Sarah Palin is their wet dream. Palin is as willfully ignorant as they are, as proud of being ignorant as they are, plus she”s on TV, and she”s just hot enough to star in masturbation fantasies for people who were last attractive enough to have sex that hot sometime in the 1960″s.
[Update–0802, 12 February. From the Clevelad Jewish News:
Giant Eagle Inc. has launched a line of kosher prepared foods. All of the new kosher products are produced in a Chasidic kosher plant with strict quality control and rabbinic supervision. Customers can visit the prepared food department or call ahead with special orders to participating Giant Eagle stores in Solon, Lyndhurst, Beachwood, Mayfield Heights or Fairlawn.]
Below is one of my posts from The Writing On The Wal. I don’t usually cross-post full text this way, but I feel passionately about this issue and I want to get it read by as wide an audience as possible.
It has taken me more than 12 hours to calm down from an experience last evening that has left me nearly ready to follow the example of Wonko The Sane and just walk away, accept that the World has gone crazy and start building my own asylum.
Last night, I took part in a conversation with a half-dozen or so fellow Jews that were all a twitter about our local Costco stocking kosher meats. As near as I can figure, Costco has been stocking kosher meat for about a year now, but not here in Cleveland.
One of the reasons I converted to Judaism a quarter century ago was that I was drawn to its emphasis on social justice and advocacy as exemplified by great rabbis like Abraham Joshua Heschel and Arthur Lelyveld, among many, many others.
Judaism has a strong central theme of caring for the orphans and widows and strangers at our gates.
Judaism also has a strong commitment for caring for its own, or so I thought. I’m aware of three kosher butchers here in Cleveland. They’re all small, family run business that would easily fit in any urban neighborhood of 50 years ago. Because of their size and hyper-specialized clientele they charge significantly more for their wares than similar, but non-kosher, meat products in any of the area supermarkets.
If a family wants to buy kosher meat, however, that’s where you shop, and by doing so you support the infrastructure that supports you.
All of that means nothing based on my tiny, non-representative sample from last night. All of those gathered were enthusiastic that they could save 50 percent on their kosher meat purchases by shopping at Costco. When I attempted to argue that Costco owed nothing to the Jewish community and was only interested in gaining market share, I was rewarded with looks of are you crazy? I can save 50 percent!
When those three butchers lose enough of their already tiny market — there are only 80,000 Jews in Cleveland and I imagine that perhaps 10 to 20 percent of those buy only Kosher meats — and go out of business and Costco decides that it can make more money by selling something else where it is stocking the kosher meats, Cleveland’s Jews will have only their selves to blame.
Price trumps tradition. Price trumps ethics. Price trumps everything.
It’s a shonda.
And then there is this exchange in the comments.
First from Julie Auerbach, who is head of sales for Colorado Kosher Meat.
What did you think of the Colorado Kosher Meat you purchased?
My response:
Shalom Julie,
First, thank you for stopping in, for reading and, most importantly, for taking the time to enter the discussion. We build our community with our conversations.
I didn”t, so I can”t comment there, but I have no doubt that the products from your company are of first quality. That”s not the issue. That you sell your meats to Costco isn”t even the issue. Colorado Kosher Meat is a company doing its best to turn an acceptable profit and I”m OK with that.
Colorado Kosher Meat is not the problem. Jews who value price over community are the problem.
So let me ask you this: when you sell chicken, how much of a discount for quantity do you offer Costco over the price you might charge a small butcher shop (if you supply small butcher shops)?
If, say, I were to order 100 pounds (or whatever you might consider to be a minimum order) of chicken from Colorado Kosher Meat, at wholesale, how much more per pound, as a percentage of the wholesale cost, would I spend compared to a business that placed an order for 10,000 pounds? If my numbers are inappropriate, please feel free to substitute your own to illustrate the difference between a small and a larger order.
B”shalom,
Jeff
Seriously people, are we OK with this?
I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog weather update I present: From My Dad.
You may have missed, as I did, an important profile of Martin Zanotti one of the leaders in the Cuyahoga County reform saga. Damian Guevara of the Scene gave us a revealing picture of the guy who has taken a lead in the transition stage for the new county government.
It”s not a pretty picture he paints.
The Plain Dealer has been hammering away on the issue of transparency as revealed by the fact that there have been private meetings by those set up to facilitate the changeover. Presently, the County is governed by three County Commissioners. The new reform voted in last November has a County Executive and a legislative 11-member County Council.
Once again we have public business being conducted privately. The issue became front-page news after a WCPN-radio show talk revealed that transition meetings had been closed to the public and to reporters.
After bad publicity on the radio and in the Plain Dealer along with a threat by the ACLU of a suit, the transition folk backed off. It will now meet publicly.
The Zanotti story should be required reading for those following the reform move:
Found in my electronic chapbook.
Fast writing helps keep a book from going stale. If a book seems to be taking forever in the writing, I”m likely to be bored by the process of writing it. p. 105
From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.
The military dictators of Myanmar could reveal more detailed plans for an election that could happen in September, October, November, or not at all by the end of the month. It is clear, however, that any election will be tightly controlled and engineered to prevent any embarrassing result like a landslide win for anyone but the generals-approved candidates.
From The Irrwaddy:
Although the Burmese military regime has announced that it will hold the election this year, many political groups face uncertainty about the election since the election law has not yet been announced.
Analysts say that the delay in promulgating the election law makes it possible for the regime to continue tight restrictions on activities by political parties while allowing members of the Union Solidarity and Development Association, a junta-backed organization, to run pre-election campaigns in parts of the country.
Meanwhile, a rumor in Rangoon suggests that the regime will form a caretaker government headed by Lt-Gen Myint Swe, the commander of the Bureau of Special Operations 5, in April.
Myint Swe is reputed to be junta-chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe’s protégé. As the military commander in Rangoon, he played a key role in the ruthless crackdown and handling of monk-led demonstrations in September 2007.
According to sources in the Burmese military, Than Shwe will announce the election timetable and law by the end of February. Sources say that the army is recruiting candidates from outside its own ranks to compete in military-backed parties during the election, targeting businesspeople and community figures such as teachers in townships and villages across the country.
Does anyone buy any of this?
Dolph Norton, whose obituary ran in yesterday”s Plain Dealer, was the “liberal” face of the Cleveland Foundation during the late 1960s when corporate leaders needed to deal with, for them, new and scary urban problems.
Cleveland”s heavy-hitting business leaders of that era feared what was happening in the city, especially racially. They faced problems that had been simmering unattended for years. They now had to deal with people they did not know. They lacked contact with the usual control leader or leaders of any community that they ordinarily deal with to buy off and settle untidy situations. New, unknown leaders were pushing drastic change. The civil rights movement hit Cleveland. Hard.
In other words, the ghetto was boiling and corporate leaders Continue Reading »
I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog weather update I present: From My Dad.
Found in my electronic chapbook.
It is also possible to argue that sometimes a book or story will be better for having been written more rapidly. I think there is a definite gain in intensity, for one thing. If I write a book in a month, for instance, it”s likely to be all of a piece. p. 105
From Telling Lies for Fun and Profit: A Manual for Fiction Writers by Lawrence Block.
Yesterday I wrote about our political prisoner in Myanmar and his trial on political charges. Today Nyi Nyi Aung is no longer an accused political prisoner, he is a convicted political prisoner found guilty by a corrupt court system in a nation oppressed by military dictators. Americans should be outraged.
From the BBC:
A Burmese court has sentenced a US citizen to three years in prison [at hard labor] for fraud and forgery, despite calls by 50 US lawmakers for his release.
[Nyi Nyi] was sentenced to three years in prison for forging a national identity card and one year each on the other charges, sentences which the judge said should be served concurrently.
The charges could have led to a sentence of up to 12 years’ imprisonment.
Nyi Nyi Aung’s mother is believed to be in failing health while she serves a five-year jail sentence in a remote jail for her involvement in a 2007 uprising.
Two cousins are also in jail, one for more than 65 years, and a sibling is in exile in Thailand.
United States Representative Chris Van Hollen (D-Maryland) said of the verdict and sentence:
This sentence is the latest in a string of unjust and abusive actions by Burma”s military led government against Mr. Aung, and is clearly a politically motivated effort to end his democracy-building work in that country. He has been subjected to unspeakable treatment that violated both international and Burmese law. He has suffered physical and mental torture, been kept from seeing his family, and had his contact with U.S. consular officials severely limited.
I am deeply disappointed with the Burmese junta”s decision to sentence Mr. Aung to three years of hard labor. I will continue working with my colleagues in Congress, the U.S. State Department, and the Aung family to secure his immediate release from prison and return to the United States.
That is the only conclusion I can take away from Senator George Voinovich’s most recent constituent email where he tells Ohioans:
As a former governor of Ohio, former chairman of the National Governors Association and past president of the National League of Cities, one lesson that Sen. Voinovich”s more than 40 years of public service has taught him is, if you cannot afford what you have now, you cannot do more. [Emphasis mine, JH.]*
Since every war that the United States has ever engaged in has involved deficit spending, Sen. Voinovich clearly believes the United States should not send its military forces beyond our borders, ever.
I am happy to have that made clear.
Thank you senator.
*This statement only appears in Sen. Voinovich’s email newsletter. If anyone would like a copy, email me and I’ll forward it to you.
I also think there’s a glaring problem with their mention that Nina Turner would have to step down from the transition team if she opted to run – but they make no such mention with Marty Zanotti, who has managed to self-appoint himself to HEAD the transition team.
In fact, it would be the most flagrant and egregious breach of trust if there were any HINT that he was running. Among the many things he needs to do to build even a shred of trust in his involvement in the process is to make an unequivocal statement that he will have NO involvement in any future county government that he will never run for any county job.
Since he has arbitrarily decided to exclude both candidates for those jobs AND current officeholders who have no conflict of interest since their jobs will no longer exist but can provide the single most valuable pool of information on how the county runs he needs to do this, pronto.
He’s been deceptive throughout the whole process, so I see no reason to trust him at all. His statement in the PD this morning about keeping politics out of the transition was a side splitter this coming from a man who has been quoted repeatedly as saying no one who was against Issue 6 should have a role in the new government? That’s not only the most extreme partisanship it’s revenge politics.
It’s been a busy week in Wally World: the Universe’s source of cheap plastic crap. On The Writing On The Wal — the blog USA Today says should be on its readers’ radar — Jonathan Rees and I continue our work dedicated to drawing back the curtain on the Bentonvile Behemoth’s corporate disinformation and other flackery.
LIVE BY THE WAL… DIE BY THE WAL… Some 20 years ago I was editor of a magazine that covered the automotive aftermarket and regularly talked to people at both Exide and Johnson Controls about shifts in the battery markets. Back then the, as I called them, Megachains were just emerging. Keep reading…
WHAT WALMART HAS TAUGHT ONE POLICE CHIEF… I could probably post at least two stories a day about crime inside and outside of Walmarts, but there”s little point because the crime doesn”t have much to do with Walmart, the crime has to do with a large store, with a large parking lot and a lot of people buying stuff. Keep reading…
BAMBOO DOES SOUND NATURALER… Walmart is only one of 78 retailers to recieve a warning from the Federal Trade Commission about mislabeling products, but I have to wonder if the sales of the other 77 companies combined even come close to Walmart”s annual figures. Keep reading…
GO AHEAD… SUE… Walmart may be the No. 1 Business Poster Child for the arguments against tort reform in the United States. Corporations campaign for tort reform because they claim they”re suffering. Walmart, of course, is a suit magnet, getting sued left and right. Keep reading…
JUST A CASUALTY OF SPENDING LESS… When I worked the after-school shift at Hart”s, we shifted gears 30 minutes before closing to front shelves (pull products to the front of the shelf and fill empty spaces) and sweep the floor. This was not a nice-to-do, it was a must-do. Keep reading…
WONKO THE SANE WAS RIGHT… It has taken me more than 12 hours to calm down from an experience last evening that has left me nearly ready to follow the example of Wonko The Sane and just walk away, accept that the World has gone crazy and start building my own asylum. Keep reading…
CUTTING 13,000 SO-CALLED JOBS… Lest someone assume that I, and The Onion, are mocking the now unemployed people who used to work for the Walmart corporation, read carefully. Mocking satire can be tricky to write, but the people at The Onion have a long history of getting it right. Keep reading…
Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) says:
“I introduced myself as a fella who was defeated in 1994, the last time we didn’t pass meaningful health-care reform,” Inslee recalls saying. “I said it was a painful event, and I didn’t want them to go through that pain.” In politics, he told his colleagues, assuming the “fetal position” can be the most dangerous thing to do.
And then he recounted all the grief he and his family went through while work on their kitchen renovation dragged on and on and on. “During that time, I had blood lust against my contractor,” Inslee said. “Six months went by, and he was still arguing with the plumber. Eight months went by, and there were still wires hanging down everywhere, and he was having trouble with the building inspector.”
But eventually, the job got done. “And now I love that kitchen,” Inslee recalls saying. “I bake bread in that kitchen. My wife cooks great meals in that kitchen. The contractor’s now a buddy of mine, and I’ve had beers with him in that kitchen.”
Inslee looked at his colleagues and declared: “We’ve got to finish the kitchen.”
Before he was The Thing or even Detective Vic Mackey, Michael Chiklis played police commissioner Tony Scali. There was an episode where Scali’s kitchen was being remodeled and he had much the same experience as Rep. Inslee. Scali’s response was to use his police powers to threaten to lock up the contractor until the job was completed.
I’m not suggesting that President Barack Hussein Obama post guards around congress, but you know?
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