THE BRAVE NEW LAND

Palestinians Firing Missiles out of Their Population Centers It’s in the air. That is the only explanation that I can find for the insanity that keeps knocking at my door. Maybe I’m just getting tired… I don’t know. The missiles just keep on raining, some getting by the Iron Domes, closer and closer to m y particular claim-stake in the Promised Land, causing stress and unnecessary mayhem. Now a bus in Tel Aviv has been bombed too… The stress level just keeps going up. I'm starting to think more seriously about where my loved ones are. I'm worried about walking back and forth from work. It's even starting to feel a lot like it did when I lived in LA during the Rodney King riots. All we need now is a 6.0 earth quake to send me looking for another reality to inhabit… Just the other day, after being verbally assaulted by an unhinged American woman, (it seems that Israelis seem better suited to this sort of stress factor) I was forced to blow off some steam by ha

You are what you speak, or at least that is what the world seems to deflect in my direction, as I ponder its pathways and back alleys. We learn that commanding an audience is all about charisma, but what exactly is charisma, anyways?   Now that we have begun the next four years, I just need to comment on how those two guys in suits spoke. It was impressive to get a sense of each by the way they handled themselves in front of a crowd, in their cases, millions… oy. But, in this day and age, it is not only about standing in front of others, speaking with authority and miming the proper hand gestures, indicating ‘power positions’ with flare and candor, it is also about the communication that enables the entire world to operate as one: digital communication. We spend hours with emails, social networking, blogging, and just general dialog on the Internet. How ‘do’ we personify a charismatic presence with our digital persona? How ‘do’ we market ourselves in the digital age? Many

Boo, my Black Cat, Came to Me in a Jack-o-lantern I've come a long way baby… it's my 50th birthday this week; well, that is according to the Jewish calendar. In the States, I was always a Halloween baby, born the day before, but here in the land, I am a Noah baby! Yeah, it is Parshat Noach again, after a whole year of riding this seemingly God-forsaken planet around the Sun, with all of its trials and tribulations, tests, failures, and accomplishments, I have arrived at the crossroads of 'me,' once again. It kind of makes me wonder what "me" is, doesn't it for you? I have been pondering that, as of late, and the other day, on Simchat Torah, when we Jews celebrate completing the reading of the entire last years' worth of Torah and then beginning again, I found myself in a heated debate with the Creator of the Universe while I walked through the woods near my house. I have been vacillating with the whole idea of wearing a yarmulke every d