I like the international-state anarchy.
Unless you have been hiding under a rock for the last two days, you have to have heard of the ongoing electoral turmoil in Iran. Mir Hossein Moussavi, a reformist and moderate, decided to run against the embedded current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The campaign was hard fought, and both sides seemed to take notes from their American brethren about how to play dirty politics. Finally, the day of the vote came, and Ahmadinejad won with 62% of all votes cast. That should have settled everything.…
Article comments
76 - Ruvy
[Non English content deleted by Comments Editor]
I wouldn't post foreign swear words or any comment in a foreign language that was derogatory without translating it. sof siHa means "end of discussion".
77 - roger nowosielski
I think it in that case, Chris, it would be fair to put a ban on Spanish as well.
78 - Ruvy
it would be fair to put a ban on Spanish as well.
You could also get rid of the Urdu/Hindi that appears in the comments on an article here about an Indian Moslem family, not to mention all the Latin that gets thrown around here, like QED, status quo, etc., et cetera.
79 - roger nowosielski
I have no problem with Latin or French expressions - part of the idiom in educated speech. But what I do object to is people using a foreign tongue by way of making indirect remarks about others.
80 - Robert M. Barga
@75
where do the roots of Judisim say that you and I are the same people? In fact, as i am quite different than yourself, i do not see how we are at all related
you are an Israli, I am an American, our religion is irrelevant
81 - Robert M. Barga
@79 well put
82 - Ruvy
I have no problem with Latin or French expressions - part of the idiom in educated speech.
Perdonnez-moi monsieur! It may be nice to read Ovid in the original, but it sure is easier (if not as true) to say "love means not having to say you're sorry". I wouldn't call knowledge of Latin or French a sign of education, but reasonable people will differ.
Since I got my education in the States as a native English speaker, I would feel far better if, instead of throwing French or Latin around in a pretense of education, Americans and other English speakers would focus on midiaeval English (what you find in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales) instead. Notg only would you get a clear picture of how the language grew and developed, it would serve as a door to Latin, French and German both as languages on their own and as demonstrating how Englis itself developed, and as a clear view to reading great works in English - like Shakespeare.
But what I do object to is people using a foreign tongue by way of making indirect remarks about others.
D'accord!
83 - roger nowosielski
There you go, Ruvy. Some French expressions are indispensable. Just proved my point.
84 - Ruvy
where do the roots of Judisim say that you and I are the same people? In fact, as i am quite different than yourself, i do not see how we are at all related
you are an Israli, I am an American, our religion is irrelevant
I'll not criticize the spelling mistakes - dyslexia can cause such things, and even famous dyslexics like Nelson Rockefeller had a rough time actually reading statements in public. I suspect his spelling was atrocious that he rarely wrote notes himself.
[Personal attack deleted by Comments Editor]
I suggest you read my comment #82, as well as the article I sent you to earlier....
85 - Robert M. Barga
Ruvy
let me point out the fact that i am not a practicing Jew, nor am I barmitzphad (sp?) as i never have been one for organized religion
if i use firefox my spelling is caught, but, during my lunch break, i use IE (no bloody spell checker)
86 - Ruvy
let me point out the fact that i am not a practicing Jew, nor am I barmitzphad (sp?) as i never have been one for organized religion
Whether you are for orgqnized religion or not is rather irrelevant. Whether you mumble meaningless (if you don't really believe them, they are meaninigless) prayers repeatedly is irrelevant. Whether you had a bar mitzva is irrelevant.
You claim to be a Jew. You criticize me for defending and giving a damn about my people - the Jewish People - and for worrying over the fate of the country G-d gave us - Israel.
The essence of Judaism is twofold - doing the things that make you a decent person - described in the Morning Prayer: honoring your fatrher and mother, visiting the sick, accompanying the bride and groom, consoling the grieving and trying to maintain peace between fellow Jews. Keeping kosher and keeping the Sabbath make you aware of who you are as distinct from those around you (if you are in Exile). That's one part.
I can't comment on that - I don't know you.
The second part is knowledge and belief in G-d. Knowledge is knowledge of Jewish history, the Hebrew Bible, Jewish culture, Jewish politics and Jewish law. And finally, most important is belief in G-d and faith that He will guide you properly in life if you seek Him out.
From your comments here, you know nothing of these things. I would politely suggest to you that you not criticize me for trying to be a decent Jew who learns all of these things and who is a believer in G-d.
And I'll quote from the essay Confronting the Holocaust Jewishly to give you a taste of why I hold so strongly to the views I do, views which seem to condemn you so.
And let us remember, on top of all the sins and the reality of Jewish crimes, the refusal to grasp the Land of Israel to our bosom. "And they despised the desirable land," is the Biblical condemnation of the generation of the desert and its great scholars and leaders who preferred to return to Egypt rather than go to the Land of Israel.
Their actions led to the night of "weeping for generations," Tisha B'Av. What shall we say about the rejection of Eretz Yisrael in the decades preceding the Holocaust by so many great religious leaders in Europe? That, too, must be added to the reality of East European Jewry.
It is time to put an end to the nonsense of "we cannot know the reasons". That answer guarantees the turning away of Jewish youth.
It is time to bury the myth of East European Jewry that was pious and saintly. That insures the creation of a Jewish God who is senselessly cruel.
It is time to put an end to the indictment of God, to hiruf v'giduf, blasphemy against the Lord.
A Jewish People that clings to the Law, truly and completely, will be saved from Holocausts.
And one which rejects it and which turns it into a ritualistic sociological fraud will suffer for it.
And until we learn this, that which was will, God forbid, be again.
But do not blame God. He remains the One whose duty compels us "to declare that the Lord is just, He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in Him." [Tehillim/Psalms 92:15]
I sauggest you read this entire essay, Robert. It is not pleasant reading, and it is hard going for someone not used to Jewish concepts, as obviously you aren't.
But I can hope that you may learn something from this. Hope is fragile, but it is hard to kill.
87 - Robert M. Barga
still, how is that relevant at all?
88 - Elvira Black
Oy vey...
89 - Ruvy
Oy vey...
Meaning, Elvira?