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Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #81 (11/10/2013): Chocolate-Covered Chips

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #81 (11/10/2013): Chocolate-Covered Chips

Aired Nov. 9, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://youtu.be/324WHZEig1c

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of November 10th, 2013.

As if Americans weren’t fat enough already, the fine people at Frito Lay have come up with a new snack item that began its rollout last week: chocolate-covered potato chips. That’s right, they’re dipping Lay’s potato chips, the wavy kind, and covering them with milk chocolate. The idea is to create a salty-sweet taste sensation – one that people will remember fondly ten years from now when they’re in the emergency room having their arteries unblocked.

Now, I am a big fan of Lay’s; that includes the Hawaii kind, the sex kind AND the snack-food kind. And of all the big-batch commercial brands, Lay’s, in my humble opinion, does the best potato chips. My dear wife, Miriam Libby, says they make her think of the ideal man: golden, big, and just the right thickness.

I grew up on Wise potato chips, which are tasty but greasy and small. And half of them are partially burned. Eating a bag of Wise chips is like going to a garage sale after a fire; there’s good stuff, but you have to check every item for smoke damage. I like Utz chips because of the name; it sounds Jewish. Utz! Utz! It’s the noise a guy in assisted living makes when he gets off the couch. Uuuutz! Uuuutz! Ut a zoy!

And then you’ve got your boutique chips. These small-batch micro-fryers with their organic chips and their veggie chips and the kettle chips. I don’t get the kettle thing; it’s like they throw in a whole potato with the skin on, and it comes out so crunchy it makes your head hurt. You’ve got your no-salt potato chips…why bother? At their core, potato chips are a salt-conveyance apparatus, just like celery is merely a less-guilty way of getting to the onion dip.

You’ve got ketchup-flavored potato chips, which I think is just trying too hard. You’ve got Pringles – which the company says aren’t potato chips at all, they’re potato “crisps.” Who are they trying to fool? Chips, crisps – “ooh, I don’t have a beard, I have facial hair.” Get over it Pringles, you pretentious assholes.

And speaking of assholes, remember potato chips with Olestra? It was an idea by snack-food makers to add this fat substitute to the food, so you could eat without getting all the cholesterol. You also wouldn’t gain much weight, because the Olestra gave you rampant diarrhea. What a brilliant strategy for dieting! You eat five-dozen potato chips, but you stay slim because a half hour later, out they go. And Proctor & Gamble wins, because as soon as you empty your guts, you’re hungry again. So you can have more potato chips. And then you shit, and then you eat more chips. And then you shit, and you eat more chips. You don’t even have to leave the bathroom. Why risk a horrible accident? Sit on the crapper, put a Ruffles back on the sink, grab a case of Charmin, and you’re in business. Lean back, eat a chip; lean forward, take a dump. Eat a chip, take a dump, eat a chip, take a dump. Repeat until dehydration. You could just sit all day on the toilet eating potato chips. Which is, I believe, how we got Wendy Williams.

I’m pretty sure that Lay’s’ new chips are made with chocolate and not ExLax. And I’m sure they’re delicious. After all, the salty-sweetness combo is not new.

Chocolate-covered pretzels have been popular for decades, and Trader Joe’s was dipping potato chips in chocolate when I was still in Rabbinical school . . . for a few weeks.

Is it gilding the lily, though? Separately, both snack items are close to perfect. The first thing the archangel Gabriel hands you when you get up to heaven is a Cadbury bar. Or, if you’re Mother Teresa, a Godiva assortment. And if there were one snack food most people would take to a desert island, it would be potato chips. Which is stupid, because you’re surrounded by non-potable water, but I’m assuming if you’re on an island that somehow has unlimited supplies of potato chips, on the other side of the island there’s probably a storeroom Diet Pepsi.

But if you put these two ideal items together – potato chips and chocolates, are you overwhelming your tastebuds? I mean, I like Picasso and I like Grant Wood, but you put `em together, and you’ve got the pitchfork sticking through the old woman’s eye. And that’s because her eye is where her elbow should be.

Yes, chocolate and peanut butter go together. And you can even put chocolate – unsweetened – on chicken to make a mole sauce. Or you can put it on moles to make a chicken sauce. Your call.

I suppose the main issue is health-related, especially for weight watchers. At least with regular potato chips – of course, you can’t eat just one, but if you eat ten or so, you have your little indulgence, you count the calories, and then you watch your snacking for the rest of the day. With these chocolate things, one chip and you have to subsist on water and two grapes for the rest of the month. Two ounces have so many calories, they have to write out the number with commas.

Look, I am all for new products, more variety, novel taste sensations. I’m only saying it would be nice if Proctor & Gamble and Nabisco and Nestle would take a little of their R&D money and figure out how to make okra taste as good as an M&M. Maybe there’s a way to combine cauliflower with fish-oil, so that every child in America would be in the supermarket going, “Mommy, mommy! I want caulifish! Oreos are too sweet, nachos are boring – where’s the aisle with the candy bars made of onions and goat milk?”

Anyway, all this talk of snack food is making me hungry. I got my potato chips. (crinkling) Let’s see… I want something sweet… what can I dip it in? mmm…borscht!

(eating) This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=27963

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’s RABBINICAL REFLECTION #80 (11/3/2013): Redskins

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’s RABBINICAL REFLECTION #80 (11/3/2013): Redskins

Aired Nov. 2, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/rInYlSN4Gpg

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of November 3rd, 2013.

In 1932, the Boston Braves football team changed their name to another Indian-related moniker: the Redskins. A few years later, they moved to Washington D.C., but they kept their name and have ever since. No one really paid attention to whether the name “Redskins” was offensive – not until 1992, when a group of Native Americans filed a trademark lawsuit against the team. The details are too complicated for me to explain here – because I have no idea what the hell they are. But I do know that arguing went back and forth in the courts for nearly two decades, and still, nobody really gave a crap.

But recent times and sensitivities have changed, and there’s a legitimate movement afoot to get the Washington Redskins to change their name to something that doesn’t bring to mind tomahawks, smoke signals and sunburned skin color.

Team owners remain adamant that the Redskins have an 80-year history that would be needlessly negated by a name change. Not to mention the cost of changing the signage on everything from souvenir jackets to Rex Grossman bobblehead dolls. And let’s not forget having to change all the signs at Washington’s Jack Kent Cooke Stadium – wait, that was changed to FedEx Field in 2000. How terribly sad for the undying legacy of Jack Kent Cooke. I guess.

Anyhoo, people who are against keeping the Redskins ruby tinted always use this example: What if you had the same situation with a different ethnicity? The Florida Yids? The Pittsburgh Polacks? What if there was a basketball team in the NBA called the Darkies? Well, they all are, but you know what I’m saying.

For 80 years, the University of North Dakota nicknamed its team The Fighting Sioux – which sounds pro-Indian until you realize that “Sioux” was a blanket name given by the whites to cover several different Indian tribes. No doubt, the blanket had smallpox on it, too. But hey, if North Dakotans can adapt, why can’t Washingtonians? I realize that asking someone in Washington DC to be flexible is like asking Stephen Hawking to catch a fly ball, but still.

America’s history with its indigenous peoples is one of lies, bullying and bloodshed – which is America’s history with everything. It was only two generations ago that Cowboys and Indians was a game in which the macho anglo, chaps-wearin’, chaw-chewing Cowboys were the good guys trying to tame the savage, sneaky, tomahawk chopping, paint-wearing, ugga-wugga, smoke-signaling red man. Howevermuch scriptwriters tried to make him noble and clever, Tonto was the Lone Ranger’s bitch. Even his name, “tonto,” means stupid in Spanish. I know this because I looked it up – when my junior high school teacher nicknamed me that in Spanish class. I told my parents, and they made her change it. From then on, she called me “hijo de puta,” which she said means “wise one.” I should probably look that one up, too, but I trust her.

Getting back to the Redskins: as someone who comes from an oppressed people – New Yorkers – I empathize with the desire to undo a little piece of ugly history. There’s no good reason not to change the team name if enough people find it derogatory. When teams move, they change – look at the L.A. Dodgers and the Brooklyn Nets. Even the Beatles went through name-revisions. Do you think John, Paul, George and Ringo sat around saying, “No, we can’t change; we have such an important legacy as `The Quarrymen’”?

Of course, the fun part is finding a new name for the Redskins. One blogger suggested “The Washington Monuments,” which is brilliant, especially if it’s a defensive team; you try toppling a monument to get to the end zone. Others have suggested The Washington Warriors, or the Renegades. Then you had the punsters with their government jokes: The Washington Shutdown, The Washington Impasse, The DC Douchebags. And, for those of you getting old enough to eat your steaks in liquid form, how about The Watergates? Or the Reaganomics?

Polls have shown that most people – even Native Americans – are fine with the name “Redskins.” They’re used to it; they’ve even coopted it, the way black people have made the “n” word their own. And by the “n” word, I mean Nikes. Still, why are Americans still eating Aunt Jemima syrup and Uncle Ben’s rice? How many decades have the movies given us fast-talking Hispanic sidekicks, Asian dragon ladies, Italian guidos and Jewish mothers? There’s truth in stereotypes, and even some good things implicit in stereotypes, but there’s also a time to break the mold. So come, Washington Redskins, let’s smoke-um peace pipe and move forward. How? And how.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28899

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #79 (10/13/2013): Motorcycle Mayhem

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #79 (10/13/2013): Motorcycle Mayhem

Aired Oct. 26, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/TbJpi_SsDUk

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of October 27th, 2013.

Remember New York in the 1970s? Graffiti everywhere, druggies in the alleys, hookers on the corner, people getting shot, stabbed, punched – or worse: forced to hear disco music. Since those days, Rudolph Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg have transformed the Wild West into the Mild East. Manhattan is a giant strip mall of Disney stores, Starbucks, Chili’s, $2500-a-month studio apartments and miles of lovely construction scaffolding. The closest we get to cowboys n’ Indians is the Naked Cowboy in Times Square, and even he wears tidy whities and a guitar over his pizzle.

But Manhattan got a taste of the old days last month when a gang of bikers terrorized a driver on the West Side Highway. You’ve all seen this story on viral video: the motorcyclists were in a group slowing down traffic. Alexian Lien was with his wife and two-year-old son in their van when he saw all these bikers around him, driving erratically and brake checking. A brake check is where you hit the brakes suddenly so anyone driving close to you has to slam their brakes if they don’t want to bump into your tuchas. Miley Cyrus was brake-checking Robin Thicke on the MTV awards; and let me tell you, she made me honk my horn.

But dancing on television and terrorizing on the highways are two different things. When Mr. Lien got brake checked, he didn’t stop fast enough and clipped one of the bikers. This made the other Hell’s Devils mad. They swarmed around the van in a menacing fashion.

Now the guy’s afraid for his life, so he floors it, trying to escape. In so doing, he runs over a couple of cyclists, paralyzing one for the rest of his life. Well, bikers are like bedbugs, if you only squash a couple, the others will come back in force. The other cyclists – now with legitimate reason to be pissed – go chasing after Lien’s van, get him down a side street and stop him. It’s like Orange County Choppers Meets Cujo.

That’s when a biker, a 37-year-old thug who goes by the name of Chance – this Chance character goes up to the SUV, takes his helmet and smashes in the driver-side window of the van. Someone else bashes in the back window, and they’re all trying to yank the door open and pull Alexian Lien out of the SUV. Which they do. And they beat the scheiss out of him. All you need is the Rolling Stones playing “Under My Thumb” in the background, and it’s the late 60s all over again. It’s Altamont with schvartzes.

Because there was such a melee, it took days for the police to wade through the evidence and start looking for people to arrest. When they did, they found that some of the bikers were undercover police. These cops couldn’t step out of character and help for fear of blowing their cover. God forbid they should try and save someone’s life; it’s more important they gather evidence for a drug bust. It’s comforting to know that if I have a gang of thugs punching and kicking me while my wife and toddler are watching, at least, 30 pounds of hemp won’t get into the wrong hands.

As of this writing, everything is in the hands of the grand jury, with four of the bikers racking up serious charges of gang assault, rioting and criminal mischief. Good. Although I’m a little thrown by that word: mischief. It’s too cute. “Ooh, the criminal’s making mischief – he put silly string all over that yield sign, how mischievous.” It makes them sounds like scamps. “Ooh, Allen Edwards is pulling a little Asian guy out of his car and punching him. How impish!”

Seriously, this kind of hooliganism cannot be tolerated, and I hope all the bikers are punished for turning a highway into their own personal skee-ball alley. What’s funny is to read people’s online comments to stories about the incident, most of them against the bikers – good; however most of them by right-wing libertarian types using the incident as a reason to defeat gun control. They’re all arnchair cowboys, going, “Well, if it were me in that van with my wife and brat, I’d pull my .38 out of my holster and start wasting these vermin one by one. They’d all die slowly, gasping “I’m sorry!” with their last breaths.

Yeah. Let’s examine the flaws of that non-Talmudic logic, shall we? First of all, guns are legal; Mr. Lien just didn’t have one. But let’s say he did. So he opens fire on 30 bicyclists who may be armed themselves. Now you’ve got a shootout instead of a beatdown. Do you think Mr. Lien’s wife and brat, not to mention nearby drivers and pedestrians, would have fared better with bullets flying everywhere?

This Harley Hellride is a terrible story, but to use it as some kind of object lesson in gun ownership is like saying if John F. Kennedy were packing heat, he could have taken down Oswald and all his CIA helpers. It’s fun to fantasize about empowerment; we all want to be Clint Eastwood riding through Lahood or the Israeli Defense Force raiding Entebbe. But the truth is it’s usually better to stay quiet, mind your business, and hope that the asshole on the moped flipping you the finger (because you didn’t see him in your blind spot) isn’t a cop on his day off looking to take out his homicidal frustrations on your kidneys. Even John Wayne would pish himself when faced with that.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #78 (10/6/2013): Shutdown

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #78 (10/6/2013): Shutdown

aired Oct. 6, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/XV1nvYhfSLw

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of October 6th, 2013.

Idiocy and nonsense! Selfishness and stupidity! Pride and prejudice! Welcome to the United States Federal government, Fall 2013. As I write this, the Fed is in its fourth day of shutdown. Why? Because Republicans won’t approve a budget unless the President kills his healthcare plan. And Obama won’t even talk to the G.O.P. unless they kiss his boots and keep his baby. It’s an impasse created by two sides of impass-holes.

Now, I’m not saying both sides are equally at fault. That’s an easy trap and one that the media loves to fall into – especially when they’re discussing, say, the Palestinians. Arabs bomb and kill and bargain in bad faith; Israel protects land she rightfully won in the war. And yet, because the strife is ongoing and expensive, the world says, “ehhh, a plague on both their houses” and “Oh, the Jews are the oppressors.” That is reductive and retarded. And while there’s reason to blame everybody for our current federal fakaktehness, the Republicans and their tea-party poopers are absolutely the instigators of this fiasco.

I don’t care what you think of Obamacare. I mean, me? I’m running to the doctor every two weeks for a high colonic, so I need affordable health coverage or else my prostate is gonna start looking like one of those frosting bags on “Cake Boss.” But even if I wasn’t crazy about the Affordable Care Act, it’s the law, it passed, Obama beat Romney with the plan already on his platform – deal with it. If it’s not going perfectly, make small adjustments while it’s already in progress, as we do with voting, or cunnilingus.

I have never seen such sore losers as Republicans. They lose the election in 2008; they all vow to spend the next four years making sure nothing the Democrats put forward gets passed. And if something should somehow, by accident, get through, they’ll just repeal it when their guy wins in 2012. Except he didn’t. America looked at Mitt Romney like a used-Rolls Royce salesman – and said, “No thank you. We’ll stick with the guy who’s done next to nothing, but the country’s turning around anyway. We’ll stay the course.”

This left the G.O.P. in shellshock. After four years of mocking and blocking, retching and kvetching, moaning the blues all night on Fox News – where did they wind up? Hemorrhaging on election night. But, of course, there’s nothing more dangerous than a wounded animal. Well, apart from George Zimmerman with a gun permit. The Republicans are lashing back, hurting the Democrats any way they can, even if it means bringing the government to a virtual halt and jeopardizing the recovery that their last president made necessary in the first place.

The G.O.P.’s idea of a compromise is saying, “Look, we’ll pass your budget; just delay Obamacare for a year.” Sounds reasonable – even though we know that would be a year of legal wrangling, political blackmail and further ways to dismantle the program. What we must not forget is that a “one year” delay is a smokescreen. Republicans have been delaying healthcare reform for two goddamn decades. Back when Bill Clinton was in the White House, his darling and incredibly tolerant wife, Hilary, made it her number-one priority to reform the out-of-control insurance business. She could’ve done it, too, had the Republicans not despised her and Bill so much, they brought his presidency to a standstill. Then George W. Bush was in the White House for eight years. Eight long, long, long, long years. In that time, Republicans had every opportunity to make their own health plan, to devise their own strategy to help a system in crisis. What did they do? If I had a sound effect of crickets chirping, you’d be hearing it right now.

Since then, Barack Obama has been in office for five years, which is more than a thousand days for Republicans and Democrats to have worked in tandem to create, maybe not Obamacare, but OBoehner-Care, or Clintingrich-Care. But no, all the G.O.P. did was plot and scheme. And now, when they don’t get their way, they sit in a corner, they pout, and they hide daddy’s wallet in revenge.

It’s happening elsewhere, too. In beautiful Colorado, where the G.O.P. hates gun laws, legalized pot and renewable energy, right-wingers want to secede and make their own state. I think they’re gonna call it “Spoiled Bratville,” or something. Funny, I didn’t hear them squeal about socialism when the rains came, and they had to go hat-in-hand to Joe Biden for flood relief.

Republicans whine that Obamacare means lack of choice; a curtailment of freedom by making everyone get insurance whether they want it or not. But folks, if you have a car, you gotta get car insurance and wear a seatbelt. If you have a baby, you gotta give her shots. If you kiss Miley Cyrus, you gotta buy Abreva. Obligating people to do something does not automatically cause the collapse of capitalism. I mean, we’ve all gotta eat, unless you wanna starve to death. Eating is not a choice, it’s a mandate, but there’s still room for choice. I might have roast chicken, you could have salmon, or pay extra for prime rib. Okay, now I’m hungry. But still angry.

Republicans say that most people hate Obamacare and don’t want it to go forward. That is not true. Most people are scared of Obamacare and don’t know what the hell to expect. But we also know that insurance is insanely expensive, and that millions of people without it are playing Russian roulette by not going to the doctor, or draining our taxes if they’re at a free clinic with the sniffles every week. Or, if they’re Republicans, with accidental bullet wounds.

But enough elephant bashing. After all, they embarrass themselves more than I ever could. Let us also not ignore the arrogance of Barack Obama and the donkeys. For weeks, the sequester is building to chaos, yet he can’t pick up a phone? He can’t get in a room with Boehner, et. al., and say, “okay, we’ll take out the medical-device thing, but you’ve gotta leave in abortions.” He can’t even say, “You know what? We will not delay Obamacare for a year, but three months? To work the kinks out? Sure, It’s not gonna kill anyone. Well, maybe some fourth-stage cancer patients, but other than that…” For a community organizer, Obama couldn’t organize paint cans in a Home Depot. And the Democrats are so cocky about winning the last election and so sure they have the Republicans cornered, they’re not even faking being interested in compromise.

These aren’t difficult times for America; these are ridiculous times for America. Maybe we need a third party again, only this time without Ralph Nader, or Ross Perot, or Roseanne Arnold, or Lyndon Larouche, or – you know what? Two’s more than enough.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28910

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #77 (9/29/2013): Syria

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #77 (9/29/2013): Syria

Aired Sept. 28, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/gNnmz3d-hMMs

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of September 29th, 2013.

Let us spin the wheel of the Arab world to find out which country is in chaos today. (spin sound) Oh boy, will it be Egypt, Lebanon? Iran? Maybe Iraq? No, it’s Syria! They’d been quiet for so many years, you could almost forget it was a Muslim country. But no, as the song goes, there’s always something there to remind me. In this case, a poison-gas attack that happened a month ago while the government was trying to put down a revolution.

President Bashar al-Assad denied using chemical weapons, he denied having chemical weapons, he denied knowing what chemical weapons even were – until the U.S. threatened air strikes, and suddenly he’s all, “Ohh!, you said CHEMICAL weapons, I thought you said chemical WEAPONS. Yeah, we have a few of those, lemme load up the U.N. truck.”

Now, when news leaked of the gas attack – and when you have a gas-attack leak, you better change your underpants – the first reaction was war. President Obama – not the right-wing Republicans, but the so-called soft-on-terrorism schvartze Democrat in the White House – he was the one saying, “load up the planes; let’s send a message.”

And then the debate began: If Assad is using chemical weapons, that’s bad. But he’s not using them on us. So that’s good. We’ve got our own problems. But if Assad has the weapons he denied having, and he killed the 1400 people he blamed the rebels for killing, then he could someday use the gas on us, which is bad. So we can start bombing him now, which is good. But then, to make sure he doesn’t rebuild, we have to put soldiers on the ground, which is bad. And, let’s face it, every time we get involved in another country’s military politics, the results are a Jerry Lewis movie played in slow motion. In the end, Jerry survives and even gets to smooch Connie Stevens, but not before destroying the hotel and getting stung by 370 bees.

As “can’t win” situations go, this one’s a doozy. If America fails to act after Obama’s tough words, we’re perceived as all talk and no action – like the first half hour of lesbian porn. But if we go in with strategic missiles, we put our soldiers in danger, we open ourselves up to reprisals, and we get half of Europe going wah wah wah, you didn’t ask us first. Pass the diapers before we wet ourselves.”

And then there’s precedent. By that I mean the precedent of the predecessor President. He went to Congress with bogus proof that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Congress listened – because back then, the idea of checks and balances was almost actually functional – they believed Dubya Bush, and boom, there we were in Baghdad for ten long years. Who can blame the House and Senate for making sure Barack isn’t full of the same bologna?

Lucky for us, Russia – of all places – Russia steps up and says, let’s give Assad a chance to turn the weapons over peacefully. He’s been a naughty boy, but even he knows getting your country blown up by Uncle Sam is even worse than getting blitzed by rebels. The hard part is figuring out whether Assad is telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help him Allah? Is he surrendering 99.9 percent of his chemicals? 89 percent? 39? I mean, let’s say the owner of a Dunkin Donuts franchise wins Lotto. Yes, he sells the store lock, stock and bagel, but he also keeps a few crullers in reserve, just in case.

Folks, in my Rabbinical Reflections, I have made no secret of my fear and my distrust of the Arab nations. They have caused great harm to my people – Americans – and, of course, to Israel. Any opportunity to stop the AlQaedification of the world is an almost irresistible temptation. And if you tell me that the Syrian government killed 1400 Syrians, well, I am so far beyond giving a rat’s ass that many a rat will go assless for decades to come. Still, the method by which Assad eliminated his own people cannot be ignored – especially by Jews, who know that gas is a pretty wretched way to die. That, and listening to the Jonas Brothers.

But I hope we learned from 9/11 that fights are like noses; you have to pick them carefully. So let’s give Assad a chance to prove that he doesn’t want to be the next Hosni Mubarak, let alone Saddam Hussein. If he chokes, well, at least he knows what his victims felt like.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #76 (9/8/2013): Fast Food on Strike

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #76 (9/8/2013): Fast Food on Strike

Aired Sept. 7, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/kI3UH0aafJI

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of September 8th, 2013.

“Do you want fries with that? No problem, give me 15 dollars.”

That is the call of the disenfranchised franchise worker. The people employed at Burger King, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Arby’s, Shloimy’s, Moishy’s – all the fast-food restaurants. They are weary of working for $7.40 per hour, which, if you can believe it, is 15 cents above the Federal minimum wage. In other words, someone laboring at a fast-food joint, full time, all week long, makes $15,000 a year, before taxes, no benefits, no 401K, but presumably all the unserved McNuggets they can eat. And so, around the country, the flippers and the grillers and the moppers and the servers are now strikers.

Who works harder than chain-food employees? They sweep the floors, clean the fryers, shpritz the special sauce, and deal with irate customers who throw tantrums when you forget the pickles. Room for advancement, to move up the grease-mottled ladder of success? Sure, for an extra dollar an hour, you get to manage all the other hostile, hopeless kids stuck in the same nowhere job. Not only do you have the honor of hearing customers bitch about everything, your fellow employees hate you for being management. All this for a salary that buys you two caramel macchiatos at Starbucks, where at least they give their workers health benefits.

I don’t care if the boss flumps a girl in a chair, hands her a magazine and says, “Just take a message if the phone rings.” Even that is taking an hour of time out of her life and deserves more than seven measly bucks an hour. Or eight. Or – oh my goodness – New York State voted to bring it up to nine – by the end of 2015! Thank you politicians! Should we bend over and bite the pillow or just sink to our knees in supplication?

As someone who lives and works on Long Island, where property taxes on a small house are 10 grand a year, the very idea that humans are still paid less than $10 an hour to do ANYTHING absolutely staggers me. That some politicians and businessmen fight against increases in the basic minimum wage staggers me double! “Oh,” they say, “if I raise the minimum wage, I won’t be able to hire as many people.” You know who faced that same problem? Pharoah! And his solution worked for a few decades until his employees rose up and marched out. And they knew about fast food, too. They hadda leave so quick, they ditched the sesame-seed buns and made matzoh instead. If you can’t afford to pay people something that keeps them in shoes, you should probably give them the shop and go work in Burger King, cause at least it’s steady.

Some folks defend low wages because these are quote-unquote “entry-level” jobs. It’s just high school students earning mall money or old people who are bored sitting at home, so they go to KFC where the action is. Leaving aside the fact that since the recession, thousands of workers have swallowed their pride to take any job, including stuffing a substance that looks vaguely like meat into Taco Bell tortillas. Leaving aside that some people take a minimum-wage second job only because they can’t pay their bills from their insufficient first job. Let’s even say for argument’s sake that your typical fast-food drudge is 15 years old, living rent-free with his parents, and not financially responsible for anything but his deodorant and iTunes downloads. Suppose this fine young man wants to take his girlfriend to the movies on a Saturday night. That’s gas in the car, parking, two movie tickets, two giant sodas, one big popcorn (and a penknife to make a schmeckel-sized hole in the bottom of it), a condom and/or a packet of handiwipes. He is looking at sixty bucks just to feel a girl’s boobs, and she may not even have boobs yet.

It is my considered opinion that any business owner netting upwards of, say, $60,000 a year who doesn’t believe that his workers are worth more than minimum wage should be shot in the face. Just as a wakeup call.

Most fast-food restaurants are publicly traded companies, so we know how much the CEO takes home, the VPs, the Vice-VPs, the shareholders, and the fry cooks and janitors. In 2010, out of $24 billion in revenue, McDonald’s netted $4.9 billion in profit. Because of this, the CEO took home almost $9 million in salary. Sorry for throwing all these numbers at you, but catch this one: that salary is almost 600 times more than that of a full-time slave at minimum wage.

Now that the economy has improved from quicksand to mud, the rank-and-file worker wakes up to remember he has needs, he has dignity, he has rights. He knows he has to work for a living, but that’s the key word: a living. Living means paying the rent, feeding the kids, getting your teeth cleaned and your blood pressure checked, going to sleep without worrying how you’ll pay for school supplies, or heat, and maybe even taking a week and staying at a Howard Johnson’s in Pensacola, Florida. If that means Horace Vanderbastard the III can’t customize his mistress’ yacht, so be it.

Good luck, fast food fighters. March on Mickey D’s. Boycott Burger King. Choke the Kentucky Fried Chicken. No, wait, that came out wrong, but you know what I mean. This isn’t about socialism. It’s not about destroying the free-market economy; that’s what cable companies are for. No, this is about fairness, about reasonable compromise, about people feeling pride in what they do and value in what they get. Yes, I’ll certainly take fries with that.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from the woefully underpaid Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #75 (9/1/2013): Egypt Again

click above to listen (audio file)

RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #75 (9/1/2013): Egypt Again

Aired August 31, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/6jZy0FXcg1E

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of September 1st, 2013.

Oy, Egypt, Egypt, Egypt. Doesn’t it figure that the one country in the Arab world that seemed stable, the one place that wasn’t a scary mess of Islamic Jihad and anti-West anti-Semitism, Egypt, would collapse into chaos?

Forty years ago, Anwar Sadat made a brilliantly savvy political move – albeit a lousy personal one since it got him shot – but for the good of Egypt, he signed a peace treaty with Israel. And against all odds, it lasted! It was real. There was peace, there was economic and cultural exchange, there was falafel everywhere. Israel had a million things to worry about in the Middle East, but Egypt, which had been our worst military enemy, wasn’t one of them.

And Egypt took a Western approach to its politics. So Western, that they ended up copying our own runaway corruption. Hasni Mubarak, who succeeded Anwar Sadat – about the only thing he succeeded in – ran the country for 30 years until being deposed by the military. And then, for his replacement, they hold democratic elections. Great, right?

Not so great; the winner is Mohamed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood. Which is basically Al Qaeda Lite. Young Egyptians hate this, because with radical Muslims in charge, Egypt is destined to slide into the same soul-crushing totalitarianism that made Afghanistan and Iran such glorious vacation hotspots. So what happens? There’s an uprising, the people protest and riot, and the Egyptian military pulls Morsi out of office and takes over.

This does not sit well with the Muslim Brotherhood, so they show their brotherly love by rioting, pillaging and forcing the army to crack down and make a police state. Meanwhile, the military are busy trying to drum up some kind of revised constitution and figuring out how to hold elections before the whole country implodes. In Egypt, every day is like the night the Steelers win the Super Bowl; if you weren’t in the car when they were overturning it and setting it on fire, you’re ahead of the game.

Now, the Egypt situation is more complicated than others in the Middle East because they were getting along with America and Israel. Mubarak was no great shakes as a leader, but he held to the treaties and kept things on an even keel. I’ve been on an uneven keel, and let me tell you, I got so nauseous, I almost keeled over. Of course, in those situations, it’s keel or be keeled, but I digress.

Egypt holds free and democratic elections, and the last guy in the world America wants in there wins. So, we’re happy when the army discards him, but at the same time, what kind of democracy is it when the people elect a leader, and a year later, the army says, “Ehhhh, Do over, do over!”

I mean, imagine if in this country, we have an election, the popular vote goes to one candidate, but there are problems and miscounts and shenanigans, so the Supreme Court takes over and appoints the president based on the judges’ political leanings rather than the actual voting. Thank God, something like that could never happen here.

So both America and Israel are mired in wait-and-see limbo when it comes to Egypt. If we support the army, that means we rejected the election process. If we support the Morsi Muslims, well, we might as well just send over pilot-training manuals so they can get started on the next 9/11. We’re shtupped either way.

Whatever happened to the good old days when the CIA would muscle into a country, assassinate the dictator, and prop up some crooked but pro-Western puppet with billions of our tax dollars? What’s the point of being a Superpower if you can’t be superpowerful? We used to look out for number one. Now all these countries submerge us in number two.

That said, I do really wish the Egyptians well, and I hope – against all hope – that they can somehow form a coalition government. One that puts modernized moderates in charge but allows right-wingers a voice and the freedom to worship as they please – which, since it’s the exact opposite of what they allow, will cause their heads to explode. Hey, a guy can dream.

Until then, we would do best to recall that twice the Egyptians have done the impossible: they built the pyramids, and they stunned the rest of the Arab world by making nice-nice with Israel. So is it too much to ask for another miracle? Oh wait, I’m still hoping for that one about the Jets winning another Super Bowl. Quel dommage.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28928

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #74 (8/18/2013): Baby Messiah

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #74 (8/18/2013): Baby Messiah

Aired August 17, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/IJi9Xy2ZuGE

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 18th, 2013.

A judge in Newport, Tennessee – and I think just by the location, you know this is going to be good – a judge in Newport, Tennessee took it upon herself to re-name a baby. The parents were in court to change the tyke’s last name, and they couldn’t agree which to use: the father’s last name or the mother’s last name. So Child Support Magistrate Lu Ann Ballew – and I think just by that name, you know this is going to be really good – Judge Lu Ann Ballew had to make the call on this seven-month-old infant.

She gets distracted, however, by the baby’s first name; the parents have named the kid Messiah. Apparently this is a very popular choice. According to Social Security, it’s one of the fastest-rising baby names. It’s rising so fast, you could actually escape with it out of Egypt while other names had to stay flat and unleavened.

I don’t know what that means, but the point is: they named the kid Messiah, and the judge is not pleased. So Heronor took upon herself to change not the baby’s last name – well, she changed that, too, to include the names of both parents, very wise – but she also changed the infant’s first name, to Martin. Why? Because, gavel girl said, “The word Messiah is a title that has only been earned by one person, and that one person is Jesus Christ.” Unquote.

I told you, it’s Tennessee. Leaving aside religion for a moment – which is tough because I’m a Rabbi, or at least I’ve played one on TV – what business is it of this judge to be changing a name that the parents agreed upon for their zygote? If I go into traffic court to fight a ticket, is she gonna tell me I gotta fix my garage door, too?

Judge Ballew said she was doing the name switch for the benefit of the child who is too young to have any control over a name that might bring him difficulty with his peers. Really? So tell that to every kid named Irving, Bertha, Dick, Scott – which he learns very early rhymes with “snot” – Luke, which rhymes with puke, Regina, Yussel and Mulva. I wonder, if this judge had been around 50 years ago, would the biggest pop superstar in the world be named Millicent instead of Madonna?

This judge is letting Christianity affect her sanity. What about all the millions of Hispanics who go around naming their kids “Jesus”? That’s a pretty damn big burden to live up to, and I don’t even believe in the guy. Why is Madonna acceptable, why is Jesus kosher – well, he probably was – why is Moshe (Moses) perfectly common for a name, and God knows there isn’t a Muslim driving a taxi who isn’t named Mohammed, but Messiah is off limits?

I can understand why some baby names are seen as borderline child abuse. A couple in New Zealand were forbidden from naming their child, Talulah Does the Hula from Hawaii. A Chinese mom and dad tried to name their kid the @ symbol. And let’s not forget that New Jersey couple who named their offspring Adolf Hitler and Aryan Nation before – big shock – losing custody.

But Messiah? Who could object to that? The goyim think he’s already come; the Jews are worried he’ll never come – either way, it’s a hopeful, happy name. If I and my dear wife Miriam Libby decide to have another baby – to add to our 21 and a half mostly beautiful children we have now – I’d be proud to name him Moshiach. First of all, we need another M because my great uncle Melchy just died, but also because naming your child something that means leader or savior seems a lot more promising than calling them Apple, or Laquisha, or Moon Unit, or the Artist Formerly known as Blanket.

The mother of Martin – fka Messiah – is appealing the name change, and I hope she wins. The ACLU is in her corner because the courts have no more right to tell women what to name their babies than Southern politicians have to force women to deliver babies. Uncle Sam, stay out of the bedroom, stay out of the nursery and stay out of the kitchen, too, unless you can cook a brisket, in which case: come by Friday night, we’re having people, and go easy on the paprika because my wife’s allergic.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, aka Flora does the Hora in Bora Bora, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28932

Dave’s Gone By Skit (8/3/2013): WEINER FOR MAYOR

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Anthony Weiner’s weiner runs for mayor against the very man who made him.

Segment originally aired July 20, 2003, as part of the “Dave’s Gone By” radio program hosted by Dave Lefkowitz.

Please Note: Segments extracted from “Dave’s Gone By” may have music and other elements removed for timing and media re-posting considerations. For the full show with all elements, please visit the audio of the complete original broadcast. Complete Original Broadcast: http://www.totaltheater.com/?q=node/5471

More information on Dave’s Gone By: http://www.davesgoneby.com

Dave’s Gone By Skit: RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #73 (7/28/2013): Abortion in Texas

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RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #73 (7/28/2013): Abortion in Texas

Aired July 27, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/ZxR-DF7zXb0

Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of July 28th, 2013.

Remember the Alamo? It was the last time someone put Texas in its place, and perhaps another whuppin’ is long overdue. Texas wants to be in the forefront of stopping legal abortions in this country. This is ironic because Texas is the state of the union with the most people in it who should have been aborted.

Last week, governor Rick Perry signed a bill that would prohibit abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy. That’s four fewer week than Roe v. Wade, which is federally protected by Supreme Court. So basically, Texas is saying: you gotta squash the little blob before it sprouts fingers.

On the surface, rolling back abortion’s legality to five months rather than six isn’t that horrible. Premature babies have been born at 22 weeks and lived. They went on to work at the DMV, but still . . . If a fetus can be extracted, incubated, and turned into a viable human being, pro-life activists have a point in saying that abortion at that stage is murdering a person. Granted, these same conservatives have no problem putting grown-ups in the electric chair and letting the poor starve to death, but teeny-weeny babies, ooh, gotta save every last one.

That’s what gets me about so-called pro-life activists. They’re all for rescuing little souls, but once they’re born, it’s everybody fend for themselves. If the mother goes on welfare, she’s a lazy leech. If the child grows up abused and unloved, there’s no money for free counseling and social services. If the kid turns criminal because that’s the only decent employment option available to him, lock him in prison for thirty years and let him get beaten, raped and demolished.

Hey, but at least he didn’t die in the womb, `cause Jesus would have a problem with that.

The new Texas law also says abortions can no longer be performed in clinics but have to be done in centers equipped for surgery. That sounds reasonable – mothers should have safe and sterile hospitals to go to in case the kid is born with two heads. But remember, if you take away the clinics, and the doctors who’ll do the procedure for $300 and some homemade pastries, you’re sending poor people without health insurance to places they can’t afford. Which really means you’re sending them to a cousin in a basement with a coat hanger and pillow.

The middle-aged white men of the great state of Texas even want to control birth control. Thanks to their new law, Texas women can no longer take RU-486 at home but have to be under doctors’ supervision. Which means, again, that if you have the money for continuous doctor visits, you’re granted more rights under the law than the underclass who don’t.

And I love how the pro-lifers always say that every soul is precious, and that the fetus you abort could be the next president. That embryo you just sucked out was the girl who’d grow up to cure cancer. You never hear the right-to-lifers say, “That unborn soul could’ve been the next Hitler.” They never think, “That future human floating around in your belly? Next marathon bomber. Next Osama bin Laden. Next Donald Trump.”

I, Rabbi Sol Solomon, go on record as saying that I am pro-choice. Not only that, I am pro-abortion. Early term, late term, rape, incest, frat-party mistake. If the child isn’t wanted and cannot be properly raised, don’t bring it into this overpopulated planet. I’m so pro-abortion, I think it should be retroactive. If I’m on an airplane and there’s a two-year-old screaming in the seat behind me, get the knife and pop the head. At that age, you can still de-vein them like a shrimp.

And, of course, the abortion battle still comes down to that age-old problem of religious zealots, mostly male, who want to control women. Not that I blame them; when was the last time a Jewish man controlled the women in his life? But seriously, if I get a tumor in my abdomen, God forbid, I go to the doctor, and he says, “It’s not cancer, but it’s like cancer. I recommend taking it out, but it’s up to you.” Nobody tells me what I have to do with my body. If I wanna leave the tumor in and watch it grow like those bulges on Dr. Phil’s head, that’s my business. If I wanna remove it and keep it in a jar near the gefilte fish – my choice. Don’t you dare tell me that something growing inside my own body is regulated by the church or punishable by law. And don’t tell a woman that the growth inside her is your business.

If abortion laws in this country become more restrictive for women, I say we should make dentistry illegal for men. If a guy has a rotten tooth, he has to keep it in his mouth for nine months – or, until it falls out of its own accord. If he doesn’t like it, he can go in a back room with a string and a doorknob. Come to think of it, that’s the way I used to do circumcisions.

Anyhoo, let’s keep a very sharp eye on Texas because the state that gave us George W. Bush, the assassination of Kennedy, and Astroturf has no business regulating morality or maternity.

This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.

–> https://davesgoneby.net/?p=28938