Dixie Kups, Unite

I was a student rabbi in Rome, Georgia.  Nice folks there, hospitable, generous and concerned that their Jewish Identity might provoke a misconception or even hostility.  While there, I lead a discussion/study group at Berry College, the Alma Mater of John Birch.  Did I say that the folks in Rome were on the conservative side?

I was the rabbi of Or Ami in Richmond, Virginia, the Capitol of the Confederate States.  Intellectually independent, urbane and professional folk made up the majority of the congregation.  We met in private homes and held services in the Quaker Meeting House.  The folks in Richmond were on the liberal side; many were displaced northerners.

I have been to Jackson, Mississippi, to New Orleans, to Charlottesville, to Atlanta, to Birmingham, to Dallas and to El Paso.  No one in any of those cities was wearing confederate gray or klan whites when I was there.  And I believe that if the inhabitants of those metropolitan areas voted… they voted in an officially sanctioned election that was held to elect officials to serve the United States of America.

So now that the President is black the south is taking this opportunity to rise again, wasting good tea bags, I might add.  Good thing he is protected from those who think hanging tree and noose.  So instead of a lynching, the defunct coronels of the old south wish to revise history and glorify their slave holding past.  And, they see their mission as holy.  I mean they learned about this hatred crap at Pat Robertson University.  What more is there to say? 

Except, happy confederate history month, yo'al…

Lincoln

Grant

Custer

Jefferson Davis

Lee

(Images from the Smithsonian archives)

City Slickers

San Francisco is a perfectly pictorial place.  It is alive to color, content and form.  Just look.

The city is ethnically diverse, liberal to the point of loony and trembles when the swampy landfill quivers from tectonic tremors. 

San Francisco is on the edge.

What’s not to smile about?

Ex-Governor Sarah Palin

Bad rap Palin.  Bad rep Palin.  Bad rip Palin.  Bad run Palin.

Sarah Palin is the face of the Tea Bagging Right.  Although, she is not the money or the brains behind those co-opted vessels of Dick Armey and of Fox News.  She remains the darling of those silent majority retreads and those moral majority reruns.  She is almost Bush-like.

But, you have to admit whether you support her or not…she is way more colorful than Obama.

Here comes the humor if you are detached enough to appreciate it.

(Images found on the Internet)

President Barak Obama

He is what you make him out to be.  He is either your dream come to be or your worst nightmare.  He is a Rorschach…you see him for what you are.

Keep your sense of humor now.  And discover your true blue or true red self.

(Images found on the Internet)

A Soulful Kind of Morning

What to do between 7:45 AM and 9:45 AM? 

Kiss someone.

Get laid.

Sip a fancy cup of coffee.

Recite a moving morning prayer.

Meditate.

Write a dear diary entry.

Walk, run, skip and jump

Commute to work.

Check e-mails.

Read all the news that’s fit to print.

Or, do as I did today…witness the sacred and the sublime.

Chair – ish, the Thought

I wonder who invented sitting down?  It’s very useful…on the ground, on a rock or on a log.

And who invented the chair; someone with a permanent address, no doubt.

And who made the chair an object of art?  Must have been someone with rich patrons.

The chair is the perfect form – heavenly, to be sure.  Why, even the gods sat their fannies down on them.

Sing, Choir of Angels

Wild boys – seducers of celibate men. 

Slut boys – asking for favors from men who imitate the divine.

Deaf boys – seeking membership in MAMBLA. 

Pre-pubescent girls – teaching their frocked elders the facts of life.

Naughty boys – leading the pious and the righteous astray.

Little devils – fucked by faith and fate.

The innocent – deflowered on sacred ground by the consecrated vicars of the Lord thereby soiling the sacred precepts of the almighty Church. 

Thou shalt no longer cover up child abuse on sacred ground or in private precincts…be it in a Mosque, a Synagogue, a Church, a cult retreat or at home…

Paris Hilton

Time Traveling

If it were possible…

Never pay taxes

Never loose a bet

Never be in the wrong place

Never dress out of fashion

Never pay a margin call

Never guess wrong in the commodities market

Never miss a meeting or an opportunity

Never have a regret or feel shame or guilty

Never invest in swamp property

Never leave a crossword puzzle blank

Never have only one first love experience

Never fail to warn others of an impending disaster

Never die

Book It!

The Moslems called my tribe “The People of the Book”.  So be it.  They may have meant it as a slur…I take it as a compliment. 

The history of communication led us from scratches on a clay tablet to a papyrus page of notations to a parchment scroll containing universal wisdom to a hand copied portfolio of pages guiding the perplexed to a book to electronic signal pulses beeping out S O S to a voice asking “What Number, Please?” to sound preserved on vinyl to Memorex to switching 1’s and 0’s to light bearing cables to wireless beams of energized particles…or, something like that.

The wonders of wireless access to the Internet aside, the Book is what does it for me.  I own too many to count, most with god’s name written within: Adonai, Chagall, Einstein, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Marx, Freud and ben Maimon.

So my camera is programmed to operate like a dowsing rod pointing in the direction of underground water whenever it notices a book.  I trust its powers of observation when a book is near.

For example…