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Here is the 815th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired live on Facebook, Saturday morning, Sept. 11, 2021. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Guests: musician Gary Lucas, theater writers Iris Dorbian, Leslie (Hoban) Blake and David Sheward
Featuring: Dave interviews musician Gary Lucas, Today/Yesterday Trivia Quiz (Sept. 11 w/ Iris Dorbian, Leslie Hoban Blake, David Sheward; Colorado Limerick of the Damned (Hygiene), Dave Goes Off on Sept. 11th.
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN w/ Joyce 00:09:00 DAVE GOES OFF (That Day) 01:00:00 TODAY/YESTERDAY – Trivia Quiz (w/ Iris Dorbian, Leslie (Hoban) Blake, David Sheward) 02:30:00 GUEST: Gary Lucas 03:15:00 Friends of the Daverhood 03:26:00 DAVE GOES AWAY (NYC) 03:48:00 COLORADO LIMERICK OF THE DAMNED (Hygiene, CO) 03:52:00 DAVE GOES OUT
Sept. 11, 2021 playlist: “On An Overgrown Path” 15. Allegro” (03:01:00; Gary Lucas).
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of November 23, 2014.
And here I was, all set to do a gentle sermon about Thanksgiving. How grateful we should all be for friends and co-workers and family — well, maybe not family — but for all the loving, helpful people in our lives. How we must be thankful to HaShem if we still have good health, functioning limbs, working brain cells, food on the table, a roof overhead — preferably one with a fiddler on it — a decent job, a couple of hobbies, a warm winter coat and a not-bad summer vacation.
Saying grace after every meal has never been my thing. What, I should sit there thanking God for his bounties, and by the time I’m finished, the food gets cold? No wonder goyim are so skinny; by the time they finish praying, their entrees are back in the microwave. Nevertheless, a couple of times a year, it’s good to remember that everything comes to us by the courtesy of God above and the hard work of our peers and forebears.
How lovely to offer a Rabbinical Reflection on such a spiritual and fraternal topic. However, the news this week forbids me from doing such a gentle, joyful sermon. I am, once again, detoured from being my usual snuggly marshmallow of delight into sounding like a vindictive, vituperative expounder of hate and revenge. Last Tuesday, two Palestinians armed with guns and meat cleavers burst into a Jerusalem synagogue and began firing and chopping. They murdered five people, including a policeman, three American Rabbis and an Orthodox Jewish Brit. For their troubles, the assassins, Ghassan Abu Jamal and his cousin, Oday Abu Jamal, were sent to martyrdom and their 72 ugly-ass virgins in the sky.
As an extra-punitive measure, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu then ordered that the killers’ houses be demolished. Honestly, I don’t know how upsetting that is to a dead terrorist. What’s he gonna say? “Aww, I was gonna make hummus tonight. No wait, I’m being shoveled into an unmarked grave. Gee, I’m gonna miss the sun room.”
Still, hurrah for any action by the Israeli government that warns Arabs we will not stand for such horrors as violence, murder and television programs featuring Jane Velez Mitchell. Let there be no doubt: bloodthirsty Palestinians may not storm into a temple in Yerushalayim and start executing people. Not unless it’s the high holy days and they bought a ticket.
Seriously, do you know why these terrorists embarked upon their rampage? Was it eye-for-an-eye revenge? Were they mad about Jews who went on a killing spree in the local Falafel Mart? No, because that didn’t happen. The Palestinians were irate because Jews have been visiting a holy site on the Temple Mount that the Arabs think should be off-limits to Hebrews. Doesn’t matter that Arabs in East Jerusalem can go anywhere they damn well please; Jews are forbidden from going where the Arabs don’t want them. Apparently, the penalty for trespassing in the Arab world is being hacked to death. Which makes sense, since the penalty for stealing is cutting off a hand, and the penalty for adultery is, well, let’s just call it extreme circumcision and leave it at that.
Following the synagogue attack, lame-duck President Obama is calling for peace and restraint on both sides, downplaying the savagery of the event and, as usual, doing nothing. Hey Barry! We had three Americans murdered by agents of a foreign regime. Isn’t that like, war, or something? I know the dead Rabbis weren’t black, but you could at least raise an eyebrow.
In the weeks ahead, you can bet your burqa Israel will do a lot more than snivel and call for moderation. There’ll be raids, roundups, demolitions and, alas, probably some vigilantism, too. I won’t deny that there’s a back-and-forth, you-did-this-so-I-do-that element to Israeli/Arab conflagrations. Remember last time? They killed those hitchhikers, so some misguided, hyped-up Israelis murdered some soccer-playing kids. Much as I hate the radical Arabs, killing innocent people is never an answer to anything. In fact, that’s what got us here. If the Palestinians would stop being terrorists, we’d stop being enemies. And if we stop being enemies, they can visit our synagogues, and we can be tourists at their shrines. And we’ll talk, and we’ll laugh, and we’ll bitch about the government, and we’ll share music and art and sports and do business deals, and food! We’ll sit down together with pastrami and goat and borscht and eggplant and kugel and yogurt, and we’ll watch TV, and we’ll fall asleep, and you know what we’ll call it? Thanksgiving.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #104 (8/3/2014): Great Guns in Gaza
aired Aug. 2, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/aNHPRoAQWFc
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of August 3rd, 2014.
If you play with fire, you’re gonna get burned. If you keep throwing gasoline on that fire, you’re gonna get burned blacker than the New York Knicks in a lunar eclipse. Or, put another way, if you beat up your wife ten times, each time she will forgive you, she’ll wear a band-aid and concealer, and she’ll live in fear until the next flare up. But on the eleventh time, if you haven’t killed her yet, she’s gonna call a friend of a friend named Nunzio, and, for a fee, he will relocate you – to the middle of the East River.
It’s the law of “enough is enough.” If you are the nation of Israel, and surrounding your borders are a people who have sworn to drive you into the sea . . . These people fire rockets, indiscriminately and daily, into your heimat. If you’re Israel, you tolerate a dozen rockets, a hundred rockets, a thousand fakakteh rockets that usually land in the middle of nowhere, thank God. But rocket number 1,001? It’s time to pull your Incredible Hulk costume out of the closet and kick some ass.
Three weeks ago, as I’m sure you recall, three innocent Jewish teenagers were slaughtered when they hitchhiked a little too far into Gaza. This was not just another act of violence – you know, like Saturday night in Chicago – this was a flashpoint. It was the moment the Israeli government could say, “You know what? We give the Palestinians the Gaza Strip in exchange for peace, and they give us our teenagers back in pieces. Enough with their rockets, enough with the terrorism, enough with the bullshit about Hamas being a legitimate political organization; it’s time to open up a can of whoop-tuchas on this enemy that means us only harm and destruction. Bring it.”
In my previous Rabbinical Reflection, which I’m sure you’ve nearly memorized and put on flash cards for easy reference, I urged the IDF to take action in Gaza. To avenge the death of those boys and give the camel jockeys payback for years of tears, fears and jeering Emirs. I am thrilled, therefore, that Benjamin Netanyahu gathered up his army into a white-and-blue fist, and they’ve been pounding the Gaza goons ever since.
Dead civilians? Unfortunate casualties? For sure, and what a shame. It’s called collateral damage, and every war has `em. And the Arab teenager that Israeli extremists abducted and killed in retaliation? No one’s proud of that. I’ll even go as far as saying that Israel hasn’t gone out of its way every single time to make sure they’re only blowing up militants and not bystanders two feet away from militants. But when did the Arabs ever make a distinction between soldiers and regular folk? Bombs on buses? Shrapnel in cafes? Mass murders of Olympic athletes and commercial airplanes slamming into the tallest buildings in New York? It’s a good thing I’m not an army General, because I’d napalm every speck of Gaza with a tent on it.
And where does American stand in all this? It’s honestly hard to tell. Barack Obama and John Kerry are talking the left-wing, liberal talk of “stop the fighting now, it’s a humanitarian crises, Israel and Hamas need to cease fire immediately and sit down at the table because there’s wrongs on both sides” – all the typical crybaby blah-blah that negates the basic fact that Israel tends to be in the right 90 percent of the time.
However, words and actions are entirely different things, especially in diplomacy. And for all the handwringing blather as a sop to the “Democracy Now” crowd, the Obama administration has, until this point, watched from the sidelines and let Israel do what it has to do. Thank you, Mr. President. If our Secretary of State wants to appease the Muslims by making noises about how Israel is being too harsh and causing too much suffering to the poor, innocent Palestinians, no problem. Just give Yisroel time to collapse the tunnels, kill the killers and drag Hamas, begging and desperate, to the outhouse of surrender. By eliminating terrorists and religious fanatics, Israel is doing America favor after favor, and I honestly believe Obama and company realize that – no matter how many times Republican bloggers call him “Hussein” and make him sound like the love child of Josef Stalin and Ayatollah Khomeini.
It’s the nature of Israel that whenever we do strike back against those who oppress us, we have to apologize for killing more of them than they of us. When our missiles hit their targets, when 100 Palestinians die for every Israeli soldier, that’s unseemly somehow. It should be more balanced. We should die more just to ratchet up the sympathy vote. Sorry, Charlie. The goal is to weaken Hamas and make Israel safe from attack. If that means bombing Gaza back to the stone age, so be it. Besides, Arab children have proven quite skillful at throwing stones, so it’s right up their alley. Just don’t expect to throw stones at Jews anymore, because we will fire them right back at a hundred times the speed.
Go Israel! Go Bibi! And remember what Abba Eban said, “It is better to be disliked than pitied.” I’m both, but I’m beyond giving a crap.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of July 6th, 2014.
This is for all the Israel bashers, Palestinian apologists, Muslim excuse makers, and other misinformed idiots of the world: Israel is mad as hell, and they’re not gonna take it anymore. Nor should they. You wanna talk peace? You wanna talk statehood? You wanna talk dismantling settlements? Go ahead. Press your lips to your asshole, and talk all you want.
Meanwhile, Israel is going to open a can of whoop-ass on Hamas, and it’s lonnnnnnng overdue. What’s the latest abomination? Three teenagers, 19, 16 and 16, were hitchhiking in Israel. They were kidnapped, they were brought to the West Bank – which, I remind everyone – is also a part of Israel. At some point over the last two weeks, they were murdered there, in cold blood, and the bodies were found on Monday in a shallow grave. These young people were not spies, they were not terrorists, they were not rabble rousers, and judging by their outcome, they were not great judges of character, either.
Hamas was founded in 1987 as an offshoot of the so-called Islamic Brotherhood. Their goal was to push Israel into the sea. Not just take over the West Bank and Gaza, but the whole country, that Palestinians could then turn back into a pre-historic sandpile. For awhile, Hamas made believe it was interested in negotiating. Maybe there could be a two-state solution. Maybe Israel could push back to its pre-1967 borders, and tolerate the occasional scud missile and exploding restaurant, just for old times’ sake. But just this year, Abu Marzouk, the deputy chairman of Hamas told an Arab newspaper, quote, “Hamas will not recognize Israel. This is a red line that cannot be crossed,” unquote. That’s okay, Abu baby, Israel recognizes you, and your cohorts. And when they see you, they’ll put a bullet in your head.
How many times, how many years have I spent saying that radical Islam is a scourge, that these Arab countries cannot be trusted, and that Israel has a right to defend itself by any and all means possible – including tickle torture and episodes of “Teen Mom.” If the Palestinians want to live somewhere, let them knock on the doors of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait – we’ll see how welcoming their Arab neighbors are to these tired, huddled masses, yearning to move out of democracy and into Sharia law.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Hamas will pay for its killing. These boys, he said, “were kidnapped and murdered in cold blood by animals” – that’s his word, not mine. Well… and mine – animals! And may the punishment not only fit the crime but outscale the crime by 3000 to 1; a thousand times the pain for each of the three innocents murdered by people who use Mohammed as a weapon and Allah as an excuse. Meanwhile, Israel needs to build more settlements in the territories – not take them down, build more. Because we won that land, rightfully and righteously, in wars brought upon us by the children of Hagar. And I don’t mean Hagar the Horrible; he’s a Viking and really not that horrible. His wife’s a little unpleasant, but even she and he together are not comparable to the lawless, soulless, terrorist slime that squats on 98 percent of the Middle East.
But I will say this for the other two percent. It’s been reported that some Palestinians, and even the Palestinian Authority, helped out during the two weeks of searching for these missing boys. There was actual cooperation during the rather beautifully named “Operation Brother’s Keeper.” Certainly, gratitude and good wishes go to everyone, whatever their background, who tried to lend a hand. But, of course, Arabs being Arabs, after a few days of house-to-house searches and bad traffic and inconvenience, the rank and file turned to rebellion and violence and wishing the Israelis dead.
Well, back atcha, towelheads. Let the rockets fly, let the round-ups begin, let the falafel balls fall where they may. In the Book of Deuteronomy, God says, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” Get ready, Hamas, `cause payback’s a bitch.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #100 (5/18/2014): Boko Haram
aired May 17, 2014 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vy1Wthfvjvo&feature=youtu.be
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of May 18th, 2014.
Well, the Muslims are at it again. And this time they’re not in Syria, or Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, or any of those other countries where oil wells turned the third world into the first world without giving a second thought to the first amendment. No, today’s Mohammedian mess comes from Nigeria, of all places.
The Islamic militant organization Boko Haram, which I believe is the African word for “Procol Harum,” has spent its quality time causing terrorism and assassinations to the tune of 10,000 dead in the region over the last decade. Nobody every heard of them until now because, well, let’s face it, a bunch of African schvartzes? We have our own problems. But now they’ve gone too far: they’ve kidnapped a bunch of nubile young girls. It’s kind of like when the New York Post has a headline that someone stabbed a co-ed. You could rape a dozen fat, immigrant, Eskimo women, and you won’t even get a line in the Weird but True column. But you knife a cute co-ed, the Post has cover coverage for a week.
So now Boko Haram, this cancerous collective of terror cells – which is what cancer is, come to think of it – Boko Haram has leapt into New York Post nirvana by attacking an all-girls school and kidnapping more than 200 female students. And just to show that it isn’t personal, just business, they’ve threatened to sell the girls into slavery. I know – it’s horrible, it’s inhumane, and let me tell you, with Merry Maids charging a hundred bucks a week, I’m tempted.
But seriously, what a shock that the religion of peace would turn out to be the religion of 200 pieces of Nigerian ass. Governments around the world are working to coax the kidnappers into behaving decently, which is kind of like asking a gorilla to stop throwing banana crap. In response, Boko Haram said, “Sure, we’ll release the young ladies – in a trade for all of our terrorists that you have locked up.” Sound familiar? Ask Israel how many murderers it had to exchange just bring a few soldiers home.
Wisely, the Nigerian government has rejected the “teens-for-terrorists” swap meet, though they are open to broad negotiations – they just won’t negotiate for the broads. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan – and I’m not making that up, the guy sounds like he should have a second-act number in “Guys and Dolls” – Goodluck Jonathan is meeting with other world leaders to discuss ways to put the loco Bokos in their place. Hopefully, that won’t include meeting their demands, appeasing them or treating them like people.
Oh, and big thumbs up to the vigilantes who rose up against these Islamic Fundamurderers last week and started taking back their village. I’m sure they said to themselves, “Hey, the government won’t do it, and the U.N. won’t do it, so let’s grab some torches and pitchforks and look for Imams.”
Of course, I have a much better and safer way of getting revenge on the Nigerians. We send them all an email, and the email says, “Congratulations! You have won $5,000,000 which is being held for you in trust by my uncle, the King of Nebraska. In order to claim your lotto earnings, just send us a bank transfer for $8,000 along with three dozen Nigerian teenage nymphettes, and you’ll get your check in the mail faster than you can say (click language). PS: If you find Casey Kasem, we’ll throw in a toaster. Sincerely, Prince Chaim, Omaha.”
I know, it’s a cruel trick. But payback’s a bitch. So come on, Boko Haram, release the bitches.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #84 (12/8/2013): Ronnie Smith in Benghazi
aired Dec 7, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://youtu.be/T291vu3Z7CY
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of December 8th, 2013.
This-past Thursday, Ronnie Smith, a science teacher, was shot and killed while going for a jog. No, this didn’t happen in Chicago, or Detroit, or the Bronx, it happened in Benghazi, Libya, where Smith had emigrated with his family to spread the gospel and help children there get an education.
Okay, many things to consider in this senseless act of violence. First of all, Benghazi is the place rebels took when they ousted dictator Muammar Khadaffi from power. Now, Khadaffi was no sweetheart. He was an Islamic fundamentalist – which means, he was fundamentally crazy. Also, you could have run a small city for ten years on the energy he expended hating Israel. He funded Jihad and even the Black September terrorists of the Munich Olympics. Bad guy. Not someone I’d want at my pizza party – unless I could take the molten cheese and smear it over his ugly face, and watch the grease droplets melt into all those little pockmarks on his godforsaken punim. But I digress.
Out went Khadaffi and his Shariya law, in went rebel forces and a bunch of moderate Muslims supposedly carried along on the happy rainbow of the so-called Arab spring. All went swimmingly for, oh, a month or two, until Islamic militants attacked the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, killing our diplomat there. Since then, Libya has not exactly been St. Maarten’s for American visitors.
And yet this guy, Ronnie Smith, he’s on a mission. He thinks God wants him in the middle of Libya, doing good works and maybe spreading some gospel to the heathen. So he brings over his wife and kid, and he’s at the International School teaching chemistry. Does it occur to him that he’s teaching chemistry to a bunch of teenagers who will use that information to make bombs and chemical weapons? For his troubles, and his kindness, and his humanitarian beliefs, Ronnie Smith was shot down like a dog on the street. Allah works in mysterious ways.
So I feel sorry for his family – who were already back in America for the holidays when this happened. And I hope the Libyan government – a phrase which may be an oxymoron at this point – I hope they pay more than lip service to hunting down the Muslim madmen who keep doing, well, what Muslim madmen do.
But let’s be honest: what was this idiot doing in Libya? Really. Who asked him? America’s got public schools that are one step removed from penitentiaries, but this guy has a calling to go help our enemies overseas. And what’s more, the main argument that liberals and “We-are-the-World” types make that can even remotely come close to defending events like 9/11 and the Boston Marathon, is that America sticks its nose in where it doesn’t belong. We go scavenging for oil and scamming for capitalism in any country we can get our grubby red, white and blue hands on. Some of these countries – in Latin America, in North Africa – they don’t want our help. They don’t need our processed foods, our politics, our pornography – but they’re getting it.
In a statement, Smith’s widow, Anita Smith, said, quote, “Ronnie’s greatest desire was for the people of Libya to have the joy of knowing God through Christ,” unquote. Anita, darling, they don’t want your Jesus any more than they want my Jews. And it’s the one prerogative they really are entitled to; if they think the Koran’s gonna get them some virgins, who are we to force our equally crazy religions down their ululating throats?
The death of Ronnie Smith was tragic, but he was in the wrong place at the wrong time for what he fantasized were the right reasons. He knew the risks and admitted as much, but that’s cold comfort to his son, who’s getting a dead father under his Christmas tree. When the American government issues a warning that it’s not safe for white-looking western people to go jogging where they hate us, maybe Jesus, instead of telling his followers, “Go, spread my truth,” should say, “You’re in a war zone, schmuck! Get your tuchas out of there, and go teach at MIT.”
With all due respect to the late Mr. Smith, if you’re a homeless person in London, you can choose to sleep on a bench in Trafalgar Square. But if you wake up covered in pigeon poop, literally and figuratively, that’s on you.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Here is the 430th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, July 20, 2013. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Saturday Segues (radiation, Mick Jagger), Inside Broadway, Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later, Dave Goes Off (Seeing is Believing), the News Gone By, Dave’s “Trayvon” song. (Lost Recording: a chat with Dave’s wife, Joyce).
Note: Technical problems resulted in the first two hours of the original broadcast going unrecorded. As such, the interview with Dave’s wife is lost. However, Dave re-recorded the other segments – including Inside Broadway and the News Gone By – later that day to recreate the first part of the show. From the Bob Dylan segment on, the recording is from the original broadcast.
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN 00:07:00 Sponsors 00:11:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Radiation 00:48:30 INSIDE BROADWAY 01:01:30 NEWS GONE BY (including Dave’s song, “Trayvon”) 01:14:30 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (AmericanaramA) 01:49:00 DAVE GOES OFF – Seeing is Believing? 02:02:30 SATURDAY SEGUE – Mick Jagger 02:20:30 Weather, Friends & Thanks 02:27:00 DAVE GOES OUT
July 20, 2013 Playlist: “Love Radiates Around” (00:11:30; The Roches). “Power and Glory” (00:16:30) & “Sword of Damocles” (00:37:30; Lou Reed). “Passion Play (When all the Slaves are Free)” (00:21:00; Joni Mitchell). “Radiation” (00:26:00; Gavin DeGraw). “Radiation” (00:30:00; The Apples in Stereo). “Frank Sinatra” (00:33:30; CAKE). “Fade Away and Radiate” (00:41:00; Blondie). “Promo for `Still Jewish After All These Years'” (00:58:30; Avi Hoffman). “Trayvon” (01:04:30; Dave Lefkowitz). “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” (01:16:30), “Duquesne Whistle” (01:24:00), “All Along the Watchtower” (01:33:00), “Early Roman Kings” (01:35:30) & “Blind Willie McTell” (01:41:00; Bob Dylan). “Simple Twist of Fate” (01:29:30; Jeff Tweedy). “Street Fighting Man” (02:03:30), “All Sold Out” (02:06:30), “Tumbling Dice” (02:08:30), “Play with Fire” (02:12:30), “19th Nervous Breakdown” (02:14:30) & “The Last Time” (02:28:00; The Rolling Stones).
RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #64 (4/21/2013): The Brothers Tsarnaev and the “M” Word
Aired April 20, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPaOUN4N1Io
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of April 21st, 2013.
What a sad and tragic week it has been. As we all know, the guy who played Lumpy on Leave it to Beaver has died. But beyond that, welcome to the new world order of bombs to the left of us, bombs to the right of us.
Following the events of the Boston Marracre, everyone’s wringing their hands and their tallises, going “what a sick world this is,” “violence is taking over.” I’m not disagreeing that there are meshuggenah murderers in society, but ask anyone in Europe from the 60s and 70s, what it was like with the Basque Separatists and the IRA and the SLA and the NRBQ – you couldn’t walk by a mailbox for fear of the thing exploding. And, of course, Israel has lived for decades with bombs going off in restaurants and missiles flying in, special delivery, from their neighbors. I dare say, it is almost surprising we haven’t had more terrorist acts in recent times, which is a credit both to vigilant police work and the high price of pressure cookers as Walmart.
It is true that in this age of free information, you can find terrorist cookbooks all over the internet. Take a stick of dynamite, unsalted, add four tablespoons of rusty nails, sprinkle with fertilizer, set timer to 3 minutes, walk away. Serves 180. Caution: served very hot.
Should this kind of information be widely available? Hard to say. You can go on the web, look up how to build and wire a desk lamp, then take the lamp and bash your husband over the head. You can’t necessarily blame the messenger. Then again, all too often, the messenger is Al Qaeda, and unlike a lamp, you can’t use a pipe bomb to read by.
Watching the events in Boston, how careful we all were, all week long, not to use the M word. Not to blame the religion of peace. When the New York Post all but hanged two Saudi nationals who turned out to be 100% innocent, the paper was pilloried, and rightly so. Days later, we find out that the real perpetrators were originally from Russia. Okay, not Iran. Not Pakistan. Reserve the judgment. And they’d been in this country since they were-pre-teens. Bodybuilding, boxing, partying, lying to their relatives – typical American college doofuses.
But over the past two years, the brothers had a religious experience, and discovered what? Judaism, no. Sufism, no. Zoroastrianism? I don’t even know what the hell that is. No, they chose Islam. Surprise!
We tried, didn’t we folks? We made our best efforts not to blame the Arabs, not to pin the tail on the Muslims. We should’ve known better. Mohammedian madness strikes again. What is it about that fakakteh religion? What do these people put in their goat stew that turns young men into homicidal maniacs? Maybe we’ll find out soon from this wounded younger brother; maybe we won’t find out until some fellow prisoner at Sing Sing rapes it out of him.
Really, the best news about both of these animals being caught is that they had not taken credit for the marathon bombs. Usually, the Talibastards are jumping up and down and can’t wait to say, “We did it Western pigs. God is Great; carnage is greater.” But these Chechen chuckleheads merely strolled away. That is undoubtedly because they planned more damage to do; a couple o’ dead joggers was just a trial run. The FBI and the Boston police had to get these guys, and they did, for which America owes them tremendous thanks.
But it’s just a matter of time before the next brainwashed kids, or terror cell, or sand-covered douchebag on a prayer mat tries again. Come to think of it, there’s nothing all that dangerous about a bomb-making cookbook written by some half-brained chemistry student. The hazardous book was written 1400 years ago by a bunch of quarter-brained Caliphates in Persia. It’s brutal, it’s destructive, and it fits all too easily in a knapsack.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
Here is the 420th episode of the long-running radio show/podcast, Dave’s Gone By, which aired on UNC Radio, April 20, 2013. Info: davesgoneby.com.
Featuring: Rabbi Sol Solomon chats with actor Charles Grodin. Plus: Inside Broadway, Saturday Segue (Boston bands), Bob Dylan – Sooner & Later (420), and Rabbi Sol on the Boston marracre.
Host: Dave Lefkowitz
Guest: actor Charles Grodin
00:00:01 DAVE GOES IN 00:12:00 SATURDAY SEGUE – Boston bands 00:49:30 DAVE GOES OFF – Boston Marathon Massacre 01:13:00 GUEST: Rabbi Sol Solomon interviews Charles Grodin 02:16:00 BOB DYLAN – Sooner & Later (420) 02:49:00 Sponsors 02:52:00 Friends 02:56:00 RABBI SOL SOLOMON’S RABBINICAL REFLECTION #064 – The Brothers Tsarnaev and the “M” Word 03:01:30 Weather 03:03:30 INSIDE BROADWAY (news: 03:03:30 / review: 03:19:00, A Year with Frog & Toad) 03:24:00 DAVE GOES OUT
April 20, 2013 Playlist: “Winterlong” (00:13:00; The Pixies). “Decomposing Trees” (00:16:00; Galaxie 500). “All Mixed Up” (00:20:00; The Cars). “Invisible Man” (00:24:00; The Breeders). “Rip in Heaven” (00:27:00; `til Tuesday). “Fast Man” (00:30:30; Frank Black). “I Can’t Find My Best Friend” (00:34:30; Jonathan Richman). “You’ve Got a Friend” ({live} 00:37:00; James Taylor). “How to Say Goodbye” (00:42:30; The Magnetic Fields). “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum” (02:18:00), “Trying to Get to Heaven” (02:23:00), “Man Gave Names to All the Animals” (02:28:00), “Tangled Up in Blue” ({live} 02:32:30), “Every Grain of Sand” ({acoustic} 02:37:00) & “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” (02:41:00; Bob Dylan). “It’s Spring” (A Year with Frog and Toad; original cast).
Charles GrodinThe Boston MarathonThe Boston Bombers
Rabbi Sol Solomon’s Rabbinical Reflection #54 (1/27/2013): THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS
Aired January 26, 2013 on Dave’s Gone By. Youtube clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnXLGyFEdC0
Shalom Dammit! This is Rabbi Sol Solomon with a Rabbinical Reflection for the week of January 26th, 2013.
Let’s say I go to the supermarket and buy a box of donuts. “Why am I eating that?”, you ask. “Well,” I say, “donuts are a health food.” “Health food?” I hear you gasp. “But they’re loaded with sugar and white flour.” “Yes, but they’re a health food,” I reply. “But they’re glazed with chocolate coating made out of corn syrup,” you counter. “I don’t care, they’re a health food,” I persist. “But look at the box!” you yell. “Half the ingredients are red dyes and preservatives and fiberglass insulation.” “You’re making wayyy too much of that,” I say. “Donuts are a health food.”
And now you start screaming, “But if you eat donuts, you get fat, your teeth rot, eventually you’ll risk heart disease and diabetes.” “Oh, don’t be so politically incorrect,” I say. “Donuts are a health food.”
Sounds crazy, right? Like I should have my head examined for not admitting what’s plainly in front of my face – or in my stomach.
Fine. How many times have we heard left-wing pundits and middle-east apologists say that Islam is the religion of peace? That’s the big slogan – religion of peace. And no amount of 9/11’s or Munichs or Lockerbies or Benghazis will convince these people that maybe Islam isn’t such a friendly how-do-ya-do.
“Oh, it’s just a small faction; it’s just the radicals,” comes the response. True. The millions and millions of Muslims in this world aren’t out there blowing up embassies any more than every NRA member is out there shooting up schools. However, no other religion since Christianity in the Middle Ages has caused so much needless, vicious and sociopathic bloodshed. Except, perhaps, the Death to Disco Movement of the 1970s, but they had a point.
So this time, the horror springs from Algeria – instead of Iran or Pakistan or Egypt or Syria – or, well, point to a map of the Middle East and find an Arab country that isn’t a killing field. Last week, a hostage crisis in Algeria resulted in more than two dozen civilian dead, including one American. Plus, 32 dead hostage takers, or, as I like to call them, refuse.
The Algerian government is being blamed for jumping the gun on its rescue mission. After three days of a bloody stand-off, Algerian troops stormed the gas plant that was under siege – which resulted in pretty much everyone dying. Mainly because the terrorists began executing the hostages once the fun started.
Other countries are now saying, “Oh, we weren’t informed, we could have done it better, we could have ended this with more survivors, blah di bloo di blah.” Algeria’s position is, “Sorry, we don’t negotiate with terrorists.” And to that, may I add, especially not terrorists who are killing the hostages anyway, who are strapped to the gills with explosives, and who come from a radical culture where suicide is the expected outcome of a violent event. Kind of tough to negotiate with someone who actually wants you to shoot him. It’s like going up to an alcoholic at a party and saying, “Look, I can either drive you home, or I can pour you another scotch.” That’s a win-win either way for the booze-hound.
Terrorists are sick, desperate people who can be dealt with in only the most extreme, desperate ways. Like full-on raids, waterboarding and being forced to watch “Teen Mom 2.”
We can mince words all we want so as not to offend Saudi Arabia and Qatar and UAE and other countries that could afford to buy the Statue of Liberty and sell it back to us in pieces. However, until every country, east and west, takes full action in crushing radical, violent Islam, we’re just gonna get more Algerias, more World Trade Centers, more Koran-concocted carnage. Just ask Israel, which has endured sixty years of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism disguised as Palestinian nationalism. Israel realizes: the only way to say “no more” is to say, “no,” more. And that means, when terrorism rears its ugly covered head, you gotta put the religion of peace in a world of pain.
This has been a Rabbinical Reflection from Rabbi Sol Solomon, Temple Sons of Bitches in Great Neck, New York.
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