. Hmmm, I wonder if suing the government would be one of those three cases where the Supreme Court has original jurisdiciton? Mrs. D, who taught us government (and those three cases, which I can't remember) would most likely roll her eyes at this point. Well, I never WAS focused. That's ADD for you.
One good thing about Blogger, though, is I can't lose what I've posted here. I've been burning CDs like crazy, trying to save all my applications, photos, files, etc before THE CRASH happens. For some reason, screwing my hard drive seemed to have enabled my burner to work again. Go figure. Hope you've all had a good Thanksgiving. I spent most of mine doing back-to-back craft fairs, and I'll be going full tilt until December 11, too. After that, I'll "rest" for about a month, doing a couple fairs here and there until May, when the whole crazy cycle starts again. For a "booming economy", however, I have to say I've never seen a slower season. Frankly, I think the economy went "boom", all right. IMPLODED might be a better word, for all the sales I've had since this election. Oh well, that's the chance you take when you start a business. Haven't gone bust yet, kinenahora. And there's always next season.
On that note, this luftmensch will close. Take care and be well.

Yep, We're Gonna Democratize 'Em, All Right

The Awful Truth, originally uploaded by Reva49.

Just had to comment on Dubya's vow to bring democracy to Palestine. Yeah, like we really think we're gonna make the whole world just like us. Puh-leeeeze! I heard enough of that during the Cold War. Remember when the Soviets vowed to bring socialism to the rest of the world, and we screamed? So it was wrong for them but right for us, huh? It never ceases to amaze me that we keep on believing this garbage. Don't you think other countries MAY want to decide what kind of government they want THEMSELVES?

The Dybbuk---And It Ain't Ansky's

My laptop seems to have become possessed lately. Everyday, something else denies me access, and it looks like I'm gonna lose ANOTHER hard drive. I tell ya, it ain't easy exorcising these gazlans (yeah, I know it's probably supposed to end in "im", but in AMERICAN Yiddish you can ignore a lot of those fine points). Any minute, I'm expecting a ghostly voice to come out of my speakers, and up here in NH there's no chance of hooking up with a "wonder rabbi". Of course, I COULD try the local priest, but he'd most likely just tell me to take the thing in to a technician. Then again, I'm registered as a Democrat, so maybe this dybukk is actually the ghost of Lee Atwater. I DID vote for Kerry, y'know. Too bad Georgie Porgie won. Maybe this the initial assault of the new Republican Moral Majority---cleansing our sinful hard drives of political heresy and--- Oh, all right, I'm joking. Still, this stupid laptop is driving me NUTS. I've gotta get this novel blogged before the month is out, or at least MOST of it, at any rate.
As it is, I'm not too happy about going back to the 1950s, which is where most of these Republicans want to take us. They think the 50s were wonderful; you know, total conformity and all that. Well, I'm just old enough to remember how the 50s REALLY were, and wonderful they weren't. Sunday had to be the worst day of the week, as NOBODY would dare stay home from church and have the neighbors think they were ATHEISTS, God forbid. In THOSE days, atheists were pretty much synonymous with COMMUNISTS, so even JEWS had to be careful on Sundays.
I lived in the suburbs down around Philadelphia then, just across the river from the oil tanks, in fact, and there was no privacy in that land of identical cracker-box houses on postage-stamp lawns. Neighbors felt it was their moral and patriotic duty to keep others on the straight and narrow; after all, we were in the midst of the Cold War then, when Commie-Pinkos were hiding under every bed---just WAITING for the signal from Moscow to start burning down the churches. I mean, people were so terrified of being different that every other house looked exactly the same, every other person DRESSED exactly the same (and on Sunday you had to dress up and STAY that way all day, so you can imagine how us GIRLS felt with all that stiff crinoline under our dress skirts), and NOBODY dared to subscribe to any periodicals that might look INTELLECTUAL, because everybody knew that those pointy-headed brainy types were just the ones TO join the Commies.
What a time that was! My parents were absolutely petrified to raise their voices when arguing because "what if the NEIGHBORS heard them and called the cops?" Yes, that's right. And don't think THEY wouldn't have reported any neighbors who did the SAME, too. Paranoia was a virtue back then, I swear. I can remember one time when I'd awoken before sun-up and decided it'd be the perfect time to ride my bike down Westfield Ave. into Camden---something that was too dangerous at any other time of day because of the constant heavy traffic---and when I got back my parents were LIVID. Didn't I have enough sense, they went on, to know that the neighbors might have reported me to the POLICE for being out so early like that? Gee, the sun had just been coming up when I'd left, so it wasn't DARK out. And then there was the time in 1964 when I couldn't sleep, and figured I'd go downstairs to the den, switch on the radio, and read until I felt sleepy. Well! My mother came flying in minutes later to warn me I'd better turn off the light before the neighbors got SUSPICIOUS; after all, DECENT people didn't stay up all night---unless they were up to something illegal, immoral, or UNAMERICAN.
So you can see why I'm rather uneasy about this Republican sweep. They do tend to think this should be a CHRISTIAN country, God help us, and I've heard countless callers on C-Span piously proclaim that they were going to vote for Bush because he was a Chrrreeeshtunnn. As if Hitler wasn't, right? Okay, so he left the Church, but he had still been raised Christian, not atheist. Frankly, I'd sooner trust an honest CROOK than a hypocrit, if only because politicians have to do some industrial-strength sinning to get to be president. Maybe you've read Moliere's play "Tartuff", about a slick con-man who finds that public piety can be quite lucrative. It's easy enough to Act like a saint around others, while still enjoying one's sins in private. We do it all the time. But to elect a PRESIDENT on his supposed "moral superiority", especially when this guy's the leader of one of the most powerful nations on earth, is scary. To ME, anyway. I like to know my leaders are COMPETENT, first of all, and maybe, just maybe, even one of those "pointy-headed" BRAINY types as well. Certainly DUBYA could never be said to have either of those traits, and his absolute conviction that God is behind him all the way should scare ALL of us.

Sally Starr---For All You Popeye Theater Fans

Sally Starr, originally uploaded by Reva49.

Well, I've started to blog my novel, but it's going to take a LOT longer than the month this NanoWrimo thing lasts to type the whole damn thing, unfortunately. Sigh. Sorry, I'm a lousy typist, and although I use all ten fingers I still plod along at about 20 words a minute, barring typos and other mistakes. And do I make mistakes! Let's just say my Personal Typing teacher back at PHS was only thrilled to get rid of me---even if she had to FORGE a passing grade for me to do it. So be patient, it's coming. Figure I'll be finished some time next year, if I'm lucky. Anyhow, I STILL haven't figured out how to format the damn blog RIGHT so far. Don't be surprised if you see chapters that look like one long sheet off a roll---like toilet paper(clean, of course). Hey, just be glad YOU weren't one of my teachers. Happy blogging.

Vagabonds Drum&Bugle Corp1963

Vagabonds Drum&Bugle Corp1963, originally uploaded by Reva49.

I belonged to this group all too briefly in high school. Didn't know about them until my junior year and membership ended at age 21 because it was technically a JUNIOR d&r corp.
At that time it was the Pennsauken Vagabonds, and though it's no longer in Pennsauken it's still thriving somewhere a little south of there---I forget where exactly. Most of those I knew came from other areas around Pennsauken, but I never got to know them very well because I wasn't driving yet, so couldn't get around all that much. Anyway, college ended most of my friendships, as we all split up and headed in different directions. Too bad. It was my fault; I should have realized then that life wasn't going to be a series of interchangeable people, to be befriended and left behind casually, like the stuffed animals in one's room. Unlike those tchatchkes, people don't stay put until you decide to ring them up again. Sigh. I lost so MANY of them.
At any rate, this entry is an introduction to my NanoWrimoBlogMo (if I hadn't mentioned it in a previous post), and I'm hoping you'll have a look at it sometime. God help me, but I've decided to begin with a retelling of my senior year in high school, even though I KNOW semi-autobiographical novels can be risky. The truth is, it's been almost 40 years now since we graduated, and so many of the posts I've read on Classmates.Com seem to confirm the fact that people just forget sooo much over time. Naturally, I've changed everyone's names, but I don't intend to write a strictly factual account at all; after all, none of us would remember anything the same way even so, as we filter the world through our own experiences and biases, and no two people have the same exact experiences and biases---not even siblings in the same family!
So I've decided to write about MY "take" on a particular teacher whose class really changed my life. NOT another cheap tear-jerker knockoff on "Goodbye Mr. Chips", I hope, and DEFINITELY not another one of those maudlin "poor misunderstood teenager could have been successful if she hadn't been so mistreated" scribblings. In order to be fair to everyone, I MUST give myself the most "warts" of all, and my character will be sneaky, dishonest, etc. at times---just as we all are when we think no one's looking. Yes, I'll be honest about myself and others, but I will try always to give others the benefit of the doubt, and you must remember that NONE of the characters will be totally based on one person; as I'm writing "backwards", so to speak, I'll be reinterpreting events in the light of my adult experiences---both as teacher and parent---and so I will be re-creating characters as much as describing them. Also, "my" character and that of my "teacher" will reflect my teaching experiences and the many students I had over the years, which will effectively "DE-autobiographicize" (I'm coining a new word here, and I know it's probably not all that good) the novel to a great extent. I'm not restricting myself to what "really" happened, or in what order. If I feel the story demands changes in certain places, I'll do it. For example, while I have no way of knowing whether or not the teacher's husband WAS drafted, if I feel the story benefits from having him drafted I'll do so. If I feel a certain character is best chosen for a certain statement or act, even if in reality it had been someone else, I will do that, too. Sometimes an author is forced to "condense" characters, as it were, in order to avoid a confusing narrative where hundreds of "dramatis personae" are zipping in and out of each paragraph faster than the reader can tell them apart. One thing I'm NOT is one of those Russian novelists who can have 400 characters and each one is an individual! I may not be terribly talented (or, if that modifier is taken LITERALLY, maybe so), but I'll try to write as well as I can---keeping in mind, of course, that writing "well" means different things in different genres. And I have NO intentions of "getting even" with anyone. God knows I've said and done my share of thoughtless, sometimes spiteful, things, so who am I to fault anyone else?
One last thing, however: as every novel must have it's Antagonist, I've chosen the Art teacher for mine, but in NO way do I intend to imply that this teacher is Mrs. Kellaway, who did teach Art at that time. I have deliberately taken great pains to make this character completely different from ANY teacher I have had. Mrs. Kellaway was a great teacher, and although there are some unavoidable comparisons between my character and her, I want to stress that she would NEVER have said or done ANY of the things my character does. Yes, I have known people like this character, and like all the rest she is a composite, but she resembles no one person and is intended to be merely a "fictional creation" only. I can't assert that my novel is entirely a "work of fiction", with the usual disclaimers that "all characters, etc, are purely creations of the author, and all resemblances are purely unintentional", but I've done my best (I hope) to make it as "fictonal" as possible. I suppose there is a legal formula for stating all this, but at least I've been honest here. I hope you like it.
Oops, almost forgot: my other blog is ---www.likemakingkishka.blogspot.com

If Dr. Sidney Barasch,ztl Had Been Elijah...

If Dr. Sidney Barasch,ztl Had Been Elijah..., originally uploaded by Reva49.

This photo isn't Dr. Barasch, but he looks like him. Barasch taught Psych at California State College(now Cal U of Pa) back in the late 60s-early 70s, and I had him for a course or two. He was a good teacher, and I was saddened to hear he'd died some time ago. I figured this might be a good way to memorialize him. He'd have gotten a kick out of the photo, I think.
He was born here (the only one of his seven other siblings, he said), to devoutly Orthodox parents in 1913, but as his father died when the boy was 13, young Sidney probably never finished high school, and as a first-generationer American most likely viewed his religion with disdain. Drafted in WWII, his tests showed him to be extremely bright, and so he was transferred into MI. After the war, he probably finished school and went on to college. Psych being rather militantly atheistic at that time (and most likely still), he jettisoned his religious beliefs entirely. Unfortunately, I have a sneaking hunch he was attracted to Christianity, although he never formally converted---to MY knowledge, at any rate. Sadly, he and his wife were never able to have children. She was an English "war-bride", and whether or not she was Jewish herself I never knew. To me, he epitomized the "self-hating Jew", and I can't blame him for it, really. You see, living in an overwhelmingly Christian society as we do, it's almost impossible NOT to be like Barasch.
As for me, I've no trouble with being different because I CAME from a Christian background, and know WHY Judaism is the truer religion of the two. (Christians, please don't take offense, as your websites freely tout Jesus, so we Jews hould have the same freedom as well) Born Jews, however, are constantly beseiged with confusing and conflicting messages via society. Children, especially, are bombarded with typically American "it's unpatriotic to be different, etc" messages all the time, but Christians never think that these messages are wrong. Oh no, to Christians, anyone who "denies" Christ will go to hell, and they constantly babble on and on about their so-called "Prince of Peace" and how he "loves" everyone. Yeah, he "loves" us sooo much that he can't accept dissent. Funny, I don't remember HIM converting to Christianity. Do you?
This religious "terrorism" (yes, it IS terrifying to a child, and even to an ADULT at times---witness the terror experienced by poor Franz Werful, the author of Song of Bernadette, when he was on his deathbed and suffered needless paroxysms of fear over his refusal to convert from Judaism) is what's REALLY "unAmerican" here. I'm SICK of being "loved" by these smug hypocrits who can't WAIT for the "Rapture" so they can watch all of us "sinners" burn in hell. Are you shocked? Good! How about actually READING your bible, for a change? You'll be surprised to find that NOWHERE in it does God "reject" the Jews as his "chosen people". That crap came later, I'm afraid.
Am I angry? You bet! I really must thank all of you "loving" Christians for poisoning my SON with your garbage. He's so afraid he'll go to hell if he stays Jewish that I'm ready to tear out my hair! Thanks, Doris, for all that preaching you did on the bus when he was only five years old and trusted you. I should have reported you, but I thought it might have been over-reacting and so I didn't. Of course, reporting you would have been considered terribly "unAmerican" by our "loving" Christian neighbors.
And that's how it is today, in Republican Right-wing America. Don't you just LOVE it?

Blundering Right Along...

A Little Photo-Magic!, originally uploaded by Reva49.

FINALLY! I managed to publish my web page---successfully, after about a million previous attempts---a few minutes ago. Boy, what a lotta work! Still, it was worth it. Now I get to rant in TWO places instead of just one. Actually, though, it's more fun to post here. More freedom for us "html-illiterates", for one thing. Also, Shira Salome gave me the url for the new counter at the bottom of this page. Please read her blog "On The Fringe" here on Blogspot; she is a gold mine of Jewish knowledge. And there are several other Jewish blogs here as well, which I wasn't aware of until she informed me of them. I've GOT to check them out soon.
This election is getting so nasty I'm about ready to shoot BOTH candidates. Edwards went WAY over the line when he chided Cheney about having a gay daughter the other night. Let the Republicans do the mud-slinging, I say. First of all, they're better at it, and it only hurts the Democrats when THEY try slinging it back. Wouldn't it be nice if candidates could talk about the ISSUES, for a change? Sadly, mud-slinging gets results. Worse, people tend to remember the DIRT better than the truth. I happened to catch Fox News earlier this evening, and the topic was WMD or, rather, the LACK thereof (which was finally admitted OFFICIALLY after all this time), which SHOULD have made me happy---except that one of the guests smugly reminded the audience that this belated admission probably wouldn't hurt Bush's re-election at all. Sigh. Yep, that's what he said. In essence, folks, what Fox (and the Republicans) evidently believe is that we're all a bunch of morons. Well, I shouldn't really be so partisan; I suppose Democrats believe that, too, but THEY aren't in power right now. I'm going to get ulcers over this election, I swear. Is it just me, or do YOU feel uneasy about the way our government's become so authoritarian of late? Sometimes I fear the Republicans are terrified enough of losing that they'd do almost ANYthing to win this one. I do fear the Supreme Court will meddle with THIS election as well, given half a chance. If this gets any worse, I may even be forced to join (gasp!) the ACLU! Of COURSE they're a bunch of loonies, but at least they FIGHT for our Constitutional rights. Okay, so I screamed when they wanted to allow the Nazies to march through Skokie. They were right, technically. And I'd scream AGAIN if they tried something like that nowadays. Nevertheless, without them we'd be hamstrung (you should pardon the expression). Maybe I should just go to bed, but this ain't no dream. Can you believe it? I'm actually homesick for those crazy Cold War days when at least the Rabid Republicans (not all of them, just the far right) had "god-less" COMMUNISM to blather about, instead of us harmless Democrats, Liberals, and aging ex-hippies. Geez, I was more conservative back in COLLEGE than today. America was never about "ideology" or "doctrinal purity". Under the Republicans, since Reagan, politics has become a kind of twisted RELIGION---"Politico-Christianity", if you will. How any Jew can be a Republican TODAY amazes me. Maybe the party will change over time, go back to its populist roots, but not for the near future, I'm afraid. Besides, far too many American Jews feel that America is somehow "exempt" from Jewish history. The German Jews felt that way, too, back in 1933. God help us if we're heading in THAT direction! Having grown up "on the other side", I KNOW how Christians (not all, surely) feel about Jews and Jewish "dominance". Isreal exists, in their minds, only for the sake of the Second Coming (he couldn't get it right the FIRST time? Some "messiah"). As far as I'm concerned, Republicans are "false friends". Sure, the Democrats and Left-Liberals aren't so friendly EITHER, but as that German rabbi quipped when he was elected to the Reichstag back in the 1800s (and miffed the rightist parties when he chose to sit with the leftists): "Jews HAVE no 'rights'." Here, Jews DO, but we'd better watch over them or they may suddenly be "re-interpreted" one of these days. Thank God for personal web pages and blogs! And VOTE this November, okay?

Mrs.D Again

Mrs.D.PNG, originally uploaded by Reva49.

This is a better pic of my best teacher, which I "watercolored". One of the reasons I'm posting her photo again is because, this being an election year, I think she might like to be remembered as a staunch advocate of voting. I'd be flabbergasted indeed to learn that she'd become lackadaisical about elections, considering she's now a lawyer. Frankly, if she were to run for office, I'd be tempted to move so I could vote for her.
That said, I'd like to remind everyone about this election. Whether or not you support Bush or the Republican agenda, NO president can effectively govern without a mandate from the electorate, and our current history of less than 50% of the electorate bothering to vote is disgusting! If this election is anything like LAST time, one vote could decide it---maybe even YOUR one vote. Forget about the conspiracy theories, the shameful partisan intervention by the Supreme Court, or those "pregnant" chads; if more of us had voted, and been more careful about marking our ballots (yes, I know those "butterflies" were confusing, and I'm sure that SOME hanky-panky occured in black districts, as I lived in Florida for 3 years under Democrats, and it was just as crooked then as now) we might have had a president who WASN'T so stubborn and self-righteous about his decisions. I don't mean Gore, either. After all, can you BLAME Bush? If he thinks we don't care what he does, why should HE care what we think. As far as HE'S concerned, since we didn't bother to vote then obviously we need to be told what to do, what to think, and when to shut up. Face it, people, if we act like children we're going to be TREATED as such by our leaders. Democracy can't survive when the electorate is too complacent to bother pulling a lever every four years, and governments (whether Democrat, Republican or Totalitarian) are basically in the business of staying in power---forever, if possible. Bad enough the endless partisan bickering and mutual sabotage between our two parties in Congress, but for "WE The People" to just let it all happen, clucking our tongues in disgust while our government goes into gridlock over such petty squabbles, stupidly refusing to do the ONE thing that might break this stalemate, then we might WELL "[get] the government [we] deserve", and sooner than we think, too.
Remember, as Mrs.D was wont to warn US some 37 years ago (in a far more "gentler, kinder" America, DESPITE the Cold War and Vietnam)"If you don't vote, then you have no right to complain." She also reminded us that governments always exempt themselves from the Rule Of Law, that they lie as a matter of course, and that we can only know what they allow us to. I thought her cynical back then, but now I know she was right. Democracy might not be perfect (no form of government ever is) but if we're too lazy to DEFEND our Constitutional rights, we will have no one to blame but OURSELVES should we lose them. Think about that.
Thanks again, Mrs.D, for all you taught us. I haven't forgotten, and I haven't missed an election since.

Me Again

Me Again, originally uploaded by Reva49.

I just thought I'd whine instead of rant today. Actually, I've been thinking of saying this for a while, but now's the time. It's about the sad tendency of American Jews to obsess over wealth. Now, wait a minute---I know what you're thinking, but hear me out.
Synogogue membership is perhaps the biggest headache for most of us "average Jews"; we're the ones who aren't doctors, lawyers, or married to one, and our incomes just can't take that $900-a-year whallop to belong to a shul. Fortunately for some of us, there's a Reform congregation nearby that kindly "overlooks" our lack of money, but not always. I'm one of the lucky ones, and for that I'm grateful, yet for years my husband and I could not join because he was out of work on Compensation, so my son never finished Hebrew School. Worse yet, the president of the shul(not the one we currently belong to)insisted we remove our son IMMEDIATELY when he learned of our circumstances, then was awarded the "Mensch Of The Year" award! Mensch, shmensh, as we say. At any rate, to be cut off from the Jewish community out here in "the boonies", so to speak, was devastating. My son only managed to attain his Bar Mitzvah through the kindness of our local Lubavitcher rabbi. To have hosted this event in the shul would have cost around a THOUSAND dollars, no less. How can people like us afford that?
This is what I mean by "obsession" with wealth. In America, Jews seem to have fallen into the goyische attitude that Jews HAVE to be rich, that all Jews MUST go to prestigious colleges, and that anything less is apikorsus(heresy). How sad.
Does no one care to know how many of us have LESS than genius-level children, or that thousands of Jews like us struggle to keep family intact through such crises as unemployment, death of a spouse, or divorce? I guess not. Here in America, that just DOESN'T HAPPEN to Jews, they seem to think. Proper Jews, that is. We, unfortunately, don't qualify as "proper", and you'd be surprised to know how many of us are shunned by our fellow Jews as "embarrassing", sometimes even as "lazy". Thank God, I never experienced that here in NH; many of our former congregants expressed outrage when they learned why we had "left". Still, it happens elsewhere, and it shouldn't.
Maybe, it being so close to Yom Kippur, some high-ranking shul member will read this, feel ashamed and outraged, and finally DO something about it, but I doubt it. Far too many of us have had it far too good for far too long to understand (or even WANT to comprehend) the plight of , I would estimate, a good 60% of us, if not more. And every year around this time the rabbis moan and groan about the Jewish "defectors". Well, hey, do you know how much cheaper a CHURCH membership is? Think about it.

Mrs. D, May You Always Succeed & Prosper

Mrs. D, May You Always Succeed & Prosper, originally uploaded by Reva49.

In 1967, when I was a senior at PHS and not happy at ALL about having to take a boring class on CIVICS(yuck), in waltzed a 22yr old neophyte teacher who proceeded to turn our world upside-down---by teaching us how government REALLY works, and conducting her classes as though we were in LAW school. Tough? Let me tell you, she came at us with questions we had to answer, not from rote, but by THINKING LOGICALLY. Her tests were even WORSE, because she included a 40pt essay question on them that made us demonstrate how well we knew our lessons ,too. We used to joke that not only were her tests IMPOSSIBLE but imPASSIBLE as well. She told us she was going to make us think, and she did! If you were absent for a test, she made you take an ORAL make-up, which insured almost a 90% attendance on test days, as NO one wanted to face down HER after school. She commanded respect and got it, even taking on the school ADMINISTRATION when they told her she couldn't assign 1984 and Brave New World(oddly, not because of the politics so much as for the sex scenes), when those books were assigned anyway by the English teachers. She held her head high and walked like a queen; I can still visualize her ramrod-straight back as she breezed through the halls like Miss America. I wanted sooo much to be like her, believe me. We all were a bit overawed by her complete self-confidence and no-nonsense style. In the parlance of the time, we spoke of her as "thinking like a man", which was a high compliment indeed. She never deferred to the male teachers, either, as woman are wont to do. She was the equal of any man and KNEW it, which sometimes got her labeled as "unlady-like", "opinionated", and just plain "bitchy", too. I worshipped her, myself. Unfortunately, I made a terrible pest of myself by constantly following her about the school(think "Walter Denton" from the old "Our Miss Brooks" TV show). Her dept. head dubbed me her "shadow", and I guess she got ribbed about it by the faculty. I'm sorry for all the trouble I may have given her. She was one of those teachers who turn up once in a lifetime and you're never the same afterwards. I learned so much from her, and not only from the lessons she actually taught but the "lessons" she "taught" by the way she comported herself, spoke with authority, and expected nothing less than success---from us as well as SHE. When I entered my freshman year of college and faced all-essay exams in every subject, her tests stood me in good stead; her tough questions in class taught me how to think "on my feet", as it were, and without her I would never have made it through college. I even took along the notes I'd taken in her classes when(for some stupid reason) the college required us to take American Government, and those notes and what I'd been taught gave me a B, easy, although the prof I had was a hard grader. I often wonder just how many of her students went on to become lawyers(as she did), simply from the way her classes were conducted. I'd be willing to bet a good 40% or more went into Law because of her. I almost did, and even now keep abreast of Supreme Court decisions. A good teacher is a GIFT. As Christa Macauliff so memorably said before the shuttle tragedy: "I am a teacher, I touch the future." The photo here is how Mrs.D looks today, and though she's aged a lot, she's still beautiful to me, and always will be. Thank you, Mrs.D, for all you never knew you did for me. Ironically, it's the smallest gestures that mean so much, and what you no doubt considered to be only "doing your job" taught an immature kid how to be a responsible citizen and an adult. Hazak! May you go "from strength to strength"! (I hate to archive this, as I'm shamelessly hoping she'll stumble across my blog. It's no fun if your idol doesn't notice these things. Sigh)

Thanks, Leah! -Or- Oopsimath Shows How NOT To Blog

My old school chum Leah informed this dummy that my archives aren't "click-able", and she's right! Sorry about that. Well, but this is just another glaring example of my ability to learn by "trial and error"---mostly by the LATTER, naturally. You'll all be happy (yeah, who am I kidding, right?) to know that I have just fixed the problem. Of course, knowing me, I've probably botched something ELSE in the process. Will my blog turn out okay? Will I have somehow enabled Al Quaida to use my blog to spam the federal government into submission? (audience gasps in horror). Tune in tomorrow to see another thrilling episode of (trumpet fanfare) A Born Accident! Same time, same channel, no commercials---just a lot of baloney.

Welcome To Gulag Amerika

Welcome To Gulag Amerika, originally uploaded by Reva49.

HUBRIS-It's All About Us

Sigh. I hate to admit it, but we Americans are notorious for our cock-eyed optimism, which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't linked to our depressing tendency to see everything revolving around US. Worse yet, we even believe God is ALWAYS on our side, regardless, and we have a president who's willing, nay, EAGER to prove that we can do anything we want, nyah, nyah. Yes, I know this kind of delusional thinking didn't start with Dubya, but he's become the epitome of American Hubris ever since his self-righteous rantings over 9/11. His annoying I-know-everything-so-shut-up attitude seemed to blossom into full-blown I-am-the-instrument-of-Divine-will mode after he finally allowed himself to be FOUND following the attacks that day; seems our Fearless Leader went incommunicado for 24hrs, flying hither and yon while Cheney did the President-thing in D.C. until he calmed down. Whether or not he knew in advance about the planned attack is moot at this point. What matters is that he went ballistic, literally, and took the whole Congress with him. So we bombed Afghanistan, and for what? Osama "escaped" in the end. The 9/11 terrorists were almost to a man Saudis, but with our dependence on oil we couldn't bomb THEM, chas v'sholom. Where Osama is now, I can make a guess at, as probably the only safe place in the region is Saudi Arabia. Sigh. So, failing to capture HIM, Dubya fell back on Saddam and so on...
Sorry, but I'm sick of this we-know-what's-best-for-the-world attitude. I'm old enough to remember JFK's famous "Ask Not..." Speech, and how we failed at being "world policemen" the FIRST time around. We at least had the TROOP strength back then to back up that rhetoric, but now? And American news is a disgrace. It's not just Fox, cheering on Dubya mindlessly, but ALL our "news" outlets, I'm afraid. How much of our news is devoted to NON-American events? Not much at all, and when it is the events are at least RELATED to American concerns. I would guess that a good 80% of world news is simply IGNORED by American reporters and their editors, simply because they assume we'd get bored with it. And you know what? They're probably right. We, for the most part, DON'T want to know what's going on elsewhere, because we believe IT'S ALL ABOUT US! Are we brain-washed or just brain-DEAD? Sigh.
Okay, so Tocqueville warned about this shortly after the Revolutionary War, so what? Up until WWI we pretty much hadn't the means to do a lot of global damage, and even by WWII we lagged behind many of the other industrialized nations, but after we emerged unscathed (remember, almost all of Europe was destroyed by bombing, and Japan as well) we suddenly "saw the light". God WAS our "co-pilot", Americans seemed to conclude, and WE had to protect the world against "God-less Communism", ad nauseum. So began almost 60 years of what was dubbed The Cold War, when we embarked on an insane campaign to "contain" Communism and we and the USSR nearly nuked the planet. Under Reagan, it got suicidal; nuclear war was not only declared "do-able" but downright respectable, with the morally repugnant doctrine of "strike first" being embraced enthusiastically by Pentagon and Congress alike. Thank God the USSR fell apart before our Hollywood Warrior (already showing the first signs of incipient Alzheimers) had a chance to push "that little red button". And then? Remember that "Peace Dividend" we were all supposed to enjoy now that "God-less Communism" would become capitalist and democratic? Uh huh, we did our "father knows best" arm-twisting routine on the former Soviet bloc, and did more harm than good. Some of the former Soviet states succeeded, but most did not. Russia became "democratic", for a while, then elected Putin, who's reputed to be curtailing these "democratic" tendencies quite well.
So go ahead---accuse me of hating America. It's the usual response when any of us questions the current political dogma, especially when the Republicans are running the country, it seems. Unfortunately, I'm not. If you'll recall the Bill of Rights, we still have Freedom of Speech---not much anymore, but some, thank God. And I DO thank God, too. Of course, HE seems to have been appropriated by the GOP (dubbed "God's Own Party) since Reagan, along with morality in general. But then, when you have God as your co-pilot, I guess it means He not only forgives you in advance but APPROVES of everything you do, regardless. Must be a nice feeling, knowing that--- sort of like what those Muslim fanatics must feel as they blow themselves up.
And that, my friend, is hubris-in-a-nutshell. Think about it.

Dumb, Da Dumb, Dumb, DUUUUUMB! or Oopsimath Strikes Again!

Yes, your typical American ill-literate here has to confess to a whopping big blooper---I totally forgot that Hebrew, as nearly every other language on this planet, genders its words either masculine or feminine. So "shoteh" (masc.) becomes "shotah" (fem.) when used to describe ME. Or any other female, naturally. Sorry. Big round of applause for Shira, who caught my mistake and emailed me. Now, if I can just figure out how to correct this entire blog without deleting it...
Aha! Didn't screw up AFTER all. Now, for some random brain-droppings (love George Carlin)...
The Republican National Convention/Coronation is adding a significant layer of hot air over the usual smog-laden NYC this week, so expect to see a temperature inversion by early next week from all that gas, proving that conservatives are RIGHT when it comes to their claim that hydroflurocarbons are not promoting global warming---well, ALMOST right, at any rate. With all the protesters busy throwing their "I Wanna Be On TV" tantrums, the place looks like a scene right out of Chicago 1968. In fact, the protesters look like the same ones THERE, except that they've gone gray and wrinkled. Sigh. Oh, to be young, slim, and hip again. About the only thing I still have of those three is "hip(s)", unfortunately. There's just something vaguely disgusting about the sight of a bunch of old geezers parading around like they were still Peaceniks in the 60's. And nothing ever changes. The protesters still claim kazillions more than what's reported on the news, the cops complain about how they're soooo over-worked and under-appreciated, the newscasters make ominous-sounding noises about this election being an earth-shattering event (did the earth move for YOU, too?), and in the end we all get screwed. Well, figuratively speaking, thankfully.
My conclusion? Try to take criticism gracefully, and get off your tuchus and vote!

Opsimath Versus Oopsimath

I was browsing some of the other blogs and came across one called Verbivore, which had a "Word of the Day" section with the word "opsimath" listed and the definition "one who begins learning late in life". I loved it! Naturally, being of a warped mind, I immediately saw its relevance to me. Of course! I was always a Late Bloomer, but now I have a SCIENTIFIC term for it. How wonderful. Now I can converse with my shrink and casually drop these little bon mots when describing my struggles with daily life. Only in my case, I feel the word should be modified somewhat, as I not only learn "late in life" but not very gracefully, either. So, I propose "oopsimath", meaning someone who is not only a late bloomer but a KLUTZ as well. (For you who may not know this wonderful Yiddish word, it simply means "one who is not well-coordinated") And just think of all the possibilites! Why, the list is endless. Take "woopsimath", for instance---which could describe Dubya's penchant for imperialism. Or "swoopsimath", for John Kerry's handling of the Swiftboat controversy. Or how about "snoopsimath", for journalists in general? I think I'm onto something here! Must call Merriam-Webster immediately, as they'll undoubtably want to include these new terms in the next edition of their dictionary!
Okay, okay, so I'm not that funny. See what you come up with and get back to me.

WHAT IF?

I just had a disconcerting thought. What if the "No Child Left Behind" Act is actually intended, not to improve education, but to destroy all the gains made under IDEA (the "children with disabilities"Act)? Mind you, I don't agree with all the provisions of Special Ed, but there are a great many conservative Republicans who absolutely loathe IDEA (and no, I'm going to resist making a wisecrack about Bush and "ideas" in general). I should tell you straight out that I have a learning disability ( which I may have mentioned before, but I'll risk boring you again), but there were no provisions for Attention Deficit Disorder, etc, when I attended school back in the fifties and sixties. If you couldn't learn, you were labeled Mentally Retarded and placed in either a special class or school; most parents opted to institutionalize a child, out of social pressures and fears of ostracism. Sad, very sad. Babbitry ruled then, I'm afraid.
My problems were mainly ADD and an inability to learn math. The first made me impulsive, immature, etc, but the second impacted my prognostic tests negatively---SO negatively that my IQ score was once thought to be a measly 93. As IQ scores are believed to fluctuate up or down about ten points, you can see that something like THAT on my school records didn't endear me to many teachers. Mathmatical Reasoning, as it was known then (and may still be, for all I know), was a test-able quantity that pretty much defined intelligence. I tested poorly, so obviously I didn't have much "intelligence", as the conventional wisdom went. In order to go on to college, you needed an IQ of at least 110, the "experts" said. Many years later, at 42 ( having been out of college---which I managed to finish---since 1972), I learned my son had ADHD and, as these things are usually hereditary, I was tested myself. It came as a shock to find that my IQ had actually increased, from 93 to 119! Now, if my math isn't TOO bad, that's about 27 points, right? A "standard deviation" is only 15 pts. , and I'm not going to go into the Bell Curve Theory here. Suffice it to say that a standard deviation is the MOST an IQ is supposed to fluctuate, and NEVER in an individual that old. Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that's basically the formula even today. I took one of those IQ tests on the internet a month ago, and came out with a score of 122. Hmmm.
Getting back to my main point, Special Ed isn't so great, but without it we'd have lots of perfectly intelligent kids being shuffled off to institutions. My son, who will be going to college soon, was a "graduate", for want of a better term (actually, I can think of several, but they're not printable), of a Special Ed program here in NH, but his education came straight out of my husband's checkbook, not from what he "learned" in public school. God knows, I can't blame his teachers for lack of trying, but Congress has been reneging on their agreement to fund 40% of Special Ed ever since 1973. Conservatives have been screaming about "unfunded mandates", and over the years I've seen and heard many ingenious (and ingenuous) arguements for abolishing them (the mandates, not the Conservatives. Sigh, if only the latter COULD be abolished).
Now for the scary part. What if, as I said above, this NCLB Act was meant to be a kind of "backdoor" attempt to abolish IDEA by making Special Ed impossible? Think about it. This law relies on nationwide school testing, which is stupid but I won't bore you with the details here. Kids with learning disabilities have problems with tests; some, like my son, never learn to write legibly, and others have problems with processing information fast enough to finish on time. These are REAL issues, folks, not just some "Liberal Propaganda"(as I'm sure you've heard Rush Limbaugh bloviate about on his radio show). When these kids take tests that rely on a specific amount of time in which to answer questions, they fail---often miserably. In the past, it was customary for schools to test these students separately, applying the time rules as specified in the state's special ed guidelines. Yes, I often thought that time was extended a bit too much for these students, but now I see that I might have been wrong; with nationalized testing, many schools will be forced to test special ed kids no differently than the rest, which will result in many schools being ranked poorly. Naturally, parents will be furious, and I can hardly blame them, yet I have to wonder if anyone will realize just WHOSE "fault" this is. Not the poor special ed kids, surely. They will be blamed, though, as they have in the past. What next, then? It frightens me. It should frighten you, too.

A Little Photo-Magic!

ME
A Little Photo-Magic!,
originally uploaded by Reva49.

Me

Me3,
originally uploaded by Reva49.

Orthopraxy? Part2 of Crazy Orthodoxy

Orthopraxy is "correct practice", which is what this form of Othodoxy should REALLY be named! It seems that "normal" Orthodoxy has been hijacked by the "mehadrin" (which I think means "glorifiers", those who go beyond the necessary to "glorify" God), and they don't know when to STOP. Case in point: about a year into my new life, I began to realize more and more things were being rated "treif" (and not just FOOD, either). I was attending a weekly Torah session for women, most of us newly Orthodox, and we all had the usual questions about being properly "frum", but I became increasingly worried when every week ANOTHER product/practice/book, etc. was ruled as treif. As I said, the "chumra of the week" approach was catching a lot of these women off-guard (who among us HADN'T done/consumed something on that list the previous week?), and many of them were extremely distraught at somehow "failing" to be a "Torah-True" Jew. When I turned to a trusted rabbi with the question of "where does it all end?", he laughed and replied that it DOESN'T. Well, I had no intention of becoming so "machmir" that I'd be paranoid about everything until some big rabbi (they were called the "Gedolai Torah") or some rabbinical organization ruled whatever-it-was kosher. Worse yet, many of the newspapers and books published for this Torah-True bunch advocated that one have NO opinions except those deemed "kosher" by the Gedolai Torah! Feeling trapped, I asked the rebbetzin if I could maybe scale back my observance somewhat---only to be told that, as I had become frum, to do so would be tantamount to treason. So, I panicked. Thankfully, we moved, but now we're in a place where there's almost NO reasonably well-informed Jewish community.
At the height of my religious frenzy I sported a sheitl, long sleeves, skirt---the works. I still miss the predominantly Jewish areas we lived in back in Brooklyn, but I don't miss the feeling of always being "watched" for signs of "apikorsus" (heresy---leanings toward Conservative, Reform, or even MODERN Orthodoxy!). Frankly, I also hated always being introduced to others as a "geress" ("gyoret"?), as if my Orthodox conversion somehow made ME a little "treif". Of course, you have to realize that halacha says a convert does NOT have a "Jewish" soul (which REALLY ticks me off, considering what I had to go through to convert), but the source of this idea seems to have come from either the Tanya (written by one of the Lubavitcher rebbeim) or the Kuzari (I think that's the title). If I'm wrong, please don't hesitate to correct me, but it seems to me that this Torah-True Orthodoxy is fast becoming a most NASTY ethno-centric bunch indeed.

Crazy Orthodoxy And Me

I fully intended to be a Conservative Jew when I converted, but living in Brooklyn made that somewhat impossible. Not that there were no
Conservative or Reform shuls, mind you, but most Noo Yawkahs seem to believe that if you're not Orthodox, you're just not authentic---regardless of their level of observance/unobservance. When I worked, I had Jewish co-workers and bosses question my desire to get home early enough on Fridays to bentschlicht Shabbos on time. To them, if I wasn't Orthodox, I was just trying to get out of work early. I finally gave up and made Shabbos when I got home (usually after dark, a no-no halachically). I never dreamed I would soon be hijacked into a form of Orthodoxy that drove me nuts!
It all started with pre-Pesach cleaning, and a question as to whether our new dishwasher could be kashered properly. The local rabbi (whom I will not name because he was nice) sounded modern and "with it" on the phone, and I quickly agreed to come for a Shabbos meal. I can't blame HIM for my gullibility, but I was just too eager to find "The Way", I'm afraid. My husband's family were the usual "non-observant- -but-when-they-were-it-had-to-be-Orthodox" Jews, which was typical for second-generationers, and they hadn't wanted me to convert because I might get "religious" (a term meaning anything from lighting Shabbos candles to keeping kosher, etc,). In short, they wanted their son to marry a nice, non-observant non-Jew. You know the rest, I'm sure; there's the joke about the shiksa who marries the son and all's fine till she converts and demands he be a Jew for REAL, so the parents moan about how their son is now a religious "fanatic" because he goes to services on Shabbos instead of working, ad nauseum.
So I went to the rabbi's house, saw this scene right out of Fiddler On The Roof, and fell for it. I don't consider myself a romantic, but I sure had a loose screw SOMEWHERE; from there I went to sheitl, long sleeves, long shirts, dark stockings, and nearly wrecked my marriage. You'd be amazed how easy it is to believe you have a direct line to God (no, I'm not doing that silly dash-instead-of-middle-letter. It's the Hebrew name that counts), when you "see the light"; suddenly, everyone else is an apikoros (a term taken from the Greek "epicurean", meaning hedonist and general sinner), or an am-ha-eretz (literally, "people of the land", but used to denote the ignorant) or, worse yet, a letz (scoffer and downright unbeliever, horror of horrors.). YOU, of course, are a wonderful, sincere and loving Torah-True Jew, so it's okay to say terrible things about everyone else who ISN'T.
Yes, it's lashon hora (literally "evil tongue", gossip), and absolutely wrong according to halacha, but there are ways of bending the meaning to get around the aveirah (a REAL sin, not the "chet", the "missing the mark" kind of sin we usually commit), because for every WORD of lashon hora you break some 31 thou-shalt-nots (too technical to go into here---read the book Guard Your Tongue, translated by Rabbi Pliskin, I believe, from the Hafetz Chaim). At any rate, it seems as if you have God's blessing to trash everyone you don't like. If they're Orthodox you find some flaw; a woman's skirt is knee-length, so she's lacking in tznius (modesty), or a man's yarmulkah isn't big enough, etc. It's Competitive Piety time, and who's more machmir (observant) than the next person. This is not true of ALL Orthodoxy, but it's the kind in which I found myself mired. I'll continue later...

Shoteh defined

A "shoteh" is Hebrew for a fool or crazy person, as in the expression "chassid shoteh", which literally means a pious fool and can be used to refer to someone so overly religious that he/she seems crazy. In Brooklyn, we used the term "Crazy Orthodoxy" to refer to the kind of Ultra-Orthodox whose rabbis issued "chumrahs" (or chumrat) by the minute! Interestingly, a chumrah is supposed to be a VOLUNTARY strict practice, but these guys decreed everything as "das torah", which I assume means something similar to "halacha l'Moshe m'Sinai", or given to Moses at Sinai. Also, a shoteh is listed among the categories of people considered to be "unfit" to testify at a Beth Din. The other categories are women (except for testifying about other women), children, and deaf-mutes. Shoteh may include deaf-mutes, and may refer to the mentally deficient as well. As for me, being a misfit I chose shotah to decribe my general weirdness and misfit-ness. Be well.
(Edited because dumb ol' me forgot that Hebrew, as most languages on the planet, has no neuter gender)