Idealogian

Badge of... um... what exactly is that?

I was recently looking at the NYPD recruitment ads on the subway system, and noticed two interesting things about their official seal:

1. What's with the cowboy and Indian? Wouldn't "cops and robbers" be a more apt theme?

2. Is it just my imagination, or is that little eagle in the middle doing a spot-on John Travolta impersonation?

Jew Moon

Soon after orbital insertion, Cassini returned its best look yet at the heavily cratered moon Mimas (398 kilometers, 247 miles across). The enormous crater at the top of this image, named Herschel, is about 130 kilometers (80 miles) wide and 10 kilometers (6 miles) deep.

Somewhere, a Jewish mother is very proud of her astronomer son.

Either that, or she's still telling him, "You know, it's not too late to become a lawyer."

Update: Apparently, Mimas was discovered in 1789 by Sir William Herschel, a Jew, who also discovered Uranus. Most likely, his mother has long since passed away.

And it is too late for him to become a lawyer.

Always The Last To Know

I'd noticed a bit of a numb feeling in my, well, sort of all over. Now I finally know why:

In what may be the first trial of its kind in the nation, prosecutors have accused the pickup truck's driver of second-degree murder for watching a movie instead of the road when he crashed head-on into the Jeep.

. . .

[Erwin] Petterson, 29, is accused of killing Robert Weiser, 60, and his wife Donna Weiser, 56, of Anchorage, while on a three-hour drive between Kenai and Anchorage. In his truck was the equivalent of a home entertainment system -- a DVD player, speakers and a Sony PlayStation 2.

For those who don't get it, my English name is Robert.

Thanks for pointing out my demise, Josh!

History for Losers

I just got back from Eichah and kinnot at my local shul, the Mt. Sinai Jewish Center in Washington Heights, NY. Rabbi Mordechai Schnaidman made an interesting point after the reading of Eichah. Generally speaking, the saying goes, the victors write the history books. And when the losers do write history books, they generally write them as if they were the winners, exaggerating whatever minor victories they may have achieved or at least downplaying their losses.

Eichah (as well as much of n'vi'im), thus, is somewhat noteworthy in that it is written by a "loser" who emphasizes the loss. Yirmiyahu doesn't shy away from describing in painstaking detail the desolation of Y'rushalaiyim and the destruction of its inhabitants. He has nothing to hide, for the purpose of his book is not to record the "glorious history" of his people, but rather to detail their failures, so that B’nei Yisra’eil can learn from them and correct their ways in the future. The first step to doing right is realizing what you've been doing wrong.

Life Without Music

During the Nine Days, most of my friends long for meat. My starvation is of a slightly different nature (since I don't eat meat during the rest of the year anyway): I crave music. I find myself counting down the hours (only 48 to go!) until I'll be able to don my headphones once again and fill my mind with the beautiful melodies, harmonies and rhythms that I'm so used to hearing.

Until then, however, I find myself grateful for whatever scraps I can pick up over the course of my daily routine. Against my will, I find myself humming along to the music playing in Key Food (the local supermarket). Out to dinner last night, the jazz playing gently in the background was, for lack of a non-punny term, music to my ears (in the figurative sense).

And just now, I found myself hitting a new low of desperation. I was on hold with Citibank and actually found myself tapping my foot to a muzak rendition of "You Make My Dreams [Come True]" by Hall & Oates. In my defense, it was quite a snappy arrangement of a snappy song, but I feel almost... ashamed for actually enjoying muzak (especially during the Nine Days).

I can almost imagine what it must feel like to be a junkie, eagerly awaiting that next "fix." For me, it won't come soon enough.

The Blog is Back

After an extended hiatus, I'm ready to stage my triumphant return. I think.

But in the interim, I realized that I had sort of lost my way from my original intent. After all, links to animated flash alphabets and jelly bean mosaics aren't exactly a fair representation of the contents of my brain squished into a web page.

To be fair, there's some stuff going on in my head that I actively choose not to put out there for public consumption (such as some of the reasons for my hiatus), but from now on I'll be making an effort to make this a little more of a "thinking person's blog," with some more focus on actual issues (certainly more religion and Israel thrown into the mix - topics that before I had stayed away from since they are very personal for me) that will hopefully invite more reader interaction. (Though I'll try not to let it become too serious.) It's still somewhat of an ongoing experiment, and I hope you're as curious as I am to see how it turns out.