With the stories that I see each day, I find myself struggling with my own convictions and beliefs with regards to the Muslim community as a whole based mostly on the actions of a few.

As a Jew, I have a personal reason to know better than to dislike a group for their religious followings and beliefs.  To understand that by picking out a group for their religious beliefs and casting them in a shadow or shunning them BECAUSE of their religious following, would make me no better than those that have done the same to me and my people.

As I have posted in the past, I KNOW that there are good Muslims out there, and I am not talking about the recent converts.  I am talking about the people that are “Multi-Generational” Muslims who have practiced in the manner that their predecessors have before them.  People for whom this is more than words on a page, but a part of their culture.

With the events in England and Boston over the last couple months, as well as the other rumblings, it remains my focus to explain to people that these are the actions of a few, militant, groups within the Islamic community and certainly the exception and not the rule.  But it would be so easy for me to cave… to give in to the anti-Islamic uproar and fall in step with them to condemn the Islamic community as a whole for this.

But that would be wrong.  It would also be wrong for me to allow others to take this attitude without my trying to explain to them, like I am trying to here, that you cannot hold an entire group accountable for the actions of a few within it whom have decided to act on some misunderstanding that they have picked up from their readings.

This is usually the point were someone points out how violent the Qur’an is and how, but I would ask those same people, mostly Christians, to review their own texts and tell me that there are no violent or outdated actions that are suggested to carry out in the Bible.  But I am not writing this to argue religious texts.

The point of this to not hate Muslims, or any other group, for the actions of a few within it.  All this does is raise distrust among all of us and create more hatred, thus giving other groups the feeling that they have earned some right of revenge against the other, and so the hate and anger become self-perpetuating.

I will say, to all servicemen and women everywhere, to please watch yourselves carefully.  With the horrific attack on Lee Rigby and the suggestions that the Radical Islamism are going to carry out more such attacks on soldiers, I worry for all of you serving out there.  Keep your guard up and I would suggest, as I think many commanding officers should as well, to not travel alone, if you are in uniform.

As always, I thank you all for reading.

The other day I was sitting on the chair in the living room with my Son, now two years old, and we were watching a program on the history channel about the space program and about the Apollo missions, then about Skylab and the Soyuz mission.

As we sat there, I started thinking about when I was a child and remembering experiencing some of these things myself as they were happening.  I remember being glued to the TV, watching the launches and seeing some of these history-making events myself.  I remember thinking about all the neat things that would come of our steps into space and all the possibilities that seemed to lie before us.

As I grew up, I remember how my world revolved around the space program and all that it seemed to mean for us, as a world, at the time.   I watched any programs that came on television about the space program and when the shuttle program was launched, it only spurred my imagination that much more.

Remembering all this, I thought about my Son, Gideon.  He is going to see so many advances in his life, and there are so many things that he will see change and improve because of those advances.

As a child, I lived during the time that man first walked on the moon and when we put our first space station in orbit.  I got to see some incredible advances in medicine and in science in general.  We have found new moons in our own system and some incredible new facts about some of the planets, and even got to see a planet "demoted" from planet status.  At to that we have found proof of planets in other star systems and even exoplanets ( or Rogue) planets.

Looking at all this, I have to envy Gideon for all the things that he is going to see in his lifetime.  My wife and I saw man walk on the moon, but he may get to see mankind set foot on Mars, or maybe even BE one of the first men to set foot on Mars or one of the other planets.

Then there are also the more "terrestrial" dreams that we have for him, the dreams that most parents have for their children.  There are so many advances in medicine, mathematics, physics, etc, that the possibilities that lay open for him are limited only by the decisions that he makes and the guidance we give him along the way.

For now, we sat on the chair and watched the program and I sat there smiling and telling all about what I remember, and he sat there, not really understanding what I was telling him, but he enjoyed the interaction.  And I guess that is what is important for now, to be a supportive and loving parent to him and be there for him now.

Who knows what will happen in his life, or the path it will take.  We, as parents, want the best for our children, but when it all comes down to it, we will love him no matter what choices he makes, Scientist or Dog catcher, Doctor or High School teacher.

But still... I am envious of all the things that he will see in his life.   I only wish that I could be here with him to see it all too.

I have been noticing, lately, that when I use the drive-up window at some places, I am almost playing a game of chance when it comes to my order being right.

Take, for example, my most recent foray to KFC.  My wife and I were going through the drive through because neither of us wanted to sit in the place, and also because I had just gotten over a flu and was not wanting to be sociable or in a place with people that would, potentially, be sociable to us.   I am not a friendly person when I am getting over a cold or flu.

The first problem started with the order placement itself.  The gal on the other end of the microphone sounded like she had a half dozen Ritz crackers in her mouth when she askes us to place our order at any time.  Then, when we did place our order and she read it back to us, she got it wrong.  So we corrected that and moved on.  When we got to the window, my wife paid with a hundred dollar bill and our total was about $19 and change, when the change came back, she only gave us $60 and some change.   So we had to ask her to rethink it, and she did and then gave us our $20 that she shorted us.

For one evening, that would normally have been enough and you would probably, and rightfully, think that this was a one-off.   Something that just happened because we were in the right place at the right time.  But you would be wrong.

On the way home, we decided that we wanted a couple iced teas.  So we opted to drive through McDonalds by our house for two iced teas.   Now… we are already on alert with this particular McD’s because of their never ending habit of giving you exactly the wrong drink.  This is a chronic thing with them and instead of going to another location, we just accept it and check our order before leaving the window.   Think of it like that irritating cousen that everyone seems to have, that instead of getting into a family brawl because of them, you just accept that they are an idiot and deal with it.   That is the case here.

So Anyway, tonight we ordered our two large iced teas and when we get to the window, they confirm that the order was for one large iced tea.   We corrected him and paid the money and moved on.

The point being that it just strikes me funny how you have this method to order your food that is supposed to be such a time saver, turns out to really not be that much of one at all, when you factor in the process of correcting the order and then checking everything in the bag before you drive away.

This was just a little thought I wanted to share with all you readers out there.  Please feel free to share your personal drive through disasters with me.

I am not the most financially minded person in the world, I will freely admit that and go one step further and say that this is one of the areas in which my Wife excels…  So I feel perfectly happy handing anything financial over to her.  I can look at most number problems and be perfectly fine, but then I look at the checkbook and I fall into this trance of mental loss.

On that note, I would like to talk about something that has bothered me for years.  I am not expressing this opinion as an expert, just as a generally annoyed person who is tired of being denied for certain things because of an accounting rule.

Gross income versus Net income.

Why is it that so many places where we go to apply for loans, benefits, etc, require you to list your Gross and not Net income?  If you earn $4000 a month and you only Net $2900, then why do places like banks, auto dealers, etc, base your income on the money that you do not have?

Likewise, if you go into someplace and apply for a particular benefit or assistance of some sort, then they use your Gross income as a deciding factor, when in reality, you only ever see a little more than half of that amount in your pocket?

It does not make sense to me, really.  But I am sure that there are those out there that are more knowledgeable about these things than am I or my wife.  To those people I would like you to comment and share your expert, and maybe not so expert, opinions and understandings of this.

Remember when there were two days commemorating the presidents?

When I was growing up, I remember school being closed for Lincoln’s  and Washington’s birthday.  I also remember that we did things like make stovepipe hats out of construction paper, and cotton wigs to look like George Washington.  There were also the obligatory beard cutouts for the ones that wanted to look like Abraham Lincoln as well.

When I was very young, we were taught the cliches about the presidents, as most 1st and 2nd graders are not apt to understand the details behind what really happened at Gettysburg or Valley Forge.   We did not care about Washington’s relationship with people like Lafayette and how that friendship is part of what saved the early United States.   We were more interested in the tales of Washington and the cherry tree and the stories about his wooden teeth.

But even with that early, and what may seem like silly, education, I worry that with the combining of the two birthdays, that there are some that are losing the understanding of why we celebrated those days in the first place.

A few years ago I was talking to someone I know and I met their daughter, a ten year old.   I asked her what they were doing for their president’s day holiday and she told me that they were going to buy a car, because that is what president’s day is for.  I asked her where she heard that from, and she told me, “The TV”.

This is sad in two major ways.  First because it tells me that if the school she is going to IS teaching about the meaning of the holiday, even if they are using it to celebrate all the presidents and not just the two that it was originally combined from, then they are not doing a good enough job at it.  Secondly, that their parents are not doing a very good job at teaching the child either.   Believe it or not, parents, education does not stop the moment the kids leaves school.

There is another thing that I thought of while writing this and that is that most holidays are suffering from the commercialism and sales aspect that has been assigned to them.  All the holidays seem to be getting lost in the commercialism morass these days.   I start to wonder if there will ever come a day when people will start to forget that July 4th is just about a day to go get a good deal on a big-screen television.  Or that Christmas is not one of the most important Christian holidays because you get really good deals on year end automobiles.

For me, and the way I am going to raise my son, President’s Day will be a day we sit and spend a little time talking about the past leaders of this country.  And yes, unfortunately, even Bush, Clinton and Obama.

Sempre Fi!

Playing well with others is not something that I have ever done well.  I mean, I do get along with most people, usually.   And I try to fit into the usual social norms that are expected of me, and will be polite to people… most of the time.

But I have learned, mostly through the sometime gentle, sometimes not so much (ask Nick), chiding of others, that I tend to be abrasive, condescending and sometimes rude in my interaction with others.  But I just do not see it, myself.  I really, honestly, do not.  But I think I understand the WHY behind the reason that I do not notice it.

If you ever read any of Carl Sagan’s work, I would like to think that I have developed somewhat of a BDK… The polite name for this acronym is “Baloney Detection Kit”, but I like to use the less polite name of “BullS**T Detection Kit”.   This is something that I have constructed in myself over the years, and learned that if you listen to enough people, read enough books and meet a large enough cross-section of humanity, you begin to see patterns in human nature and in the way people talk, interact and spin yarns.

Through this, I have gotten to a point where when someone is telling a story of that is supposed to have been something that they personally experienced, yet I have heard the same story at least ten times before, it becomes increasingly hard to stand there and act like you are riveted to the tale.

For example… I used to work with a person, years ago, that one day told me this story of how they were in Las Vegas with their girlfriend and the girlfriend had to go back up to their room.  When she got on the elevator there was a black man with a dog…  blah… blah… blah… if you are over the age of ten and have an email account, then you know the rest of the story.  He yelled “Get down lady”, she hit the floor, it was Lionel Richie, yada yada, yada.

It could have been a very believable story, had I not already heard it two or three times before and read about it on the internet and on Snopes.  The story does vary some from time to time, mostly because people realize, at some point, that they are idiots perpetuating a mostly racial anecdote for the sake of humor.  Not that I am against racial humor, face it, some of it is pretty darned funny.  But unless Lionel Richie made it a habit to frequent Las Vegas elevators with his dog, for lack of any better entertainment, or unless there happened to be a whole heck of a lot of people in the elevator with him and they all “Hit the floor” at the same time, the story is rubbish.

As I stated earlier in the post, there is something in me that, with age, as prevented me from being able to just let people talk about things that really make them look or sound silly, and not say something about it or point out their faux pas.

OK… So that you, the reader, do not think that I am not the victim of my own social arrogance, I will be the first to tell you that there have been times that I have failed my own tests.   I have had several times where I will be talking to a person and suddenly I will stop, think about what I just said and then say something like, “That was a pretty dumb comment, wasn’t it?”

People who know and are comfortable with me are more than willing to agree with me if I am right and they know that I had a momentary episode of verbal or mental diarrhea.  But there have been a few that try to save face themselves by telling me that they agree with what I have said.

In any case, I think that we should all learn to develop our BSDK (Bulls**t Detection Kit) and keep it handy and ready to use.   There is a lot of BS going around out there and the quicker we are to understand where to see is and how to respond to it, the better life is going to be for all of us.

Think about this too.  If one quarter of the population of the United States would start using a little BSDK on a regular basis, then we would not end up with so many idiots in politics.  I present that comment with no political bias… I direct it at BOTH sides equally.  The BS quotient for the current elected body is astronomical.

As always… thanks for reading…  all five of you.

This is just a quick post regarding the recent meteor strike in the Urals.

First, and most seriously, my prayers to all those that were affected by the event.   This has to be something unimaginable to happen to someone, and I would not have any way to identify with those who were there and affected by the hit.

When I think of things like this, it seems odd.  We all understand that we are at the mercy of the earth for most disasters.  Wind, rain, floods, earthquakes, etc… we all know that these are possible calamities that could affect us, dependent on where we live.   But who expects a meteor strike?

I mean, it’s not like that is even something you can prepare or plan for.   There are no meteor impact kits or things like that to even make you feel like you could be prepared.

I am just glad for all those people there that this was only an air burst.  If that meteor had impacted the ground in one piece, at the speed it was traveling and the size it was, we would have been looking at a much different set of headlines.

If any of you that were affected by this event happen to stumble upon this page, you have my best wishes.

So this is the day that the world is supposed to end.

If you are reading this, then it would appear that the Mayan’s were off a little or the joke was right, they simply ran out of room on the stone that they were using.  If the world has ended… then there is no one to read this and it does not matter anyway.

Have fun!

I originally planned to post this on Guy Fawkes Day, but life got in the way and it did not happen.

Before you comment on this post with the obligatory explanations of what GFD is really about, I need to tell you… I already know.

I fully understand what GFD was, and still is to others.   I am many things, but historically illiterate is not one of them.  Add to this that I would see no way the Gunpowder Plot would have inspired me now, being that I am Jewish.   I also, in no way shape or form, support the deposition of any political official through means of assassination.

All this being humbly submitted to you, I now divert your attention to the meaning that has been assigned to this day through the movie “V for Vendetta”.  A movie that was based on a comic character.   This movie is about, for lack of a better term, a man who, through his own trying experiences with an oppressive government, turns to sedition.  As a catalyst for this, he chooses to use another icon from English history as his avatar… Guy Fawkes.

So… understanding the differences between the HISTORIC and the recently creates Pop-Culture versions of Guy Fawkes, I think I can now explain why I think the new version is something that we can all find something to identify with.

When I first saw the movie, I was very pleased with it.  While I understood that we were not looking at a modern retelling of the Gunpowder Plot or of a person that was TRYING to be Fawkes, I did understand that there was a strong message in the movie that was more than just the neat fighting scenes and the special effects.  Something even beyond the main story line that the screen play was trying to convey.

Face it.  Today, with all of our electronics and toys, the collective population of the world has a pretty short attention span.  We have to have everything now… now… now.  This also, unfortunately, applies to movies as well.   People do not want a movie that drags a point out over a two and a half hour period of time.  They want instant satisfaction.  They want the movie to tell them who to like, who not to like and explain everything to them.  If you put together a movie that takes a long time to build up the plot, then only satisfies you in the last few minutes… there are a lot of people that would have walked out.    Personally, however, I find that these are the movies I like the most.  A good example of a movie like this would be M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Sixth Sense.”  If you have not seen that, do not worry, I will not tell you the twist… but it WILL cause you to watch the movie all over again.

Now… to the point.   This movie sent a message to me, as I am sure that it must have to others as well.   This is that if people become too complacent, to lazy, that they run the risk of letting their governments walk all over them.

It tells you that there is a point when you have to make sure that you remind the government that it is there to work for you, not you for it.   That when a government begins to trod on the rights of those it is supposed to protect, then it is the inherent right of the people to stand against the government.  Whether that be in the form of a vote, a recall, or just marching on Congress, the White House, Parliament, Red Square, etc… you pick the iconic center of your respective government.  As long at this protest or march is PEACEFUL, then I support that type of action 100%.

In the movie, “V”, the main character that was played by Hugo Weaving, advertised that to the people of England, though he, himself, was quite violent and taking care of the people that had done him wrong.  So he does not really practice what he preaches, so to say.

But now, today, you see the Guy Fawkes persona being used by many groups and their patron saint of rising up against something.   Some of these things I support, like the group Anonymous and SOME of their actions.  But there are others out there that I do not and think that they are using the character reference in a manner that in not befitting the new meaning that has grown around it.  People like the Occupy Wallstreet folks.

I firmly believe that there is a time when it is perfectly acceptable to rise up and voice your discontent with an issue or problem… or even a government.  Sometimes it is necessary to get ones point across by becoming vocal and turning some heads.  This is what GFD had become in my mind.  A Reminder that the “Vox Populi” is a powerful thing and that, as “V” so eloquently put it in the movie… “Government should be afraid of their people, not the people of their government.”

It is official…  I have become my mother.

I have tried to make sure that in all the things I do as a parent, I try not to be too cliché.  I remember all the saying that I heard over the years, things that my mother and father said to me and the things that I have heard other people’s parents say, and I have told myself, “I am not going to say that to my child.”

Fast-forward several years… many years, in fact, and I have found myself saying one of the most dreaded clichés of all.

Gideon was in one of his excitable moods, getting into everything and being a typical 18-month old boy.  It seemed that every time we get him out of one mess, he is into another before we can even think about reacting.  It was then that saw him run past with a pen in his hand.

The words came out before I could even think to stop them.

“Gideon, give me that, you are going to put your eye out.”

Suddenly I knew it had happened… I had become one of THOSE parents.  The realization hit me hard, I stopped, after having grabbed the pen, of course, and put my hand on my head.   In Nerd Parlance, this is called a “FacePalm”.

I never saw it coming and now I am expecting to start uttering phrases like, “Wait until your mother gets home!” or “When I was your age I never talked back to my mother.”

In reality, though, I have to laugh.   I never expected that something as simple as using a phrase that I think every parent in history has used would make me suddenly feel like a “Parent”.   Like someone that is simply traveling a path and fighting a fight that more people than I can count have followed before me.

Like that, I realized what my mother and father must have gone through and what it must have felt for them to say the same thing to me when I was the age my son is.  Subsequently I also got a take of some of the sense of futility of saying that to a child that is still trying to get the whole walking, balance and talking thing down.

Yep… I am a parent.

But you know…  I would not trade all the dirty diapers, late nights, fevers, etc… for a life without him.  In my little Copernican universe, he is the center of my universe and all that I do is for him.  I would not have it any other way.