John McGrumpy vs Barack Oboywhatawinna

Having kids in foreign countries adds an element of drama to one's life, with phone calls coming in at odd hours chiefly concerning travel travail: missed flights, cancelled flights, delayed flights, usually on the eve of a major Jewish holiday.

Such was the call we received at 6 am this morning from our own 20-year-old daughter, Middle Babe, studying at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa.

The Jewish population of her international program of 6,000 students is 2 and for this reason, she flew to friends of friends of a friend in Jo'berg for Rosh Hashana and was en route to Capetown today to spend the Day of Atonement with the family of a friend from New York.

Except that severe rainstorms delayed her flight for several hours and she called us in a panic, asking our wise parental counsel on the matter. Unless the flight took off within the next hour, she would risk arriving in Capetown too late to eat before nightfall and the beginning of a 25-hour fast.

Fortunately, her plane was taking off at the time of our last conversation and though I tried to fall back to sleep after hearing that welcome news, my mind clicked into zero-to-sixty mode.

Within minutes, I was seated in front of my computer, a steaming cup of Oren's Beowulf Blend before me, reading the postmortems on the second presidential debate of the previous night.

While it was abundantly clear to me that Obama sailed through the town hall format as a superstar -- and last night's CNN team gave high points to his performance -- I was curious to read the morning-after assessments.

Even after reading the predictably skewered views of the Fox News contributors, it seems that the national consensus matches my own reaction. However, as I watched Obama elegantly grab the mantle of victor from McCain, I couldn't help wondering how pro-McCain voters viewed their guy's performance.

Did they see -- and were they alarmed by -- McCain's cranky old man-nerisms?

Did they cringe when he made stupid jokes or snarled at Obama?

What did they think of his dismissive, in-shockingly-poor-taste reference to Obama as "that one?"

Did his repeated use of the phrase, "my friends," grate on their nerves?

And most importantly...could they fail to see the words, Next Leader of the Free World and Savior of America writ large across Obama's forehead?

I will admit that until last night's debate, I resisted Obamaphilia, publicly stated that I was supporting him because I was supporting the Democratic party and his vision.

I have said that, as a Hillaryite, I was disappointed that her bid for candidacy failed, that I saw Obama as a leader only by default but that it was clear that he would get my vote.

Last night's on-their-feet format changed my mind utterly.

Obama is the great black ‘n white hope of America.

He is epic, heroic, smart, sincere, perfectly suited for the daunting -- but hardly fictitious -- role of knight in shining armor coming to rescue the damsel-in-distress that is our nation.

While his opponent, John McCain increasingly appears tired, saggy around the jowls, angry, frustrated, badly in need of a nap.

Hobbling across the stage in Nashville last night, John McCain seemed like nothing more than Grumpy from the Seven Dwarfs -- short, square, bitter, defeated, cranky, cartoonish.

And my friends, I don't think that America can survive another cartoon character acting as commander-in-chief.

My Dog Could Have Written a Better Yom Kippur Presidential Message...or Why Jews Need to Pray for America

About an hour ago, an e-mail missive from the White House arrived in my Inbox.

After first perusing the latest dismal financial forecasts, monitoring the hate-speech being spewed by Sarah and John and checkin' up on ma main man 'Bam as he prepares for the showdown later tonight, I finally felt moved to open the e-mail and see what treasures awaited me from the Office of Public Liaison, that White House outfit that sends press releases to specific groups, in this case, Jews.

For one wild, improbable moment I pondered the possibility of finding a public statement of atonement from our prez.

"Dear America," the message might begin, "As Yom Kippur approaches, I felt moved to humbly beg your forgiveness for totally f^*&ing you over for the past eight years. I have not only led more than 4,000 men and women to their deaths in a senseless war and failed to capture Osama bin Laden, but I have made America the a-hole of the world, as Sarah Silverman so colorfully put it in that "schleping" video. Rather than fast for only one day, I will fast for the rest of my life in the hope that God might forgive me for everything I have done wrong."

But no such message alighted on my screen.

Instead, here is what I found:

THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release October 7, 2008

Yom Kippur, 5769

For on this day shall atonement be made for you, to cleanse you; from all your sins shall ye be clean before the LORD.

Leviticus 16:30

Yom Kippur is the Jewish Day of Atonement and the most holy day in the Jewish faith. From the time the Kol Nidre is recited until the Shofar is sounded, Jews around the world will draw nearer to God through acts of atonement, fasting, and prayer. Jewish tradition teaches that on Yom Kippur, God remembers every name, listens to every petition, and offers forgiveness to the repentant.

On this day, Americans are reminded of the great blessings of religious freedom and the unalienable rights bestowed upon all people by the Creator of life. May God grant us peace, comfort, and hope for all the challenges we may face in the year ahead.

Laura and I send our best wishes for a blessed day and a most meaningful fast.

GEORGE W. BUSH

I stared at my computer screen. That was the best Yom Kippur message W could muster?

Naturally, I expected nothing in the way of honesty or accountability from the evasive, dysfunctional Bush administration, but honestly, Nala the Pomeranian (pictured above) could have written a more original, more heartfelt High Holy Day greeting than the lame-ass White House communications hack who churned this one out.

At least throw in a reference to the hard times that have befallen our great nation.

Make the message sound as if you didn't scribble it on the back of your Dunkin' Donuts napkin on the way to the office this morning.

Try, in the waning days of W's administration, to pretend that you give a damn.

For eight long years, we have lacked leadership that actually gave a damn about this nation.

And with their platitudes and cliches and repackaged Bush policies, it is hard to believe that the McCain-Palin ticket cares about changing the status quo either but they sure do like to tell us how darn patriot they are and how -- unlike that dark terrorist -- they believe that America is a force for good in this world.

Their claims are as dead as the White House Yom Kippur message.

Palin and Lieberman have lately invoked God in this presidential race. I think it is time that we Democrats invite God to play a role in this all-important election.

On the eve of Yom Kippur 2008 I renew my commitment to daven with kavannah, praying with heart and soul for an enlightened President to lead our nation.

From the moment the Gates of Heaven open at Kol Nidre to the time that they are sealed at Ne'ila, I will petition God to inscribe the United States of America in the Book of Life.

It's All Greek to Sarah Palin

A post script on Palin and the Vice Presidential debate:

By this time, Palin's penchant for sticking to her preordained script has been well documented, but there was one moment that stuck out in my mind as transcending the strategy of avoidance.

That moment came when Gwen Ifill asked the Senator from Alaska to identify her Achilles Heel.

When Sarah circumvented the question, launching into her own gobbledygook about being the executive of a huge energy-producing state, it seemed that something else motivated her response.

It was her sheer ignorance of the term Achilles Heel.

After conducting a quick Internet search this morning, I see that I am late in making this claim. Alas, dozens of bloggers and observers already beat me to it.

Evidently, Sarah's silence in the face of a mythological reference is not a subtle discovery on my part. To many observers, the governor of Alaska was basically b.s.ing her way through the debate hoping that the American people never noticed she didn't exactly answer the questions.

But even if my observation is late, or utterly unoriginal, it nevertheless merits attention.

Why?

Because as of this morning, there are still intelligent, educated and formerly liberal people who have somehow become bewitched by Palin as a byproduct of their fear of Obama.

Because these people -- some of whom might be friends or family members -- have managed to turn off the discriminating parts of their brains in order to make Sarah Palin palpable just long enough to pull the lever for McCain.

It would make me ever-more-comfortable hearing a McCain supporter admit that Sarah Palin is a bitter pill to swallow, an occupational hazard of supporting John McCain.

Instead, I see wild enthusiasm for a person who -- under normal circumstances -- would have them rolling their eyes. Or seeing her as the antithesis of everything one would hope for in the executive office.

We need to remind these friends, family members or even strangers that we should expect a modicum of cultural literacy for the person hoping to occupy the office of Vice President of the United States.

To mask illiteracy as some kind of noble anti-elitism is a pathetic, doomed tactic.

And while it is possible to memorize talking points for a debate, it is not possible to cram the core curriculum of contemporary civilization... not that she is even trying.

Since she was unable to answer, nay, understand, Gwen Ifill's question, let me take the liberty of answering it for her.

Sarah Palin's Achilles Heel is not just her ignorance but her complete and utter lack of intellectual aspiration.

And since America is as much an idea as a reality, this tendency doesn't bode well for the future of our great nation.

Sarah Palin: Pomeranian, Not Pit Bull

I invite you to feast your eyes on the ultra-adorable sight of Little Babe snuggling with our Pomeranians --Alfie and Nala.

Alfie, the blond pooch on the right, holds the exalted position of top dog in our family. Eight years ago, he joined our clan as Middle Babe's bat mitzvah present. Nala, the cocoa-colored little lass on the left who is actually smiling into the camera, joined us in July as Little Babe's bar mitzvah gift.

Delighted with Alfie's sweet nature, we went back to his breeder, seeking a pup from the same mishpocha. Our timing was perfect. Nala is Alfie's half-sister. They share a dad, a noble blond Pomeranian named Gizmo.

Nala is five months old. One of a litter of three girls. (Yes, at this point, it is entirely appropriate to say, "Awwwwwwwww.")

Anyway, aside from showing off my youngest child and our dogs, the reason for posting this picture is to make a point about Sarah Palin, that annoyingly shallow Jane Sixpack faux Hockey Mom semi-literate wind-up doll who managed to redeem herself from utter national ridicule this past Thursday night by simply not drooling all over her black suit.

And the point is that though she has alluded to herself as Pit Bull-like, the more apt dog analogy for her would be Pomeranian.

I know that must sound shocking coming from a Pomeranian owner, but you see, the kind of Pom I am talking about is not, heaven-forbid, like my own -- who overflow with love, good humor and intelligence, who run up to strangers in the hope that they will merit a pat, who greet us at the door with sweet little yips of joy and ample licks of love, who figure out how to break out of locked rooms due to their canine ingenuity.

No, the kind of Pomeranian that Sarah Palin resembles is the other kind; those horribly yappy, deceptively fluffy creatures who will bite you viciously if you venture too close, who make up in nastiness what they lack in intelligence.

We have such a Pomeranian living in our building. His name is Axel and even his owners concede that he is mean to the core. Because of that admission we all feel a measure of compassion towards them.

Axel, a fat blur of brown and black fur, tries to attack Alfie and Nala every time they share the elevator. He nipped at Little Babe when he innocently bent down to pet him back when we were naive new tenants. As a result of his aggression, he is shunned by all the dogs and owners on our block.

In my experience, Pomeranians come in only two varieties: Alfie/Nala or Axel.

Fortunately, it seems that the former is far more common. The problem is that the cute and fluffy appearance of the Axel Poms makes them much more dangerous than, say, Pit Bulls. When one sees a Pit Bull approaching, an internal alarm tends to go off, while most people will assume that a Pomeranian is benevolent until it tries to bite your hand off.

Watching Sarah Palin's behavior over the past five weeks -- especially her ugly character assassination attempts of this past weekend where she questioned Obama's patriotism and tried to brand him a terrorist by proxy -- it is clear that she is a Axel Pomeranian.

This past Thursday night, emerging from a whipping by the media after her sheer idiocy was revealed in candid interviews, then given a crash course in Vice Presidential literacy for the three days prior to the debate, Sarah Palin stood before the American people, all coiffed and cutesy and fluffy and winky, exuding a desperate plea as pungent as body odor, "O, American People! Like me! Like me!!!Like me!!!"

Word is that Gwen Ifill was warned by the McCain camp not to ask challenging follow-up questions so Palin managed to get through the debate avoiding answering questions directly. Joe Biden was on his best behavior so that he would not be seen as bullying the little lady from Alaska.

So, unbelievably enough, Sarah Palin, who is running for the office of Vice President of the United States, ended up being treated as a defenseless little Pomeranian. Given a stage to perform upon, she pulled out her stomach-churning Palinisms, her "you betchas!" and her perky can-do vocab. She wagged her tail winningly, yet the minute she came down from the podium, Sarah went on a yappy attack, filling in with nastiness what she lacks in substance.

Behind her Miss Alaska smiles, her "serious" spectacles and her bogus claim that she represents the simple, homespun folk of this nation, Sarah Palin represents nothing. She has absolutely nothing to say other than that she and John McCain are the most mavericky team of mavericks to hit Washington, DC. Yeah, and she's a total Washington outsider. The new cowgirl who rode into town on the back of a moose she just shot with her own gun! Darn tootin'!

Fortunately, the American public is not as stupid as Sarah Palin's mythical version of Main Street, Wasilla. And just as West 116th Street between Amsterdam and Morningside -- my personal Main Street -- has learned the true nature of Axel the Pomeranian and decided to shun him, so too, our nation is learning the true nature of Sarah Palin... and that our national security depends on shunning her breed.

For it is not Pit Bull.

But it certainly is canine. Of the female variety.

Bissli in the Hudson: Some Rosh Hashana Thoughts

We meant to get to tashlich by 5:30, but it was already 5:30 when we returned from the Columbia campus -- Alfie, Nala, Little Babe and me.

Allowing the heavy front door to swing shut with a grating squeal resembling nothing less than the brakes of a New York City subway train, terrifying my Pomeranians who bolted straightaway into the living room, I let out a booming greeting to HOBB (Husband of Bungalow Babe) whom I envisioned sitting on the couch, reading the Times.

Instead, my loud voice drew my husband, bleary-eyed, out of the bedroom, where he had spent a comatose two hours. "Lemmewashupandhavesometeaandwe'llgototashlich," he mumbled, stumbling to the bathroom.

Marveling at the swift passage of two hours (wearing no watch, I thought it to be in the 4:30 range), Little Babe and I scrambled out of our shorts into attire suitable for an outdoors communal gathering on the afternoon of Rosh Hashana.

Tashlich, to be exact. In Riverside Park, along the promenade, somewhere just south of 103rd street.

Anyone who has attended tashlich on the Upper West Side of Manhattan can attest to the cocktail party-like atmosphere of this gathering.

On the afternoon of the first day of Rosh Hashana (the second day if the first day falls on a Shabbat), the entire span of the promenade, from about 72nd street up to about 105th street, hosts thousands of Jews of a variety of background and orientation who have come to perform the immensely likeable and metaphorical ritual known as tashlich, where one tosses one's "sins" into the water in the form of bread, crackers, cookies or other similar products.

In our case, Bissli, the bite-sized, crunchy Israeli snacks, loaded with spice and MSG.

While I was rooting in the kitchen cabinet for molding challah or broken crackers, Little Babe grabbed the bag of Bissli, left over from our Labor Day weekend trip to Israel.

"Hey!" he said, pleased to discover a snack and ritual item at the same time.

Anyway, unless you are feeling horribly anti-social or anti-Semitic or are simply sick of seeing all your friends and neighbors or are really a stickler for performing mitzvot, tashlich allows Jews to do what they do best: acknowledge guilt and socialize. At the same time.

I admit that I always look forward to tashlich, knowing that I will be able to catch up on the lives of friends I barely see. True, many of the people I bump into I have just seen a few hours earlier, in shul, but there always turns out to be a core of people I seem to only talk to once a year. At tashlich.

There is a sweet, mutual, Same Time Next Year aspect to our instant life-catch-up as we stand shoulder to shoulder with others who are doing exactly the same.

And every year, the composition of the crowd seems comfortingly predictable: a gaggle of little kids playing underfoot; teens and college students huddling in cliques; older couples linking arms; a few Hasidic families; some boldface-name individuals -- writers, intellectuals, a singer who became sort of famous, a businessman who was recently indicted; young couples with babies; a charismatic rabbi; a child overly-tired, crying and pulling on his mother; tattooed or pierced Jews; the family that suffered a horrible tragedy; Jews recently arrived from other countries -- France, Russia, Hungary, England, Israel -- wearing obviously outlander garb, speaking in exotic tongues, drawing curious looks from the established citizenry of the Jewish Upper West Side.

Tashlich is done well because it is akin to so many other Jewish communal gatherings.

It is like the Israel Day Parade without the floats and Catholic School marching bands.

It is like a shul kiddush except outdoors.

It is like a wedding or bar mitzvah except without a smorgasbord.

It is like shul, but with really short davening and permission to talk.

It is a cocktail party without alcoholic drinks or the pressure to dress up. And if you are worried that you are not mingling enough, you can take comfort in the fact that tashlich is actually a religious ritual.

(Funny things also happen at tashlich. About seven years ago, our Anabaptist babysitter Susan was approached by a nice yeshiva bocher who continued to stalk her throughout the year, despite her repeated disclaimers that she was a fundamentalist Christian.)

But let me return to our family and the bag of Bissli and our journey to tashlich earlier this week.
So, though the original plan was to arrive at 5:30, thereby giving us maximum schmooze time (and also provide ample set-up time for our dinner guests, scheduled to arrive at 7:30; the dinner food had already been cooked earlier in the day and was warming up ) we only reached the banks of the Hudson at 6:30, by which time groups of Jews were heading home or to synagogue and the sun was slipping over the river.

Still, scoping out the crowd, I saw at least a dozen people I was eager to connect with.

With Nala the puppy in tow (Alfie refused to come out of the closet after our Columbia excursion), Bissli in Little Babe's sweatshirt pocket and a siddur in HOBB's hand, we made a beeline for the water, determined to recite tashlich, toss our sins and return to our regularly scheduled schmoozefest.

Now, I will admit that in previous years, I have managed to neglect reciting the prayer (or even tossing my breadcrumbs into the water!!) due to my mad frenzy to socialize. From the moment I descend into the mass of humanity, I kind of lose my focus. It is a type of Religious Attention Deficit Disorder, I think.

But this year was different. For starters, I actually recited the prayer. And was mindful about discarding my sins, going as far as to designate discrete sins to individual pieces of Bissli as I hurled them into the Hudson River. And I was conscious of expanding my concept of sin to encompass things that would not traditionally be deemed sinful, that is, they harm no one other than myself. I contemplated aspects of the previous year that I wished to discard and resolved to make important changes in my life.

I allowed tashlich to work its magic on me.

Now, on the eve of Shabbat, I look back in wonder at my meaningful tashlich of this year. It was not premeditated in the least, in fact, it was utterly spontaneous. I left my apartment thinking more of the people I would greet instead of the sins I would cast away. I left my apartment feeling anxious about not having enough time to play.

But when I arrived home, I knew that I had been given all the time I needed.

Maybe it was the bite-size pieces of Bissli that enabled me to divide my discontents into small, manageable chunks that might be more easily discarded. Maybe it was the awesome beauty of the sun slipping over the horizon as I stood and recited my prayer. Maybe it was the recent bar mitzvah of Little Babe, his presence beside me as I peered into the siddur. Maybe it was the proximity of the bracing shoulder of HOBB, with whom I just celebrated 25 years of marriage.

I do not know why tashlich worked for me this year in an entirely new way but I am grateful for it. Tossing the Bissli with kavanna compelled me to take seriously the introspective mandate of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur.

Now that I have erased my slate, I am charged with a daunting responsibility.

My slate must be filled with that which is worthy of being lovingly preserved, not discarded.

Heading into the first Shabbat of the new Jewish Year, I glimpse a new horizon, white and spotless as a Sabbath or festival tablecloth, inviting the clutter and cacophony of a really great cocktail party.

Birthday in Serbia, Birthday in Heaven

Big Babe turns 24 today and shortly, I will Skype him to wish him a Happy Birthday.

He is somewhere in Serbia, at some meshugganeh Gypsy musical festival, hoping to sell a story to the International Herald Tribune, or the New York Times or the European edition of the Wall Street Journal.

When we spoke yesterday, he was flush with excitement. Though his base is Berlin, from where he reports on culture for a variety of publications, the past two weeks have taken him to Hungary and Serbia on buses, trains and probably, unbeknownst to me, on hitchhiked rides.

This is the exact time in his life to do such things, to find cheap or free places to sleep via couchsurfing.com, to meet up with your friends from New York in Belgrade cafes, to pitch stories about such cultural happenings as Jewstock, which took place in a Hungarian field that seems the Eastern European equivalent of Yasgur's farm.

And so, shortly, I will try to track him down to let him know that I am thinking of him and missing him on his birthday.

My eldest child.

Who is living out my own personal fantasy: living the life of the footloose, writer-at-large.

But as I note the date and lose myself in happy rumination of the thrilling adventures my son has undertaken, I also feel moved to mark another birthday, a tragic birthday, belonging to America's most famous missing toddler.

Tomorrow would be Caylee Marie Anthony's third birthday.

I will not rehash this riveting, horrible case right now. If you've been living on Mars for the past month or have been caught up watching Paris Hilton ragging on John McCain, you can check your choice of news media to catch up, and I would start with the Orlando Sentinel, Caylee's hometown paper. Check it out at http://www.orlandosentinel.com/.

The latest news in the case, though, is significant. The investigators have gone public with the fact that there is not a single truthful detail in all that Casey Anthony, Caylee's 22-year-old mother, has told them.

The string of lies is breathtaking in its chutzpah. Read the search warrant and you get clammy palms knowing that the police are tracking a child killer, building a case by ensnaring her within these arrogant, emphatic statements. If I was more tech-savvy, I would link to it here, but you can find it online easily. Just Google it.

And as the investigation spread to Casey's parents, it has become dismayingly clear to me that the irritating, narcissistic grandmother Cindy is playing some part in the child's disappearance. I found myself falling asleep last night trying to figure out just what that role was.

While I am usually drawn to missing persons cases, the Caylee Marie Anthony case has obsessed me beyond any reasonable measure. Reading blogs and comments on various news sites, I see that I am hardly alone.

And I think I know what accounts for my obsession.

It is this:

When you are a mother, your mental well-being is utterly dependant upon your child's well-being. A popular saying states, "You are only as happy as your unhappiest child."

The nonchalant, casual attitude Casey has displayed throughout the investigation regarding the so-called disappearance of her child is the most incrimination evidence there is to link her to the child's death.

Yes, the DNA results will cement the link, the bags of evidence being removed from the Anthony home will build an airtight case, but every mother in the world knows that if your child is in peril, you are a complete and utter wreck.

Like me. On Monday of this week.

When I got an urgent text message from Big Babe traveling in Serbia.

Spoke to him for 2 minutes and then lost reception.

Found out during that time that his bank account had been cleaned out and he was on a bus in Serbia without a cent to his name.

And then spent 2 hours trying to connect with him unsuccessfully via email, phone and text messages.

Until an officer at the American Embassy in Belgrade, where he went for help, contacted me and let me know he was okay. Told me where we could wire emergency funds.

On Monday morning of this week, 4 days before Big Babe's 24th birthday, I was reduced to a barely-functional, hysterical wreck of a human being. I could barely work. I kept running to the bathroom. I called HOBB repeatedly and yelled at him to help me locate Big Babe. I avoided speaking to my parents because I did not want to tell them what was going on. I feared they might get physically sick.

My child was in trouble and I did not have a moment's peace.

It is the end of the week. Big Babe has his emergency funds and seems to be okay. Though I admire and applaud his adventures, I must be frank and state that I am kinda uneasy about all the traveling he is doing in Eastern Europe. The truth is that I'd love him to announce that he decided to come back to New York. And his younger sister, my beloved Middle Babe, is giving me shpilkes big time as well. She's studying in South Africa, at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, middle of freaking nowhere.

She's having a great time, but if I go a day without a text message for email from her, my mind creates all kinds of terrible scenarios.

The point of this is that Caylee Marie Anthony will celebrate her third birthday tomorrow. In heaven.

We know this before the DNA results confirm the child's death.

We know this because while Caylee Marie Anthony went "missing," her mother hardly missed her.

The Face of Contemporary Evil

Take a good look at the face on the left, the one with the scarily vacant gaze.

The hair has been stylishly cut.

The eyebrows are freshly shaped.

The brow is smooth and unworried.

There are no dark circles under her eyes from loss of sleep.

There is no fear, no grief, no remorse, no emotion at all, really.

This is the face of cold-blooded, calculating, self-centered, sociopathic 22-year-old Casey Anthony of Orlando, Florida, who is now being held in jail for failing to report her not-yet-three-year-old daughter missing for 31 days and lying repeatedly to investigators about everything having to do with Caylee Marie, pictured to her right.

You can't see it from this picture but Casey's toes are meticulously painted purple, visible on the video of her court appearance last week. Having a pedicure somehow precluded reporting her baby missing for more than a month.

And you can't hear it from this picture, but Casey is captured on audiotape complaining to a friend that all her parents care about is getting Caylee back and fighting with her mother and brother and cursing and asking for her boyfriend's number and not expressing one iota of concern for her child who is either in grave danger...or in an actual grave.

You couldn't know it from this picture but calls had already been placed to 911 by Casey's mother Cindy, where she screams to a dispatcher that her car smelled like a dead body had been in it.

You wouldn't know it from this picture, but in the month that Caylee was missing, Casey stole her mother's car and credit cards and racked up thousands of dollars of expenditures. And hung out with friends. And cooked for them. And got a tattoo.

All the while claiming that her daughter was with a babysitter who has turned out to be as mythical as a unicorn. As the Lost City of Atlantis.

Take a good look at this picture and you will realize that what is remarkable about Casey Anthony is that she is utterly unremarkable; you have seen her at the mall and in the movies, at Dunkin' Donuts and in the local pizza shop. Casey Anthony looks just like any spoiled college-age American girl, the kind who gets trendy haircuts and regular mani-pedi's and eyebrow waxes.

And listen to the audio clips of her jailhouse phone calls -- now available on most news websites - and you will realize that she sounds like an average, self-centered, imperious, bitchy adolescent girl.

Combatative with her mother. Pissed at being grounded. Impatient and whiny. Demanding. Protesting her "unfair" treatment.

Except the subject here is not her allowance or slutty shoes or failing grades or her irresponsible summer plans.

The subject is a child who has been missing for nearly six weeks.

Her own flesh and blood, Caylee Marie Anthony, about whom she is incapable of even faking concern even as the news media follows every development in the case and millions of strangers around the world offer a prayer for her safe return. Even as her friend breaks down in tears on tape, begging her to tell her where the child is.

Even as the facts and findings of the investigation increasingly indicate a homicide.

The face of Casey Anthony is a portrait of contemporary evil.

Ordinary.

Blank.

Nondescript in a uniquely American way, quintessential, practically the girl next door.

FRIDAY AFTERNOON, SUMMER 2008

I have insane work days here in the bungalow, days that sometimes begin at 4:30 am, end at 1:00 am, and are interrupted only when I drag myself to the gym or to Tae Kwon Do with Little Babe, or to take him to camp or to play with my dogs or to check the latest missing persons news story unfolding online or to go to ShopRite or to the Monroe Laundromat (where you can wash your clothes among townies and Satmar Chasidim alike) or occasionally call HOBB (husband of Bungalow Babe), communicate through Skype or text Middle Babe who is studying in South Africa or Big Babe who is writing in Berlin, or have a you-know-I-still-love-you-but-I'm-insanely-busy-what's-new? phone conversation with the neglected MOBB and DOBB (mom and dad of Bungalow Babe), not to mention SOBB (siblings of Bungalow Babe).

Here in the country, it's pretty much me and my computer, me and my phone, me and my BlackBerry, me and the projects and deadlines. And the occasional New Yorker article. Or celebrity magazine. And the Times Herald-Record, the local daily, which I adore. And maybe the book I am trying to finish (currently The Orientalist, by Tom Reiss). My friends instinctively make themselves scarce during the week, either caught up in their own, similar frenzy or knowing that the weekend version of me is much more hospitable.

Situated in the anti-social section of the bungalow colony -- separated from the main section by a steep hill and a road -- it is easy to avoid the 300-plus residents of this summer community who do things like congregate at the swimming pool, play canasta and mah-jongg, go bowling in groups and talk to each other over mugs of coffee and steep myself in the solitary focus of workaholism.

Except for the weekends, which are filled with visitors and barbeques and bike rides on the Heritage Trail and hikes on the Appalachian Trail and movies and the kinds of quaint country activities you might imagine -- fairs and such -- with a bit of high brow culture tossed in, such as Shakespeare on the Hudson, concerts at West Point, plays at Museum Village, local museum exhibitions.

And then, there is Shabbat in the country, an unparalleled joy, a taste of the world to come. We have our Friday night dinner on the screened porched, singing Shalom Aleichem to the deer, bears, raccoons, chipmunks and other residents of the deep, mysterious woods that divide our bungalow from Walton Lake. We take miles-long hikes on Shabbat afternoon and study the teachings of Heschel with our friends. We swim, rest, play tennis, spend hours reading the New York Times in our resin Adirondack chairs or sprawled on blankets on the lawn. We meet our friends' friends. We play Scrabble at the lake, slathering on lotion as the setting sun bounces off the water. We have impromptu conversations with the children of our neighbors. I'm always inexpressibly sad at Havdalah time.

But Shabbat has not happened yet. I am still in the grip of the work week, though about to be released. I've been sitting in front of my computer for hours and when I just got up to stretch, I found myself oddly attracted to the hideous green tiles of my bedroom floor. So I lay down. And took a picture of myself. To capture this moment. This summer day. This feeling. This time in my life.

Shabbat Shalom!

Bungalow Babe

THE MOTHER OF ALL LIES

Another day, another lunch hour, however, instead of taking a walk outside in the sudden burst of sunshine, I am compelled to write about the endless lies being spewed by the despicable duo of Cindy and Casey Anthony, grandmother and mother of the unbearably adorable and unbearably missing Caylee Marie Anthony, nearly 3 years old.

Missing, yet unreported for an entire month.

And unless you've been vacationing on Mars or in some remote location without access to newspapers or Nancy Grace, you are likely to be familiar with at least some of the details of this heartbreaking and disturbing case:

• The arrest of the mother on charges of child neglect and obstruction of justice


• The string of batty lies she told police about a nonexistent job, nonexistent babysitter and non-existent apartment where the non-existent babysitter lived


• The grandmother's wacked-out appearances on national television and her knack for inventing new details that she simply neglected to report previously


• The discovery of Casey's abandoned car with the smell of decomposing human remains, strands of the child's hair and dirt in the trunk


• The involvement of cadaver dogs sniffing on the grandparents' property


• Reports of the mother borrowing a shovel in June


• News of a new concrete slab poured in the grandparents' backyard

...and so on

This story smells from top to bottom, like the trunk of Casey's abandoned car. There are lots of mysterious and unsettling details, such as a the allegedly -- and most conveniently -- dead birthfather. There is a creepy brother who painted a thoroughly unconvincing portrait of sibling intimacy when he took the witness stand. There is a relatively silent grandfather. There are friends who brand Casey a habitual liar and who are now reporting that they witnessed her carrying on during Caylee's absence as if she didn't have a care in the world.

And there are lies that are so outlandish that they would be laughable...were there anything remotely amusing about a child gone missing and feared dead. Such as the lie that Casey neglected to approach police with reports of her child's absence because she was launching her own investigation into her daughter's disappearance. Uh huh. Yeah. So that's why she hadn't contacted them, or her own parents, for that matter. Makes perfect sense. Yet this pathetic lie is further embellished by Cindy Anthony's claim that her daughter is protecting Caylee by not divulging her whereabouts. That she knows where the child is. That she knows who has her.

Or consider Cindy's belligerent retort to the media that the smell of death in the trunk of the stolen car was actually...rotting pizza. In light of the 911 calls that have now been made public, ya know, where she screams at a police dispatcher that her call smells like there was a dead body in it, this dead-body-smell-is-really-rotten-pizza lie is especially galling.

And resting atop this pyramid of lies is Cindy's assertion of what a good mother her daughter is/was. Widening her eyes, she positively insists on the love that existed between the two when it is abundantly clear that Casey Anthony doesn't love anything but herself.

The fact that her toddler has been missing for over a month didn't cost Casey a single sleepless night or a moment's anxiety. She was out partying with friends, y'all! And still, she is curiously, spookily unconcerned.

If anything, Casey seemed bored by the court proceedings, moved to tears only by the prospect of her own imprisonment.

While her mother, Cindy, has made a travesty of caring about her grandaughter by appearing on national television to promote a phony national search for Caylee Marie, acting as if she is the star of her own reality show, or a character on an episode of Law and Order.

Every word that comes out of her mouth is so utterly false that I can barely stand to listen to her.

But no one is fooled. Harsh words have come from the judge, the DA and the local police. The media has jumped on this case like a pack of bloodhounds, ferreting out every inconsistency in the tale of the missing tot. Nancy Grace has been at her outraged best as have other broadcast journalists. Bloggers are following this story by the minute.

I am not alone in predicting a sicker-than-sick outcome, a family saga involving other crimes, secrecy and cover-ups. Incest might play a role; perhaps of the sibling variety. At this moment, the Anthony family is holding onto the ruse of their innocence and of the search for a living Caylee by their fingertips. This effort appears more bogus every second, more wasteful of public resources, time and hope. Unfortunately for this lying family, intelligence is not one of their strong suits. Their stupidity and the mounting evidence against them will ultimately do them in.

Every caring parent in the world, nay, every decent human being, recognizes the admission of guilt inherent in the failure to report a missing child for 31 minutes, let alone 31 days. Dread grips the collective heart of the nation but the hoofbeats of justice rapidly approach. The pyramid of lies is about to crumble; the truth might rest beneath a slab of concrete in the grandparents' yard, easily removed. Justice for Caylee Marie Anthony will come, shedding light on the lies of the one responsible for giving her life and taking her life away.

Naming the Bully

Last Thursday, around 2:30 pm, I got a funny call from 13-year-old Little Babe in the middle of his camp day.

Funny, as in strange.

"I'm bored," he reported, totally unconvincingly.

"Bored," I repeated. "What is everyone doing and why aren't you doing it?"

He sighed. "No one's doing anything."

"That's not possible," I said. "It's camp. There's always an activity. Where is your group?"

"Hanging outside the pool."

It was about a million degrees outside. "Why aren't you swimming?" I asked.

"Because I have a mark on my right side."

My maternal radar instantly shot up. "A mark?"

"Yeah," he admitted and then proceeded to whisper the story which involved a run-in with the group gangsta, a rather oafish, and in my estimation, intellectually-challenged kid with a penchant for beating up on smaller kids, including Little Babe.

Whose own penchant for Japanese calligraphy, cello-playing and letting our Pomeranians nibble on his toes render him a less-than-alpha young male, the last person to retaliate with physical violence.

Little Babe's sweet, artistic temperment is more often rewarded with respect from his peers. In all the years of his childhood, I can count only two or three other times when aggressive boys tried to bully him and in one of the situations it was merely an inappropriate gesture of affection from a child with boundary issues (the child had a multitude of behavioral issues, was sent to a special school and Little Babe did not have to fear the bathroom anymore.)

Getting back to last week's incident...it turned out that Little Babe accidentally splashed water on his feet and the thug-in-training retailated with fists in Little Babe's ribcage.

Not cool.

Though Little Babe had been taken to the camp nurse by a counselor who found him writhing on the ground, he failed to report the bullying to her. A couple of clarifying phone calls to the camp administration later, where I was assured that the situation was being monitored and that the kid would be out on his ass if it happened again, I couldn't help but note the coincidence of timing.

You see, just the previous week, I, Bungalow Babe, Princess of PR, fearless she-warrior, had been bullied by a thuggish fellow with a long and horrible reputation for such tactics.

The bullying was not, thank God, physical. It was communicated through text messages and in the course of phone conversations. It aimed to halt my efforts on behalf of a client because it shed an unflattering light on the unethical and possibly illegal business practices of the bully in question. It wasn't coming from a 300-pound guy named Rocco or Bugsy, though it certainly sounded like it. The exchange constituted the single most shocking incident of my entire professional life.

The bullying happened at the tail end of the work day, when Little Babe had already returned from camp. And though I refrained from sharing the text messages with my young son, he (and half the bungalow colony) certainly heard my entire end of the cellphone screamfest as he patiently waited for me to finish "work"... so that I could take him out for Chinese food that evening, as planned.

As I held the phone to my incredulous ear, there were threats, accusations and screams coming at me. Incensed, I threatened to make the creepy text exchange public, reveal the content of the phone conversation, go to the cops, the FBI, the press.

Indeed, when I did drive to my local police precinct a short while later, Little Babe was by my side.

He saw me seeking recourse. He saw me outing my bully. He saw me reacting with anger, outrage and an effort to seek help and protection.

What he did not see were tears or helplessness. What he did not see was the mantle of the victim. I like to think of myself as an alpha female, a self-image formed in childhood. As a young Bungalow Babe, I fended off bullies with my street-fighting skills, ambushing the tormentors of my little brother and sister, using SAT words to convince mean kids that their quality of life would be improved by leaving my siblings the hell alone.

If anything, being a mother has only sharpened my protective instincts. And though I know that we are supposed to train our kids, especially our sons, to fight their own battles, sometimes the battles are unfair, or the tactics are extreme or the other kid is truly a bad seed whose parents are MIA or complete jerks.

So when Little Babe found himself at the wrong end of a fist flying into his ribcage, it was a zero-to-sixty reaction on my part. I sprang into action, knowing even as I did that he would need to develop his own inner warrior, figure out how to exude that aura that warns, "Do Not Mess with Me," or, in the absence of that ability, learn how to name the bully for what he is, thereby transforming himself from helpless victim to crime-fighter bent on putting another bad guy behind bars.

Naming the bully is key because bullies rarely strike once. Bullies are to bullying as vampires are to blood. And once a bully is so identified, others inevitably come forth, telling tales similar to your own. This builds a network of support and outs the bully for what he is. The fist-loose kid at camp, I assured Little Babe, is a behavior problem at home and at school. You are not the only one he bothers. That's right, Little Babe affirmed, proceeding to list a series of hair-raising offenses against other kids.

Indeed, what I was sharing with Little Babe were the fruits of what I had discovered in the course of my own bully-naming. Yes, I named my bully and suddenly others came forth telling similar tales. Some of the stories were far worse than my own; some verged on hilarity because they were so out of the range of professional conduct. Emails began pouring in. My cellphone started ringing. I started doing research and found reams of evidence that this particular bully operated, typically, in broad daylight, leaving messy footprints behind.

There was a pattern of thuggery, ruthlessness, foul language, intimidation, verbal abuse and threats. It existed well before my own encounter. And if left unchecked, would persist into the foreseeable future.

It is a Monday afternoon and I'm blogging instead of eating lunch. Little Babe is on a trip with his group and the fact that I'm writing provides an index of my anxiety. Yeah, I'm a bit worried about his safety and yeah, even when I was being an alpha female, yelling on my cellphone a couple of weeks ago, I was a bit worried about my own safety. But the word is out. Both of our tormentors have been called by their true names -- Bully -- and everyone knows that bad guys always lose in the end.

Black Coffins

Nala the puppy woke me up this morning at 5:50 am, whimpering at my bedroom door. Stepping into the kitchen of my bungalow, I was assaulted by a blur of tail, tongue, cocoa-colored fur and soft paws.

With my new Pomeranian attempting to burrow inside my nose, I opened the freezer to remove my stash of Zabar's French Italian roast.

Setting it on the counter, I glanced at the flyer posted on my fridge last summer. It announced a rally to be held on July 16th, 2007, at the United Nations.

FREE THEM NOW! the headline read, poised above the headshots of the three Israeli soldiers kidnapped during the summer of 2006 -- Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev.

Last night, I told Little Babe that the fate of the missing soldiers would likely be revealed today. I reminded him of how we said tehillim, psalms, for them when they were taken hostage two summers ago. He, in turn, reminded me how we said the b'shaym blessing for the soldiers last summer, invoking the protection of the angels Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Oriel as we said the shema before going to sleep.

I felt somewhat dishonest using euphemisms such as "fate," because it seemed fairly certain that Goldwasser and Regev were dead while there had been signs that Shalit was alive. And with his Israeli cousin serving in a high-ranking IDF position, I hated to remind my 13-year-old of the dangers facing Israeli soldiers, had wished for an heroic, Entebbe-like rescue for our kidnapped sons and brothers.

Today, exactly one year to the day from the NYC rally, Goldwasser and Regev have returned to Israel in coffins.

Gilad Shalit is still in captivity.

Miles away from Israel and even the United Nations, I read the news on Haaretz.com, weeping into Nala, who licked away my tears. Little Babe slept soundly, the relaxed slumber of an American boy during summer, lucky and free. In a sort of derangement, I visited dozens of news sites, read the reportage over and over again, tormented myself with an endless replay of grief.

I stared at the terrifying black coffins until I tricked myself into seeing the image of God reflected back at me.

ZACHOR 2008

My sister called me from Israel yesterday when it was already the afternoon in Israel, erev Yom HaZikaron, the eve of the Day of Remembrance for Israel's fallen, in battle and in acts of terror against the Jewish State.

It's hard, she told me, from her sunny hilltop home. So much sadness. We pay a big price for this dream.

Much has been made of the difference between America's gaudy sales events in commemoration of Memorial Day and Israel's somber mood on Yom HaZikaron which comes days after Holocaust Remembrance Day -- Yom HaShoah.

Yet, to remind everyone of the dream driving the sorrow, tomorrow will be Yom Ha'atzmaut, Israel Independence Day.

A master psychologist or ace event planner could not have crafted this flow of days any better.

The celebration of Yom Ha'atzmaut is a reverse image of the sorrowful commemoration of the previous week. The deeper the sorrow, the greater the following celebration.

For us, perhaps. I've often wondered about those whose connection to Yom HaZikaron is deep. Parents who lost sons. Children whose siblings perished in suicide attacks. Wives whose husbands were killed in battle. Friends and loved ones slain in the war against the very existence of the Jewish State.

I wish that the Israel-haters around the world could simply admit the truth behind their pseudo-political positions. I wish they would simply come out and say that they have a problem with Israel. Period. It's not because of policy X or border dispute Y or reason Z.

The problem is simply Israel herself.

For them, Yom Ha'atzmaut is Al Naqba -- the Disaster. The Catastrophe.

And while the Arab ownership of this sentiment seems apt -- if questionable -- it seems curiouser and curiouser that people around the world with no tie to Israel or the Palestinians or Arabs or the region nurture such rage against Israel's existence.

Maybe that is the true disaster or catastrophe we should be paying attention to. How Israel's 60-year lifespan seems to have exceeded the world's ability to tolerate the concept of a homeland for the Jewish People.

Jerusalem/New York

Very little has been written about the benefits of jet-lag, for instance, the fact that one can get a jump start on the new work day by being forced into wakefulness during the wee hours of the morning. Cocooned from daylight and the commerce of the woken world, mental preparedness can take place as well.

Sitting to my left at the dining room table at three in the morning is Little Babe. He, HOBB and I returned from our eleven-day trip to Israel last night and the transition back home could hardly have been more depressing. We left on a day of sterling clarity, cool breezes, shimmering Jerusalem sunshine, the wafting scent of trees and history and arrived back to gloomy skies, relentless rain, chilling winds and grey vistas along the New Jersey Turnpike, over the George Washington Bridge, down the West Side Highway and right up to the curbside on West 116th Street.

As the polluted rain pelted our windsheild, the final blessing of the weekly havdalah prayer kept running through my head: Baruch ata adonai, eloheinu melech haolam, hamavdeel ben kodesh l'chol.

Blessed are you, Lord our God, who distinguishes between the holy and the secular.

Being in Israel during Passover is one of the peak experiences of life. The weather is almost supernaturally beautiful, the country is united in a spirit of celebration and the complete cessation of work, the one-day chag comes as a revelation to those observant diaspora Jews saddled with the inconvenience of second-day Yom Tov and the often-dreaded second Seder, and the country at large seems to have fulfilled its biblical promise of redemption.

The Bungalow clan gathered in Jerusalem two Thursdays ago, Big Babe flying in from his writing perch in Berlin, Middle Babe joining us from her freshman year in college in Maryland, Little Babe in tow from New York. Though we had each been to Israel several times since our year-long sabbatical in 97/98, this was the first time in a few years that we were all together in the Holy Land.

Over the course of the eleven days that we shared, we figured out ways to blend and merge and diverge and pair off and try not to get on each others' nerves, our family of five ranging in age from 58 to nearly thirteen. Inevitably, there were dopey arguments and flared tempers and insults hurled in hotel rooms and on city streets, the rolling of eyes, huffy sighing and the temporary wish to be alone, however, an invisible, unbreakable thread of love and loyalty bound us together, an American Jewish family come to Israel two months before the Bar Mitzvah of their youngest member.

We shared a memorable seder with SOBB (Sister of Bungalow Babe) and her family in the glorious mountain-top community of Har Adar, took power walks through the hilly streets while regretting our failure to invest in local real estate, hiked in Ein Gedi during a hamsin, prayed at the Orthodox yet egalitarian Shira Hadasha service, now located in the Hartman Institute, hung out in cafes, went jet-skiing in Herziliyah, wandered through downtown Tel Aviv and sported on her beach, visited family gravesites, ate schwarma and kebabs, did the requisite mall-hopping, watched Al-Jazeera and BBC Worldnews and Skynews and Moroccan soap operas and Arab music videos and bad American movies and Israeli reality shows, meandered down the Ben Yehudah midrechov of Jerusalem, ate Kosher-for-Passover McDonald's Happy Meals, bought tefillin for Little Babe and a much-needed challah cover for our Urban Bungalow (our previous one got lost in last year's Pesach cleaning) and happily adopted the liberal Sephardic custom known as kitniot, feasting on chumus and felafel and bamba and rice cakes, experiencing a completely different taste of Passover.

As always, I experienced the revelatory normalization of being Jewish, of being am chofshi b'artzeinu, a free person in my own land.

Of course, there were the cabbies who cursed us out when we insisted on a metered ride, and the drivers bent on running over pedestrians and the pushing and lack of courtesy and the jerk who put his huge suitcase on top of my knapsack in the overhead luggage bin on the plane but these features of Israel suddenly seemed no more egregious than the hordes of Jew and Israel haters around the world, a surcharge, a small price to pay for being am chofshi b'artzeinu.

And on the very first day of our arrival, the root cause of contemporary anti-Zionism occured to me as I strolled through the streets of Har Adar: it is nothing rational or really political or related to land or territory or history but simply the resentment of all of this splendor, all that is beautiful and functional and right about Israel, about hilltop communities and cafes and malls and hospitals and schools and universities and restaurants and the simple if messy fact of Jewish nationhood.

And now, with the New York workday creeping closer and closer, I am left with the wrenching emotional process of reentry into my American life while clinging to the memory of the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, of walking through the streets of Jerusalem on the Shabbat of Pesach with my family at this moment in our shared and respective personal histories -- forty years after my first visit to this city in that glorious year after the Six Day War; seven weeks before the Bar Mitzvah of Little Babe -- of the hot dry wind of Ein Gedi and the sweet night air of Jerusalem mixing to form a balm for my recently exhilirated and now exiled soul.

Life of a Fembot

There has been an Orwellian, sci-fi feeling to my life over the past, oh, four years or so, but especially the past month.

With a schedule of projects that demand constant stewardship, my already long work-days have now morphed into one endless workday, punctuated by brief bouts of sleep, as in, three to four hour stretches of shut-eye a night, hasty check-ins with my family, a breathless race to the gym every couple of days or so, a social event tucked into the mix, sporadic check-in with blogs and newsites and then, the inevitable return to the computer.

It is 2:06 a.m. and this is my default mode, hunched over the laptop, lights out around me, focused entirely and solely on my computer screen.

Last year, in an effort to convey his admiration for me and my relentless work style, a client called me a Fembot.

This year, I think I have morphed beyond the robotic.

I am as tied to my laptop as a newborn is to her mother's breast.

Not out of a sense of addiction, but sheer necessity.

And I am fully aware of how insane this whole thing is.

David Paterson, Man Slut

Hmm, I thought I'd be able to get a jump on my work this morning, but nooooo....the front pages of the NY Daily News and NY Post are simply too damn distracting.

Spitzer's whore turns out to be a "Girl Gone Wild," with lesbo action captured on video (big metziah) and it turns out that new, first-ever black and blind governor of New York State had, ahem, numerous affairs, not the one he meticulously alluded to on Monday and which I blogged about yesterday.

(You know, the classy chick he screwed at the Day's Inn, which I was considering checking out for our out-of-town-guests for Little Babe's forthcoming bar mitzvah. No more. )

Furthermore, some of the sluts Paterson cavorted with evidently work in state government.

Another, he might have gotten a job for.

What next?

It’s 9 a.m and I am saturated with sex scandal gossip. I mean it. My brain feels dirty. I reached my limit. It is impairing my ability to focus on my work, which tends to be a lot more serious that who’s boinking whom.

It’s making me skip screens every 20 minutes or so, seeing if anyone has the latest on the old NY guv, the new NY guv, the old NJ guy, the driver, his wife and, evidently, also her lover.

Arrrgggghhhh!!!!

I'll bet that part of Paterson (99 percent, say) is ruing the day (two Mondays ago, to be exact, about 2 in the afternoon) that the buck got passed to him. And I know Michelle feels the same way. The glare of the media shone flatteringly for about half a day and then it became a klieg light, revealing something deeply disturbing.

I was sorta (not really) okay with the Monday state house confession but now feel like I have eels in my boots.

A tit-for-tat, his 'n hers pair of affairs is one thing...the difficult “honesty” he displayed as he faced the state, the candor of boldly talking about their subsequent reconciliation, reassurances that they love each other, have “worked” on their marriage, and are closer than ever… yadda, yadda, but honestly, what has come out since then is pretty intense.

To put it another way, that "rough patch in the marriage" narrative doesn't fly when it turns out that you've been screwing your way from Albany down to the Upper West Side.

And fairly recently, as well.

At this point, I know more about David Paterson’s sexual activity than his ability to run New York State.

I just hope we don’t get treated to the same treatment he gave his mistresses at the Day’s Inn.

And that this is my last post on the sordid sex lives of American governors.

Infidelity: It's the New Monogamy!

These are trying times for the Seventh Commandment.

First, the Spitzer soap-opera -- the most shocking yet entertaining sex scandal in recent memory.

Then, the McGreevey allegations of two days ago -- as if New Jersey refused to be outdone by New York State's pornodrama -- that Jim and Dina had three-ways with a former (male) aide.

And now, just when we were consoling ourselves with the appointment of a stable, straight-arrow, legally blind replacement governor for New York State, it turns out that he, too, was getting it on the side, having a 2 to 3 year fling (but who's keeping count?) with a mistress during a "rough patch" in the marriage.

Giving me a special feeling of proximity as Paterson and his f#@*buddy were doing it in my nabe, at the ultra-classy Days Inn, on Broadway and 94th Street.

Kinda of down-market from the Mayflower Hotel in DC, wouldn't ya say?

And evidently, saving our new guv about $80K, as he was getting it for free.

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday morning, we were blissfully ignorant and now, everybody knows. Nor did it take long for the news to get out. Following his inauguration, in a premptive strike against the inevitability of the press ferreting out this little bit of sleaze, Paterson decided to come clean.

Put it out there.

Stop the rumors dead on their feet.

And as if to even the playing field -- and remove Michelle Paterson from the victimhood of, say, Silda Wall Spitzer -- the Patersons fessed up to her having fooled around as well.

Hate to say it, but I'm a bit skeptical about this.

However, as quickly as I can say, "hand me my bra, that's my husband coming up the steps!" the press will find Paterson's galpal and, if it is true, Ms. Paterson's boytoy.

But, screw New York State and its unzipped legislators.

What I am really waiting for is the lowdown on the alleged three-ways that took place between McGreevey, his "deceived" wife Dina and the stud-muffin Ted Pedersen, their "Friday Night Specials."

I want proof, which shouldn't be hard to track down. And details. I actually would like to know who did what to whom.

Such as…was there any DP?

Now, this is a scandal worth following. For one thing, the players are actually attractive, people you might fantasize about having a three-way with.

For another, the McGreevey scenario truly qualifies as kinky while Spitzer's dalliance is cliched and Paterson's Days Inn affair is just about the most pathetic -- and least erotic -- thing I can imagine.

Anyhoo, the next few days promise to be extra-titillating as further details emerge on the Patersons and McGreeveys.

While the dutifully monogamous, married American public tuning into this schmutz is left to wallow in its extreme dullness

The Rabbi's Girls: On Call

At a bus stop in Miami during winter break of 1979, my sister and I – an aspiring singer and writer hailing from Queens, NY - decided to become high-ticket hookers.

We were on our way to Fort Lauderdale, where the college scene was legendary. Even in staid Miami, the cute English lifeguards at the Fontainbleu tried to pick us up poolside when we snuck onto the premises from the efficiency we were renting. Considering ourselves “fat” at the time, we marveled at the low standards men set for their sexual partners, realizing that most males will jump into bed with anything female.

With this observation newly minted, we talked about trading our bodies for cash, capitalizing on our unique marketing angle: our dad was a rabbi. There was great fetish appeal in that identity, we knew from personal experience. Being known in the sex trade as The Rabbi’s Girls would give us an edge other girls did not have. Our thighs might have been bigger than the average girl’s but so was our business potential.

A high school senior and college sophomore respectively, we fantasized about the rates we would charge, decided that the way to go was to be our own boss, thus eluding getting ripped off by pimps or madams. Naturally, we’d have to change our names. Though we were trading on being nice Jewish girls, our Hebrew monikers -- Shira and Adina -- had to go. Far more importantly, we had to go undercover lest our parents (or our friends’ parents or our yeshiva principal, God Forbid!) find out.

I dubbed myself Chantal, the French version of Shira, which means song. Adina decided to become Desiree. Somehow, sex trade pseudonyms invariably involve French. (Witness the transformation of Ashley Youmans to Ashley Alexandra Dupre. From runaway Jersey girl to continental call girl with the addition of a Gallic surname.)

The bus shortly came and we sat among senior citizens and domestic workers and day laborers further honing our plan. We set rates: $500 an hour. Special services at $150 a pop were also available. We decided that even if we had one john a week, by the time we graduated from college, we would be rich.

Furthermore, if we started our business upon returning to New York (sporting suntans, which were super-slimming), we’d have enough money together to think about renting a cool apartment in Manhattan, so we didn’t have to live with our parents in Forest Hills. Living in the city, Adina would be able to go to auditions all the time, get discovered and have a smashing career on Broadway. For me, an arts reporter for the Queens College newspaper, the N train would be history. I could be out in the city every night covering shows and films and writing fiction late into the night, inspired by the view outside my window, which overlooked the Hudson.

It was only a matter of time before a big newspaper discovered me, offering me a plum assignment, making all my dreams come true. A bestselling novel would naturally follow. And at that moment of mutual stardom, Adina and I would quietly slip out of the sex trade.

Alas, The Rabbi’s Girls Call Girl Service never saw the light of day, but it was a good idea. Probably a lucrative one as well. If Adina and I had followed our marketing instinct, there are many things we might have avoided in the intervening thirty years.

Among them, various jobs that we took in order to keep a roof over our heads, or our respective family’s head, keep our children clothed and properly fed, pay their tuition, finance our modest travel, support our husbands’ aspirations, give to charity. Had we become hookers, we might have avoided decades-long career detours – gigs that did not involve our unique skills or abilities, but paid the bills.

We might have had designer clothes, haircuts and vacations and shoes akin to the $2K Manolos that Ashley Youmans received as a gift from her pimp. We might have enjoyed the constant care of a manicurist as she has, judging from her My Space pictures.

The point is, realizing that sex sells is a momentary revelation, not a catalyst for a career. Many are those who recognize the cash value of their bodies but few are those who actually prostitute themselves out.

Now, in her mid-forties, Adina recently emerged as a singer, producing her debut CD last year. My own detour from freelance writing to the more lucrative field of public relations has accidentally led to a fulfilling consulting business. The articles, short stories, reviews and blog entries that I write are done by the light of the moon.

So the Rabbis Girls Call Girl Service evaporated into the conceptual stratosphere, but its story will be part of a cabaret show that my sister and I are writing about the weird, wacky and often wonderful experience of growing up as the daughters of a congregational rabbi in Queens, NY, in the 1960’s and 70’s. If there is one lesson we learned from our father it is that we are created in the image of God.

And God is not a ho.

Out of Albany

I was putting on sparkly pink blusher in Sephora on Lexington Avenue and 58th street with Little Babe when HOBB showed up to escort our youngest home from his nearby dental appointment so I could attend my client's gala dinner at the nearby Harmonie Club.

I was surveying the effect of the irridescent powder on my cheeks when HOBB asked me if I had heard about our governor, Eliot Spitzer. No, I shrugged, blending in the make-up, wondering if I also needed some undereye concealer to revitalize my late afternoon face before heading over to the cocktail party.

Regarding me as one would regard someone who just asked, "Barack who?" HOBB broke the news that the entire world has been trying to digest ever since yesterday afternoon: the tough on prostitution, former DA, married, Jewish, seemingly squeaky clean and moralizing father of three, not to mention GOVERNOR OF FREAKING NEW YORK STATE had solicited the services of a high-price call girl. For a chunk of change. In our nation's capital.

Within hours, Eliot Spitzer would be known by a variety of media-appointed monikers: The Luv Gov; Eliot Mess; "John" Spitzer; and most infamously, Client #9.

Late night television was just given a treasure trove of material for the foreseeable future, rich compensation for the previous months' writers strike.

Fresh from my revelation at Sephora, I ran over to the Harmonie Club where the temptation of loshon hara* was largely and admirably avoided, though each kiss-kiss greeting was accompanied by a "can you believe it?"

And in truth, no, I could not believe it.

Nor could anyone, judging from the utter monopoly this story had over the news. Returning home just before 11, I joined HOBB on our couch where we filled our brains with punditry and politicians and pronouncements and porn of a sort we are not used to seeing.

The pornography of the disintegration of high profile public life.

Headline news that out-tabloids the tabloids.

A scandal that hearkens back to the good old days of Boss Tweed.

Tragedy cloaked in titillation.

Stating the obvious: this particular scandal is built on the backs of private people, Spitzer's family, in particular his wife Silda, his three daughters and his parents.

Seeing Silda standing by his side at his press conference replayed scenes of wives past (Dina, Hillary, Mrs. Craig, et alia) standing stoically next to their disgraced spouses, knowing that the entire world is secretly wondering just what sexual defect they might harbor that drove their husbands into the arms of a hooker/intern/guy in the next bathroom stall, wondering why they are even publicly supporting the SOB, wondering where their self-esteem is.

And his poor parents. Just as we harbor high hopes for our children, so, too, we squelch our fears for their future. Of all the horrific scenarios to dread as a parent, surely, "my son the Governor of New York who solicited high-priced hookers at a DC hotel," is up there in the Hall of Parental Shame.

Right beneath, "my son the murderer."

It is the morning after the revelation of the scandal and this story has pushed out anything else in the news. It is front and center, occupying pages and pages of newsprint and valuable cyber real estate. The reasons for this story's power are obvious and this is hardly a case of a tempest in a tea pot.

This scandal is the Katrina of contemporary American politics.

But the thing about it is that it just doesn't make rational sense. The ultra-sordid particulars, the paper trail, the money, the illegality all point to a Catch Me If You Can impulse that is based not in defiance but pathology.

Or maybe both.

With a little bit of magical thinking or invincibility.

Plus a touch of desperation.

At the end of the day, the Eliot Spitzer Sex Scandal is not really about sex.

And aside from what further scandalous details might yet emerge, Part Two of the saga will be the revelation of why Eliot Spitzer chose to end his public career this terrible way.

____
*gossip, literally, evil speech

Murder in Jerusalem

The conference call came in at 3:30 pm, as planned. The day had been busy, with meetings in midtown, an impromptu stop at Whole Foods at the Time Warner Center, phone calls from press accompanying me as I walked westward along 59th Street.

I was in the process of eating a hasty Whole Foods salad when my client called.

Gulping down my peppermint water, I reached for the phone, affecting an unhurried voice, a voice that said that I was prepared and professional rather than scattered and sweating profusely in the aftermath of my race across town and marathon salad consumption.

As all the parties exchanged their greetings, I quietly directed my browser to CNN.com; after all, I hadn't seen the news since early in the day and wanted to peruse the headlines. Instantly, stark wording filled the screen, announcing a terrorist attack on a seminary in Jerusalem, at least seven dead.

"Omigod, there's been a terrorist attack in Jerusalem!" I gasped, realizing a millisecond later that I had just blown my facade of complete focus. My thoughts flew in a flurry as I scrolled down the page, sifting for information. Seminary? Which seminary? For teachers, scholars, rabbis, visiting American students on their year-abroad program? Who were the victims? Kids? Teens? Adults? Israelis? Foreigners?

My blood ran cold, thinking of the children of friends studying in Israel for the year. Only last year my own daughter was a student in Jerusalem. Her best friend was currently spending her year abroad studying at Hebrew University. Twentysomething years ago, I was a student at Hebrew U as well. That year, the worst thing that happened was the murder of John Lennon in front of his apartment building in New York City.

I switched to Jpost.com. Their report told me that the attack happened at a well-known school, Mercaz Harav, founded by Rabbi Kook, the former chief rabbi of Israel, father of the religious Zionist movement. It described a chaotic scene, blood everywhere, students hiding under desks and in bomb shelters, 50 ambulances arriving, police storming the premises, looking for the terrorist.

Somehow I assumed a bomb. In our time, terrorism has become inextricable from bombs, particularly of the suicidal/homicidal variety. But there was not a bomb. There was a killer with a gun.

Like on an American college campus, except programmed to kill only Jews.

500 to 600 shots fired, announced Jpost.

Though my ear was pressed against the phone receiver, I was no longer on the conference call. I was somewhere in the cybersphere, floating between New York and Jerusalem, mentally multi-tasking, out of time and place, out of my mind.

Weirdly, I heard voices talking animatedly, including my own. No one had responded to my exclamation about the attack in Jerusalem. Did they hear? Do they not care? Evidently not, for we were deep into discussion of strategy and marketing of the project at hand. I saw my right hand scribbling notes, felt my head nod in assent, heard myself murmur my approval. My eyes, however, remained glued on the computer screen, reading, seeking information, switching between Jpost and Haaretz, checking out nytimes.com and the AP report, seeing how Foxnews reported the story versus msnbc.com, going even to the right-wing Arutzsheva.com to see if I had missed any details. I learned that the killer had most definitely been killed by a part-time student.

Did I actually speak out loud or had I simply imagined my outburst?

The phone conference moved into specifics. We compared notes on our best media contacts, connections within the community. Quietly, I took stock of everyone I knew to be in Jerusalem -- my sister, brother-in-law, their kids, dozens of friends and their families, a couple of clients, a project partner, old boyfriends, old relatives, a cast of characters interchangeable with my New York circle of friends and loved ones.

As the New York afternoon grew old and the conference call drew to a close, the personal calls started coming and we all said the same thing to each other. How horrible. It's been so long since something this terrible happened. Is everyone accounted for? Have we heard anything from anyone in Israel?

I spoke to my husband and my sister in Israel. My daughter, Middle Babe, called to tell me that her best friend called to let her know that she was safe at Hebrew University. My youngest, Little Babe, came home from school and I casually asked him whether he had heard anything at school (he hadn't), wondered if I should give him a heads-up about that which he was likely to hear about tomorrow at school.

I counted forward five hours and decided against calling Big Babe, my oldest, studying in Berlin. It was the middle of the night in Europe. He would hear in the morning.

It is now night and the news reports are more complete. The gunman was not Palestinian but Israeli Arab, from East Jerusalem. I do not even know what this signifies. There was widespread celebration in Gaza. This needs no interpretation. Eight are confirmed dead. Several of the wounded are critically injured. One of the rabbis at the yeshiva, weeping, told the Israeli government it could go to hell. Many of the students died clutching sifrei kodesh, holy books. Photographs from the crime scene show bullet holes through glass, bloody tzitzit, body bags lined up on the floor, members of Zaka collecting human remains for burial, blood, blood everywhere.

Tomorrow is Topsy Turvy Day at SAR Academy, the marvelous school Little Babe attends. He has his crazy outfit all ready, cannot wait to get on the bus in mask and cape, a dress rehearsal for Purim, a joyous celebration of the start of the month of Adar.

The murdered students at Mercaz Harav Kook had gathered tonight for special classes on the meaning of the joyous month of Adar. Instead of celebration, there will be funerals, said one of the grieving rabbis.

Emails for phone vigils and solidarity calls with Israel now fill my inbox. Jewish message boards are filling up with reactions to the murders. I find myself wondering if SAR will even celebrate Topsy Turvy Day tomorrow, or seek to postpone it. I try to think like an administrator, like a rabbi, and figure out the right reaction, the proper message, the teachable moment for American Jewish kids in the face of this tragedy in Israel.

It would have been clever to end this post with the assertion that today, everything went topsy turvy in Jerusalem but the reality is that what happened today is nothing too unusual, has plenty of precedent.

And sadly, the lesson for our children -- even now, in the 21st century -- is that being Jewish is sometimes a crime that is punishable by death.

War and Betrayal

At Friday night dinner, our friend Nella told us about the performance of Macbeth she and her husband Jack saw this past week at BAM, describing it as the most transcendent and absorbing theatrical experience they had ever had.

Instantly, I took stock of the memorable Shakespearean productions I have seen -- Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet by the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford Upon Avon in England in the spring of 2004; King Lear performed by a community theatre in Middlebury, VT some 15 years ago; Taming of the Shrew at Shakespeare and Company in the Berkshires three summers ago; As You Like It this past summer at Shakespeare on the Hudson in Garrison, NY; Kenneth Branagh's masterful film adaptation of Hamlet, first glimpsed at Cinematheque in Jerusalem in 1998.

Though I love the inspired lunacy and quick wit of the Shakespearean comedies, I am utterly undone by his tragedies, adore finding myself face to face with such grand themes as Fate and Irony and The Vast Indifference of the Universe, not to mention Tragedy Itself.

Shakespeare's sense of the tragic lingers long after one has left the theatre. That is part of his genius and his enduring appeal. Shakespeare's tragedies are exquisite torment, a sore tooth to be tested every few moments by a probing tongue.

Hearing Nella gush about BAM's Macbeth induced me to move it to the exalted Must-Do position on my cultural To-Do list...until last night's SoHo production of George Packer's exquisite, urgent and of-the-minute drama, Betrayed rendered Shakespeare suddenly irrelevant.

This blog is not a repository for reviews, so I will demur detailing the superb performances of the Culture Project cast, or the well-wrought script by Packer, a journalist who had been sent to Iraq by the New Yorker and who wrote the award-winning book, The Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq.

Betrayed is based on Packer's experiences as a journalist in Iraq. The essence of the play's success lies in his ability to isolate one aspect of the fiasco that is the War in Iraq: the betrayal of Iraqi civilians who risk their lives for the Americans, going to work every day in the American compound as translators, as drivers, as secretaries and support staff and eventually find themselves marked for death by Iraqi death squads and civilians for being so-called "spies."

What Packer found out though his interviews with these brave, principled, desperate or foolish Iraqis is that the American government couldn't care less about their fate. And as US personnel and officials hid behind protocol and codes and bureaucratic procedure, many of the helpful, America-friendly Iraqis were hunted down like dogs and killed.

The War in Iraq is many things, none of them good. It is based on a lie that is built upon a house of lies that is difficult or maybe even impossible to untangle.

It is misguided, confused, poorly-planned, badly-executed, ill-led, immoral and, yes, very tragic. Packer is not so lefty as to pretend that Saddam wasn't a monster, that life under his regime was not a hell for Iraqi civilians. He doesn't glorify Iraqis either, making certain that the audience understands the manners in which they botched opportunities for their own redemption.

The play is not an anti-War in Iraq polemic, but it is pretty difficult to emerge from Betrayed feeling good about George W's war. Still, George P steers clear of too-easy, sloganeering politics to shine a klieg light on one terrible narrative in the midst of this tragic war.

The story that Packer illuminates allows the audience to shift from a general political stance to something far more tangible and specific: sadness, despair, outrage or just plain anger at the US government's moral and bureaucratic abandonment of the Iraqi civilians who risked their lives to help the US effort BECAUSE THEY BELIEVED IN AMERICA.

By the time the curtain falls on Adnan's soliloquy, the audience is stunned into heavy silence, brought to a place beyond consolation. Packer's Betrayed is drama beyond redemption. It presents a glimpse of hell, tragedy as a darkened funhouse whose roof is caving in and whose floor has rotted away.

And the culprit, the demented grand carnival master, is not the Germans or the Russians or the Japanese or Lady Macbeth this time, but the Americans.

The United States.

Us.