Intifada on campus

A Pastor's Journey to Judaism

I have my shabbat dinner for March 5 all picked out! Skokie Chabad is hosting Rabbi and Mrs. Yaakov Parisi for what promises to be a great shabbaton. Rabbi Parisi will speak Friday night about being a Christian pastor and how he and his wife became observant Jews. Friday night dinner promises to be the usual four-star extravaganza at Skokie Chabad. The Parisis are also speaking at a kiddush luncheon at Skokie Chabad the following morning, after davening around 11:30.

Here is the link for more information and to reserve a very reasonable dinner seat: http://bit.ly/ctnzoz

See you there!

No one misses the Red Line's Washington stop

Until the mid-1990's,the Red Line* made just one stop between Grand Avenue and Monroe Street. This stop was called Washington. Northbound and southbound trains did not stop across from one another; the northbound train stop was considerably north of the southbound train stop--closer to Lake Street. This worked just fine. In the mid-1990's, the cta put the subway station under construction, and trains stopped twice in each direction: once at the "Lake" stop and once at the "Washington" stop. When construction ended, cta tried to return to one-stop operation, but because it stupidly installed a staircase/escalator in the middle of the platform instead of on either side (with a pedestrian walkway in between), passengers were squeezed while walking between the staircase structure and moving trains. So the cta decided trains should resume stopping twice in each direction. Of course this adds time to everyone's commute. Now there is construction again at Washington, and trains aren't stopping there; they stop at Monroe and Lake Streets.

This is working out great! Who needs a second stop at Lake-Washington anyway? Oh, it's such a long walk between the Lake stop and the underground tunnel to the Blue Line! No, it isn't. Passengers could probably use the exercise. And passengers going in the other direction--changing from the Blue Line to the Red Line? Northbound riders can do that at Jackson Boulevard. Southbound riders can walk, and it's really just 100 feet or so. (I'll time it next time I'm in the subway.) Please, cta. Keep the Washington station closed.


*Called the Howard-Englewood-Jackson Park until the cta's color-scheme revolution of the late-1990's.

Hanging up on me doesn't change the Bears' season

I called into the Score AM 670 at about 8:05 last night on my way home from a JVS event in Lakeview. The host had asked for callers to ask him questions about the Bears. I wanted to say, "Do you think the Bears have the ability to increase their win total to 10 or 11 games to make the playoffs in the 2010 season? It seemed to me they dropped a number of winnable games last year, and good teams win close games." Unfortunately I was never able to ask my question as I let it slip that I gave up on the Bears after their miserable loss in Atlanta (Week 6, which left them 3-2 after their bye week). At that point the host hung up on me.

Look, Bub, you can hang up on me for dissing the Bears and giving up on them so quickly. (And I turned out to be right; they missed the playoffs for the third straight season after their Super Bowl season of 2006.) But you can't change the fact that they were pretty mediocre last season. 7-9? 6-10? I don't remember, and it doesn't matter. The point is whether they can make the playoffs this season with a new offensive coordinator. Lovie Smith's job depends on it.

Only in Israel

Jack Berger told this story:

He hails a taxicab in Israel and asks the driver to take him to the Jerusalem bus station.

The driver asks him, "Where are you going?"

"The Jerusalem bus station."

"I heard you. No, where are you taking the bus?"

"I don't think you want to take me."

"Try me."

"To Chevron (Hebron)."

"I'll take you."

"You're driving a new Mercedes. Are you sure?"

"Sure, I'll take you."

So they leave Jerusalem and take the highway to Chevron. They pick up a trio of teenage girls along the way who need a ride. When they arrive at the outskirts of Chevron, they run into a military roadblock, and the commander tells them they can't enter the city. (He probably says, "Eee efshar"--impossible--they love saying that.) At that point one of the girls hands the commander a card.

"What's this?" he asks.

"It's an invitation to my wedding," she tells him. "I'm getting married at Machpelah tonight."

He waves them through.

Tired of saying tehillim for Gilad Shalit

In 1979, Iranian college students took over the U.S. embassy in Teheran and held 52 men hostage for 444 days.* As a final insult to the American president, Jimmy Carter, the students released the hostages on his successor's inauguration day.

A political cartoon from that period showed the American eagle locked in a birdcage.

I thought of that image when considering Israel's situation regarding its soldier Gilad Shalit held hostage by Hamas since June 25, 2006. Hamas is a secretive, shadowy terrorist organization. But Israel is a sovereign state with an international spy operation that has no rival in the world. When Israel decides to assassinate Hamas leaders, it does so. In fact, the professional execution of a terrorist operative in Dubai last week is widely attributed to Mossad, the Israeli spy agency, which refuses to confirm or deny its involvement. This is its standard plausible deniability tactic.

So what's the problem? Why is Gilad Shalit still being held hostage, after nearly four years?

At the conclusion of a service in many orthodox synagogues, the prayer leader will say a paragraph of tehillim (usually Psalm 130) "because of the ongoing situation in Israel," which refers to the conflict in general but specifically to Shalit. I'm tired of it, not just because it makes the service longer (which is selfish) but because the situation could most likely be easily solved. There's only one way to find out.

There is probably no diplomatic solution to the hostage situation. If Hamas were to release Shalit at all, it would demand a significant prisoner exchange involving dozens or hundreds of convicted murderers. Other than that, there is no good reason for Hamas to give up its one ace in the hole to its sworn enemy. It would lose considerable credibility and respect from the "Arab street" it claims to represent.

When China kept American servicemen hostage for a week or so in 2001, the U.S. president apologized (twice--embarrassing), and the People's Republic allowed the men to go home. When Iran captured British servicemen in 2007, there was intense international pressure on Iran to release the men. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad saw a public relations opportunity and released them within two weeks, saying, "This pardon is a gift to the British people." Since the world's conscience doesn't lose any sleep over a captured Israeli, Israel is getting almost no help in securing Shalit's release, despite his French and (awarded since capture) Italian citizenship.

Could Israel please stop acting like a scared little kid and start acting like a regional military power?

Call up Hamas and demand Shalit's unconditional release within 48 hours. Then start hunting down Hamas' murderous operatives and assassinate them--one per day. Shalit would be home soon enough. What would be the world's reaction? The extreme Left would once again be in the uncomfortable position of defending homicide terrorism. Sure, it does that anyway, but when one weighs Shalit's plight against the lives of terrorists, most of world opinion would be on Shalit's side.

Your move, Israel. Do you want to see Shalit grow old in captivity? He turns 24 in August. He should celebrate at home.

_________
*They released the women and children almost immediately after the raid.

SCOTUS says corps can advertise for campaigns

A friend and avid blog reader (my favorite kind) asked me to weigh in on the recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States ruling in favor of corporations advertising in favor of or against federal election candidates. The case is Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. Corporate contributions to individual campaigns remain illegal. Now corporations, previously limited to campaign donations through their own political action committees (PAC's) or independent PAC's, may now advertise and "spend freely on political causes," as mysun.com put it here.

You mean corporations have First Amendment rights too? Outrageous. As the Chicago Tribune pointed out, corporations have always been able to spend freely in state elections in Illinois. While Illinois is a terribly corrupt state, corporate donations are hardly the root of the problem. This is not the end of democracy as we know it. Contributions to candidates for federal office are not made in secret. Anyone can look up individual and PAC contributions at various websites. If a big greedy corporation makes a big splash in favor of or against a particular candidate or member of Congress, then that's public knowledge, and voters can take that into consideration when they go to the polls.

Our democracy--and federal elections--will be just fine.