Seraphic Secret

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January 31, 2007

Sergeant in Afghanistan: "Let's Get it Done"

Things that I am tired of in this war:

I am tired of Democrats saying they are patriotic and then insulting my commander in chief and the way he goes about his job.

I am tired of Democrats who tell me they support me, the soldier on the ground, and then tell me the best plan to win this war is with a “phased redeployment” (liberal-speak for retreat) out of the combat zone to someplace like Okinawa.

I am tired of the Democrats whining for months on T.V., in the New York Times, and in the House and Senate that we need more troops to win the war in Iraq, and then when my Commander in Chief plans to do just that, they say that is the wrong plan, it won’t work, and we need a “new direction.”.

I am tired of every Battalion Sergeant Major and Command Sergeant Major I see over here being more concerned about whether or not I am wearing my uniform in the “spot on,” most garrison-like manner; instead of asking me whether or not I am getting the equipment I need to win the fight, the support I need from my chain of command, or if the chow tastes good.

I am tired of junior and senior officers continually doubting the technical expertise of junior enlisted soldiers who are trained far better to do the jobs they are trained for than these officers believe...

I am tired of senior officers and commanders who fight this war with more of an eye on the media than on the enemy, who desperately needs killing.

I am tired of the decisions of Sergeants and Privates made in the heat of battle being scrutinized by lawyers who were not there and will never really know the state of mind of the young soldiers who were there and what is asked of them in order to survive.

I am tired of CNN claiming that they are showing “news,” with videotape sent to them by terrorists, of my comrades being shot at by snipers, but refusing to show what happens when we build a school, pave a road, hand out food and water to children, or open a water treatment plant.

To read the rest of this brave and honorable warrior's letter on that excellent mil blog Black Five, please click here.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:40 PM | Comments (4)

The Traitors Among Us

Because I can't blog from desk at the Department of uhhh, Agriculture, I haven't been able to express my anger at the crop of "enemies domestic" this country seems to have bred. Not limited to academe or the filthier quarters of the entertainment industry, they inhabit government as well. Self-loathing nihilism seems to have reached its nth degree with them, as they appear to be incapable of defending even the smallest part of the country that protects them without question and grants them boundless opportunities.

Well, I happen to know something about the "filthier quarters of the entertainment industry" and let me tell you, our friends at Op For have no idea how filthy, filthy really is. How many pitch meetings have I gone to where the first few minutes are devoted to comparing President Bush to Herr Hitler? It never crosses anybody's little Ivy League educated mind that somebody in the room might not agree with them. It's pretty much inconceivable that there just might be an actual living, breathing dissenting opinion in the room.

When I just sit there, silent, the execs invariably say: "Not political, huh?" And I just grin and bear it and say something bright like: "Gee, did I run into hideous traffic on the 405."

Anywhoo.

Head on over to OP FOR, that invaluable military blog--these guys really have their fingers on the button--and read the rest of this article, and make sure to check out the hyper-links. Essential reading.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 01:55 PM | Comments (6)

Be Good to My Daughter

"This story is true. It happened in the Beis Midrash of the Radzyner Chasidim, the alter Beis Midrash, the old Beis Midrash back in Radzyn, Poland."

"My father-in-law, Rav Pinchas Tzvi Singer ZT'L and I are sitting in his basement study. In ten days I am going to marry his daughter Karen--I have been in love with Karen since I first laid eyes on her in fourth grade in Yeshiva of Flatbush.."

"Now, Rav Singer, one of the most learned and prominent Orthodox Rabbis in Brooklyn, in New York, in America, in the known and unknown Universe, has asked me join him for a "talk."

"I gird myself for I know that we are not going to be talking about the cinema of Akira Kurosawa."

To read the rest of the story, and find out the end of the Hasidic parable, click here.

These are the opening paragraphs of Chapter 33 of How I Married Karen, being serialized in Virtual Jerusalem. Keep in mind that Karen's father, Rabbi Singer, ZT'L was one of the foremost Torah scholars in the world -- and I was not. I had bumbled my way back into Karen's life after a lifetime of desperate and endless love. Honestly, I was just terrified of somehow blowing it at the last minute. Please note, all the classic ingredients for disaster are present and accounted for:

1. I am alone with Rabbi Singer in his basement office.

2. Karen is not by my side to, um, mediate, i.e. to gently cut me off before I say something really stupid.

3. The wedding is in a week and I am John Gilbert* nervous.

4. Rabbi Singer opens the conversation with a Hasidic parable. This can be very bad. It might mean that there's going to be a really murky moral lesson in the end -- and it's going to be up to yours truly to figure it out.

5. I'm much better at reading between the lines of Akira Kurosawa, John Ford, or in a pinch, Jane Austen.

*Silent Film Star John Gilbert was engaged to wed Greta Garbo. On the joyous wedding day, with all Hollywood royalty present, Gilbert waited at the altar, and waited and waited. Greta preferred "to be alone."

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:43 AM | Comments (15)

January 30, 2007

Groak: Sigh, So Romantic

Here at Seraphic Secret we believe it is vital to learn something new every day. For those of you who follow this blog, you know we are deeply concerned with language--yes, precision in language obsesses us. Thus, when we find a word that we have never ever heard of, a word that we never even imagined, well, we sit up and take notice; in fact we sit up like happy puppies and smile.

groak
verb: to stare at a person longingly while he is eating

Hat Tip: Futility Closet.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 04:25 PM | Comments (13)

Welcome to Palestine

In the world of international diplomacy few issues receive more wall-to-wall support than the notion that it is essential to establish a Palestinian state. Leaders worldwide are so busy speaking of how essential it is for a State of Palestine to be founded that none of them seems to have noticed that it already exists.

This state was officially founded in the summer of 2005, when Israel removed its military forces and civilian population from the Gaza Strip and so established the first wholly independent Palestinian state in history. Israel's destruction of four Israeli communities in Northern Samaria and curtailment of its military operations in the area set the conditions for statehood in that area as well.

And so it is that as statesmen and activists worldwide loudly proclaim their commitment to establishing the sovereign State of Palestine, they miss the fact that Palestine exists. And it is a nightmare.

To read the rest of Caroline Glick's article, please click here.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:28 PM | Comments (0)

Splitting the Evangelicals from Israel

A new strategy seems to be emerging that seeks to weaken American support for Israel.

While there has been much attention given to challenges Israel faces on college campuses, in the media, and increasingly in the halls of Congress, the historically solid and vitally important support given by Evangelical Christians towards Israel is now being threatened. How is this happening and who are the actors?

To read the rest of Ed Lasky's article from American Thinker please click here.

Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Shrink Wrapped

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:10 PM | Comments (4)

Jane: On Money

"Tho' I like praise as well as anybody, I like what Edward calls Pewter too."

--Jane Austen, Letter 1814

Okay, so let's take a look at what Jane earned during her lifetime.

1803: 10 pounds from the publisher Richard Crosby for the manuscript of Susan, that was eventually published as Northanger Abbey.

1811: 140 pounds from the publisher Thomas Egerton for Sense and Sensibility. Eventually Jane earned approximately 150 pounds in profits.

1812: 110 pounds for Pride and Prejudice.

1814: 450 pounds from the publisher John Murray for the copyright to Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park.

In her lifetime, Jane Austen earned about 700 pounds. In today's money that ranges from about $14,000 to $35,000. I have even seen estimates up to $100,000. But let's face it, Jane Austen was grossly underpaid.

As one Hollywood agent said to me: " I would kill to represent that woman. I could get her multiple overall deals with every studio in town, plus a play-or-play for a series based on that Lizzie-I'm-not-prejudiced-chick. Sheesh, you sure she's like dead?"

Jane Austen is everywhere. Here is the Jane Austen Blog.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:13 AM | Comments (2)

Duke's Tenured Vigilantes

The scandalous rush to judgment in the lacrosse "rape" case.

Mike Nifong's handling of the case was clearly outrageous. But he would probably not have gone so far, indeed would not have dared to go so far, had he not been egged on by two other groups that rushed just as quickly to judge the three accused young men guilty of gross and racially motivated carnal violence. Despite the repeated attempts by the three to clear themselves, a substantial and vocal percentage--about one-fifth--of the Duke University arts and sciences faculty and nearly all of the mainstream print media in America quickly organized themselves into a hanging party. Throughout the spring of 2006 and indeed well into the late summer, Nifong had the nearly unanimous backing of this country's (and especially Duke's) intellectual elite as he explored his lurid theories of sexual predation and racist stonewalling.

An important and incisive look into how the intellectual elite of this country, tenured leftist professors and the liberal mainstream media, organized themselves into a lynch mob. Notice, if you will, that these are the very same people who protest the Patriot Act, but self-righteously enable crooked lawyers to persecute those who should be presumed innocent. Why? Well, because the "rapists" were priveleged white males, southern (actually the accused are all from the north-east), and wealthy. And the "victim" was poor, black and a "sex worker."

True threats to personal freedom come from the left in America, not from the right.

To read Charlotte Allen's full article in the Weekly Standard, please click here.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:20 AM | Comments (2)

Talking Ourselves Into Defeat

By Daniel Henninger

From The Wall Street Journal

The United States is talking itself into defeat in Iraq. Its political
culture is now in a downward spiral of pessimism. In the halls of
Congress, across endless newspaper columns, amid the punditocracy and
on Sunday morning talk shows -- all emit a Stygian gloom about America.

Yes, on any given day on some discrete issue (Prime Minister Maliki's
bona fides, for example), the criticism of the American role is not
without justification. But the cumulative effect of this unremitting
ill wind is corrosive. We are not only on the way to talking ourselves
into defeat in Iraq but into a diminished international status that may
be harder to recover than the doom mob imagines. Self-criticism has its
role, but profligate self-doubt can exact a price.

Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins wonders "whether the clock has already run
out." To U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton the new strategy
is "a dead end." For the Bush troop request, presidential candidate Joe
Biden predicted "overwhelming rejection." (His committee resolution to
that effect yesterday passed by three votes.) Presidential candidate
Chuck Hagel: "We have anarchy in Iraq. It's getting worse." And not
least, Sen. John Warner this week heaved his tenured eminence against
the war effort, proposing another "non-binding" resolution against more
troops.

To pick one amid scores of similar characterizations in the media, the
Associated Press wrote from Washington before the State of the Union
speech that "Democrats -- and even some Republicans -- scoffed at his
policy." "Scoff" is a strong word, suggesting eye-rolling ridicule.
(The line was so good that the AP ran it after the speech as well,
under another writer's byline, this time from Baghdad.) But of course
amid the giddy vapors of mass mockery, they all "support the troops."

Our slide to a national nervous breakdown because of Iraq is not going
unnoticed. Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, has been
visiting across the U.S. this week. "I've been pretty worried about
what I've heard," Mr. Downer said in an interview. Walking on Santa
Monica beach Sunday before last, Mr. Downer said he encountered a
display of crosses in the sand, representing the American dead in Iraq.

"What concerns me about this," he said, "is that it's sort of an
isolationist sentiment, subconsciously, not consciously, and that would
be an enormous problem for the world. I hope the American people
understand the importance of not retreating and thinking the world's
problems aren't theirs."

Some of this is politics as usual, but even normal partisanship comes
dressed now in the language of apocalypse. In his SOTU rebuttal,
Democratic Sen. Jim Webb ripped into the current economy, saying it
reminded him of the early 1900s: "The dispossessed workers at the
bottom were threatening revolt." Ah, we've fallen to the level of
czarist Russia.

You know the pessimism has turned manic when no one is allowed to
depart the asylum. Sen. John McCain's support for Iraq and the new Bush
plan is now being described in press reports as not only costing him
support in the polls (the asylum's inkblot of reality) but worse, the
support of campaign contributors.

It is a phenomenon fascinating to behold. Its causes are multiple, but
here are several:

Bush schadenfreude. Partisan pleasure in George Bush's pain dates to
the anguish of the contested 2000 election loss. The Democrats have run
against something called "Bush" for so long that this sentiment is now
bound up in any act or policy remotely attached to the president.
Iraq's troubles, or Iran or North Korea, are merely an artifact of
crushing this one guy.

The Iraq Study Group. The ISG report wasn't defeatist, but it enabled
the vocabulary of defeat. Its warning of a "slide toward chaos" was
re-defined as the current Iraqi status quo. They called their
bipartisan solution "phased withdrawal," but it was a euphemism for
defeat. Momentum was already building in this direction, and the ISG
propelled it.

The leadership vacuum. The administration never rallied the nation
behind the war in a concrete way. A young Marine officer recently
returned from combat in Iraq told me this week he is taken aback at how
disassociated the American people seem from Iraq, no matter how
constantly it's in the news. He says it's as if the problem is not so
much what is actually happening in Iraq but that the war is "annoying"
to Americans, as if to say: Can't it just go away or not be on the
front page all the time? Rallying a nation at war is a president's job.

The opposition vacuum. One reason the negative mood in politics is so
disconcerting is that the opposition's alternative vision is
nonexistent. On joining the opposition recently, GOP Sen. Norm Coleman
announced, "I can't tell you what the path to success is." Joe Biden
says the "primary" Iraq strategy should be to force its leaders to make
the political compromises necessary to "end the violence."

As a political strategy, unremitting opposition has worked. Approval
for the president and the war is low. The GOP lost sight of its
ideological lodestars and so control of Congress. But the U.S. still
occupies a unique position of power in the world, and we are putting
that status at risk by playing politics without a net.

On the "Charlie Rose Show" this month, former Army vice chief of staff
Gen. Jack Keane, who supports the counterinsurgency plan being
undertaken by Gen. David Petraeus, said in exasperation: "My God, this
is the United States. We are the world's No. 1 superpower. This isn't
about arrogance. This is about capability and applying ourselves to a
problem that is at its essence a human problem."

At our current juncture, Gen. Keane's words probably rub many the wrong
way. But there's a Cassandra-like warning implicit in them. The mood of
mass resignation spreading through the body politic is toxic. It is
uncharacteristic of Americans under stress. Some might call it realism,
but it looks closer to the fatalism of elderly Europe, overwhelmed and
exhausted by its burdens, than to the American tradition.

In 1966, Sen. George Aiken delivered a speech on Vietnam famously
translated for history as "declare victory and go home.'" On current
course, it looks like we may declare defeat and go home.

Daniel Henninger is deputy editor of The Wall Street Journal's
editorial page.

Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, William Cochran, of Vintage Knives.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:42 AM | Comments (0)

January 29, 2007

Jane: On Those Who Are Against Marriage

"I pay very little regard... to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not seen the right person."

--Jane Austen, Mansfield Park

This should be fun. Take the Jane Austen Heroine's Quiz and discover which main character you most resemble. Will you be Marianne Dashwood? Lizzy Bennet? Fanny Price? Or perhaps Anne Elliot? Let us know in the comments section, okay?

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:29 PM | Comments (18)

Desolate Roads

On this mission the Iraqi Army was pulling outer security while the American soldiers pulled inner security around the engineers who were patching holes in the road trying to prevent the enemy from planting bombs. We crossed from the west side of Mosul over the Tigris River to the east side. Some minutes later, the humvee I was riding in pulled to the side to park in a garbage dump. The rank stench of Mosul’s refuse filled the truck, and we nearly got stuck, bumping tires spinning in the dark, and a few heavy fish-tails before finally parking.

We sat for maybe forty-five minutes in the hot stink. Although the night was cold, the motor was kept running to power radios and other gear. The smell of sweat and fuel were heated, mixing with the stench of the garbage, and giving me a throbbing headache. I peered out the thick window at my sector at the 2-3 o’clock positions. The night-vision monocular rendered an eerie world in shades of white, black and green. A pack of large dogs came rummaging in the dark. The enemy sometimes kills dogs and other animals, including people, and stuffs bombs into their bodies. I kept peering out the window.

The big news back home was the “Troop Surge,” and the “Iraq Study Group” and the University of Florida football and basketball champions. I’d read where interviewers asked combat soldiers what they thought of the “troop surge” and the soldiers would give answers having no idea what they were talking about, no more an idea than the person asking the question.

Michael Yon reports from Iraq. Essential reading, a dazzling photo essay from America's best war correspondent.

Desolate Roads: Part One.

Desolate Roads: Part Two.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:02 PM | Comments (0)

Homicide Bomber in Eilat

Three people killed as suicide bomber blows himself up in Eilat shopping center, as police search for culprits who drove bomber to scene of attack.

To see video of the aftermath of this barbaric act and to read the rest of the story at Y-Net News, please click here.

Baruch Dayan Emet.

By the way, if you tune in to Al Jazeera, they will refer to this atrocity as a "Commando Operation," or as a "Martyr's Operation."

Wait, what am I talking about? If you tune in to the BBC they probably use identical language.

As for the The New York Times, you can be sure that the terrorists who commited this act of savagery will be labeled "militants." Let us never forget that in the world according to The New York Times, there are no terrorists.

There, don't you feel better already.

Seraphic Friend Jameel, at The Muquata, has pictures of the terrorist's proud family. Ah, the religion of peace.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:38 AM | Comments (3)

Dai

Stephen Z. Friedman, Seraphic Secret's New York correspondent, attended a performance of Dai and filed this review.

*******

Coming directly from the airport, after you’ve just dropped just off your 14-year-old daughter for her flight to Tel Aviv, is probably not the best time to see Iris Bahr’s one-woman show, DAI (Hebrew: Enough).

Any other time, however, would be the right time. This moving, one woman show, starring the incredibly intense and multi-talented Bahr (Curb Your Enthusiasm, Friends, the Drew Carey Show), can at turns be disturbing, amusing, annoying and down right frightening. It is a running portrait of Israeli (and Palestinian) society, nicely capturing the panorama of characters that populate modern day Israel. Each of Bahr’s personas not only represents a face of Israel, but a philosophy, a perception, even a psychology, that keep us distinct and often disturbed. The set piece is a sound rather than an object. The powerful sound of an exploding bomb. A sound that all too many Israelis have had to endure.

DAI is set in a typical Tel Aviv café; a correspondent from an unnamed British news group is there, reluctantly filming “man-on-the-street” interviews to provide her British audience with “the Israeli side” of the mid-east conflict (a thinly veiled reference to CNN's Christiane Amanpour). The characters are the interviewees, responding to unheard questions, in this way projecting a very personal view of their world. Just as we get to know them, just as we begin warming to them as people, and feeling the hope and pain that are part of all of us Jews, we are jolted back to the ultimate reality of life in Israel.

Politically speaking, there is nothing new that emerges from DAI, although it might be somewhat eye opening for the uninvolved and under-educated, . . . what could very well be the majority of non-Jews and even Jews in this country. The characters are representative only, they neither cathart nor implode during the course of the show. What is new is the way in which Bahr’s writing talent allows us to enjoy the quirks and laugh with the idiosyncrasies of each of her archetypes, certainly no mean feat in this milieu. After all, dying is easy . . . comedy is difficult.

While the involved Jew may find DAI a bit of preaching to the choir, it is a wonderful review of the nation we are. For everyone else, it is a must see. In terms of writing, acting and the art of theatre, there are never enough performances like DAI.

DAI can be seen at:

Culture Project 55 Mercer St., New York, NY, 10013 (212)253 - 7017 Box Office (212) 925 - 1900

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:44 AM | Comments (0)

January 28, 2007

Hollywood's Hebrew Kid

For those of you who are interested, there's a feature article, Hollywood's Hebrew Kid, about yours truly in the latest issue of "The Jerusalem Report" (Feb 5) by Brenda Gazzar. The article is accurate and incisive, and Karen has declared it: "The best piece ever written about you."

Here's the tag-line: Robert Avrech breaks the mold for a scriptwriter working outside of the film industry's mindset.

In the article I talk about: my career in Hollywood, what it's like being a Republican in an industry dominated by Liberals, why Hollywood won't make movies about Israel, not wearing my yarmulke when I huddled with director Brian De Palma to discuss writing the screenplay for Body Double, the flak I get from some Orthodox Jews for my movie A Stranger Among Us, the subversive nature of my Emmy Award winning film The Devil's Arithmetic, my novel The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden, and why hanging horse thieves is a good thing. I discuss this blog at length, Jane Austen, naturally, and the "petite psychologist Karen" makes a surprise appearance. There's even a picture of me where you will notice that I look exactly like George Clooney.

Unfortunately, The Jerusalem Report is not on-line, you actually have to go to a newsstand and, sigh, buy it. Or not.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:06 AM | Comments (4)

January 26, 2007

Question for Karen

A Seraphic Reader asks: I want to know how Karen feels about all this How I Fell in Love with/married Karen stuff. Is she comfortable with it? (i.e. the public declarations) Did she feel similarly besotted? Not in the 4th grade obviously, but later on? How do you maintain this level of being madly in love after all the mundane day to day, year after year, married time?

Karen Responds: I guess you can say that I am the WASP in the relationship, kind of silent and non-demonstrative, but extremely sensitive and vulnerable on the inside. I think people who know us realize that we are down to earth people, and that the written word is very different than the spoken one. In other words, we aren't emoting love poems to each other, but love is shown in mutual respect, talking things through when there are disagreements, and sharing humor. Life is full of challenges, and tough times, and these are really the tests of love and commitment. Romance is fine, but character is what counts.

Karen and I wish all our Seraphic Friends a lovely and meaningful Shabbat.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 01:21 PM | Comments (5)

Jane: On Men Who Can't Commit

You may like him well enough to marry, but not well enough to wait.

-- Jane Austen, Letter to her Niece Fanny

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:13 AM | Comments (5)

Democrats Against Victory

In Tuesday’s State of the Union address, the President’s calls for victory in Iraq were met from the Democrat side of the aisle with intentional silence. Most Democrats would not applaud, much less stand, for victory in Iraq. Over the past months and years, those on the left have gone to great effort to paint the mission in Iraq as “failed,” “doomed” and a “disaster.” They have failed to acknowledge the accomplishments of the U.S. military in Iraq, but have been quick to talk about those in our armed forces as child victims of a failed policy or (worse) as bloodthirsty thugs engaging in torture and terror.

To read the entire articly by Lorie Byrd, please click here.

Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Yonasan Fisgus, M.D.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:26 AM | Comments (3)

January 25, 2007

Jane on Courtship

There was a scarcity of men in general, and a still greater scarcity of any that were good for much.

--Jane Austen, Letter to her sister Cassandra

*******

Jane's Letters to her Sister Cassandra. You have read and loved Jane's novels, now you are going crazy because there's nothing left to read. Wrong. Dig into her letters to sister Cassandra. You will get to know Jane in a way you never imagined. A vast and deep treasure.

Jane Austen Society of North America Produces an excellent journal, "Persuasions," written and edited by members of the society. I've belonged to this group for years. Highly recommended. Though I do not attend their get-togethers and would never dress in period costume. Never, ever.

The Republic of Pemberley Discussion groups and information pages. Wonderful stuff. Here you'll also find a complete list of films based on Austen's novels. Nice graphics.

Jane Austen Information Page Lots of, um, information. Great pictures and illustrations if you drill down deep enough.

Austen.com Links, links and more links. Good links.

Jane Austen Centre December 1800. Jane Austen is informed by her father that the family is moving from Steventon, (population 114, excluding sheep) her cozy birthplace, to Bath. Jane promptly faints dead away. No matter, Bath has claimed her as their own. Thus: Jane in Bath.com. Regency Tea Rooms, The Jane Austen Gift Shop, and The Jane Austen Festival. Well done for a town Jane was, er, not very fond of.

Jane Austen Society of Australia Jane travels well. Some have suggested that Jane invented surfing and had a secret relationship with beer. We are not convinced.

Jane's Books on-line Free downloads if you don't want to bother with those pesky, you know, books. Hey, hug a tree.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:57 PM | Comments (13)

January 24, 2007

Jews of Yemen, Liberals, & Modern Kapos

Many of Yemen's Jews this weekend fled their homes for a hotel after receiving death threats from Islamic militants accusing the country's tiny Jewish community of serving as agents for "global Zionism." The Jews said they feared for their lives. It was disclosed they had been forced to pay special taxes that Islam imposes on Jews and Christians in return for protection and security. About 45 Jews left their village in Sa'ada county in Yemen after Dawoud Yousuf Mousa, one of the heads of the local Jewish community, was warned Jan. 10 if the Jews don't leave within 10 days they would be exposed to killings, abductions and looting.

I suppose we thought that all the the Jews of Yemen emigrated to Israel.

Not so.

A tiny remnant exists in a state of siege, a state of fear, living under Dhimmitude. And recently, conditions for this embattled community have taken a turn for the worse.

About 45 Jews left their village in Sa'ada county in Yemen after Dawoud Yousuf Mousa, one of the heads of the local Jewish community, was warned Jan. 10 if the Jews don't leave within 10 days they would be exposed to killings, abductions and looting.

Four masked militants approached Mousa and delivered a letter to him warning the Jewish community had been under Islamic surveillance.

"After accurate surveillance over the Jews residing in Al Haid, it has become clear to us that they were doing things which serve mainly global Zionism, which seeks to corrupt the people and distance them from their principles, their values, their morals, and their religion," the letter stated.

In other words, the Jews of Yemen, have been observing the age-old rituals of Judaism: praying three times a day, eating kosher food, studying Torah, sanctifying the 613 positive and negative mitzvot. To the Arab/Muslim mind, this is defacto "serving global Zionism." And this cannot be dismissed as just one isolated incident. Just tune in to Al Jazeera, this is mainstream thinking, beamed out and into the Arab world 24/7.

"Islam calls upon us to fight against the disseminators of decay," the letter said. The threats have been attributed to disciples of Shiite religious leader Hossein Bader a-Din al-Khouty. Mousa reportedly told local authorities the militants told him if the Jews don't flee within 10 days "The Jewish community would bear the consequences." According to a recent Yemeni immigrant to Israel with contacts in Sa'ada, the Jewish community there received another letter Friday warning, "whoever remains at his home, will be killed or his children will be taken away."

Ah, the religion of peace. It is worth noting that Osama Bin Laden is from Yemen. It is also worth noting that the most fanatical terrorists in Iraq, those who are slaughtering Iraqi citizens--preferably women and children--are Yemenites. That's right, not Iraqi "freedom fighters" as the liberals in the west would have you believe. No, the terrorists in Iraq are, for the most part, foreign killers: Yemenites, Saudis, Palestinians (big shock, huh?) Islamic totalitarians, all.

Sa'ada's Jewish community had lived in the village for generations. They were forced to evacuate their homes and leave some of their possessions with local sheiks. The displaced Jews are staying at a hotel in the center of Sa'ada, where they have been petitioning local authorities for protection. The Yemen Jews say the government has refused to offer assistance other than to temporarily pay for the hotel stays.

The Jews reportedly spoke of long-term Muslim intimidation and of having to pay special taxes because they were Jewish. Salem Al Wehayshi, Sadaa deputy governor, told the Gulf News agency the Jews are being asked to go home. "Yes, they received threats from Al Houthi supporters. They are now here in the hotel but I can assure you that the problem will be solved today, and they will return to their villages," Wehayshi said.

Uh-huh.

The Jewish community in Yemen consists of several hundred members. According to recent immigrants to Israel, the Yemeni Jews don't want to leave their country. Yemen's Jews have faced persecution since Israel's establishment in 1948. After the declaration of the Jewish state, Muslim rioters killed 81 Jews in Aden, a large Yemeni city, and destroyed many Jewish cities. Most of Yemen's Jews were evacuated to Israel in Operation Magic Carpet, a series of semi-secret airlifts between June 1949 and September 1950 that brought 45,000 to the Jewish state with the assistance of Britain and the U.S.

A smaller, continuous migration was allowed to continue until 1962, when a civil war in Yemen put an abrupt halt to any further Jewish exodus. Several thousand Jews remained. Then in the early 1990s, after years of petitioning by a group led by a professor at New York's Yeshiva University, most of the rest of Yemen's Jews were brought to Israel, except the few hundred who decided to stay in Yemen.

For more information go to International Sephardic Leadership Council.

*******

The Arab world is basically Judenrein.

In contrast, approximately a million Arabs, Sunni, Shiite, Christian, and Druze, are citizens and live in the State of Israel. These Arabs have more civil rights in a Jewish state than Arabs have anywhere else in the Muslim world.

Yet for some reason it has become perfectly acceptable that a Jewish citizenry not be permitted to live in Gaza. In fact, we witnessed Jews expelling Jews, by force, from their homes. This horror was cheered on, characterized as "a step forward for peace" by large segments of the elites in western democracies.

Hours later, the Arabs commenced an orgy of looting, burning, and destroying Jewish homes and greenhouses in Gaza. Nothing was built by the Arabs of Gaza in the wake of the Jewish withdrawal. No, as always, destruction prevailed.

I'll never forget how the NY Times "journalist" Steven Erlanger, described the burning of the Gaza Synagogues:

"Fires and pillars of smoke climb into the sky."

In other words, the fires started all by themselves. Spontaneous combustion. G-d forbid Erlanger should be do his job, be accurate, tell the truth: the Arabs immediately set the Synagogues on fire. The "journalist" well knows that this is the action of barbarians -- and the N.Y. Times, liberal/progressive, defends barbarians, enables barbarians. Thus, as the Israelis were expelled from their homes in Gaza, as Synagogues were consumed, the Arabs also set up their rocket launchers --

-- this is known, children, as cause and effect.

And the rockets were immediately labeled by these same liberal/progressive journalists as: "crude, inaccurate, ineffective."

This is not only the death of language, but language that defends and justifies terrorism and terrorists; language and concepts that enable terrorists to continue their butchery; language that makes it easy for the terrorists to escalate and improve their killing methodology. Here the bloodless language of murder gradually, seamlessly becomes respectable under the black banner of: "All the News That's Fit to Print."

Thus, terrorizing and killing Jews is, in true Stalin-speak, downgraded, rendered as "just a crude rocket" launched by "militants." Note that according to the N.Y. Times and their fellow liberal/progressive there are no terrorists any longer on planet earth.

In Paris, they are distilled into "angry youths." In Pakistan, those who behead are reamagined as, at worst, "shadowy militants." In Israel, most often, terrorists are defanged into "security forces," or "angry, unemployed militants." Indeed, the Palestinians, who invented and perfected modern state Arab terrorism, have been given the gift of Orwellian double-speak on a truly colossal scale.

Here we have language that is comlicit in the murder of innocent men, women and children.

It is well worth quoting from our Rabbis: "Death and life lie in the power of the tongue." (Mishlei, Proverbs 18:21.)

Liberal/Progressive Jews support this same position in regard to Jews living in Judea and Samaria. Need we add that so do the bloody PA and Hamas, as do Hizbullah, Syria, Iran, and every Jew-hating regime on the face of the earth.

--this is known, children, as trading land for war.

For some reason, policies that are clearly a prelude to Dhimmitude, policies that support state sponsored terrorism, policies that cozy up to regimes that deny the Holocaust are supported by so-called Liberal/Progressives. Perhaps Liberal/Progressives are, in fact, not so liberal, not so progressive. Perhaps we Conservatives are the true liberals, the true progressives. Anyway, for some perverse reason, these policies, already proven not just wrong in Gaza, but murderous and strategically disastrous, are still supported by the intellectual elites. Yes, they assure us, if the "West Bank territories" are vacated, well, there will be fewer obstacles to peace.

INTERPOLATION

Have they bothered to ask King Abdullah of Jordan his opinion of this brilliant withdrawal plan?

I'll bet they have not.

For it spells doom for the Hashemite Kingdom. Most definitely a bloody civil war, but when Arabs slaughter Arabs -- who cares, right? Certainly not Arabs.

Remember what happened when Arafat and the PLO tried to overthrow the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan back in September 1970. So murderous were the Jordanian attacks on the PLO, men, women and children, that the Palestinians crossed the River Jordan and begged the Israelis for protection, sanctuary from their brother Arabs. This butchery became known by various names, my personal favorite: "The Era of Regrattable Events." But you will know it by the label that has the most blood on it -- Jewish blood: Black September.

END INTERPOLATION

Conveniently they forget the two biggest obstacle of all:

1. The State of Israel.

2. The existence of living, breathing Jews, in Muslim "Holy Lands."

Personally, I think that Jews should be able to live wherever they want to live: Jerusalem, London, Judea, Ankara, Damascus, Gaza, Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Samaria, Melbourne, Tokyo, Beijing, Hong Kong, -- sigh, even Paris.

The only reason there is any debate about Jewish so-called "settlers" is because the Arab world, an overwhelmingly Islamo Fascist culture, has played on the comfortable, self-induced guilt of the liberal west, and thus, once again the Jews have been scapegoated.

And when we point out the oh-so-obvious pathological Jew hatred, they revert to their most comfortable default position: victimhood, shrieking:

"You have a lot of nerve calling me an anti-Semite. I am merely anti-Zionist. Typical of your kind, unable to debate the facts, therefore you end up making ad-hominem attacks."

My kind, indeed.

And this private e-mail, one of our absolute favorites:

"How dare you accuse me of anti-Jewish hatred! I'll have you know that I am Jewish. In fact, several of my ancestors perished in the concentration camps!! Hence, my sensitivity to the truly oppressed of the earth! And my shame at the vile behavior of the Israelis--who should not be there in the first place!!--occupiers/oppressors/war mongers!!! Long live Palestine!!!"

Eva, yup, that's how she signed her e-mail, priceless, huh? Anyway, Eva uses more exclamation points in one short e-mail than I use in an entire screenplay. Note: So many !!! tend to diminish their collective and singular power. Less is more. Is it any wonder I tend to think of liberals as, er, somewhat shrill.

My response:

"Dear Eva:

Biology and bloodlines are the private obsessions and public fixations of Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nation, and other such incendiary knuckleheads. We, on the other hand, like Viktor Frankl, are more concerned with values over biology. In other words, the quaint notion of good vs. evil. As Mr. Frankl famously said: "I recognize only two races of man: the decent and the indecent."

Thus, morality transcends DNA.

You, Eva, cannot hide behind the holy neshamas, souls, and the holy deaths of those who were martyred in the Holocaust. In fact, to do so marks you as one whose moral compass is not just broken, but shattered beyond repair.

Further, we close with this: we well recognize you Eva, we well recognize your fractured discourse for you are just another murderous, self-justifying kapo.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:36 AM | Comments (17)

January 23, 2007

High School Confidential

I dropped out of high school because of Karen.

That's right.

Could not take being in the same school.

Seeing the lovely Karen Singer day after day for four long years, was more than I could bear. I'd been doing it since 4th grade in Flatbush elementary school, and let me tell you, by the time I was 14-years-old I was plum worn out.

In the hallways, in the lunchroom, in assembly, gee willikers, even firedrill, seeing her float--that's right Karen floated through the hallways, like a little Jewish Geisha--was more than I could tolerate. Day by day she was growing more beautiful, ever more popular. And I was growing, well, what's to say? I was just a skinny dork, an uber-dork who read, no devoured, Superman comic books; a miserable, lonely kid who hungered for the love of a girl who did not know that I was alive, and whom I was convinced would never know, much less care. We existed in and on separate spheres.

Hence, How I Married Karen, Chapter 32, running in Virtual Jerusalem this week.

Click here to read.

This is perhaps the most embarrassing chapter ever.

See me beg my poor confused father to let me drop out of Yeshiva Flatbush High School, presumably a really good yeshiva, to attend Brooklyn Talmudical Academy, known to be the most frightening Yeshiva on planet Brooklyn. Heck, even the hoods from Erasmus High, which was right next door to BTA, were intimitaded by some of the BTA wild boys.

Yes, it had come to that for yours truly.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:46 PM | Comments (15)

90 Minutes

I like brevity. Undisciplined people write long; they don't bother to edit -- mostly because they have no idea what they want to say. When Brian DePalma and I were working on Body Double together he said to me, "If you can't say it in 90 minutes, then you shouldn't bother saying it at all.

-- Robert J. Avrech, Hat Tip: GIGA

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:36 AM | Comments (33)

You Won't Marry Me!?

It is always incomprehensible to a man, that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her.

-- Jane Austen, Emma

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:35 AM | Comments (4)

January 22, 2007

Another Perfect Storm

In the case of much of the Arab world, denying the Holocaust is central to their identity, because they believe that if they can deny the reality of a broken people rising from the ashes of Europe who went on to build a country that was to become a ‘Lamp unto the nations,‘ somehow, their own dysfunction would be minimized. The Jews did in 50 years what the Arab world could not do in 2,000 years. They built a modern, functioning and democratic society. Despite obscene wealth, the Arab world remains a spectacular monument to failure.

Seraphic Friends Sigmund, Carl & Alfred reflect on the Arab world's obsession with Holocaust denial, and the Liberal west's inability to come to grips with the evil crouching at their door. A sober and sobering analysis. To read the entire essay, click here.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:23 AM | Comments (7)

Jewish Activist vs. The BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is locked in an unprecedented legal dispute with a Jewish activist who claims its reporting is biased against Israel.

Steven Sugar, a commercial solicitor, is heading for the High Court in a legal battle to force the BBC to release the details of an internal report on its Middle East coverage, which he suspects will prove a bias against the Jewish state as well as pro-Palestinian tendencies.

The court case comes after a protracted and increasingly heated legal battle between Sugar and one of the world’s most famous broadcasters.

Sugar has spent months using Britain’s Freedom of Information laws, designed to encourage openness, to force the BBC to release details of its internal 20,000-word Balen Report, which investigated the levels of balance in the BBC’s Israel reporting.

The BBC refused to do so.

To read the rest of this story, please click here.

Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Kishke.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:11 AM | Comments (0)

Walking the Line, 2007

I plan to spend the entirety of 2007 with our troops at war, until sickness, wounds or worse send me home, or the military tires of my presence and catapults me over the wire. Having spent most of 2005 in Iraq, I know what this means. “Drive-by reporting,” as some commanders call it, is worse than no reporting at all. The only way to approach describing what our troops experience, and what is really happening in Iraq, is to go the distance.

Michael Yon is one of the finest war correspondents I have ever read. His photo essays from Iraq are simple and honest portraits of soldiers, of war and death, mud and grime, extreme boredom punctuated by abrupt clashes of violence. Michael does not neglect the Iraqi people; we see and hear their voices -- voices which are always poignant and deeply human.

If you read anything about Iraq, please read:

Walking the Line: Part One.

Walking the Line: Part Two.

Walking the LIne: Part Three.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:23 AM | Comments (0)

Give Petraeus a Chance

Republicans should not hesitate to point out how irresponsible their Democratic colleagues (and some Republicans) are being. Senator Clinton's troop cap is dangerously foolish. The nonbinding resolution of disapproval Senator Biden has proposed is irresponsible. The fact is that President Bush has, as he was widely and correctly urged to do, changed strategy. He's put a new commander, General Petraeus, in charge. Petraeus thinks the new plan can work, with the support of additional troops. He'll be confirmed by the Senate and sent out to the theater this week. Members of Congress should ask themselves, "What can we do to help Petraeus succeed?" Or would Senator Clinton and the Democrats just as soon lose?

To read the entire article by Frederick W. Kagan & William Kristol, please click here.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:24 AM | Comments (10)

January 21, 2007

A Trip to the DMZ

Anyway, it was time to enter the DMZ. We were once again not allowed to take photographs on this portion of the journey, but we had soon reached the JSA and Panmunjom. The first stop was the 'conference room', one of a number of huts that straddle the demarcation line, in which negotiations between north and south have taken place at various times over the decades. The line does go down the centre of not just the hut but the conference table in the centre of it, and indeed down the middle of the soldier who stands perfectly still at the end of the table.

Seraphic Secret readers know Michael Jennings as one of our most ferociously intelligent and funny commenters. He is a world traveler, a man-about-town, an acute observer of politics, movies and technology. On a recent journey to South Korea Michael also visited the delightful DMZ, and peeked into North Korea, the most hermetically sealed country in the world. This is by far, the best report on the DMZ you will ever read.

Click here to go to that fine blog Samizdata, to read Michael's entire story, and to view his (long-distance) pictures of the tyrannical North Korean kingdom.

Oh, and you've got to see what Michael bought at the DMZ Gift Shop. Absolutely priceless.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:46 AM | Comments (2)

January 19, 2007

Lt. Mark Daily, American Patriot & Hero, RIP

"The criminal Ba'ath regime has been replaced by an insurgency fueled by Iraq's neighbors who hope to partition Iraq for their own ends. This is coupled with the ever present transnational militant Islamist movement which has seized upon Iraq as the greatest way to kill Americans, along with anyone else they happen to be standing near. What was once a paralyzed state of fear is now the staging ground for one of the largest transformations of power and ideology the Middle East has experienced since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Thanks to Iran, Syria, and other enlightened local actors, this transformation will be plagued by interregional hatred and genocide. And I am now in the center of this."

Lt. Mark Daily, the author of these eloquent words, was killed in Iraq on Monday.

To read his entire and quite extraordinary letter, please go to Hugh Hewitt.com.

Seraphic Secret extends our sincerest thoughts and prayers to Lt. Daily's family and friends.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:14 PM | Comments (2)

Liberty Arrives to Ebert & Roeper

My good friend, Govindini Murty, Liberty Film Festival Co-Founder, will be guest hosting for Roger Ebert on The Ebert & Roeper Show this Sunday January 21st on ABC (the show airs January 22 in some parts of the country). The Ebert & Roeper Show is the top-rated film review show in America. Check the Ebert & Roeper website for times in your area. On the West Coast, the Ebert & Roeper Show airs Sundays from 6:30PM - 7PM on ABC.

Govindini and Richard Roeper will be reviewing the new releases Alpha Dog, Seraphim Falls, Catch and Release, Arthur & The Invisibles and Alone With Her. Govindini will also be reviewing the new Criterion Collection DVD release of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo and Sanjuro.

Everybody should tune in and watch for Govindini is deeply Conservative, an acute viewer of films and will, no doubt bring a fresh and appealing critical voice to this show.

Thumbs way up!

Karen and I wish all our Seraphic Friends a lovely and meaningful Shabbos.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 01:02 PM | Comments (0)

Kurosawa Speaks

Those who see television as the enemy of the motion-picture industry are merely suffering from a superficial understanding of movies. The film industry has been the hare, caught napping, while the television tortoise walked on by.

--Akira Kurosawa, Something Like an Autobiography Translated by audie E. Bock. Vintage Books, 1983.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:36 AM | Comments (2)

January 18, 2007

Backstory

The continuing story of the author's love for his wife, Karen. It began when Robert was 9-years old, in the fourth grade in Yeshiva Flatbush. It's a long story and this series will continue for... Well, actually, I have no idea how long it will go on. I guess until I finish telling the tale.

How I Married Karen — Chapter 38

"So, what do you do?"

"I edit a magazine."

"Really, what kindamagazine?"

Rachel is attractive and well educated. She's in graduate school studying Special Education. From Boro Park, Rachel's family is a bit more right wing than mine—actually they're a lot more right wing than my family, but she told the people who set us up that she's looking for a modern orthodox kindaguy. Rachel has a tendency to fuse two or three words together. Anyway, she considers herself something of a rebel.

Okay, I get it. I even respect it. I fit the bill, rebel-wise, that is.

"It's a film magazine."

"Film?"

Rachel is bewildered.

"We write about movies."

"You mean like glamorous moviestars?"

"Not exactly. We write about the people behind the scenes, the directors, the screenwriters, the cameramen."

"That doesn't sound very exciting, nowdoesit?"

"I guess not. We're kind of, well, culty."

"What's that?" Her face screws up unpleasantly.

I'm pretty sure Rachel thinks I've just used a dirty word.

"We write about people like Preston Sturges, Akira Kurosawa, John Ford, Robert Riskin, Ben Hecht & Charles MacArthur, Alfred Hitchcock, Sven Nykvist, and of course, the great Billy Bitzer."

"English, puhleeese."

"Sorry, I admit this is kind of obscure stuff. Like Tosfos."

"L'havdeel."

"L'havdeel."

Sheesh, I should really learn to shut up.

Rachel breaks off a slice of pizza, leans in close:

"Tell me, this editing and writing stuff y'do — it'saliving?"

I shrug. I am not going to confess that I live on the edge of poverty. This date, in fact, will wipe me out.

"It's not what I really want to do. But it's a good in-between job. I meet important movie people. Learn how Hollywood really operates."

"So, what doyareally wanna do?"

"I want to be a screenwriter. A Hollywood screenwriter."

"What's that mean?"

"I want to write movies."

Rachel sips her coffee, thoughtfully chews her pizza. She eats backwards: from the crust to the tip. I wonder what that means?

Maybe this a Boro Park minhag I'm not aware of.

Rachel says: "The actors don't make the stories up?"

I stare at her, smile.

"You're kidding?"

Rachel gazes at me. Her eyes are about as lively as Norman Bate's mother.

She. Is. Not. Kidding.

She's in graduate school for gosh sake.

How does this happen in the United States of America? What kind of education system allows this kind of ignorance to blossom?

I'm about to explode, a theatrical, know-it-all tyrant, like John Barrymore bullying Carole Lombard in Twentieth Century:

But I behave myself, silently count to ten.

"No, the actors repeat dialog written by writers. Stories are carefully laid out by the writers. It's a long laborious and very expensive progress. It takes a great deal of talent and craft to write movies."

"You have that — talent and craft, I mean?"

"I — I think so."

"How do you know? What happens if you fail? What do you do then?" Her voice is like steel, accusing and unforgiving.

I feel like melting into a puddle. Rachel is not good for my already shaky confidence

"I won't fail."

"That's not very realistic. What happens if you have a wife and children who countonya for a parnassa?"

I'm sweating buckets. Rachel, who I've known for maybe 45 minutes, is making me feel guilty, making me feel like a terrible husband.

And she's still not finished with me:

"Besides, what happens if your wife doesn't want to move to bigshotHollywood. What happens if she wants to stay with her family in New York? There's no Jewish life in Hollywood. Bunchagoyim if you ask me."

I am speechless. Totally and completely at a loss for words.

And I'm a screenwriter.

Or was.

Until I met this destroyer-of-dreams.

I was going to take Rachel to see Preston Sturge's magnificent screwball comedy The Lady Eve, but by the end of pizza and coffee, I'm seriously reconsidered the rest of the evening. In fact, I'm thinking about throwing Rachel under the screeching wheels of the subway. That's how badly I do not want to spend one more minute with this miserable scold.

And it's mutual. She hates me too.

Rachel realizes that just perhaps she's not such a rebel after all.

We agree that this date/disaster should terminate as quickly as possible. And I give her credit, she doesn't insist that I escort her back to Boro Park.

"Hey, I make this trip every day, you don't have to schlep. Besides, what are we gonnatalkabout?"

Nice, she just had to get in that final dig.

I go back to apartment in Manhattan and dream of Karen Singer. The girl I fell in love with in fourth grade. The girl I have never stopped loving.

I feel a yearning for my childhood love that is so deep, so painful, so vivid, that I want to crawl into bed, pull the blanket over my head, and stay there — forever.

Will I ever be rescued from this purgatory of bad dates, this bad life, this miserable bachelorhood?

*******

Disclaimer: Not all young women with Bais Yaakov style educations are like "Rachel." In fact, many, many young women who went to Bais Yaakov style schools know very well that actors do not make up the dialogue and stories of the movies.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:56 AM | Comments (54)

January 17, 2007

Men Who Talk, Women Who Listen

"Have you been going out?"
"On dates?"
"Uh-huh."

Sarah heaves a weary sigh. It is Friday night. We have invited one of Karen's best friends to join us for Shabbos evening dinner. Sarah is a lovely woman: attractive, intelligent, articulate, well educated. A few years ago she went through a terrible divorce. Any other woman would be steeped in anger and resentment, but Sarah won't do that to herself, to her children. She just picked up the pieces of her life and soldiered on.

I adore Sarah. I also adore the home-baked challe, braided Shabbos loaves, she always brings when she comes for Shabbos dinner. Karen warms it up in the oven, and when I come home from shul the house is drenched in an aroma so delicious I feel dizzy.

"I don't skimp on the vanilla," Sarah confides to me as I bite into her challe, and lavishly compliment her baking skills.

Anyway, back to Sarah's date:

"I went out with a man and he just, well, he just talked the whole time."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, we went to dinner, and he told me about his business, and then all about his children and his grandchildren -- in great detail."
"He never asked you about yourself?"
"No, not really."
"No interest in your life?"
"Apparently not."
"Did somebody set you up?" Karen asks.
"Oh, yes, friends, they thought it would be a very good match."
"Did you try and talk about yourself?" Karen probes.
"To what end? He was quite overbearing."

Sarah sips wine, and says: "I just don't know."

Karen and I exchange baffled looks. Personally, I hate talking about myself; I like nothing better than questioning others--especially women--then listening to them talk on and on about the details of their lives.

"Any other dates?" I ask.
"I'm afraid so."
"Spill."
"This one started out quite nicely, we met at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, in the Tea Room. It's so nice. Anyway, he started talking and it soon became clear that he was quite, what's the word? Miserable. Yes, that fits quite nicely."
"Miserable about what?" Karen asks.
"Everything. His whole world-view was so dour and negative. He went on and on about how awful this was and that was --"
"Did somebody set you up with him?" Karen asks.
"Yes, friends who thought he was very nice -- he is a physician, presumably appropriate."

Match-making is not for amateurs.

"He went on to tell me that his children no longer speak to him."
"What a shock," I say.
"Indeed," Sarah agrees. "At one point I even asked him if there's anything in his life that he's happy about, and he actually could not think of one single thing."
"What a catch," Karen observes.

Sarah falls silent.

"He did all the talking." I state the obvious.
"Mostly."
"You deserve better."
"Well..."
"It's going to happen for you," Karen says, "I'm optimistic."
"Are you really?"
Karen nods.
"Maybe it's me," Sarah muses.
"No. It. Is. Not." I separate my words like cobblestones.

"Were the men divorced or widowers?" Karen asks
"Divorced."
"Better off dating widowers," Karen advises. "They make much better prospects."
"Hey, that's a great idea for a comedy: a woman sets her sights on a man, only problem is he's married, she decides to bump off the wife and them move in on the bereaved husband."
Karen groans. "That is awful, Robert."
"I know. I'm sorry. I've been working in Hollywood way too long."

Sarah says: "I don't know, it's so hard for women my age. Men my age are looking for younger women, and...." Sarah hesitates. "Well, whatever happens it shall be fine."
"Do you really think so?"

Sarah smiles, but it's forced and lacks conviction.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:45 AM | Comments (36)

January 16, 2007

1st Cav Medic Speaks Up

"I've been over here [in Iraq] a couple of months now, and I've learned more about this country than a year's worth of watching CNN. I've sat in mission briefs with Colonels, talked with village elders, had tea with Shieks, played with the kids. And I agree with the President. We need more troops and we need to take greater action."

Via the fine Military Blog Black Five. To read the rest of this article, please click here.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:34 PM | Comments (2)

A Rifle in Every Pot

"It's a phenomenon that gives the term “gun control” a whole new meaning: community ordinances that encourage citizens to own guns.

"Last month, Greenleaf, Idaho, adopted Ordinance 208, calling for its citizens to own guns and keep them ready in their homes in case of emergency. It’s not a response to high crime rates. As The Associated Press reported, “Greenleaf doesn’t really have crime ... the most violent offense reported in the past two years was a fist fight.” Rather, it’s a statement about preparedness in the event of an emergency, and an effort to promote a culture of self-reliance."

To read the rest of Glenn Reynold's AKA Instapundit, Op-Ed piece from the NY Times, please click here.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:11 PM | Comments (0)

Ex-President for Sale

"It now turns out that Jimmy Carter--who is accusing the Jews of buying the silence of the media and politicians regarding criticism of Israel--has been bought and paid for by Arab money."

To read the rest of this article by Alan M. Dershowitz, please click here.

Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Michael Makiri

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:26 PM | Comments (0)

B'Tselem Accused of Deception

"The B’Tselem human rights group is accused by CAMERA, a media watchdog group, of using deceptive terms and selective omissions to slant the perspective of its annual report on Arab casualties. "

To read the rest of the story, please click here.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)

Know Your Enemy

"Why is it that so many who are against the Iraq War and demand that we allow/force the Iraqi government to stand on their own and stop the violent men among them are often the very same people who are always willing to insist that the Palestinian government can not be expected to control the violent men in their neighborhood?"

To read this fine article by Seraphic Friend, ShrinkWrapped, please click here.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:07 AM | Comments (0)

Conservative News Hollywood Style

Have you ever wished that there was a conservative version of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on TV? Now, There is.

Are you ready for some hip, edgy political satire on late night TV that comes from a conservative perspective?

Joel Surnow (creator/executive producer, 24) has created a right-of-center alternative to The Daily Show called "The Half Hour News Hour."

On Saturday, January 20th (early evening) we will be filming two episodes of "The Half Hour News Hour" back to back. The episodes will be taped in front of a live studio audience at the FOX lot on Pico Blvd in West Los Angeles. The shows are scheduled to air on the FOX News Channel in early February, and if well received, will continue to air on a weekly basis.

"The Half Hour News Hour" is all comedy and will feature guest appearances by high-profile stars of the conservative movement. What's needed is a studio audience of hip Republicans to boost the energy and make these shows something special. We want real republicans, not a hired audience! That's US! The taping will start at about 5:00 PM and will take about two hours. You will be added to the drive on list @ FOX and should plan on arriving to the lot no later than 4:00 PM.

If you'd like to be part of the studio audience for this important and highly entertaining event:

Please RSVP as soon as possible to: hhnh2007@gmail.com -- Make sure to mention in the email that you are with the Hollywood Republicans.

Once we receive your RSVP you will be forwarded more detailed information including the exact time and directions. These free tickets will go fast.

This will be a fun, free event and we will be supporting just the kind of show we want on the air...lets all be a part of it!

Hat Tip: Hollywood Republicans

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:11 AM | Comments (7)

January 15, 2007

Jack Bauer Really Needs a New Cell Phone

"In honor of last night and tonight's four-hour Jack Bauer marathon, we thought it'd be a good idea to examine just how good a cellphone Jack needs on his annual "day of doom".

To read the rest of this article, (no spoilers to ruin your day if you taped all four hours) please click here.

*******

For a while Karen and I were keeping a "Kill Count" for each episode of "24." Let me tell you, each season loads of people are killed in horrible ways. Actually, boatloads of people die. The rule of the show is: if you're not Jack, you will probably die -- horribly. Anyway, at one point I turned to Karen and said: "I think they just passed the one-hundred mark," and that was just for just one season.

Anyway, I stopped keeping count. I was worried that maybe it was not a good sign, maybe I was not too normal, you know.

But, I have discovered, someone who is ahead of me.

Way ahead of me.

This guy does away with our general body count and only keeps track of Jack's kill zone. Whoa, talk about specialization.

Check out this encyclopediac website: Jack Bauer Kill Count. The intrepid blogger breaks it all down into episode, time, Person Perishing, what method and weapon Jack uses -- and, get this, each entry is accompanied by a snapshot and video capture.

Simply breathtaking.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:37 PM | Comments (8)

Calling a Traitor a Traitor

"Three lawsuits have been filed against a Viennese rabbi who attended a Holocaust denial conference in Iran in December.

"The suits, filed by the Vienna Jewish community, the Documentation Center of the Austrian Resistance Movement and a Jewish Holocaust victim who has not gone public, accuse Moishe Arye Friedman of Holocaust denial and propagation of Nazi ideology."

To read the rest of this story by Dinah A. Spritzer in Virtual Jerusalem, please click here.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:43 PM | Comments (16)

"So This is Our Victory"

"BINT JBAIL, SOUTH LEBANON – I drove to Hezbollah’s stronghold in South Lebanon to survey the devastation from the war in July, to check in on the United Nations peacekeeping force, and to talk to civilians who were used as human shields in the battle with Israel. My American journalist friend Noah Pollak from Azure Magazine in Jerusalem went with me. We went under the escort of two professional enemies of Hezbollah who work for the Lebanese Committee for UNSCR 1559, an NGO which closely advises the Lebanese government and the international community on the disarmament of illegal militias in Lebanon."

Michael J. Totten in Southern Lebanon, essential reading.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:56 AM | Comments (0)

Arab Oppression

“Arabs don’t mind being oppressed as long as it’s by their own.”

--Winston Churchill

Hat Tip: Augean Stables

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:22 AM | Comments (2)

Why Europe Abandoned Israel

"Why is Israel viewed so differently in Europe than in the United States? To argue as the title of this article does, that Europe has abandoned Israel, is to suggest that it was once in its corner. And in fact, this is true."

To read the rest of this important article by Richard Baehr, please click here.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:45 AM | Comments (9)

Charity: Who Really Gives

"My youthful equation of liberal politics and good character has long since been consigned to the dustbin. When the tax return of Al Gore Jr., multimillionaire avatar of the common man, revealed an annual charitable contribution of $250, I was not surprised. Every poor kollel student I know gives many times that to tzedaka [charity] in a year."

To read Jonathan Rosenblum's entire article, please click here.

Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Mordechai Schiller

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:05 AM | Comments (2)

Hizbullah: Prepping Round #2

This from Naomi Ragen.

Friends:

As much as we would like to sink into the mindless comfort of our untruthful media reporting from our lying politicians, we who love Israel, and of course those who actually live here and whose lives are at stake, prefer to hear the unvarnished truth from untainted sources who use their eyes to see and brains to figure things out theyare not spoon-fed by spin-masters. I'm one of them. Another is my friend up north Devora Evgi. Below, her take on the border with Lebanon.

Naomi

*******

Hi Naomi,

It appears as though the Hizbullah is preparing for Round 2.

Up our way (Moshav Avivim), the entire border is now dotted with Hizbullah flags and moving figures. There is not a single Lebanese army flag in sight. In my opinion, this is NOT okay. A flag is not only a symbol that represents concepts and ideals, but also used to stake claims.

Does this mean that the Hizbullah have reclaimed Southern Lebanon? While driving home from work one evening, will I encounter terrorists who have infiltrated through tunnels they have dug under the border-underneath the noses of the UN base that lies opposite my house?

For years these UN troops have been observers. They observed the way the Hizbullah prepared for the last war and armed themselves to the teeth, so why should anything be different now?

And BTW, where IS the Lebanese army that was supposed to keep the border clean? Perhaps it was largely comprised of Hizbullah in disguise? Oops, sorry. If I don't keep quiet we'll never have peace with Syria.

Looks as though we can all stay tuned to the same channel and same program for a repeat broadcast of the last war, coming soon to a neighborhood near you.

Devora Evgi

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:40 AM | Comments (0)

January 12, 2007

How Long is That Movie?

"The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder."

— Alfred Hitchcock

Hat Tip: Futility Closet

Karen and I wish all our Seraphic Friends a lovely and meaningful Shabbos.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:29 PM | Comments (12)

The Failure of the Arab World

"If conspiracy theories are a wonderful exercise in fantasy and escapism, Arab world conspiracy theorists are the gold medal Olympians of the fantasy competition. In the Arab world, virtually every Arab conspiracy is worthy of a Pulitzer prize in ‘Fiction‘ category (as we have noted many times before, the only other endeavor in which the Arab world has distinguished itself on the world stage is Jew hating).

"Of those Arab world conspiracy theories, we noted, ‘Imagine an entire life, lived as a psychotic episode."

Sigmund, Carl & Alfred analyze the basket case that is the Arab/Muslim world, read on.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:04 AM | Comments (1)

Protesting the Neturei Karta... Sorta

By Stephen Z. Friedman

The sight of Jewishly dressed, bearded men, looking for all the world like rabbis, hugging and kissing the most classic of classically anti-Semitic anti-Semites, while partying at the world convention of Jew-haters in Tehran was for many of us, almost too much to bear.

Can there actually be Jews so stupid as to side with demagogues who would like nothing more than to see (at least) five million of their own people dead? I mean, dealing with the Ahmadenijads, the Nasralahs, the Bin Ladens and other spawns of the Hitler idealogic gene pool is one thing… nothing all that new, really, given our long, tormented history . . . but to witness the groveling of what I can only describe as Jewish kapos-in-waiting, smiling and mingling with the leading Hamans of our time . . . it was all way too much for my simple “aren’t we supposed to love each other” mentality. As my wife’s poster read: “What part of ‘Death to the Jews’ don’t you understand?”

So the wife and I headed over to the other side of Monsey (we could have walked, but driving our zero-emissions Prius is kind of like walking, isn’t it?), expecting to see the streets lined with buses disgorging outside agitators, mounted police nudging back the crowds and the sound of loudspeakers blaring slogans, chants and an occasional invective.

What we saw was far more frightening.

There were maybe a hundred people. Maybe. A few Israeli flags here and there, a couple of homemade signs and a pathetic Toys-R-Us loudspeaker manned by a kid straight from the last remaining B’nai Akiva garin.

Across the street, in front of Naturei Karta USA Headquarters, things weren’t much better. Picture a dilapidated old house with paint all but peeled, missing windows, doors hanging from the one working hinge and a sloping porch with the requisite torn-up sofa.

Deliverance, Neturei Karta-style.

Out front stood a gaggle of bedraggled Chassidim brandishing an American flag (backwards), smoking (of course), kaputahs half-off (it’s been unusually warm in New York) and chatting in Yiddish with the viab’s (that’s “wives” for you non-Monseyites) who were standing a few feet away from and below (naturally) the porch.

My heart sank. This is it? This is the state of Jewish activism? Not a week before, the world press was rife with images of “Jews” kissing Holocaust deniers. Our enemies from without are becoming bolder and more dangerous. Our Jew-like fifth columnists are pulling themselves together once more, albeit pathetically, marching to their old, treacherous drumbeats. Does anyone out there give a damn?

Back at the demonstration, I shouted for a while. So did my wife, Ruth (she’s a better singer, but not a bad shouter). I waved my poster and pointed my finger. We saw a few people we knew and one of them told me he liked my sign.

A number of reporters from the local papers showed up, and then it was over.

How did it end? The police told both sides that it was getting late, and they needed to change shifts, so everybody started leaving. The Chassidim came down from the porch, the wives went back home to diaper the kids and the “Zionists” thanked everyone for a really nice demonstration.

Ruth and I slowly shuffled back to the car, signs in tow, no longer fuming. How could we be? The people who we now realize we are most disturbed by, never showed up.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:44 AM | Comments (8)

Iraq & The Palis: Same War

"Israel's refusal to recognize the regional nature of the Palestinian war against it stems from the strategic blindness of Israel's leaders. Sharon and his successors Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, together with the opinion makers in the local media who back them, all refuse to recognize the regional nature of the war being waged against us. Ignoring the overwhelming evidence that the Palestinians -- from Hamas to Islamic Jihad to Fatah -- take their marching orders from Teheran, our leaders irrelevantly and dangerously work to establish a Fatah-led terror state in Judea and Samaria. That is, they seek to create a new Iranian-run terror state that will operate side-by-side with the Hamas-led Iranian-run terror state in Gaza.

"While the Olmert government's decision to fork over guns, ammunition and $100 million to Fatah makes clear that it will not change its current course, Bush's address Wednesday gave hope that his administration may actually not ignore the regional character of the war it faces in Iraq. After presenting his plan for Baghdad and the Anbar Province, Bush spoke forthrightly about the ideological and regional nature of the war. Pointing an accusatory finger at Iran and Syria for their support for the insurgents in Iraq, Bush announced his intention to take action to end to their interference. He even hinted that the US may take military action against Iran's nuclear facilities saying, "I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region."

To read Caroline Glick's entire article, please click here.

Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Yonason Fisgus, M.D.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:33 AM | Comments (2)

January 11, 2007

An Hour with the i-Phone

NY Times tech columnist David Pogue got to spend one hour with the i-Phone. Here's his preview:

"Already, though, one thing is clear: the name iPhone may be doing Apple a disservice. This machine is so packed with possibilities that the cellphone may actually be the least interesting part.

"As Mr. Jobs pointed out in his keynote presentation, the iPhone is at least three products merged into one: a phone, a wide-screen iPod and a wireless, touch-screen Internet communicator. That helps to explain its price: $499 or $599 (with four or eight gigabytes of storage).

"As you’d expect of Apple, the iPhone is gorgeous. Its face is shiny black, rimmed by mirror-finish stainless steel. The back is textured aluminum, interrupted only by the lens of a two-megapixel camera and a mirrored Apple logo. The phone is slightly taller and wider than a Palm Treo, but much thinner (4.5 by 2.4 by 0.46 inches).

"You won’t complain about too many buttons on this phone; it comes very close to having none at all. The front is dominated by a touch screen (320 by 480 pixels) operated by finger alone. The only physical buttons, in fact, are volume up/down, ringer on/off (hurrah!), sleep/wake and, beneath the screen, a Home button.

"The iPhone’s beauty alone would be enough to prompt certain members of the iPod cult to dig for their credit cards."

To read the rest of David Pogue's article, please click here.

And here is Mr. Pogue's The Ultimate i-Phone Frequently Asked Questions.

*******

Now, you all know that I do not give financial advice, and you all know that I own quite a bit of Apple stock, bought a bunch of shares a few years ago when I first saw the i-Pod. Anyway, my feeling about Apple stock for 2007 is this: it'll probably go to 115, maybe 120.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)

Petraeus: A Personal View

Seraphic Secret is blessed with ferociously intelligent readers and commenters, a high percentage of whom, we are proud to say, are members of our armed services, all branches, present and past, and all branches of The Israeli Defense Forces.

A close personal friend, and frequent commenter here on Seraphic Secret, is Maj. Virgil Hilts ( a pseudonyn, obviously, for the name is Steve McQueen's memorable character from The Great Escape.) Anyway, Maj. Hilts knows LTG Patraeus, has fought in Iraq with him, and would crawl through broken glass for the man.

Maj. Hilts has graciously jotted down his impressions of the man President Bush has just appointed as Commander of the Iraq War. We thank Maj. Hilts for this, and of course for his service.

*******

Your question asking what LTG Petraeus' promotion and assignment to MNFI (Multi National Force Iraq) will mean for the war effort is a tough one. Soldiers (officers and enlisted) either love him or hate him. I would crawl through broken glass for the man, and I believe that he our best chance for success in Iraq. I will offer a few observations, and leave it for you to decide if he can save a situation many now say is lost.

I met LTG Petraeus in September 2004, shortly after he took over the Iraqi Army's training. He needed proven combat arms leaders to reinforce the scratch team he inherited, so he begged, borrowed, and stole a number of us from a variety of stateside assignments.

My immediate boss in Iraq had just finished commanding an infantry battalion in the 101st Airborne Division, a friend with extensive service in the Rangers was pulled from Fort Benning, and I had previously done some work training armies in Asia and Latin America. We were three of many.

When I arrived, LTG Petraeus brought me into his office, told me his expectations, sincerely thanked me for my service, and sent me to the hottest city in Iraq. In every case, he found the right talent for the particular mission, and then made sure that we felt appreciated.

Robert's observation that Hollywood is based entirely upon personal relationships is applicable elsewhere, to include the Army, and LTG Petraeus is one of the few generals who instinctively understands this. A good number of gifted staff officers will be finding their way on to the MNFI staff over the next few months. All will be volunteers -- very few will be "yes men."

I went to a brigade specially recruited from veterans of the old Iraqi Army, so that we could quickly get Iraqis fighting and winning some of their own successes.

Our first fight was Second Fallujah, and despite the high visibility of the mission, we had less unhelpful "help" from his headquarters that I have had on many peacetime training exercises. Petraeus showed up to look us over shortly before we attacked the city, had dinner with us, and sent us on our way. Compared to many other generals, his entourage and security force was tiny.

Later, while my brigade helped to secure Mosul for the January 2005 elections, I watched him interact with local civilians, including many he had known when he was there a year earlier He looked as though he were running for mayor, and he would have won in a landslide. He also gave the media wide latitude to see what they wanted and report what they liked -- we all understood and could speak about our mission, but we had no artificial talking points we were expected to spoon feed them.

At a post-election Arab-style lunch with local political, military, and police leaders, I observed Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Trudy Rubin as she chatted with me and several second-tier Iraqi leaders (the head table had few Americans, and no reporters) about our operations. It rapidly became apparent that she was as impressed with LTG Petraeus as I am (she still is--read the column she wrote today). Other reporters were as well.

I am not optimistic enough to believe that Petraeus is likely to turn Sadr, Zawahiri, or the news media into U.S. style red-white-and-blue patriots, but do not discount the ripple effects of his engagement with the local population, and his willingness to answer questions plainly for reporters. I remember that he had the public approval of both Joe Biden and Donald Rumsfeld while we were in Iraq -- can't get much more diverse support than that! He must have true successes to communicate (fluff won't work), but he is more than able to communicate the ones that MNFI and Iraq get.

After he returned from Iraq, LTG Petraeus took command of the Army's staff college at Fort Leavenworth, an assignment widely regarded as a graveyard for generals who have outlived their usefulness. Far from dead, LTG Petraeus worked tirelessly with his staff and the Marines to create a joint counterinsurgency (COIN) center that is producing new doctrine for Iraq and future fights, and is sending out training teams to almost every US brigade before deployment to spend a week each trip teaching key leaders the fundamentals of fighting in a COIN environment. He is certain to redefine the role of MNFI within the first month of his command, taking it in directions nobody expects and dramatically improving its effectiveness.

How will LTG Petraeus fight the next phase of the war in Iraq?

I have no idea. I do believe that he will fight the war on its most important battlefields: the hearts of Iraqis and the minds of Americans, as actively as he will on the critical, though less important, field of battle.

He is undoubtedly the right man for this job.

Maj. Virgil Hilts

*******

Those who are interested in glimpsing LTG David Patraeu's thoughts regarding war and counterinsurgency should read this scholarly article by LTG Patraeus."Learning Counterinsurgency: Observations from Soldiering in Iraq."

Soccer Dad just sent us his link that has information about LTG Patraeus by the NY Time's John Burns.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:12 AM | Comments (12)

January 10, 2007

My Hollywood Gun, Part III, The Gauntlet

"Attack, always attack."

My friend, the heroic Israeli tank commander, told me that in the first few days of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, both fronts, The Sinai and The Golan, were so weakly defended that had the Egyptian or Syrian high command been strategically bolder, tactically smarter, and their soldiers braver, well, the Arab armies could have achieved massive breakthroughs, and Israel would have found herself facing genocide.

The torture of Reginald Denny.

But small, actually tiny pockets, of brave, determined and very well trained Israeli troops, in some cases, just two or three tanks on the Golan, held their ground and attacked enemy forces sometimes a hundred times their strength.

Screenwriter Escapes DGA Building—Note the Irony

"We had no orders except to hold our ground and whenever possible to attack—always attack."

All this whips through my mind as I aim our car—I'm already thinking of the Lexus as a tank, a Centurion—towards the exit of the parking garage. A knot of rioters are milling about at the exit. It's hard to see clearly but, oh boy, it looks like a few of them are brandishing baseball bats.

I'm gonna make a wild guess and assume that they're not Little League dads.

I haven't turned on the car's headlights. We're still lurking in the shadows, not yet detected by the barbarians.

Good thing the car is fashionably black.

Karen says: “Maybe there's another exit.”

“Nope.”

“How do you know?”

"DGA building. I've been here like a zillion times.”

“What are we going to do?”

We.

The Talmud teaches that when a husband or wife uses the collective we it means there is love in the relationship.

Is there a finer way to enter battle than with the woman I have been in love with since third grade?

Ariel, 11, says: “I have to pee.”

Offspring #2, seven-years old, doubles over with an uncontrollable fit of the giggles. She finds this absolutely hysterical.

“You're going to have to hold it in for a while, Ariel, do you think you can do that?” Karen says.

“I guess.”

“Good boy.”

Karen and I exchange glances. Karen gives me a pale smile of encouragement.

Robert

“I just have to say it.”

Karen

“What?”

Robert

“Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night.”

Karen inclines her head, questioning.

Robert

“Bette Davis, All About Eve, 1950, written and directed by the great Joseph L. Mankiewicz.”

Karen sighs, tolerantly but with affection:

Karen

“Robert, Robert.”

In the back seat, the nervous giggles from Offspring #2 increase tenfold.

My Israeli buddy, the tank commander was fond of quoting Sun Tzu's Art of War, and one of his favorite maxim's was:

Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.

Okey-dokey.

I inch the car forward, gain speed, 4 mph, 7 mph...

Now: I switch on the headlights using—surprise, Hi-Beams!—drenching the criminals in white light. I lean on the horn and —

WHOOOOOOOOO!

— and the rioters are drenched in the powerful lights, (those Japanese engineers, G-d bless 'em) and the shrieking horn is amplified by the concrete garage walls. The knuckleheads are blinded, frozen as I bear down on them at what seems like Formula One speed, and now they fall back like bowling pins and —

Steve McQueen in Bullitt.

— and we blow right past them, make a sharp left turn—we're ordered by a street sign to turn right, but that would deliver us to the front of the DGA building and directly into the eye of the mob, and so, tires screeching—hey, just like Steve McQueen in Bullitt—we race away from the theater.

Heaving a great sigh, I realize that I have not taken a breath in, gee willikers, a long, long time.

I zoom down the block, pull over, and gulp oxygen.

“You okay?” Karen asks.

I nod.

But my heart is slamming in my chest like a Ginger Baker solo.

Hey, Los Angeles is Just Like Fatah Land—Only More Fashionable

Karen snaps on her little flashlight, studies the Thomas Guide. Using her index finger, she traces a route home.

“I think we should stick to the main streets, it'll probably be safer.” Karen says.

“You navigate. I'll pilot.”

“Let's get moving.” Karen cautions.

“Check.”

Karen's like: Huh?

I have seen way too many war movies. Seriously.

Anyhoo:

As we cruise through the chaotic streets we spot fires burning all over the city. A canopy of red and orange spreads through the velvety darkness. It's kind of beautiful, like a romantic J.M. W. Turner canvas.

Small businesses are deliberately torched.

Orange streaks of fire inscribe themselves against the velvety sky. It takes me a moment to recognize the distinctive signature of Molotov cocktails.

Los Angeles has turned into Fatah Land.

“Where's the Fire Department?” Karen asks.

Looters help themselves to everything from television sets and stereos to diapers and liquor.

Every so often we hear the distinctive flat crack of gun fire.

Nowhere do we see any police.

Trying to avoid a massive traffic jam, I turn down a side-street, Karen leans forward, spots something and cries:

“No!”

Thirty yards separate us from a group of thugs who are chilling in the street. They watch us with flinty eyes. All wicked and street savvy, they shuffle in our direction.

They're all: yo, yo, yo.

And I'm all: oy, oy, oy.

Call me crazy, but I have a sneaking suspicion they're not looking to discuss the cinema of Oscar Micheaux.

“Let's get out of here,” Karen says.

Who am I to disagree with the love of my life?

I shift into reverse. Back up a few feet, shift into drive, angling for a sharp U turn, but the thugs are coming up awfully fast in my rear-view mirror.

I'm pretty sure one of the locals is toting a Tec 9. Or maybe it's just a chunk of lumber.

And I've got a Swiss Army Knife.

Talk about being out-gunned.

Do not mess with Gloria Grahame.

“Robert...” says Karen says through clenched teeth.

No time for a neat, Driver's Ed. three-point turn.

I blast forward, squeak through a gap between two parked cars, hurtle right up on the sidewalk, and then, ca-runch! yet another bone rattling move down the high curb, back into the street and:

Away.

We.

Go.

“Some move,” says Karen.

She touches my shoulder. And to this very day I still feel the cool imprint of her hand.

It's Karen's way of saying, “My hero.”

Or at least that's what I tell myself.

Entry in Robert's Official Screenwriting Notebook: write this extremely scary, axle-cracking maneuver into your next script—no matter what the subject matter.

“I really, really, really have to pee,” Ariel reminds us.

I hand him an empty styrofoam coffee cup.

Twenty Minutes to Get Anywhere in Los Angeles—Except During, Ahem, Civil Unrest

It takes us over an hour-and-a-half to get home. Normally, this drive would take maybe twenty minutes.

But we have to circle round and double-back countless times in order to avoid choked arteries, major intersections where madness reigns—traffic lights are ignored—and then there are unknown side streets that cause Karen to observe:

“We'll never get out of there alive.”

Listening to the radio we hear about the Rodney King verdict. So that's the grievance du jour.

The Fire Department, we learn, is not being deployed because their men have come under intense gun fire.

We hear—and I have trouble believing this report—that the Los Angeles Police Department has been,"Pulled back for their own safety."

Huh?

I thought that was part of the job description.

Dopey me.

Casa Avrech: I carry Offspring # 2 to her bed where she recites the Sh'ma and then promptly falls asleep. We tell Ariel how proud of him we are. He shrugs. No big deal. Five minutes later he's fast asleep.

Karen, crisp and efficient, pins a bed sheet over the large picture window in the living room. We cannot be too careful. I search the house for a weapon, settle on an old ice ax from my mountain climbing days. It's an elegant tool with wicked potential in hand to hand combat, but obviously useless against firearms or a hail of Molotov cocktails.

Abruptly, I feel a burning pain—a white hot spike—shooting through both my arms. Did I get hit by a stray bullet?

I examine my hands and gosh, my fingers are curled into claws; it takes me a moment to realize that it's caused by gripping the steering wheel so hard. Painful muscle cramps travel from my knuckles into my shoulders. It takes at least an hour for my fingers to relax, for the pain to subside.

On the TV, Karen and I watch as Reginald Denny gets his brains bashed in; we gaze in horror and disbelief as the barbarians dance over his broken body. Tears in our eyes, we see, G-d bless them, pious citizens step in and halt this atrocity, rescuing the tragic truck driver.

There's video of Fidel Lopez, a Guatemalan immigrant, he, like Denny is pulled from his truck and robbed. But theft is almost beside the point. The rioters slash torturers smash open his head then slice off an ear. The mob graffiti his chest, torso and genitals.

Take my word for it, graffiti is not an art form.

Between fifty and fifty-six citizens are murdered in the riots; two-thousand are seriously injured.

At last, the LAPD are deployed and approximately 10,000 arrests are made.

Estimates of between 800 million and a billion dollars of property damage have been reported. Approximately 3,600 fires were deliberately set, destroying 1,100 buildings.

Korean shopkeepers were specifically targeted by black rioters. But the Koreans owned guns and heroically defended their property and lives through force of arms.

It was a lesson that should have reverberated nationally, but some commentators labeled the Koreans, vigilantes. Just another case of the mainstream media getting it wrong.

Liberal totalitarians demand increased gun control, if not the outright banning of gun sales to citizens.

Second Amendment, what's that?

And then, of course, the race hustlers, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Maxine Waters, the usual vulgar demagogues, parade across TV screens informing the good citizens of Los Angeles that the riots were really “an uprising.”

Oh, really?

As in: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising?

My Hollywood Gun

Gazing from our bedroom window, we watch orange flames lick at the darkness, pillars of black smoke climbing into the sky. We can actually smell the acrid odor of burning rubber.

“Look how close they are,” says Karen.

“Just past La Cienega. Maybe eight blocks away.”

Karen gives me a long penetrating gaze:

“What do we do if they come here?”

“After this is all over,” I vow, “I’m going to buy a pistol.”

Karen says: “How about a shotgun?”

Springfield .45 ASP. My Hollywood gun.

If the Los Angeles riots taught us anything it's that you're a fool if you count on the authorities to protect you in times of civil chaos — in fact, at any time. In the end, only I can protect my family.

I'm never, ever going to allow myself to be outgunned by the bad guys. All the gun laws that are on the books—and there are thousands of them—just make it that much easier for the barbarians to amass weapons, and for law-abiding people like you and me to be at their mercy.

If you outlaw weapons, as so many squishy liberals yearn to do, well then, only the state and the outlaws will be armed. Which leaves ordinary citizens at the mercy of an all powerful government and a variety of merciless criminal sub cultures.

When Hitler and Stalin snatched power, one of their first moves was to outlaw private gun ownership. They understood that armed citizens are a mortal threat to totalitarian rule.

Imagine: several million Jews owning firearms between 1938 and 1945.

Is the mind capable of such a leap of faith or is it too painful?

One week after the riots I legally purchased a pistol: A 1911 Springfield .45. It's the pistol I trained with in Israel. Yes, it's heavy, and yes, the recoil kicks like a Rockette; but this is the weapon I know best and on good days I can shoot the wings off a fly at twenty-five yards. I cordially invite any mugger, rioter, criminal, and gun-hating “progressive” to get on the wrong side of my Hollywood gun.

FADE TO BLACK

For this is

The End

Note: I'm frequently asked how I'm able to remember incidents in such detail, including dialogue, from so many years ago? It's simple. I do not rely on my memory. I have been keeping a detailed diary for over 20 years. This post, as so many others, is based on my diaries. If there are gaps in my entries, I check with Karen. She was also keeping a diary, plus Karen has a phenomenal memory.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:17 PM | Comments (44)

Love & Marriage

"I consider everybody as having a right to marry once in their lives for love — if they can."

—Jane Austen, Letter to Her Sister Cassandra

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:02 PM | Comments (4)

January 09, 2007

My Hollywood Gun, Part II: The Get-a-Way

I have to protect my family.

I'm pretty sure the mob outside is dead serious about breaking in and getting down to some serious violence.

Not to mention liberating some pretty major karats. At the reception, I noticed huge diamonds whose glitter could induce seizures; watches: at least a dozen Cartier Tanks; I could not count the Rolex Oysters, and no doubt there's enough loose cash to make your average L.A. rioter reasonably satisfied. This is, after all, an affluent Hollywood crowd.

Armed & Dangerous With a Swiss Army Knife—Just Kidding

I have to protect my family.

In my pocket, as always, a little Swiss Army Knife.

"I've never yet seen an eyeball who felt that the Swiss Army Knife was not a dangerous weapon."

This charming and somewhat gruesome comment, advice really, was given to me by my Israeli buddy, a grizzled tank commander who, one drunken evening, cheerily listed for yours truly all the common, everyday objects that have lethal potential. My friend was a big fan of the ordinary Swiss Army Knife and its zillions of nifty attachments.

So: it is pitch black, rioters are gathering outside the DGA building, and to make matters even worse, women and children in the lobby are yelling, sobbing—every moist and yucky sound imaginable—in panic.

I feel like announcing:

"People, shrieking does not help. Really it doesn't."

But, why bother? It's a mob mentality and there is no reasoning with such people. Unless maybe you're Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird.

Which I am not.

Anyhoo.

I'm busy formulating a plan, trying to figure out a way to escape this building before the rioters break in, before they figure out a way of crashing through one of the numerous doors.

Interpolation:

Karen does not scream or yell.

Unnaturally calm is the love of my life. Even as stones—where do the rioters get rocks?—thwack sharply against the front doors, Karen does not even flinch.

It's almost eerie. Basically, everyone else is losing their collective minds, but Karen's expression just builds into this magnificent wall of serene composure. Her posture goes taut, as if a steel rod is welded into her spine and molding her into an incredibly cute Marine.

Ten-chun!

I have this really weird urge to lift her sleeve and seek out the Semper Fi tattoo. And then there's her lovely face. All the open and generous softness has receded and been replaced by a look of, well, the only way to describe her expression is —

Napoleon at Austerlitz.

— have you ever seen those military paintings of 17th Century generals? You know those huge canvases where you get to see a full battle, say Austerlitz, or Waterloo, thousands of men are fighting, dying, blood and guts strewn about, rearing horses with eyes wide as saucers, but the general, the reason for the painting in the first place, well, he's usually sitting on his white horse, on a hill, watching the battle, and his expression conveys, determination, resolve, bravery, a self-assurance that says to the viewer: Look, believe me, I know exactly what I'm doing.

Anyway, that's what Karen looks like tonight.

End Interpolation:

“Karen,” I whisper, “I think we should get to the car and get out of here.”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

I've been in love with Karen since third grade and have come to the realization that she's one part Antigone and all Patton.

“Everybody, everybody! Attention, please! We cut the lights. We don't want them to be able to see inside. Do you understand? We shut down the power. Not them.”

There is a collective buzz as a rent-a-cop repeats this vital announcement.

“What are we supposed to do now?” People shout.

“We've called the police,” comes the weak reply.

More nervous buzzing.

“Please, ladies and gentlemen, just wait for the police to arrive.”

I'm thinking: famous last words.

Offspring #2 is still in my arms, still glued to my hip, and though seven-years old, she has regressed and jammed her thumb in her mouth; she trembles mightily, as if freezing. I can actually hear her teeth chattering.

Karen and I edge our way to the staircase; we are not going to wait for the police. We are not going to sit here like victims.

We are going to make our way down to the parking garage, jump into the car, and drive home. We are going to take our fate in our own hands.

The cavalry, I'm pretty sure, and with all apologies to John Ford, is not coming to the rescue.

The Police Are Coming—But Not Really

“Where are you going?”

A rent-a-cop is posted at the staircase.

“To our car,” I tell him.

“That's not a good idea, sir.”

“We think it is.”

“We've called the police.”

“Where are they?”

He says nothing.

“How long before they come?”

“Any minute.”

I gesture to the rioters doing their hostile little dances outside the DGA building:

“What happens when they start throwing Molotov cocktails?”

Rent-a-cop takes a deep breath.

“The police are coming,” he insists.

“Excuse me, we're going to our car. You can't stop us.”

The rent-a-cop has about 200 lbs.—all muscle—on your truly and I'm terrified that he's going to challenge me.

Thank G-d, he steps aside, murmurs something about not being responsible for our safety.

No kidding.

Poor guy. He's trying to do his job, but he no longer knows what his job is.

Robert's Rules for Driving Through a Riot

1. Do not stop for anyone or anything.

2. Not even to help someone. My first responsibility is to my family.

3. If rioters try to blockade the car, drive straight through.

4. If the car stalls, don't leave the car.

5. Unless the car is on fire.

These rules flash through my mind in a split second.

The Fashionable and Magic Backpack

The stairwell is pitch lack. Not good. In fact, it's bad, very bad.

Suddenly, a golden beam of light slices through the velvety darkness.

“Look," says Ariel, "Mommy has a flashlight.”

The children are delighted.

Me too.

Karen carries an extremely cool and very feminine leather backpack. It's something of a joke in the family that the backpack is magic. Whatever you need, whenever you need it, it's gonna be in the backpack.

Except for a pistol.

Sigh.

Cautiously, looking for signs of the rioters hiding in the garage, we make our way to the car. I've definitely seen too many movies. I almost declare: The coast is clear.

I snap Offspring #2 into her car seat. Ariel, 11, also sits in the back with his younger sister. He is pale with fear and confusion. I touch his arm and murmur: “Everything is going to be fine.”

Ariel gives a weak smile and nods his head.

Our children trust us to protect them.

The burden of parenthood has never felt more grave.

Starting up the engine, I realize that I am drenched in sweat, my shirt clings to my body.

Karen reaches into the glove compartment, pulls out the Thomas Guide to Los Angeles.

“We may have to find a different route home,” she says.

“Right.”

Using commencement-of-production bonus money from my last film, we bought a Lexus outfitted with a massive eight cylinder engine. It was a good move. The Lexus is a gas guzzler, but who cares. It's our Centurion.

And as we cruise up the ramp, my breath catches in my throat for there are a dozen rioters milling about the exit.

Oh man, am I going to be able to put pedal to metal and smash through a bunch of real live human bodies?

My Israeli friend, the tank officer, had something like sixteen kills in a Sinai tank battle during the 1973, Yom Kippur War. When I complimented him on this huge kill ratio he waved it off and said:

“It's no big deal killing an Egyptian tank. They have this habit of hunkering down and using their tanks as artillery platforms. All wrong. Picking them off was a bit too easy. Remember, always fight an offensive battle. Most people are cowards so if you keep coming at them, chances are they will retreat.”

Okey-dokey.

Louise Brooks, ready for a riot.

Next Chapter: Part III, Gauntlet. In which we manage to escape from the parking garage, only to discover that the route home is, um, a minefield.

Note: I'm frequently asked how I'm able to remember incidents in such detail, including dialogue, from so many years ago? It's simple. I do not rely on my memory. I have been keeping a detailed diary for over 20 years. This post, as so many others, is based on my diaries. If there are gaps in my entries, I check with Karen. She was also keeping a diary, plus Karen has a phenomenal memory.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:25 PM | Comments (21)

Apple Phone is Finally Ringing

Seraphic Secret has long had a love affair with Apple products and Apple Stock. No too long ago we discussed the long-awaited, almost mythical Apple phone.

At last, it is here.

And is is beautiful. Just what you'd expect from Apple.

"The iPhone, which will start at $499 when it launches in June, is controlled by touch, plays music, surfs the Internet and runs the Macintosh computer operating system. Jobs said it will "reinvent" wireless communications and "leapfrog" past the current generation of smart phones.

"Every once in a while a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything," he said during his keynote address at the annual Macworld Conference and Expo. "It's very fortunate if you can work on just one of these in your career. ... Apple's been very fortunate in that it's introduced a few of these."

To read the rest of the story, please click here.

Meanwhile, Apple stock continues it's climb towards the stratosphere.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:03 PM | Comments (15)

The Seam, The Sword & Belle

"One of the truly sad, no tragic developments in modern romance is that we males have no way of displaying our manly virtues to the women we adore. Somewhere along the way somebody got the terrible idea that men no longer need to be, well, men; that we should to be tamed, made more sensitive, more gentle.

"Let me state this bluntly: men have been reeducated, Pol Pot-like, to be feminized.

"Don't women realize what we really want; don't women understand what men really need? It's in our DNA, it is at the hot and burning core of our souls.

"I want to climb into the saddle of a snorting, stamping medieval war horse, enter the lists, and SLAM! unhorse another rider. I want Karen to place her silken handkerchief on the tip of my lance and declare me her true knight.

"I want to grab an frightfully sharp Samurai sword, dash into brutal, face-to-face combat against the wicked bandits who threaten Karen's shtetl -- whoops I'm mixing civilizations here. But okay, you get the point.

"Please, please, please, just hand me two Colt .45's and let me duel in the sun against a wild bunch of psychotic killers hired by the evil railroad to crush Karen's modest Arizona homestead.

"Instead, men have been reduced to playing violent video games. Shopping for expensive Italian coffee blenders. Maybe playing a rough game of touch footbal.

"When all we truly desire is to let slip the dogs of war for the women we love."

*******

Yes, this is what it is like inside my mind.

And this is a particularly giddy excerpt from Chapter 30 of How I Married Karen. To read the entire chapter, please click here.

Virtual Jerusalem, has been running my series on a weekly basis, and I have to tell you, I feel just like Charles Dickens, (minus the massive talent) whose many novels were originally published as weeklies, and highly anticipated by the reading public. There is something quite wonderful about seeing your story running as an old fashioned serial.

I'm working on Part II of My Hollywood Gun, and that should appear later in the day.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:34 AM | Comments (12)

January 08, 2007

My Hollywood Gun, Part I: The Burning

Hollywood is burning.

Karen and I lock every door in the house, shut tight the windows, switch off all the lights.

Gazing from our bedroom window, we watch orange flames licking at the darkness, pillars of black smoke climbing into the sky. We can actually smell burning rubber.

“Look how close they are,” says Karen.

“Just past La Cienega. Maybe eight blocks away.”

Karen gives me a long penetrating gaze.

She says: “What do we do if they come here?”

My mind is racing away. I don't say it out loud, but we are defenseless. Unless I get crazy inventive like Dustin Hoffman in Straw Dogs.

“After this is all over,” I vow, “I'm going to go out and buy a pistol.”

Karen says: “How about a shotgun?”

Dissolve:

Two Hours Earlier:

The mob is surging towards the front doors of the theater. They are shouting, but the glass doors are so thick we cannot hear what they're screaming. One look is all we need, faces twisted into expressions of raw hatred. There is no doubt that the mob is intent on some serious violence.

We're at a screening for a new movie. It's a Hollywood premiere and charity event for, get this, inner city kids.

I'm friends with the executive producer.

“Bring Karen and the kids,” the producer chirps on the phone,“it's a kid-friendly movie, there's gonna be a reception, and really Robert, it's gonna be fab-u-lous.”

And so: because this producer is my friend and I want to support her movie, and because I'm a Hollywood screenwriter, and because personal relationships grease the wheels of the business, and because this lady producer is a player and admires my work, I schlep Karen, Ariel, and Offspring #2 to this classic Hollywood event.

What could possibly go wrong at a swanky Hollywood premiere?

It is a Wednesday evening, April 29, 1992. The Rodney King tape has been running like an eternal loop on every network 24/7.

The film, a real stinker, has, at long last, cut to its final fade to black. Everyone is now mingling in the reception area. Guests congratulate the producer, director and stars, assuring them that the film is: ”Great, just great,” and “the best work they have ever done,” all the expected and acceptable lies we tell each other.

Suddenly a chill sweeps through the room.

Something is happening.

It's happening outside.

I step towards the large plate glass doors of the theater. The security men, two burly rent-a-cops, deeply alarmed, start locking the row of doors.

Snap, click.

Snap, click.

Snap, click.

Snap, CRACK!

Mesmerized, I stare as something hard bounces off the thick glass. There is a tiny white wound.

“Step back from the doors,” the security men call out in surprisingly firm voices.

I stay put. I want to see what's happening.

“Please, step away from the doors,” they plead repeatedly as more guests press forward trying to glimpse the fearful gathering outside.

I see it happening. A classic shot unwinding in slow motion: the mob swarms towards the movie theater, towards us: a thick wave of fury marching with a terrible velocity towards this cocoon of well-intentioned Hollywood—there's no way around this—Hollywood Liberals.

Sheesh, talk about a target-rich environment.

It's almost funny.

Here we are, inside, raising charity for inner city kids and—

—and these inner city kids are outside trying to get in. Not, mind you, to express their ever-lasting appreciation for our spectacular generosity. Nope, hard as it is to believe, but it looks as if the objects of our charity would like to lynch us.

Or maybe burn us to death.

Almost funny. But not quite.

Abruptly, the lights go out, and we are plunged into darkness.

Offspring #2 leaps into my arms.

Trembling like a frightened rabbit, she stutters:

“D-d-d-addy, what's happening?”

Karen grips my arm:

“Robert?”

Ariel squeezes my hand, and asks:

“What happened to the lights?”

A woman screams.

And just like in the movies I can sense panic spreading through the crowd.

During the 1973 Yom Kippur War I had a long and detailed conversation with an Israeli officer, an incredibly brave and highly decorated tank commander, who explained why Israel always beat the Arabs in war:

“We maneuver, we remain flexible and liquid. The Arabs have a fatal tendency to fall back into a defensive posture. You cannot win a battle or a war when your position is static. We shoot and scoot. We keep moving, we probe the enemies flank and then move in for the kill.”

Excellent advice.

We are trapped in the lobby and outside a mob of rioters, are moving in, surrounding the building.

I'm determined to go Israeli.

Next Week: Part II: Escape. In which Los Angeles devolves into anarchy, and the police are revealed to be helpless, hopeless — and useless.

Note: I'm frequently asked how I'm able to remember incidents in such detail, including dialogue, from so many years ago? It's simple. I do not rely on my memory. I have been keeping a detailed diary for over 20-years. This post, as so many others, is based on my diaries. If there are gaps in my entries, I check with Karen. She was also keeping a diary, plus Karen has a phenomenal memory.

Copyright © Robert J. Avrech

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:09 AM | Comments (35)

Science 101

"The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity."

— Harlan Ellison

Hat Tip: Futility Closet

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:59 AM | Comments (2)

January 05, 2007

Men & Girls in Hollywood

"The thing is, I was wondering if you could introduce me to any girls."
"What age range are you looking to meet?"

I'm having lunch with an incredibly successful Hollywood producer. He's been divorced for about a year, and is just getting back into the dating arena. We've been discussing a script I wrote that he's interested in producing, and now we've veered off into more personal areas. My friend's divorce was pretty ugly and he's (what a shock) somewhat bitter at his ex.

But he tells me that he is lonely and looking to meet "a girl."

The producer is middle-aged. His hair thinning and he's got a field of plugs filling out the rapidly retreating hairline. My friend is also over-weight and smokes two packs of cigarettes a day. He smells like an ash tray.

"What age?" He repeats my question out loud.

A well known actress, thin as a celery stalk, passes our table.

"She's about right," my friend says.
"She's like 23-years old," I say.
"Well you know what I think, Robert, it's not age per se that counts, it's what's in here that really tells the tale."

Dramatically, he presses his hand to his heart. He's seen way too many movies. Read way too many scripts. He actually believes the stuff we screenwriters write.

"Didn't you and your ex separate because you, I claw quotation marks in the air: didn't grow together."
"Yeah, I guess."
"Don't you think that a 23-year old might lack a certain... maturity There might not be a lot to talk about. I mean, what do you have in common with a girl old enough to be your daughter?"
"You never know."
"I know what I'd do with a 23-year old."
The producer wiggles his eyebrows like Groucho.
"I'd burp her." I say.
"Funny. Big funny. You should write sit-coms. That's where the real money is."
"Listen, my advice. Date women closer to your own age. With maturity comes wisdom. You want someone with the same values, a woman who's had the same life experiences as you. It creates a unique and strong bond."

He ponders this for a long moment.

My friend is, at the core, a decent man. He's Jewish, charitable, supports Israel, and has fine taste in movies; he likes my work, what am I supposed to say?

But here's the thing about my producer friend, about too many men I have known, especially here in Hollywood: they simply do not recognize the poisonous patterns in their lives, thus they repeat them, endlessly, and these patterns end up as pathology. This behavior can only end in frustration, deep bitterness, and a life of diminished expectations -- if not downright misery.

My friend nods hello to a fast rising ingenue who bears a striking resemblance to the silent film star Louise Brooks.

"I should use her in my next film"
"She can't act."
"She can fake it."
"Most of them do."
"So, do you and Karen know any girls for me?"
I heave a great sigh.
"Sorry, we only know women."

Karen and I wish all our Seraphic Friends a lovely and meaningful Shabbos.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:37 PM | Comments (48)

On Critics

"A critic is someone who enters the battlefield after the war is over and shoots the wounded."
—Murray Kempton

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 01:44 PM | Comments (2)

To Surge or Not to Surge

"There are troop surges, and then there are troop surges, in military history. Some radically alter the calculus of the battlefield. Others simply add to the stasis and sense of quagmire, ending up as nothing more than preludes to defeat."

To read the entire article by the invaluable Victor Davis Hanson, please click here.

Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Azriel Ganz.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:32 AM | Comments (3)

The Reluctant American Empire

"If the U.S. is guilty of any crime in its international relations, it is in the repeated attempts to evade its responsibility as the world's leading power. WW I dragged on for years due to U.S. refusal to join the fight against German reaction. A similar action guaranteed a near-total Allied collapse against the most sinister and powerful enemy ever faced by the civilized West during the first two years of WW II. We have already covered the 70s. The 90s were a similar period, when the United States decided to take the decade off under the impression that its job was done (of course, Bill Clinton has apologized for all that during one of his bongo-playing expeditions). Different names have been used for what was essentially the same policy: normalcy, isolationism, detente, the end of history. We don't yet know what the name for next hiatus will be.

"We do know that the impulse behind it is the hegemonist doctrine. No other force is keeping the U.S. from playing its international role. No outside element could possibly succeed in holding the country back. Only internal pressure from the media, the educational establishment, the universities, the Democrats. They call themselves idealists, and we can give them that. But American left-wing idealism is hollow, creating not the conditions for a global utopia, but for more wars, more brutality, more genocides, more bloodshed."

To read the entire article by J.R. Dunn in American Thinker, please click here.

Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, David Paulin

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:55 AM | Comments (0)

January 04, 2007

Jewish Spirituality

Dear Rabbi A:

Why does the Jewish religion seem to obsess over insignificant details? How much matza do we have to eat, which spoon did I use for milk and which for meat, what is the right way to tie my shoelaces? It seems to me that this misses the bigger picture by focusing on minutiae. Is this nitpicking what Jews call spirituality? I actually already sent you this question over a week ago and didn't receive a reply. Could it be that you have finally been asked a question that you can't answer?!

Sincerely,
David

Dear David:

I never claimed to have all the answers. There are many questions that are beyond me. But it happens to be that I did answer your question, and you did get the answer. I sent a reply immediately. The fact that you didn't receive it is itself the answer to your question. You see, I sent you a reply, but I wrote your email address leaving out the "dot" before the "com." I figured that you should still receive the email, because after all, it is only one little dot missing. I mean come on, it's not as if I wrote the wrong name or something drastic like that! Would anyone be so nitpicky as to differentiate between "yahoocom" and " yahoo.com"? Isn't it a bit ridiculous that you didn't get my email just because of a little dot? No, it's not ridiculous. Because the dot is not just a dot. It represents something. That dot has meaning far beyond the pixels on the screen that form it. To me it may seem insignificant, but that is simply due to my ignorance of the ways of the web. All I know is that with the dot, the message gets to the right destination; without it, the message is lost to oblivion.

Jewish practices have infinite depth. Each nuance and detail contains a world of symbolism. And every dot counts. When they are performed with precision, a spiritual vibration is emailed throughout the universe, all the way to G-d's inbox.

If you want to understand the symbolism of the dot, study I.T.
If you want to understand the symbolism of Judaism, study it.

All the best,

Rabbi A.

Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend Yonasan Fisgus, M.D.

Original Source: Chabad Thanks so much to commenter Molly for letting us know.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:34 AM | Comments (22)

Armed & Jewish

"This is what happens when Jews get hold of guns."

-- Joseph Goebbels, diary entry after observing the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 04:07 AM | Comments (13)

January 03, 2007

A Nation in Peril

It is astonishing, if not shameful, that Dan Halutz has not yet resigned from his position as IDF Chief of Staff. Politicians, especially modern Israeli politicians, are known as a corrupt bunch, a craven inbred group lacking any sense of personal honor, much less, any notion of religious dignity. But one hoped that in the upper command levels of the IDF there would still be some residual sense of military honor -- which should be the highest national virtue.

Sadly this seems not to be the case.

Dan Halutz ferociously mismanaged the war against Hizbullah when he did not send in ground troops in the second week of the war. The endless air campaign was not only clumsy from a strategic point of view, it was a spectacular tactical failure.

Not one of Israel's stated war objectives was realized:

1. The soldiers who were kidnapped are still held in, no doubt, vile conditions, by the terrorists.
2. Hizbullah's short range rocket capabilities were never disabled; they continue to rain down on Israel; to kill, to maim, to terrorize.
3. Hizbullah is as strong, if not stronger than before.
4. And now a U.N. "Peacekeeping Force" is on the Israeli/Lebanese border. No sovereign nation should ever entrust her security to foreign mercenaries. It is national suicide.

Brief Interpolation:

These UN troops, mostly (G-d help us) French, clearly favor the terrorists and de facto serve as shields for Hizbullah as these Shia terrorists fortify their bunkers, and rearm with even more effective rockets being generously supplied by Iran via Syria. Naturally the French troops are looking the other way. In fact, their only real concern are Israeli fly-overs; and they have threatened to shoot-down Israeli jets. Seriously, they have. Uh-huh. French troops on the offensive. We have visions of piles of French toast on the Northern border.

It should be clear to all by now that France is no longer an ally to Israel nor to America. France is not exactly an enemy either. As always, France is, well, fast-fading France. Thus, she is doomed to sink in the swamp of militant Islam. No wonder so many French Jews are leaving for Israel. France is trading her productive and loyal Jewish citizens for Arab/Muslim welfare cases who are more loyal to the uma, and whose only real production is burning cars. France, RIP.

End Interpolation:

The nation of Israel will not effectively move ahead against Iran, her most pressing existential issue, until the Olmert government falls and a new IDF Chief of Staff replaces Dan Halutz. Until then, the Jewish nation and the Jewish people are in great peril.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:49 AM | Comments (20)

Hizbullah War: Postmortem

"Some 600 officers from the rank of Colonel and up spent almost 12 hours on Monday listening to commanders present their edited analyses of last summer’s war with Hizbullah guerrillas in southern Lebanon.

"One of those hours was devoted solely to a long speech by the IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz, in which he made an effort to minimize the damage caused by the mismanagement of the war."

To read the entire story, please click here.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:32 AM | Comments (0)

A Soldier's Last Words

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist–"

Union general John Sedgwick, regarding Confederate snipers at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:21 AM | Comments (8)

January 02, 2007

Alone in Yichud

I love this chapter running in Virtual Jerusalem this week. From my How I Married Karen series: Alone in Yichud. Finally, now that we're married, I work up the courage to confess to Karen that I've been in love with her since 4th grade. And Karen, cool as ice, hits me with a response--just five simple words--that just leave me breathless and of course, quite puzzled. Women really are a mystery.

Extra Screenwriter's Cut: This chapter has one of the ten surviving pictures from our wedding.

P.S. I did some rewriting on this chapter for Virtual Jerusalem so it's not exactly the same copy as when I first published this material.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 04:11 PM | Comments (20)

Cruelty

"Cruelty, like every other vice, requires no motive outside of itself. It only requires opportunity."

-- George Eliot

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:33 PM | Comments (6)

Pathology Drives Conflict…Not the Other Way Around

"Of course, in the Arab world, support for the Palestinians is really a symptom -- an artificial one at that, designed to focus attention away from the dysfunctional political and religious leaders (bought and paid for) that really ails Arab society.

"Every student or practitioner of any of the psychological disciplines will tell you that pathologies -- especially obsessions, if left unchecked, will spread.

"In the dysfunctional Arab world, there is the absolute belief that the conflict with Israel and western ideals is what drives their pathology, and not the other way around. In the real world, it is pathology that drives conflict. In essence, the Arab world is trying to explain it’s behavior in the court of world opinion by saying, ‘Your honor, the conflict started when the Israelis and world democracies resisted and hit back after we announced our intention to destroy them and then attacked and hit them.‘

"Of course, the conflict with Israel and the west has nothing to do with Arab world behaviors. Even if Israel and the American presence in the region were gone tomorrow, there would not be much difference in the region."

Seraphic Friends Sigmund, Carl, & Alfred analyze the deep, deep pathologies of the Arab/Muslim world. To read the entire article--and you really should--please click here.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:55 AM | Comments (3)

Holocaust Encyclopedia

Here's an excellent website dedicated to combating the Holocaust deniers.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:48 AM | Comments (0)

The Criminals in our State Department

"Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Yasser Arafat was a master of the big lie. Since he invented global terrorism with the founding of the Fatah terror organization in 1959, Arafat successfully portrayed himself as a freedom fighter while introducing the world to passenger jet hijackings, schoolhouse massacres and embassy takeovers.

"To cultivate the myth of his innocence Arafat ordered his Fatah terror cells to operate under pseudonyms. In the early 1970's he renamed several Fatah murder squads the Black September Organization while publicly claiming that they were "breakaway" units completely unrelated to Fatah or to himself.

"In 2000, as he launched the current Palestinian jihad, he repeated the process by renaming Fatah terror cells the Aksa Martyr Brigades and then claiming that they were completely unrelated to Fatah or to himself. This fiction too, has been successful in spite of the fact that all Aksa Martyr Brigades terrorists are members of Fatah and most are members of Palestinian Authority official militias who receive their salaries, guns and marching orders from Fatah.

"Last week, with the quiet release of a 33-year-old US State Department cable, a good chunk of the edifice of his great lie was destroyed.

"On March 1, 1973, eight Fatah terrorists, operating under the Black September banner stormed the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan during a farewell party for the US Embassy's Charges d'Affaires George Curtis Moore. The terrorists took Moore, US ambassador Cleo Noel, Belgian Charges d'Affairs Guy Eid and two Arab diplomats hostage. They demanded that the US, Israel, Jordan and Germany release PLO and Baader-Meinhof Gang terrorists, including Robert F. Kennedy's Palestinian assassin Sirhan Sirhan and Black September commander Muhammed Awadh (Abu Daud), from prison in exchange for the hostages' release.

"The next evening, the Palestinians brutally murdered Noel, Moore, and Eid. They released their other hostages on March 4.

"Arafat denied any involvement in the attack. The US officially accepted his denial. Yet, as he later publicly revealed, James Welsh, who served at the time of the attack as an analyst at the National Security Agency, intercepted a communication from Arafat, then headquartered in Beirut to his terror agents in Khartoum ordering the attack."

To read the reast of Caroline Glick's article, please click here.

Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend Yonason Fisgus MD

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:29 AM | Comments (8)

January 01, 2007

In Search of Lost Time

On January 1, 1909 Marcel Proust dipped his madeleine into a cup of tea and thus began his seven volume novel In Search of Lost Time, or as some call it, Remembrance of Things Past. It took Proust fourteen years to write this novel of three thousand pages. I have read the book, and astonishingly I really love it. I'm almost embarrassed to admit it. Why?

1. It's French.
2. There are no car chases.
3. It's really, really literary.
4. Most people who read and like it are incredible snobs.
5. My tastes usually run to Elmore Leonard and Raymond Chandler, what the heck am I doing reading Marcel Proust?
6. It's uh, really French.

There are a two things about Proust that endeared me to him immediately:

1. Proust fought a duel after being insulted. Both duelists missed, but honor was upheld. Can you imagine any writer doing that in this day and age? No way, scribes are far too busy hunting for 400 count cotton thread sheets for their duvet covers. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.
2. Proust was an ardent defender of Captain Alfred Dreyfus. In his upper-class, anti-Jewish society, such a position was socially, the kiss of death. There are scenes in the novel where characters violently argue about the Dreyfus case.

I guess it really comes down to Proust's simplicity. That's right, the plot of the seven volumes that make up In Search of Lost Time is incredibly simple. The narrator, he actually calls himself Marcel once or twice in the seven volumes, is on a journey: will he become a great writer or not? That's really what the whole book is about. But within this simple, motionless plot Proust draws a pointillistic portrait of Parisian society. And it is a devastating picture of, well, everyone -- including the narrator.

At one point Proust gives us a one-hundred and fifty page description of an aristocratic dinner party. It's like a battlefield, Austerlitz without the booming canons and bloody corpses, but make no mistake about it, by the end of the evening, feelings and reputations have been shredded and though dinner guests leave in fine carriages, their innards are left in steaming heaps. It's what we call in screenwriting, "indirect dialogue."

Proust is savage in his belief that society is made up of selfish people who are, at the core, overflowing snobs and hypocrites. Love, money, friendship, sexuality, all are forces far greater than honest human relationships. It's a bleak portrait of humanity, and the only people who escape this terrible judgement are the immediate members of his family.

The difficulty in the book is the oceanic prose; sometimes, quite frankly, it's hard to follow the plot through the scrim of Proust's often labyrinthine sentences. But for me it was worth it. After making my way through the seven volumes I felt as if I had glimpsed an entire age, seen into a specific man's soul. It took me over a year of disciplined reading, and I actually plan on doing it again.

The very best book to help you get through the seven volumes is: Roger Shattuck's Proust's Way: A Field Guide to In Search of Lost Time. It is essential, and without it I might have given up any number of times.

Here's one of my favorite quotes from Proust: "We believe we can change things according to our wishes because that's the only happy solution we can see. We don't think of what usually happens and what is also a happy solution; things don't change, but by and by our wishes change."

Proust Links:

Today in Literature

The Kolb/Proust Archives

In Search of Lost Time Website

Marcel Proust Quotes

Proust: Letters, and Lesser Known Writings

Proust: Free Web Books On-line

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:18 AM | Comments (19)

Seraphic Secret Simcha

It is with great joy and gratitude to HaShem that Seraphic Secret is pleased to announce that long time friend, reader and commenter Lance Fogel, who recently made aliyah to Eretz Yisroel, is engaged to be married to Cigal Shene. The entire Seraphic Secret community wishes the fine couple a huge mazal tov.

Here's the page from only simchas.

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:49 AM | Comments (5)

The Cruel Disengagement

"Eliezer and Chana Bart lived in the Gush Katif community of Kfar Darom for over 18 years until they and their eight children were "removed" in accordance with Prime Minister Sharon's disengagement plan.

"Chana was paralyzed in the lower half of her body in a terrorist shooting attack in 2002, and has been confined to a wheelchair ever since. Two years later - a day after Sharon's bombshell announcement of his Disengagement plan to remove all the Jews of Gaza frp, their homes - Chana and Eliezer celebrated the brit [ritual circumcision] of their week-old son. They named him Amichai [My Nation Lives] Yisrael.

"To make the Bart's home wheelchair accessable for Chana, the home was redone with ramps and wider doorways and their house extending past the "official" border of Kfar Darom. The Bart's had talks with their Arab neighbors in order to buy the extra land, purchased the land legally, received title and deed to the land, and received all the necessary permits and authorizations to build there from the IDF Civil Administration.

"However...the SELA "Disengagement Agency" which reports directly to Ehud Olmert, has decided that since, in their view, the Bart's home in Kfar Darom was outside the border of the official "SELA" map -- they will receive ZERO compensation for their 18 years of living their, and ZERO compensation for their destroyed home..."

To read the rest of this story click here to go to Seraphic Friend Muquata

Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:53 AM | Comments (6)