Just some pictures of Jewish interest I've snapped on my way here and there, mostly with my cellphone.
B.B. King, Marvine Gaye, Eric Clapton, Steppenwolf, James Brown, and... Sisqo. Adding insult to injury, the sign said something like "best music of the 20th Century" (I'm paraphrasing here). WalMart, Howell, NJ.
Okay, those last two had little or nothing to do with Judaism, except that all Jews are snarky wiseguys who have to criticize everything. If you don't like it, get your own blog.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
T3h j00 pix!!!
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Passaic PD vs Passaic Hatzolah
Passaic City officials and the director of a Jewish ambulance service are addressing new tensions that have erupted following a clash with police who attempted to tow an ambulance this week. On Sunday, resident David Kaplan, 25, who founded the local branch of Hatzolah, an international ambulance corps staffed by volunteers in many Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, confronted police who had ticketed an ambulance parked the wrong way on Reid Avenue. The site is around the corner from Hatzolah headquarters at 243 Van Houten Ave. A group of people congregated in front of the ambulance about 11 a.m. as five police cars and a tow truck arrived at the scene, Kaplan said. The tow-truck operator was unable to move the ambulance because of its size, he said.
Hah. Whaddya wanna bet the cops called the tow truck guy to the scene and the tow truck guy made up some excuse so he wouldn't have to tow a freaking ambulance, because people need ambulances to not die.
Mayor Samuel Rivera said he was on the scene Sunday and thought the ambulance volunteers acted "belligerently" and that perhaps police responded too harshly.
I'd be belligerent too, if someone was trying to tow my piece of vital lifesaving equipment. And, perhaps, the police responded too harshly? If the cops would have summarily executed everyone at the scene and set the ambulance on fire as a warning to others, that would have been way out of line, but just confiscating a volunteer medical unit is, maybe, a little too harsh. Depending on your perspective, of course.
"They were going to be towed because they were parked in a dangerous position," Rivera said.
That dangerous position: parked the wrong way on a one way street, which is something everybody does, even people not driving emergency response vehicles.
Rivera said he met Monday with Kaplan and Paton to try to resolve friction between police and the volunteers. "I'm trying to work with them. My goal is for them to work with our [the city's] EMS," Rivera said, adding that part of the frustration with Hatzolah goes back more than two years.
Which sure sounds like an unbiased statement to me.
In addition, the city has offered Hatzolah use of city EMS headquarters to park Hatzolah's ambulances, but Hatzolah has rejected the city's offer, Rivera said. "They say they like to have ambulances parked closer to the Jewish community," Rivera said.
How dare those uppity Jews want to park their ambulance close to where it's needed! The gall!
Idiots.
Monday, July 02, 2007
Good night, funny mouse.
You heard about the Mickey Mouse knockoff that they were showing on Palestinian kids' TV?
A giant black-and-white rodent — named "Farfour," or "butterfly," but unmistakably a Mickey ripoff — does his high-pitched preaching against the U.S. and Israel on a children's show run each Friday on Al-Aqsa TV, a station run by Hamas. The militant group, sworn to Israel's destruction, shares power in the Palestinian government. "You and I are laying the foundation for a world led by Islamists," Farfour squeaked on a recent episode of the show, which is titled, "Tomorrow's Pioneers." "We will return the Islamic community to its former greatness, and liberate Jerusalem, God willing, liberate Iraq, God willing, and liberate all the countries of the Muslims invaded by the murderers."
Yeah, that one.
Well, he's dead now, murdered by those evil Zionist oppressors.
Hamas TV on Friday broadcast what it said was the last episode of a weekly children's show featuring "Farfur," a Mickey Mouse look-alike who had made worldwide headlines for preaching Islamic domination and armed struggle to youngsters. In the final skit, Farfur was beaten to death by an actor posing as an Israeli official trying to buy Farfur's land. At one point, Farfur called the Israeli a "terrorist." "Farfour was martyred while defending his land," said Sara, the teen presenter. He was killed "by the killers of children," she added.
Wonderful.
That is all kinds of messed up, right there.
My theory on what happened: Disney's legendary legal department must have caught up with these guys, and they just decided to cease and desist themselves.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Havel Havelim #122 is up.
Good stuff, maybe the best one yet. Check out this post from blog-I've-never-heard-of Circus Tent: Money talks at BMG (the other gimmel tamuz)
I was wondering what shaichus a (not the... there is no the) Satmer Rebbe had to the BMG. The comments, as always when you get to any sinas chinam post, are fascinating.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
We are all jigsaw men.
I remember, in my misspent youth, reading the short story The Jigsaw Man, by Larry Niven. It concerns a future in which organ transplantation is cheap and easy, thanks to the Organ Banks. Where do the Organ Banks get their organs? From criminals convicted of capital crimes. Unfortunately, thanks to supply and demand, there are not enough criminals to keep up, which causes the politicians to keep redefining "capital crimes" downwards.
The protagonist in The Jigsaw Man has been convicted of repeated speeding violations.
I haven't read the story in years and don't remember how it ends, but I do know that I never thought we'd be debating the ethics of involuntary organ donation in real life, any more than I thought we'd be discussing the best way to defend civilization from religious crackpots who live in the desert guarding a precious and scarce resource. But here we are.
The authoritarian maniacs running China today have long been suppressing Falun Gong. Allegations of torture and various human rights abuses are well documented.
But this is just sick.
On 9 March 2006, allegations were made of organ harvesting on living Falun Gong practitioners at the Sujiatun detention compound, an alleged labor camp and part of the China Traditional Medicine Thrombosis Treatment Center, [1] a joint-venture with Malaysian healthcare company Contry Heights Health Sanctuary and subject to oversight beyond local Chinese authority, located in Shenyang City, Liaoning province. According to at least two witnesses interviewed by The Epoch Times, internal organs of living Falun Gong practitioners have been harvested and sold to the black market, and the bodies have been cremated in the hospital's boiler room. The witnesses make allegations of nobody coming out of the camp alive, as well as six thousand practitioners being held captive at the hospital since 2001, two-thirds of whom have died to date. According to these sources, removed organs include hearts, kidneys, livers and cornea.
Now, NTD, the New York based Chinese language television network, reports Rav Elyashiv's opposition to organ harvesting, even when the patient's life is in danger.
For giggles, listen to the anchor mispronounce "Elyashiv" and "Sharei Tzedek". Highly amusing- probably the same reaction the anchor would have if she heard me pronounce "moo goo gai pan".
Anyway, my point: China is evil.
H/T The Yeshiva World.
Friday, June 01, 2007
Eruv Rav to get his day in court.
A Williamsburg rabbi is facing assault charges for his role in a scuffle that started because of a dispute he had with another Jew regarding the issue of an Eruv in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.
Rabbi Sh. Greenbaum will appear in Brooklyn Criminal Court for allegedly striking 19-year-old E. Klein in the face, when Klein walked down Bedford Avenue with his kippah in his hand, believing that the Eruv in Williamsburg is kosher, but which the rabbi believes it is not. The attackers pummeled Klein while yelling "you are not a Jew!" according to court documents.
Through a translator, Greenbaum, 44, said he notice Kleins head was uncovered so he asked him to put his kippah on, in a nice way. "I would never hurt somebody. I would never return a punch," he said.
Klein was also charged with a lesser assault on another participant in the brawl.
This blogger hopes they hang Greenbaum from the eruv by his peyos. This guy is a rosha gomur.
H/T Vos Iz Neias. Check out the comments. My favorite:
Well, I guess Moshiach won't be coming this week.
