His Story, Monday Afternoon

It was my second time seeing him and he was draping warm, wet cloths over my feet.

"Relax," he urged me.

"It doesn't come easy," I replied. He raised an eyebrow. "I can tell," he said. "Try closing your eyes. Some people actually fall asleep."

I closed my eyes and tried really hard.

"Make your feet limp," he said, wiggling my left foot by the toe. He ran a hand under my foot in a tickly stroke. It worked. I felt the muscles in my ankle release.

"Good," he reported, going to work on my feet. While he draped cloths, pushed and prodded my feet this way and that, took measurements and did various other doctorly things, he told me a story.

It was about a young boy, a college freshman, a New Yorker alone on a mid-western college campus because his buddies from Forest Hills High School had been drafted and shipped off to Vietnam.

He was bound there too, but a freakish medical condition prevented Uncle Sam from wanting him.

And so, he lived to grow up and become a doctor while they all died young, in battle. Every last one of his buddies from Forest Hills.

The mid-western college experience was lonely without his friends...but something else. It was terrible, he said, lifting his eyes to mine.

And then he told me why.

In a fifth-floor podiatrist's office in Manhattan's midtown, on a cold March afternoon, a silver-haired doctor talks to his patient, telling her about something that happened to him when he was a boy.

The story has the effect of a punch in the gut, forcing a sharp intake of air, a wince, a flood of empathy for the man kneeling before her.

The patient examines the man who holds her feet and tells this tale. She has come because of a pain in the heel of her right foot which he had diagnosed as plantar fasciitis, evidently a common affliction, though she had never heard of it before. He is there to dole out the cure, explain treatment, foot baths, exercises, prepare special implants for her shoes.

And while he works, he talks, spilling his story like so many pills from an upended prescription bottle. The story heightens her sensory awareness and she observes the murmur of Sunday mass in his voice, the vibration of the stripes that run along his dress shirt, the dull thunk of a basketball bouncing on a driveway, the brush of his mother's kiss along his hairline, the shape of a name whispered achingly in the night, the burnished glow of his tanned skin.

She wonders why this story was offered to her -- a forty-year old remembrance of things past. She wonders if he tells this particular tale to all his patients, or just his female patients, or just patients who come on Monday or in March.

The story ignites curiosity about another story he told her last time -- a contemporary, happy story - and she wants to connect the dots between the two, figure out how A led to B.

Pulling on her high black boots a short while later, she finds herself viewing his story in her head, seeing it unfold in slow motion.

When she steps down hard on her right foot, she imagines that the pain in her heel feels like the memory that is still lodged in his heart.

Beware the F-Word

Oh, irony of ironies.

Last night, a small news story was posted to the New York Magazine website, featuring a shocking collection of words.

The news item, which concerned itself with two rival schools of journalism in this great city of ours, sent my eyebrows WAY up to my hairline.

Not because of what it purported to be about (who cares, after all, after the pissing matches of graduate programs), but because it featured HOBB (whom loyal readers know to be Husband of Bungalow Babe and who is a professor at one of these schools), using a word that he rarely uses in real life.

Yes, it's the biggest and baddest cuss word there is, folks, the ultimate naughty thing to say, beginning with an F, and ending with a UCK.

And it ain't Firetruck.

Now, here's the thang:

The word that HOBB is quoted as using is actually one of my personal faves, the equivalent of the coveted blank Scrabble tile, an all-purpose, pithy, monosyllabic, blunt and utterly vulgar word that sounds good in a variety of settings and situations.

Bang your knee under the table as you're standing up exactly in that horribly painful spot that makes you black out and want to die?

Bump unexpectedly into your ex-boyfriend at the Halloween parade in the Village only to realize that he's holding hands with a guy who reminds you of your father?

Some drug addict darts in front of your moving vehicle and you swerve, nearly killing a mom with a baby stroller?

I rest my case.

The point is, I have a healthy relationship with the F-word, much to the dismay of HOBB who has accused me of being afflicted with Tourette's Syndrome due to my fondness of it.

So, returning to last night, I was stunned to discover him using the F-word...but worse, far worse.

He was quoted using it -- a university professor (and religion writer and publicly Orthodox Jew, to boot) -- in the pages of New York, which did readers a favor by posting the item online before the print issue hit the stands.

The context was his commentary on journalism education that seeks to teach the new bells and whistles of the medium before the basics.

To convey his point, he reportedly told his Reporting and Writing Class earlier this year, "F-word New Media." One of his students dutifully wrote this piece of instruction down and anonymously conveyed it to the reporter from New York.

Naturally, HOBB's pronouncement is the money quote and it instantly went viral, due in small part, to me, the perversely proud wife, who blasted it out to a group of friends and select cool family friends.

Today, you'll find it charmingly referenced in various places online in blogs and websites that care about pissing matches between graduate journalism programs. In the comment log to the New York article, HOBB has both defenders and detractors.

Some find HOBB to be a dinosaur, a Luddite, a fuddy-duddy. Amusingly, others bring examples of other important technological inventions (the phone, the automobile, moving pictures) that were similarly pooh-poohed by those who lacked vision.

What I was not prepared for, however, was the rage-soaked, hostile invective by commentors on a couple of the other blogs, citizens of cyberspace who found HOBB's view so egregious that they were moved to hateful, vicious, even violent-sounding posts.

They became ageist, calling him an old man, which he certainly isn't.

They turned the F-word on him.

They sounded like grounded teens getting really pissed at their parents.

This, I found curious.

Was it HOBB's use of the F-word, I wondered? Did that raise the blood pressure of readers? Supposing he had used a slightly different choice of words, such as -- "I don't really like New Media," instead of "F- New Media?"

But I'm the first to admit it. Positioning the F-word next to "New Media" has a jaunty, sloganistic ring to it. Sounds like a fundraising concept for the J-School, something cool to put on t-shirts, perhaps.

F*** New Media!

Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

Class of 2009

Anyway, the more I pondered the apoplectic reaction of some readers, the more I wondered who the true Luddites were.

I also wondered how our home environment would change now that HOBB's secret is out of the bag.

Despite claiming to abstain, he is indeed a public practitioner of the F-word.

I'm not the only one who needs to wash her mouth out.

But yet another secret has stayed largely discovered by those writing about HOBB'S public Tourette's attack: this allegedly anti-New Media prof is married to a practitioner of the New Media. (Duh!!! You're reading her blog!)

And with that tantalizing - not to mention, ironic -- little tidbit, his words take on a whole new dimension.

Bernie Madoff: Metaphor

I admit that it has been hard to focus on work today with Bernie Madoff just having being sentenced to a nice long FOREVER stay in prison for pulling off "perhaps the biggest swindle in Wall Street History," according to 1010 WINS, which I just checked a little while ago, having struck a bargain with myself that I would not stoop to watching television during work hours...but radio was okay.

In response to the handing down of his sentence, Bernie said he was "deeply sorry and ashamed."

Really warms the heart.

Does nothing, of course, for his victims, all of whom are recorded in excruciating detail in a PDF file I downloaded this morning from one of the myriad blogs and sites that have been reporting on L'affair Madoff.

Recorded in microscopic print, the file went to 160-plus pages.

Contained therein are thousands of individual, family, foundation, institution and company names. Many are familiar. Some are associates.

Midway through, I had to avert my eyes.

This list of names reminded me of other such lists.

Victims of 9/11.

Victims of the Shoah.

There is closure today, but only in a symbolic Law and Order kinda way. Closure, really, for the spectators of this drama. Restitution and true justice for Madoff's victims -- the honest, hardworking individuals who are ruined, the charitable institutions and our society at large -- might be impossible to secure.

So, rabbi's daughter that I am, I turn to the metaphysics of Madoff, seeking to find something of meaning in this terrible matter.

What, I ponder, does Bernie Madoff tell us about ourselves as a society?

Or, in a more Pollyannish vein -- what is the silver lining of this crime? What good might come out of it?

I listen closely.

But there is no voice from the whirlwind, no comfort to be gleaned.

Instead, the sobering words of Ecclesiastes, old King Solomon imparting his sad wisdom at the end of days: Vanity of vanities. All is vanity.

The Remains of the Day

Tonight's Van Morrison concert at the Beacon theater was the nail in the coffin that was my day.

Every freaking parking spot between 66th and 86th Street was taken; even the commodious parking lots on Amsterdam were filled to capacity with diabolical parking attendants standing outside waving on prospective patrons with an energetic shake of the head and an exaggerated mouthing of the word, "NO."

You gotta admire the pleasure some people draw from something so simple as dashing people's dreams of actually making it into a concert they paid $500 to attend.

"Van Morrison. Tonight at 8," read the marquee on the front of the Beacon. Well, how in the heck was I supposed to know about this concert? Perhaps if I wasn't locked into such a marathon of work, too stressed to read anything as diverting as the arts section of the New York Times, or even the past couple of New Yorkers, unable to make it to my gym, one block away from the Beacon, FOR AN ENTIRE SOLID FREAKING WEEK, I would have seen the marquee and known about the Van Morrison concert and not thought that it was a good idea to drive my little black Honda down to the JCC earlier this evening.

Naturally I could have taken the subway but we had a parking spot right in front of the apartment which was not good for Thursday anyway and the car seemed a cozy, civilized way to make it down to the gym after having spent THREE FREAKING HOURS on the phone with a perky T-Mobile tech repair person who was determined to fix my Blackberry...and didn't.

Besides which, the car was perfect for transporting groceries as I planned to pop into Fairway after my satisfying workout to stock up on healthy munchies, including a delectable gluten-free, high fiber, low carb snack I tasted this past weekend that is ONLY available on the second floor of Fairway. And Illy coffee because it was already too late for Zabar's, which closed at 8, and which I missed because of my FREAKING THREE HOUR PHONE CHAT with T-Mobile. And a new bottle of Oil of Evening Primrose capsules to keep my raging hormones in check, which I was unable to buy more cheaply from The Vitamin Shoppe because, alas, it closed at 7 and yes, I was on that FREAKING PHONE CALL which resulted in a big, fat, nothing and destroyed my chances of exercising at home before the babies in the apartment below us go to sleep and I can no longer use our treadmill and ended nearly an hour after all the T-Mobile retailers in the city were closed so I couldn't event race down to a store and BUY a replacement phone right away.

And I really needed those Evening Primrose capsules because I have a horrendous combination of perimenopausal irritability and good, ole' PMS.

I didn't even think it was possible to be courting menopause and persecuted by my period at the same time.

Somehow, I thought that one would graciously bow out to make way for the other.

I never envisioned being tag-teamed by both.

And just in case you're wondering what the big deal is about the THREE HOUR T-Mobile call, let me inform you that the five hours prior to that call were filled with an almost implausible array of time-wasting, maddening, ridiculous pursuits, a TERRIBLE experience at the hair salon and a charming half-hour visit with a representative from my e-mail's server...because my e-mail was coming up in triplicate, nearly crashing my Inbox....leaving me without my secondary form of communication.

And without the primary one -- my Blackberry -- as well.

Well...that's all in the past. I have a big event tomorrow night, okay, not as big as the Van Morrison concert, but respectable in its own right, and I am sure that after I race down to a T-Mobile store first thing tomorrow morning and buy a new Blackberry, then complete all the preps for the event while trying to do some major hair rehab, all will be fine.

In preparation for things to be fine once again, I ate half a bag of cheddar cheese popcorn, bought at my local deli. I just love scarfing down carbs late at night, knowing I haven't moved my butt in a week. I cannot wait to see what I look like in the dress I am planning to wear to this event tomorrow night. I better reserve at least an hour of trying on and tearing off a variety of outfits while crying.

Well, I'm gonna sign off now. It's time to make a strong cup of Lapsang Souchong, my favorite tea, curl up on my couch and watch Nancy Grace who is always in a pissy mood as she goes after criminals in pursuit of justice for their victims -- women and children.

Today was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad SUCKY-TO-THE-MAX, ridiculous, maddening, wasted freaking day.

Yet someday, it will all seem like the stuff of high comedy.

Already, I cannot wait to tell my sister in Israel about it. I am practically rehearsing the punchline..."and then I drove down to the JCC and there was not a single, FREAKING parking spot available for an entire mile! No...I swear!!! But d'you know why????"

Thus are our small tragedies artfully spun into more useful stuff -- a humorous keepsake, a good story, momentos of a particular time in our lives when things were a certain way.

Less is More

Two years ago, at the request of my literary agent, I embarked upon a novel with a titillating, marketable title and a wholly improbable yet engaging premise.

For the past two years, the number of computer files bearing the opening chapter for this novel has grown to the double-digits. In some instances, those files have nothing more than the opening paragraph of an opening chapter.

Starting at about the 10th version, the premise of the novel changes dramatically.

By the 17th or so, it reverts back to the original.

For a while, I lied to my agent, enthusing about how well the novel-writing was progressing. I didn't really see these progress reports as utter lies, rather, optimistic forecasts of what was surely to come.

Then came the day when I simply stopped calling her.

After a while, she stopped checking in with me.

It took two years but I have finally admitted to myself that the concentration or constitution required for novel writing is not mine.

And I see this not as an admission of failure or weary waving of a white flag but as a bold statement of self, an assured assertion of what I truly am, at least in the realm of fiction writing.

I am a writer of short stories.

You see, this whole novel-writing undertaking resulted from the feedback my agent and I received after sending out a collection of short stories I had written.

The consensus was that editors liked what they read but wanted to see a novel, not my novella-length stories.

First novels sell, they said.

Short story collections by unknown authors are unlikely to become commercial successes.

As a significant portion of my professional life interfaces with the literary marketplace, I knew this to be true and embraced the advice with a nose-to-the-grindstone, can-do spirit.

I quickly decided on a title and the plot fell into place.

And I was off, writing by the light of the moon.

Oh what a book this would be...urban, witty, satirical, contemporary, allegorical in a way.

Racy, yes, but really a tease of sorts.

The sexy-sounding title was a device; the work was a novel within a novel.

Yes, yes, yes....all was going very well.

And then, the writing process fell apart. Or simply vaporized.

Vaporized.

One day there was a novel I was working on.

The very next day, it disappeared.

But of course, it never existed to begin with. It was a phantom, a concept at best.

Vaporized.

I like the image of all of those earnest paragraphs rising upward out of the computer files where they are imprisoned, being liberated, reunited with the great global cyber-oneness.

I see those ill-fated words as passengers on an artistic voyage of the damned, denied entry at the port of plausibility, being forced to sail back from whence they came...and there finding a safe haven.

Once that ship docks, it needs to be dismantled.

And then, entirely reconstructed.

For there is another ship that needs to set sail, it will have many compartments; it can be built in spurts and starts or by sustained effort, in daylight or midnight; it will be built to accomodate many lives and locales.

It may not conform to the dimensions of the marketplace but we all know that the marketplace is changing before our eyes...just as the sands of reality are shifting rapidly beneath our feet.

Some of those who patiently read my stories two years ago no longer have jobs.

Some of the publishing companies are nearly vapor.

Sail on, ship of self, vehicle of truest self-expression.

The horizon beckons; adventure is in the air.

Oh, That Magic Feeling...Nowhere to Go

I am haunted by time, exquisitely aware of my personal hour-glass running empty.

Sometimes I even feel persecuted by dwelling within time; it begins to take on spatial dimensions, moving in on me like the walls of a room designed by a demented scientist.

Since I was little, I have anticipated endings. Arriving in school on the first day, I knew that the final day of the school year was just a breath away.

At the start of a vacation, I realized that I would soon be able to fold that day against the last day easily, like the end-pages of MAD Magazine, with their A's and B's and C's and D's that need to be matched up in order to yield an entirely new picture.

Truncated in this manner, the true essence of my vacation would be revealed by the folding inward of time.

And though I do not dwell on the thought, I suspect that it will be this way at the end of my days, a folding of front to finish, the gleaning of a new picture that had eluded my view throughout the journey.

Perhaps there is some word, as yet undiscovered by me, that describes this heightened awareness of the finite nature of time within the realm of human existence. Perhaps it is a word that I already know and simply cannot call to mind.

This word characterizes an essential aspect of my perception.

Often it is twinned with the imperative to create something lasting within the finite framework of my lifespan -- a basic human impulse.

And the greatest impediment to achieving this goal is the state of over-busyness, a condition where frenetic energy is expended, where there is motion and the illusion of accomplishment but very little of lasting worth is created.

In the age of the BlackBerry, which nearly single-handedly stretched the boundaries of the workday to the outer perimeters of 24/7, over-busyness has become the universal rule and not the exception.

Many of the people I know have become victims of this ethic and something profound is happening to our humanity. Our patience and attention spans have become abbreviated. Time with friends and family has become a luxury…sort of like working out or reading for pleasure.

(Here is where I could insert the commercial for Sabbath observance, where it does indeed belong. The issue of how restful Shabbat actually is if observed according to Jewish law is certainly up for discussion, but let us agree that the Day of Rest is a genius concept. Still, I am intent on restoring balance to more than just one-seventh of my life.)

In the course of a phone conversation with an exhausted friend earlier this week, I suggested that we need a national, perhaps global movement to stop the madness. A worldwide lunacy has taken hold that is bigger than any individual and we get sucked in because there is a level of busyness where we feel cool and powerful and relevant. Like players in a big important game.

This is the biggest con of all.

Over-busyness is a drug and like wildly promiscuous addicts sharing infected needles, we are spreading this pandemic, becoming the willing executioners of our collective sanity and quality of life.

I don’t want to be simplistic and neglect the important fact that over-busyness in the professional sphere is usually directly connected with earning a living. That piece has to be worked on.

And in this post-Madoff, post-economic collapse landscape, it is indeed preferable to be losing one’s mind by working too hard as opposed to losing one’s house by having no source of income.

But there is still the other manifestation of over-busyness, this terrible ethic of over-scheduling personal time as if unstructured time was a poisonous serpent crouching in the doorway, waiting to strike a deadly blow.

I would like to abolish the concept that "keeping busy" is a virtue because it is based on the false notion that contrived activity is better than slow-paced contemplation or, as the Beatles put it -- “that magic feeling…nowhere to go.”

When busy disappears, remarkable happens.

Worlds are conceived within the chrysalis of a single clear thought.

Solutions appear -- bold, brought to sudden life as if by the sprinkling of magic powder over invisible ink.

Insight and epiphany drape themselves artfully across the mantle of the self, waiting to be discovered and lovingly worn.

I long for the arrival of unstructured days with just the lightest scaffolding to hold them together. Such days frequently occur while traveling. There is an ease and a comfort with the clock, the absence of deadlines or responsibilities, the gift of space, permission to think and stretch out within unbounded time.

There is the delicious opportunity to be blown by the winds of chance.

There is the prospect of adventure.

Even as I join an international army of zombies slogging through 16 to 18 hour work days, living a life that is busy to a fault, I grab fragments of sweet-smelling escape, savoring a unique thought, closing my eyes, sharing a tender moment with a happy, furry little friend, dreaming of defection, of the start of a glorious revolution against over-busyness and the magical new age of nowhere to go...and everything to be gained.

The Value of a Good News Story

Gaza.

Madoff.

Layoffs.

Closures.

Recession.

Bailouts.

Foreclosures.

Bankruptcies.

Attacks on Jews abroad.

Empty retirement funds.

Depleted life savings.

Widespread financial insecurity.

In the midst of this maelstrom, the value of a good news story cannot be underestimated.

On a mid-winter Thursday afternoon, a plane leaves La Guardia airport bound for North Carolina.

Geese invade the engines, the plane fails, the pilot gives warning of impact.

It ditches into the Hudson River.

Beautifully.

Bellydown.

Into frigid waters.

Neatly missing the George Washington Bridge, West Side Highway, Manhattan itself.

Just as the afternoon rush hour was about to begin.

Passengers deplane as water rushes into the aircraft.

Women and children first.

People stand shoulder to shoulder on the plane's wings, appearing to walk on water.

Rescue boats appear within moments.

A heroic, photogenic rescue ensues.

The cool-headed, white haired pilot is the last to leave, checking the aircraft twice for lingering passengers before leaving.

Everyone survives.

This story dominates the airwaves, playing and replaying.

It is called Miracle on the Hudson.

We remain riveted to the television screen, our computers, the radio, the newspaper.

Watching the rescue replay. Hearing the survivors' accounts. Learning of the pilot's prowess.

The image of Chesley Sullenberger III flashes on our screens.

In his uniform, with calmly folded arms, he looks exactly like what he is -- a national hero.

Like the wings of US Airways Flight 1549, this good news keeps us afloat in treacherous waters

Starbucks and Synesthesia

IT was a Tuesday afternoon, colder than loneliness. There were a thousand other places I was supposed to be, but there I was, sitting at a Starbucks on Broadway and 115th, talking about Stravinsky and synesthesia.

Actually, there was much more to the conversation, which veered along a manic, oddly orchestrated trajectory from music to sensory perception, from formative childhood experience to adult pathology, from nature to nurture, from mid-afternoon to early evening.

The day had been sipped haltingly, barely tasted. Just enough of its liquid kept me fueled yet the overwhelming sensation was that of thirst.

And so I sat and talked with a stranger about dreams and the intersection of longing and fear; the color of deep pleasure; the connection between creativity and self-indulgence.

Time lost its familiar markers and the conversation became the universe, self-contained and complete.

In the middle of a Tuesday afternoon, I slipped through a temporal portal without a backwards glance.

Climbing the monkey bars of Time, I decided to hang upside down with barely a worry as to who could see my underpants.

And found myself delighted and surprised to find a fellow Time Traipser hanging upside down right across from me, sharing the freedom of this new perspective. We were so close that our noses nearly touched. His breath tasted like adventure.

If Gaza is Auschwitz, Hamas is the Nazis

War is hell.

This is a fact.

There is no way to prettify the devastation, the human toll, the destruction, the fear, the chaos, the death.

And when you are fighting an enemy with a penchant for firing from mosques, hospitals, schools and various other civilian or residential centers, the chances of a higher-than-normal human toll is unavoidable.

This is the reality on the ground in Gaza.

The human toll has been staggering as Israel seeks to beat back Hamas, which has felt free to launch missiles into the heartland of the Jewish State because, let's be real, it cannot accept the fact of Israel's existence and is determined to keep its campaign alive until there is no one left to wage it.

How flipping tragic for the people of Gaza that in the years since Israel's disengagement, terrorist tunnels have been built instead of a social infrastructure. How pathetic that instead of seizing the opportunity to better itself, Gaza has remained a cesspool.

To quote Dov Rosenblatt of Blue Fringe, who took the megaphone at the pro-Israel rally in NYC this past Tuesday: Free Palestine!

From Hamas.

Let the world agree that the Palestinian people are among the most victimized people today.

By their own lawfully elected leaders.

This mantra must be repeated on the world stage, over and over again.

To the animals who beat up a 14-year-old Jewish girl in Paris.

To Hugo Chavez who kicked the Israeli ambassador out of Venezuela.

To the Palestinians in Denmark who shot Israelis at a mall.

To Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics, publicly denouncing Israel at a rally in London.

To Jon Stewart, who revealed himself to be such a whore for cool-lefty-edgy-people-approval that he wove an enraged and rather demented rant against Israel into his shtick on Monday night's episode of The Daily Show.

To the Vatican official -- and all the other ahistorical morons -- who insist on making the Israel=Nazi State or Gaza=Concentration Camp analogy.

To all people who find it unthinkable that Jews might exert military might in self-defense.

The situation is complex and nuanced and Israel is surely not above legitimate criticism.

In fact, the best essay I have read on the difficulty of understanding this war appears today on the Huffington Post. Written by Marty Kaplan, Eyeless in Gaza explores all sides of the arguments against and for Israel. Kaplan is the head of the Norman Lear Center at USC's Annenberg School. Read it by clicking on this link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marty-kaplan/eyeless-in-gaza_b_155204.html.

However, at the heart of the heated case against Israel, the dangerous rage against this country's military action, is the belief that Jews do not have the right to defend themselves.

That there is some kind of historical agreement we are breaking by becoming soldiers and officers and commanders and intelligence experts and military strategists.

And that Jews around the world should be punished, in an up close and personal way, for this irritating, galling new policy.

Of all the manifestations of anti-Zionistic rage, the one I find most inexplicable yet predictable, is the equation of Israel with Nazism and now, Gaza with Auschwitz.

This has become a new "thing" among those who love to hate Israel and one hears the obscene analogy trotted out all the time. Once shocking, it is now completely unoriginal and overused, so five minutes ago.

I will not waste an inch of cyberspace explaining why this analogy is not only factually inaccurate and ridiculous but morally reprehensible and hypocritical.

Anyone who truly cares about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, perpetrated by Hamas, should gather in the streets of the world's capital cities, shouting the words Free Palestine.

From Hamas.

From Walden Pond to Gaza City

At 10:30 this morning, Walden Pond was a self-contained universe. The thick layer of snow surrounding it was utterly undisturbed by footprints, human or otherwise. Not a single car loitered in the visitor's parking lot across the street. Thoreau's cabin, plunked in the sparse woods, looked pathetic, abandoned, perhaps slated for removal.

Yesterday, HOBB, Little Babe and I ambitiously set out by foot for Walden Pond from our hotel, the Colonial Inn in downtown Concord, Mass. This wonderfully preserved historic inn is a family destination and our yearly trips to the town made famous by Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott, Hawthorne and other great American writers have taken on the quality of a religious pilgrimage.

Always at the heart of our Concord trips is a visit to Walden Pond, complete with a leisurely stroll around the pond itself. I have done it so many times that I lost count.

Two years earlier, I made the trek on Shabbat with my sons, Little and Big Babe, while the first snow of the season fell softly around us and HOBB slept in our hotel room. This winter, the snowfall was far more prodigious and the temperature was about 24 degrees south of freezing on the day we arrived at the Inn. Yesterday, it was perhaps 10 degrees warmer.

Still, I was determined to preserve our tradition and made sure to remind my men about our Shabbat excursion repeatedly. Owing to some stroke of outrageous good fortune, we had gotten bumped up to the Thoreau Suite (after booking a cheap room through Expedia) and found ourselves staying in a vast honeymoon palace with a fireplace, dining room (replete with a formal table and chairs), kitchen, spa bathroom with Jacuzzi. four-poster bed and living room...for $90 per night.

Walking three miles in the snow seemed the very least we could offer Henry David in thanks.

Putting on multiple layers of socks and sweaters and donning Arctic expedition-worthy hats, we headed out to Walden Pond at 3:30 in the afternoon, leaving the warmth and elegance of the Thoreau Suite reluctantly.

Stepping outside, I was dismayed to find that the sun that had drenched Main Street in the morning (causing water to pour off of the store awnings as we walked to the Concord Public Library) was now missing in action. As we trotted down Walden Avenue, a hostile wind whipped at our clothes and a lonesome grey overtook our vista.

Still, we set out for our journey with stoic resolve. But upon reaching Rt 2, and with only a quarter of a mile to go, my husband and son stopped in their tracks, refusing to go one step further. Their feet were frozen solid, their cheeks crimson red, and besides, the sun was setting and we needed to get back before it turned dark.

Barely able to contain my frustration (my feet were also frozen, my cheeks also burning...but so what! we were on a pilgrimage!) I relented at the sight of my miserable men (a tear drop was beginning to freeze on Little Babe's cheek) and the three of us trudged back down Walden Avenue toward Monument Square.

After we thawed our feet in the Jacuzzi, I extracted a vow from HOBB to visit Walden Pond first thing in the morning, on our way out of town.

Yet this morning, purring up Walden Avenue in our warm Honda Accord, we took one long and loving look at the lake and declared, "Nah."

It was an instantaneous and unambiguous decision.

That ability to let the dream of Walden Pond slip through our fingers signalled the end of our New England escapist adventure... and a return to our regularly-scheduled lives.

This vacation had an epic quality to it. For the first time in seven years, I declared a work blackout beginning on Christmas Eve and ending tomorrow morning at 9 am. After seven cycles of 24/6, I reached the end of my ability to be on call at all times.

And so, for nearly two weeks, I was missing in action, professionally-speaking. Call it a spontaneous sabbatical, chicken soup for the workaholic's soul.

But turning the car away from Walden Pond this morning was more than just a nod in the direction of the realm of work and productivity.

It was the recognition of a daunting reality waiting just outside the borders of vacationland, the beginning of Barack Obama's presidency, the promise of bold and sweeping changes, of ambitious solutions to the fallout of economic upheaval, of new life and blood, of American molting and changing and giving birth to itself anew.

Far less happily, it was also a quickening step towards the rising sun, eastward, in the direction of the Holy Land, which is also molting and changing and giving birth to itself anew by rising up to slay those who theaten its citizens and, by extension, its very existence. Towards the people who dare to defend themselves in the face of international condemnation from those are enraged at the counterintuitive combination of Jews and power -- a paradigm that flies in the face of a long history of persecution, escape and exile.

Thousands of miles from Thoreau's pristine pond, a young man wearing the uniform of the Israel Defense Forces waits with his unit as a dreadful war wages within Gaza.

Only twenty years old, he is nervous yet wracked with guilt at the thought of his friends already called into combat and he, American born but Israeli-raised, spared the hardships of battle so far.

Around midday, I speak to his mother, my sister, seeking to find out whether he has been called (not yet), whether she still plans to fly to New York this week for a trip planned half a year earlier (she doesn't know), how she feels (worried) and what else is going on (what else matters?).

As we speak, I am on the Mass Pike, heading back to New York City. HOBB is driving. Little Babe sits in the back, wearing headphones, consulting his Japanese/English handheld computer. The sun is glorious, glaring off the hood of our Honda. The supreme luxury of the Thoreau Suite at the Colonial Inn is receding from my mind. My sister is the mother of an Israeli soldier who might be called into battle any minute now against an enemy that is sworn to Israel's eradication. I remember taking my nephew to the Central Park Zoo when he was a little boy. I remember holding him in my arms when he was newly-born. I thought he was a funny-looking baby but he has grown into a beautiful young man, well over 6 feet tall, kind, good-humored, smart, responsible.

I recall a moment from two years ago: breakfast at the Colonial Inn on a Shabbat morning. I had woken up late and rushed downstairs to catch breakfast before it closed. The man at the next table was reading The Boston Globe, spreading his newspaper before him in an expansive gesture of leisure and entitlement. Glancing to my right, I was shocked to see the front page headline screaming: Saddam Hanged. A photo accompanied the article.

First I stared at the headline dumbly, then snapped my head away from the man and his newspaper. I was shaken and unsettled at the news but also at the notion that there is no escape from reality. Even in picture-perfect Concord, Mass. which exists within a conceptual time-warp.

That afternoon, I walked to Walden Pond with my sons. By that time, Saddam Hussein's death was old news. I was no longer shocked and wondered instead how the world would change. I hoped for the better. Snow fell softly around us as we walked.

New Year's Hustle

Last year, we spent New Year's Eve at a filthy, funny burlesque show at the Zipper Factory on West 37th Street.

Two years ago, we were at a Eurogroovy party in a Harlem brownstone.

Three years ago, we hosted our own celebration, which was so much fun that Zoltan, our sour neighbor downstairs, called twice to complain about the noise.

Tonight, we wandered in, quite by accident, to a dance party at the 92nd St Y that transformed this venerable institution into a nightclub in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, circa 1974.

While two burly guys played endless mixes from a disco reject remainder bin, crazed couples hit the dance floor, showing off their artistry. Arms were raised with dramatic flair, heads snapped in synchronicity, bodies spun like possessed dreidels, cheeks pressed side by side, dozens of legs obeyed one single brain, hands grasped each other lightly yet firmly, hips swayed and sashayed.

Male palms were placed possessively on the smalls of female backs; satisfied smiles played on the periphery of lips. Couples moved across the floor like terrifying two-headed monsters, claiming their space, marking their territory.

The idea was to dance and be seen. To own the dance floor through sheer technique...and ego.

But the dance wasn't the only thing. Styles from the Capezio catalog came to life; divas outdid one another, peacocks fanned their tails. Preening was as ubiquitous as breathing.

There were at least two women in midriff-baring outfits, one highly noticeable in a sports bra-like top and Cruella De Ville-like gloves that started at the wrist and ended at her biceps. The other one wore a flowing gypsy number which reminded me of my college wardrobe...attacked by a pair of gardening shears.

There were flamenco dresses, flaring out just above the knees, there were sequined numbers and racy red and lots of basic black. There were opaque Danskin tights, men proudly squeezed into form-fitting Ricky Ricardo pants and shirts or strutting in somber Sopranoesque suits.

Utterly oblivious to the changes in hairstyles and fashion wrought over the past thirty years, women with big hair -- overbleached or darkly dyed -- were everywhere. The accents were regional, basic Brooklyn, with some Staten Island tossed in to be democratic. Most notably, the crowd was decidely unlike most 92nd St audiences. I would bet money that HOBB and I were the only people from the Upper West Side.

The menu of the music was disco tempered with salsa. Alas, there were no recognizable songs, no "Le Freak," "I Will Survive," or even the pornographic, "Love to Love You Baby."

Two hours in, after three pathetic attempts to assert my own freestyle dance moves against the tyranny of the disco beat, I swam over to the DJ to ask him when rock music would be played. After all, the website had promised a "rockin' New Year's Eve party."

"Rock music?" He stared at me as if I had requested Gregorian chants. "Nah...this is a Hustle party."

So as HOBB and I sat out yet another endless dance mix with a chorus of women's voices repeating some inane string of words ("I wanna get with ya"? "I wanna get togetha"? "Why don't we get togetha"?) I was at least able to put closure on this most surreal New Year's Eve adventure.

In our quest to do something fresh and fun, we chanced upon an event hosted by a secret society -- amateur, or perhaps even professional practitioners and enthusiasts of The Hustle, that iconic line dance of the seventies.

Preserved in a time warp, the members of this society exist below the radar screen, lurking in the shadows of 21st century New York City, coming out when there is strength in numbers. I learned, as I was leaving, that the party was not hosted by the 92nd St Y after all. The building had simply allowed this seventies spaceship to land there, renting space for its Hustle-crazed alien crew.

These parties are their playground and in it, they are the alpha males and females, owning the dance floor with their deliberate, self-consciously orchestrated moves, pretending not to watch themselves in the reflection of windows and mirrors as they whizz and twirl past.

They dance for each other and hopefully for their own pleasure. They are the keepers of the flame ignited by The Hustle, which once burned bright in discos and clubs, causing untold numbers of individuals to fall into lines on a dance floor and perform the simple, repetitive steps in tandem with their neighbors.

While the rest of us stand on the sidelines, pondering the peculiar party we seem to have crashed, comforting ourselves with the knowledge that the very room containing this weird scene on the last night of 2008 normally features authors, politicians and pundits, people like Elie Wiesel and Nora Ephron -- architects of ideas, composers of concepts, advocates of individualism -- people who remind us of ourselves.

The View from 12/31/08

Middle Babe and her BF are lying on the leather couches of our living room, talking sleepily, mostly about how tired they are, about the party they will attend later tonight (assuming they actually fall asleep), about the sudden Israel-Hamas war which World Jewry has been watching, heart in mouth.

Cajoled into giving "chills" (back, arm and scalp) to my daughter for 15 minutes, I joined their conversation, explaining the backdrop to Israel's offensive and the inevitable public relations fallout -- anti-Israel demonstrations in the streets of New York, Europe and the Middle East, anti-Zionist slogans heard around the world: Israel the aggressor, Israel the murderer, Israel the Nazi State.

It might sound parochial and paranoid, but coming on the heels of the Madoff scam, this war is bad news for the Jews.

Not because Israel isn't justified in trying to obliterate the murderous bastards who have been launching rockets inside its borders despite the alleged ceasefire, for every nation has a sovereign right and responsibility to protect its civilians against aggression and I'd like to see the saintly (and suicidal) nation that would tolerate such overt threats against its own citizenry.

But because Israel's dramatic and effective military response provides one more reason for world opinion to pitch so dangerously against Israel...and the Jewish People.

With Bernard Madoff singlehandedly reviving the stereotype of the sly Jewish ganof, the last thing we needed was a military operation where cameras can capture wounded and dead Palestinian women and children, victims of sly Israeli rockets and guns.

This is the contemporary blood libel...but with seeming journalistic proof that the charges are real.

And the fact that Hamas has a habit of launching rockets from within civilian centers, universities or even hospitals -- in other words, uses its women and children as human shields, a humanitarian crime of enormous proportions -- seems to register not the least in the world court.

So the condemnations of Israel come fast and furious, while once again, the mantle of victimhood remains solely a Palestinian privilege.

These last moments of the year 2008 are tense and terrifying. As I write, in the limited light of the dining room, next to the living room where the supine girls have now fallen quiet, I wish to transport myself back to that magical moment at the start of November, that night when a miracle took place, when good triumphed over evil, when people of different colors and faiths danced in the streets, when the prospect of a hopeful and peaceful future seemed ours for the asking.

The Watcher in the Night

Yeah, yeah. I know.

It's been over a month since I blogged.

Not for lack of material to write about.

For lack of mental space.

And physical too.

You see, the Three Babes were all home at once and the Urban Bungalow was a glorious Grand Central Station of kids, young adults, voices, Pomeranians, food, laughter, yelling, fights, food, movies, music videos, manga, food, anime, opera, tears, recriminations, spontaneous songs, jibes, sleeping bodies on couches, floors and every available surface.

In other words, Sheer Overwhelm.

This business of watching your kids grow up is grueling. It is at once exciting and thrilling and beyond belief that you have spawned humanoids who are your size or larger, who can borrow or steal your clothes, who always seem low on cash and perk up at the mention of eating out, who want you around... in judicious doses, who go through marvelous relationships and heart-rending breakups, who suddenly seem to take up more space and time than previously...and then who vanish back to their regularly-scheduled lives, leaving you relieved and bereft at the same time.

So, first Big Babe came home from his perch in Berlin...and then, a week later, Middle Babe returned from her South African adventure. Looking pretty much exactly as I remembered them, they seemed truly joyous to be returned to their mothership, delighted to be back in New York City, happily reunited with our family apartment, with their friends, with my cooking, with us.

There were a few bumpy patches in their relationship with the sibling still at home, their lil bro' Little Babe, an eighth grader -- nothing major, just a low-grade, simmering resentment that took the form of barbs and comments and meanish observations to us about the various ways in which we were screwing up in our parenting of him.

When last we were together, it was for his exuberant, weekend-long bar mitzvah this past June and shortly afterward the older sibs departed for their respective adventures. I can still recall my pride and relief at the family harmony that prevailed during this time.

Now, re-entering the family home after their several months' absence, I felt the older two carefully sniffing around, trying to ascertain exactly how much extra love and attention the youngest sibling was getting in their joint absence.

Which I see as perfectly natural.

If annoying.

In any case, it is well over a month since Big Babe got off that plane from Berlin, unshaven and mustachioed and wearing a Eurohipster get-up, which we teased him about for weeks. And it is just over a month since Middle Babe returned from Grahamstown, South Africa, looking resplendent and rested despite a 23-hour journey, proudly sporting the tan she got in Port Elizabeth.

This evening, we drove Big Babe to JFK to catch his flight back to Berlin, and I am sad and wistful and happy that I blew off work midday to go to the Marlene Dumas and Miro exhibitions at MOMA with him.

In a few weeks' time, Middle Babe returns to her college in Maryland and a certain tranquility will be restored to our apartment. Little Babe is a relatively low-maintenance child, not yet in the habit of having friends over at all hours, though he is up now, well after midnight, watching The Wedding Crashers with his friend Joe, who is sleeping over tonight...and possibly the next three nights, and he had his friends Mo and Colin sleep over Saturday night, but still, they are relatively small people occupying our not-large apartment, somehow less obtrusive than the sleepover guests of Middle and Big Babe, who are our size or larger.

This business of parenting children who grow up, leave, come back and then leave again, is fraught with emotional peril. I am a mother who has always celebrated days off from school, unstructured time with my kids, snow days, Sunday adventures without end. I have hardly minded when HOBB left the kids solely in my care in order to finish writing a book or a project, in fact, I often breathed a deep sigh of relief.

Being with my children, I often feel most like myself.

This time, however, with everyone around, there was palpable tension as our family struggled to find its equilibrium now that so many variables had changed. Two of the members are older than 20 now, the youngest -- so long a baby -- is now a teen. One has traveled halfway around the globe and seen things none of us have. Upon her return home, she proclaimed her vegetarianism. Another has forged a life and career for himself in a foreign country and language.

And the parents have changed as well, with one settling into middle age in quantifiable ways, and the other more restless than ever.

So here is a snapshot of our new family-in-transition, taken in the middle of the night, two days before the beginning of the New Year, on the heels of the most astonishing political victory of our lifetime, on the cusp of a terrifying new future, from the ashes of the Bernard Madoff scandal, in the early throes of a dangerous war in Israel and Palestine: one family member -- the eldest son -- thousands of miles away, six hours into his flight, nearing his adopted home in Berlin; another -- the middle child -- our only daughter, asleep in her loft bed at our home; the third child -- our youngest son -- watching a totally inappropriate movie on our couch with his buddy and our dogs; the father, the husband -- long asleep -- snoring softly in our bed; and finally, the fifth member -- me -- the mother, the wife, the watcher in the night, writing to seal this moment as a fly in amber, as an aerobic activity for my restless soul, as a balm against sadness.

It's My Birthday and I'll Cry If I Want To

I obviously hate myself.

How else to explain my 9 am appointment at Dr. Low's office, on this sunny yet chilly late autumn morning, my 48th birthday?

Sylvia the dental hygienist was perfectly nice... as nice as one could be while sadistically scraping off plaque from the 18 months that had lapsed between today and my last dental appointment.

When I wryly remarked that this was a helluva way to spend my birthday, she praised me for doing something positive for my teeth as I was nearing 50 -- the age when people's teeth evidently start rotting or falling out.

And suggested that I buy myself the new Oral B electric toothbrush as a birthday gift.

As Little Babe might say: Oh Joy.

So, yeah, it's my birthday and good wishes have come from near and far.

Middle Babe, in the final stretch of her semester at Rhodes University in South Africa sent me a BBM advising me to go for a birthday mani-pedi, massage and two-hour workout. SOBB (Sister of Bungalow Babe) in Jerusalem said she hoped I would enjoy some recreational shopping, seconding the suggestion of some personal grooming in honor of this special day.

POBB (parents of Bungalow Babe), whom I will see for dinner later today, called to express shock that their eldest child had reached such an advanced age. FOBB (father of Bungalow Babe), an ordained rabbi, informed me that his only association with the number 48 was a Midrashic rendering of the metaphysical 48 Gates of Impurity that the People of Israel had to pass through on their way to the Holy Land.

Big Babe, newly home from Berlin, regaled me with his LOUD rendition of Happy Birthday on the trumpet he taught himself to play while I attempted not to spill my coffee on myself. Little Babe sleepily wished me a "Happy Birthday" when I roused him from sleep, throwing warm arms around my neck and kissing me on my hair before I yelled at him to get dressed and downstairs in five minutes flat.

Alfie and Nala the Pomeranians gave me special birthday barks and licks. At least, they sounded like special birthday barks. And the licks felt celebratory.

BOBB and SILOBOB (brother and sister-in-law of Bungalow Babe) sent text messages of love and good wishes.

And HOBB presented me with the birthday gift he thoughtfully bought me this morning while out walking Alfie and Nala: a pound bag of Oren's Beowulf Blend coffee and a melange of celebrity and fashion magazines.

I tried to recall the taste of the Beowulf Blend, the blare of Big Babe's trumpet, the warmth of Little Babe's sleepy arms, the sweetness of Middle Babe's text messages and the relaxation of a pedicure as I lay helplessly in Dr. Low's chair, held hostage by a woman named Sylvia who hacked at my sensitive teeth, wielding instruments of gum destruction while a steady stream of my blood and saliva got slurped up by a loud vacuum device stuck into the side of my mouth.

My efforts were in vain. Every nerve of my being was marinating in a stew of misery.

It is now nearly 2:30 in the afternoon. Starting at 3:00, I've got two interviews to conduct and an hour-long phone conference at 4:00.

At 5:10, I need to leave to pick up Little Babe from Afterschool and then the Bungalow Family heads out to Queens to join POBB for my birthday dinner at an Israeli restaurant. It doesn't look like a mani-pedi, recreational shopping trip or massage is in the cards for today.

However, if I run out to Duane Reade in the next half hour, I'll be able to pick myself up a new Oral B electric toothbrush. Sylvia gave me a coupon for a $10 rebate for the Triumph model.

Oh Joy.

First Name Basis

Tuesday night brought us Barack.

Thursday brought us Rahm.

There is a new zeitgeist in America.

And not just politically.

The era of George, John, Bill, Sarah, Dick, Laura, Cindy and the rest of the prototypical American names has just drawn to a close.

A new era has dawned, bringing with it a wealth of new, poetic names from other lands and languages.

Barack: from the Hebrew baruch, or blessing. Also, Hebrew for lightening.
Rahm: Hebrew for mighty.

What was once foreign is now part of our national landscape.

To this American woman, possessed of a Hebrew name, there is reason to rejoice.

The lexicon and heart of our nation has just expanded, becoming greater, more blessed, more mighty.

The Triumph of Hope Over Fear

God Bless America.

Her citizenry came through, turning out in record numbers at the polling stations in city and suburb, in red and blue states alike, throughout this great nation.

She pulled the lever as if with one hand, voting in Barack Obama to be her next president.

The modern-day Moses whose daunting task it is to lead this great nation out of the shackles of underachievement and towards our great destiny.

No one of this generation will ever forget the evening of November 4th, 2008, especially that electrifying moment when the race was called.

At my election night party on W106th Street we erupted into wild cheering as we stood around the television. "Wait...is this real? Can we trust this??" I asked my host, afraid to believe that yes, we did overcome.

"Yes!!!!" he shouted. "Yes!!!!! We did it!!! Obama won!!!!!"

Obama's victory set off the cheer that was heard around the world. In an instant, my far-flung family -- HOBB and Middle Babe in Grahamstown, South Africa, Big Babe in Berlin, Little Babe watching from our Columbia U apartment -- was united in real time.

Watching with his American friends in Berlin, Big Babe shot me a text: "He won!!!!!!" Little Babe called me on my cell. "Obama won!!!!" he shouted into my ear. And, as promised, I called HOBB on his cell though it was 5 am. Sleepily, my husband said, "Omigod!! Wow!!!!!Mazel Tov. Say a shehechiyanu."

The Jewish prayer that is recited at firsts.

The message of last night's historic victory is that hope is stronger than fear.

Barack Obama, welcome to the White House.

America -- congratulations on a job well done.

Baruch atah adonai, elohainu melech haolam, shehechiyanu, v'keymanu, v'higianu lazman hazeh.

Blessed are you, O God, ruler of the world, for sustaining me and keeping me alive to witness the wondrous events of this day

The Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow

Shlipkes (noun): From the Yiddish, connoting nervous energy. On pins and needles; on the edge of one's seat. The feeling of being alive in America on Monday, November 3rd, 2008.

Optimism (noun): A positive attitude. A conviction that the glass is half-full. The belief that the sun'll come up tomorrow. Casting a vote for Barack Obama.

Barack Obama (proper noun): 21st century transformational leader. Visionary politician. Son of the American dream. Product of the great melting pot. Mighty symbol of transcendence for millions of Americans. Target of fear, suspicion and hatred for others. Black, white and all the colors of the rekindled promise of our nation.

Voting (verb): An American privilege. An American obligation. a toast to the future.

The Future (noun): What is yet to be. The day after today. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Unknown but indications are strong for optimism. Still, there are shpilkes. These last hours are crazy-making. Our entire nation is on the edge of its collective seat. We need Barack Obama, oh how we need Barack Obama to lead us out of despair and into our glorious future.

Shady Characters

Because HOBB(Husband of Bungalow Babe) is visiting our beautiful daughter Middle Babe in South Africa (where she is spending a semester studying ethnomusicology), he was unable to respond in a timely fashion to the reporters from the NY Times who contacted him about Rashid Khalidi last week, via email.

So the piece went to press without his contribution and came out just fine. Appearing in the Friday paper it gave a reality check to the scariness factor of Khalidi, the latest bogeyman produced by the McCain campaign in an ever-more-desperate attempt to scare voters out of electing Obama as the first Secret Muslim-Terrorist-Non-American-Socialist-Israel-Hating President this week.

(Hey Sarah...did I leave anything out? Maybe leader of the pro-abortion movement that John mentioned in that last debate? Oooohh...how about Baby-Killing-Godless-Anti-American?)

Here is a snippet from HOBB's belated email response to the Times reporter about Khalidi, which he shared with me this morning:

i don't agree with his point of view, but he is a reasonable man worth hearing out. in fact, he came and gave a guest lecture in my "Covering Religion" seminar when i was focusing on Israel in 2006. He came and talked to my class? I guess I should never run for public office!

And it is that last sentence, of course, which is the crux of the issue. Would HOBB pass muster with the Guilt-by-Association police because of his own Khalidi konnection?

As I wrote in my last post, I am not stating that Rashid Khalidi is necessarily good news for the Jews but he is not an anti-Semite nor is he to be counted among those anti-Zionists who have called for the destruction of Israel.

He is pro-Palestinian and yes, has used some questionable language in talking about Israel. But that is not the point I wish to make.

The point is that Rashid Khalidi has NOTHING to do with Barack Obama's presidency.

And reasonable, honest people of all political persuasions know it.

And the further point is that the Shady Character Degree of Separation game has run its course.

In this presidential campaign and hopefully forever more.

And if you don't believe me, I invite you to play the game...with yourself.

Think of EVERY person you have EVER met in the course of your lifetime and make a list.

Then, put a scary red dot next to anyone who:

Did something illegal
Caused a scandal
Said something racist at a party
Said something stupid at a party
Acted like a d-bag
Stole
Cheated
Has political views that differ from yours
Pissed anyone off
Is related to anyone who did something illegal, caused a scandal, said something racist at a party, said something stupid at a party, acted like a d-bag, stole, cheated or has political views that differ from your own....or pissed anyone off.

See where I'm going with this?

You would not want to be a proxy for your friends, your colleagues, your clients, someone you sat next to on the subway, someone who said something stupid or ugly at an event you attended, someone you sat next to at a dinner party or a professor you had once.

We deserve to be judged by our own words and deeds and wardrobe and haircuts, including the horrible ones from the seventies.

Judge me by my values and my policies. By my track record. By my writings, my legacy, my cooking, the music I listen to, the books I read, the impact I have made...just me, myself and I.

But please, please, please...do not confuse me with my old gynecologist who went to jail for molesting patients and my Anabaptist friend who believes that homosexuality is a sin or my former boyfriend's sister who was a bigamist or my Shabbat host who calls black people shvartzes, or the Rubashkin's chicken breast I bought three years ago before I knew what crooks the owners were or the rich right-winger who sends me emails telling me that if Obama is elected president, he will have homeless people sleeping on his living room floor and he works hard for his money and doesn't deserve to have to subsidize sub-humans who earn less than him, or my state governor who was paying big bucks for sex with hookers or anything else that is not remotely related to me.

McCain's Halloween Tactics

I was driving up to Riverdale yesterday to retrieve Little Babe from choir practice when my BlackBerry buzzed.

It was an anti-Obama ROBB (relative of Bungalow Babe), calling to ask me how I could possibly overlook Obama's association with the Monster of the Moment -- Rashid Khalidi.

So I flipped the speaker button on my BlackBerry and responded to the McCain campaign's latest smear-by-association tactic, a tired and wholly ineffective effort to link Barack Obama with a super-scary personality, by

• Exaggerating the demonic qualities of the particular person, and
• Exaggerating Obama's "friendship" or connection with said scary person

Readers of this blog will recall my penchant for hitting the Reply All button when I receive a hateful chain email.

Because of my Reply All response two weeks ago to such an email that revived the Secret Muslim identity rumor PLUS the Bill Ayers "close" connection, I have been excommunicated from some anti-Obama listservs, thank God.

So, I guess I missed the latest hysteria surrounding the Rashid Khalidi "discovery," the flurry of urgent emails going around that portrayed the revelation of this insidious "relationship" to be as momentous as today's archeological findings from Israel. (See http://www.cnn.com/.)

I leave it up to informed American voters to visit the innumerable news sites that debunk the Obama-Khalidi cabal and take the zing out of the alarming allegations about Khalidi's past associations with the PLO or alleged anti-Semitism.

I also leave it up to informed American voters to read about John McCain's past financial support of an initiative headed by Rashid Khalidi. Kinda falls into the "look who's calling the kettle black," category, dontcha think?

And while I am hardly on the record as saying that Rashid Khalidi is good news for the Jews, I argue against the demonization of someone with a complex CV, yes, but who cannot be lumped together with sworn enemies of Israel or the Jewish people.

So, I don't know if my arguments made a dent on my anti-Obama relative but I did have a chance to reiterate my mantra:

• Stop watching only Fox News; it is propagandistic. Expand your news sources
• Stop believing every rabble-rousing, Republican-sponsored email that comes your way
• Investigate what leading Jewish groups have said about Barack Obama
• Get out of the shul or shtetl where anti-Obamaism has become the new religion and hear from Jews with other views

On the morning of Halloween, the tactics of the McCain campaign have become crystal clear: if Palin and policy fail to persuade the American public, go knocking door to door and try to scare people to death with the message that Obama's presidency will be a horror show.

Bill Clinton Schleps to Florida for Barack Obama

After watching Bill Clinton speak in Florida yesterday on behalf of the most remarkable man ever to run for president of the United States, I'm all farklempt.

If you haven't tuned in, you owe it to yourself to visit this moment of political history-in-the-making. Here's the link to the video clip that the Guardian put up: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/30/barack-obama-bill-clinton-florida

While I watched the nightly news, HOBB (Husband of Bungalow Babe) was en route to South Africa to visit our beautiful 20-year-old daughter, Middle Babe. He had three suitcases in tow, the two large ones filled with items for our daughter and the 30 kids she teaches in a township outside of Rhodes University, where she is studying ethnomusicology for a semester.

Among these items -- which include a huge salami, Sephora goodies, plush toys, art supplies, celebrity magazines, clothes from American Apparel, Urban Outfitters and Forever 21, 100-calorie snack bags, low-carb muffins, socks, towels and a Best of Mike Myers DVD set -- were several campaign buttons for Barack Obama.

These buttons were for the shoeless children she teaches, to show them that a black man could run for president of the United States. And maybe even win.

Watching Bill Clinton address the energized proBama crowd last night, I thought of the Hillaryites I know, the vast majority of whom have made the transition over to the Barack camp, perhaps reluctantly at first, but now, with passion and conviction.

I thought of the conversation I had with an octogenarian I met at the Covenant dinner, held on Tuesday night at the Pierre hotel. Tall and regal, she is a respected leader in American Jewish life. The issue of the presidential race came up and I held back on my views, unfairly assuming -- from her age -- that she would be a McCain supporter.

Looking me square in the eyes, this elegant grande dame told me in no uncertain terms, "You have to be a moron to vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin. And you have to be an idiot to believe what they are saying about Barack Obama. This business about Israel being endangered if he is elected is sheer nonsense. AIPAC endorsed both candidates. I wish people would just open their minds and their eyes."

I couldn't have said it better.

And speaking of Jews who make the case for Obama, please read author and tireless Jewish advocate Deborah Lipstadt on why she -- a former Hillary supporter -- is voting for Barack on Tuesday:

Op-Ed: Learning to Love Obama after Clinton 's Defeat
Deborah E. Lipstadt

Published: 10/10/2008ATLANTA (JTA) -- I am one of those 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling. I was a Hillary supporter. I did not support Senator Clinton because she was a woman but because I liked her policies and record. But as is often the case in life, my hopes were not to be. Once that became clear I sat on the sidelines, watching and wondering.

Now I am firmly in the Obama/Biden camp.

I have been both pushed and pulled in that direction. I am there as an American, a woman and a Jew. John McCain is a firm pro-lifer, having voted against choice more than 120 times in his career. His running mate opposes abortion even in the case of rape and incest.

While there is nothing fundamentally wrong with these beliefs, I object to having someone's personal views forced upon everyone else when it entails such a private family matter.

Furthermore, this view potentially conflicts with Jewish law, which holds that when there is a threat to the life of the mother, her life takes precedence over that of her fetus -- and leaves abortion decisions up to a woman and the rabbi with whom she consults.

Many traditional rabbis take into consideration the issue of mental stress on the mother, permitting abortions in the case of Tay-Sachs and other genetic diseases.

Were McCain and Sarah Palin to write their pro-life beliefs into law, their policy could create both a direct obstacle to Jewish law and severe invasions into our private lives.McCain's views on abortion are not, however, my primary reason for not supporting him. I find myself diverging with him on a far broader array of issues.

The Torah repeatedly instructs us to care for the "widow, orphan, poor, and the stranger." It is fundamental to Judaism that those who are blessed with "more" have an obligation -- not a choice -- to help those who have less.

Taking care of the needy in Jewish tradition constitutes doing tzedaka, not charity. There is a world of difference between the two.

The root of charity is "caras," as in dear -- caress, care. The root of tzedaka is justice. Jewish law prefers that people give charity lovingly and kindly.But Jewish law teaches, even if you don't care to give, that you are obligated to do so.

How then could I support McCain, who has voted against the minimum wage at least 10 times? How could I support someone who believes in the privatization of Social Security? Can you imagine what would be happening today as the economy lurches toward implosion to people who depended on private Social Security accounts? Social Security is a contract a society makes with its citizens: We will help you when you are old and needy.

How could I support a candidate, McCain, whose health-care program would leave millions uninsured and tax the health insurance benefits we now receive from our employers? How could I support someone who supports more tax cuts for the very wealthy and almost nothing for the middle class or the poor?And then, of course, there is Israel, to which so many of us are deeply and viscerally connected.

Groups of Jews who oppose Barack Obama want to strike fear into people's hearts on this issue.Why else would I regularly receive e-mails from them -- I like to know what the other side is saying -- referring to BHO, as in Barrack Hussein Obama? Obama's record has earned him praise from AIPAC and Israeli leaders, as well as condemnation from Palestinian leaders.

The recently defunct, solidly pro-Israel New York Sun declared in an editorial earlier this year: "Mr. Obama's commitment to Israel , as he has articulated it so far in his campaign, is quite moving and a tribute to the broad, bipartisan support that the Jewish state has in America ."

Moreover, the paper noted, "he has chosen to put himself on the record in terms that Israel 's friends in America , at least those not motivated by pure political partisanship, can warmly welcome."Leaders in Israel -- on both sides of the political spectrum -- do not fear Obama's commitment to Israel.

Israeli leaders from Ehud Barak to Benjamin Netanyahu were impressed by Obama. Netanyahu, the Likud Party leader, told the Jerusalem Post that he was "impressed with Obama's understanding of the Iranian threat and that they both agreed that a nuclear Iran was unacceptable."

Netanyahu also said that he and Obama agreed on the importance of "preventing a nuclear Tehran " and that "when it came to stopping Iran there were no politics."What about the famous "experience" conundrum?

Obama's familiarity with the issues has impressed many people, including the veteran journalist David Horowitz, editor of the Jerusalem Post. Horowitz compared his recent interviews with Presi dent Bush and Senators McCain and Obama.

When he met a few months ago with Bush in the Oval Office, the president -- who at this point is "presumably as expert on Israeli-Palestinian policy as he is ever going to be" -- brought with him "no fewer than five advisers and spokespeople during a 40-minute interview," Horowitz wrote.

On his whirlwind visit to Israel, "McCain, one of whose primary strengths is said to be his intimate grasp of foreign affairs, chose to bring along Sen. Joe Lieberman to the interview" and "looked to Lieberman several times for reassurance on his answers and seemed a little flummoxed by a question relating to the nuances of settlement construction."

Horowitz's meeting with Obama was markedly different. Obama "spoke with only a single aide in his hotel room." (The aide's only contribution was to suggest that Obama and Horowitz switch seats, so the Post photographer would have better lighting.)

Obama did not lack for Middle East advisers. Dennis Ross, President Bill Clinton's special envoy to the Middle East and one who is widely respected for his knowledge and commitment to a secure peace settlement, and Daniel Kurtzer, the former ambassador to Israel and Yeshiva University graduate and its former dean, were "hovering in the vicinity," Horowitz wrote, but they were not in the room.

Horowitz observed that Obama "knew precisely what he wanted to say about the most intricate issues confronting and concerning Israel , and expressed himself clearly, even stridently on key subjects."

Contrast that with Sarah Palin's rote repetition three times during the Charlie Gibson interview of precisely the same phrase about Israel that "We can't second-guess Israel ." Is that all she has to say? Can she only speak in sound bites? Does she have any knowledge of the nuances of the situation?

The same thing happened in the vice-presidential debate. Palin spewed a lot of talking points -- two-state solution, no second Holocaust, embassy in Jerusalem -- but demonstrated no real familiarity with the situation.

I firmly believe that those who know the history and nuances of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the track record of the different players cannot help but come down on the side of a safe and secure Israel. But in order to help broker a real peace, they must know much more than rote talking points.

Many Jews, myself included, were deeply disturbed by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's most controversial comments, but there is nothing in Obama's record to indicate that he adheres to Wright's views. I was glad to hear Obama forcefully and publicly denounce them.Contrast that with Palin, who sat in her church while a Jews for Jesus leader, David Brickner, preached that terrorism in Israel is God's "judgment" against Jews for failing to accept Jesus?

Maybe she said nothing because she did not understand the implication's of Brickner's words, but that would be even more disturbing.When Palin first ran for mayor of Wasilla, she did so as the town's "first Christian mayor." What does that have to do with being mayor? Is this someone you want a heartbeat away from America 's oldest president, a man who has had multiple bouts with cancer?

Lest someone assume that I am contemptuous of her deep religious commitment, let me stress that it is the contrary. In my work and life I find myself more comfortable with those who are deeply committed to their faith -- whatever that faith may be -- than those who are totally unconnected and, even worse, contemptuous of those who are. I just don't want them imposing their faith on me.

Finally, let's talk about the 800-pound gorilla sitting in the middle of many people's election ballots. Jews have prospered in this country in countless and unimaginable ways. America has given us tremendous opportunities. While no one should vote for Barack Obama because he is black, the fact that a black man is a nominee for the highest office in the land constitutes an affirmation of the fact that at long last, some of the final barriers of discrimination are crumbling.

For Jews it is yet another reminder of the blessings this country has offered them and other minorities.

For me, the choice is clear.

Deborah E. Lipstadt is the Dorot Professor of Modern Jewish and Holocaust Studies at Emory University and author of "History on Trial: My Day in Court With David Irving