The garlands are hung, the mantel is decorated with a Nutcracker theme, the table is laid for our party, the Christmas tree is alight. “Sempiternity” is that measure (or non-measure) of time: the period so long, or so indeterminate, or possibly so pleasant that like Faust we don’t contemplate its end. It is what is meant in … Continue reading Advent ,our Sempiternity →

…by which I mean the Muslims from various countries who have moved into our land, the US. it was so obvious if you watched tv last weekend: thousands of hijab wearing women, and men with keffiyehs carrying pro-Hamas signs, in DC! Our Capitol! You could call it an invasion, certainly, because of all the military … Continue reading Down With the Colonialist Oppressors! →

Didja see all those Palestinian flags being carried this weekend through the streets of—wait for it: Madrid? As you know, in 1492 Their Most Christin Majesties, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, finally routed Boabdil, the last Sultan of Granada, seven centuries after the Muslim Conquest of the Iberian peninsula. Spain was reconquered for … Continue reading Re-Reconquista →

Today my brother left our childhood home for his annual sojourn south. Before he did, he gave me a paperweight, a beautiful glass orb that looks like..I dk, an undersea terrarium? A microscopic world? which our sister, now dead 1 year 10 months, had given him. Why not keep it to remember her by, I … Continue reading Throw Me A Lifeline? →

I wake up this morning and find out that that asshole Blinken has spent all night working….on ways to prevent civilian casualties in Gaza! I’m sicka hearing that Hamas does not represent “the people”, the poor innocent Gazans . yeah? Then why’d they elect ‘em? Hamas IS what we like to call “the people’s elected … Continue reading Yes, Hamas DOES represent the people of Gaza →

I doubt it. But , maybe a decade ago, her letters from the death camp were published, and for a month or so she was the new Anne Frank. A French Jew, author, intellectual, it turned out she had written to the German high command to the general tenor of, “Hey, of course I see … Continue reading Does Anybody Remember Irène Némirovsky? →

Okay I AM effing old, (although not a man) and based on experience, specifically watching what has happened to our country since 9/11, here is my prophecy for Israel: This massacre will bring Netanyahu down, and the next PM of Israel will be an Arab. Selah.

This is in response to the attacks on Israeli citizens coming out of Gaza this morning. We “People of the Book” know Gaza in association with Samson, Israel’s legendarily strong champion. His illustrious career ended there when he,imprisoned, blinded and forced to turn a mill like an old horse, miraculously regained his strength while on … Continue reading Gaza Redux →

that’s today, Sept 29. Michael is an archangel and a very militant one! In apocryphal writings he’s supposed to have defeated Satan and the fallen angels. i have two pleasant associations with him. One is visiting Mont St. Michel in France, the monastery built on a rock sticking up out of the shore. You can … Continue reading A Blesséd Michaelmas! →

If you’ll indulge me , I’ll tell you about an experience I had today. I was clearing off the dresser in my sister’s room. We always call it that, “Mel’s room”, even though when she came home she hadn’t used it for…what, a decade? It simply wasn’t comfortable for her and her gent. But over … Continue reading My Jewel of the Realm →