Happy Rosh Hashanah

OK we’re in tan right now.  They have that commercial where these women are trying out taning products on this guy in kind of a checkerboard pattern and saying, “No, I don’t like any of them”.  It’s too hot for just about anything.  Tuesday it was 95 degrees in Disneyland and yesterday it was 98 degrees in Disneyland and 102 in Fullerton, not that far away.  Handball and tennis courts are deserted because people have more sense.  They had numerous stories about children in poor neighborhoods without AC hosing themselves off to keep cool.  Meanwhile in Florida the weather must be getting to people.  One guy at a Labor Day barbecue- - - opened fire with a semi-automatic and got off I’d guess about 25 rounds- - and it’s captured on audio.  He was shooting at three different people and two of them died, and the third, though full of bullets is hanging on.  He told that understanding police lady “Yeah, those people were bugging me and made my life a living hell.  You know how it is”.  Well I don’t live in a stand your ground law state so I don’t know “how it is”.  He’s planning to contest the first degree murder charges and it’s an open question at this point whether he’ll even be convicted.  Then we have George Zimmerman arrested for speeding at sixty in a 45 mph zone.  Of course when you mix guns with a short fuse type A personality you are headed for serious trouble sooner or later.  Then we have some sort of altercation between Anthony Wiener and reporters- - apparently over something that was said about his wife- - I heard a reporter say “she’s an Arab” and according to Moe Kelly, “Them’s fighting words”.   Crime abounds in other ways.  Now apparently there are devices criminals are using to tap into ATM’s or some area where you pay for your gas- - and apparently they are able to clear out your bank account in sort of a cyber theft- - where you don’t even need a gun any more.  I know that credit card companies won’t charge you if it’s genuinely not your fault- - but in this instant cyber age- this stuff will become in increasingly common.

Yesterday afternoon on the David Cruise show there was another of these police beatings, which David Cruise specializes in covering.  This one was in Long Beach, and apparently it was a near Rodney King type situation.  This mental patient, who was bloody and sweaty and wearing only shorts and no shirt- - was on the ground on his back kicking at officers and they wanted him to roll over on his stomach so kept beating him.  Of course these officers offer the same verbal fogging the Rodney King officers did. “Well the video didn’t show the whole thing and everything we did we had a reason for.  If you recoil on reflex- - as far as the police are concerned normal anatomical responses constitute “resisting arrest”.   Police tend to look at life events differently from the rest of us.  You think when you call the cops about a situation that they are coming to help- - - but you wonder why suspects run from the police so much - - after witnessing a few events like the one just described- - it’s a gamble worth taking.

This is Rosh Hashana, September 5, 2013 and it’s one of the earliest dates possible for a Jewish Newyear.  They come every nineteen years.  Zachery is 38 today - - and two 19 year lunar cycles ago was another such early Jewish New Year.  The cycle in-between is only notable because this book that was in all the stores- - claimed that the Bible in a zillion different ways, predicted that the end of the world would come on September fourth, 1994.   Of course someone made a thing out of the “Rosh” being a long “O” rather than a short “o”.   In Romulan they have a word “Roche”, which can mean either a recycling, or reiteration, but it can also refer to getting your second wind.  It’s one of those words they picked up from the Lanian.  Tonight of course is the opening day for the NFL official season.  Today is also that long awaited “Summit” in Russia that apparently is a whole lot more ceremonial than substantive.  Some have questioned the wisdom of the President leaving the country at this time when the lives of servicemen are hanging in the balance as the President decides their fate as to whether they are going to war against Syria or not.  I am hoping to get in a little congressional debate watching on C-Span.  This brings me to a topic I was going to raise about David Cruise.  Because people say that the things John Kerry says are eerily smiliar to the things Colin Powel stated publicly just prior to the run up to Gulf War II, I guess you’d call it.  I have a definite problem with David Cruise.  He’s going to believe a Russian leader, who have a decades long tradition all our lives of telling nothing but lies about us, and lies about their own society- - for the last sixty years.  And yet David believes Vladimir Putin- - but he won’t believe John Kerry, a venerated anti war Veteran, who has always told it like it is.  To me this indicated some buried desire to WANT to believe that Putin somehow would never lie and is somehow more honorable a man than people in this country are.  So when Putin says “The Rebels dropped those canisters of poison gas- - David falls right in line and believes him.   But you know there is one good reason for NOT going to war and it’s the oldest reason in the book.  We Don’t Think We Can Win.  Just think about that one a while.  Who has inspected Russian weapons lately.  We know that Putin is going to remain dictator of the Soviet Union till the day he’s taken out feet first.  He’s never going to let go of power.  Rather than there being too LITTLE of a threat for us to bother about- - quite the contrary is true.  There is so MUCH of a threat that we “Dare not poke the bear” as Rush Limbaugh might say.  There is this pervaisive fear in the Obama administration, it seems to me, of all the bad things that could happen, that the Soviets might do to us or our allies.  I would regard it as an excellent time to consult with Israel, and develop a coordinated strategy.

Hydraulic fracturing, otherwise known as “fracking” is in the news again.  Now they want to bring the practice right here to Southern California, to the oil wells of the Baldwin Hills, not far from where I used to live as a kid.  We used to travel down La Cieniga past them all the time.  The LA city council wants to vote to specifically allow this practice, it seems.  I thought that’s what I heard.  Anyhow it’s up for debate.  Needless to say it would be a terrible idea due to all the earthquakes around here.  And personally I don’t want to be able to light my tap water on fire.  Anyhow, who would even drink water from the tap you were able to set on fire?  Jerry Brown had the chance to ban the practice Statewide- but those not to or something.

I was just watching the soap opera and President Obama and Father Eric have a lot on common.  Father Eric has to be about the most useless character on the entire show, in that his life amounts in total to absolutely nothing.   Some people – for instance Jesus Christ- - are shall we say “humble to a fault”.  They are so “humble” as they put it (it’s the thing they are the most proud about themselves) that they drag everyone else around them down with them, just as Jesus dragged ancient Palistine down with him- - refusing to help them in any way and claiming he was working tword some “higher spiritual purpose” just as the local Priest may look at a situation that really sucks and rather than attempt to probe and get to the bottom of it, just says “Well, God is working tword a higher purpose”.  Some of you may say “What about far more evil characters such as Stephano and Christine”.  My response is that they are supposed to be evil characters.   Nicole has a point about Eric.  She said life wasn’t dealing with government beaurcrats all day long and attending committee and board meetings and showing up at ceremonial openings.  Stephano does all these things.  He’s on the University Hospital board, and this apparently gives him the right to enter any patient’s room uninvited and threaten their lives.  Perhaps the first step in Officer Raphael Hernandez climb back to “manhood” if you must speak in such terms- - is to call Stephano Di Mire a liar to his face and then give him the finger.  Now we come to President Obama.  I don’t think he’s really “taking charge” of this war effort.  It’s as Tavis Smiley says- - “he has to be pushed to do anything”.  And Tavis Smiley has a point about something else.  If all that fifty year anniversary celebration of the March on Washington was just a trip down memory lane- - then it’s fast becoming irrelivent.  If that’s all Black leaders are going to do is to talk about the past- - - hell, a couple of eighty year old men in rockers on the back porch can do that.  Nobody grabs the bull by the horns anymore and makes their own futures.   The thing is the whole war against Syria resolution only passed in Senate committee by ten to seven.  That’s too close for comfort.  And it was a weak resolution with a sixty day time limit the President would have done better not to even ask for to begin with.  What other modern president has had to go to Congress hat in hand- - begging their permission for him to be able to do the slightest thing?   I listened to Randy Rhodes ideas this afternoon and they are pretty lucidris.  Putin is a congenital liar and to believe anything that comes out of his mouth for a second is a major mistake.  Really when you think about it- - - there isn’t a whole lot of difference between the Christian Church and the historic Kremlin.  They both want everything from you in terms of money.  But when you think about it- - it’s an oxy moromism to say that you “have to give to the church” or “the church” has all your money.  Because I thought the Bible said WE were “The Church”.  And Me wants to keep all My money!   It really does strike me as funny that this is a resolution with more votes from democrats than Republicans- - and whose prospects for a swift passage are far better in the Senate than in the House.  It’s like President Obama saying to the house Republicans “I’ve opened up here a whole New Way for you people to make me look bad”.    The entire tenure of presidential tenure of Obama has been a slow motion disaster- - and it’s still going on and getting worse – and nobody one stop it.