The thing about Judaism...and, indeed, most all religions and schools of thought...is that one's education in its meaning, rituals, and history never ends. It is not something that cuts off at your bar/bat mitzvah. The exploration of one's spirituality within its framework is lifelong. And the surprises just never end.

For instance, I know it will surprise a number of the kids I've taught over the past few years that the story of the Maccabees is part of the Apocrypha, the "things hidden" over the centuries from all but the most scholarly devotees of the study of the Hebrew Bible. It would also surprise them to learn that the Maccabees were not necessarily religious freedom fighters, but practitioners of a different sort of zealotry stemming from a time of persecution of any Jewish people and Jewish practices. There was no middle ground for Mattathias and his sons (as evidenced in 1 Maccabees 2:19-26) and for them, there was no way of negotiating with the king of the Syrian Greeks and his armies without the use of swords. The ones who ultimately suffered for these extremists' battles were everybody else stuck in between - from the people who went along with the hedonistic aspects of the Hellenistic culture the king Antiochus spread to the people the Maccabee band encountered in their righteous battle who were forced into circumcisions or killed outright for not being zealous enough.

No neutrality. You were a Greek or you were not. A part of the solution or part of the problem.

Is it any wonder we focus more on one cruse of oil meant to last only one day lasting for eight? Pretty, miraculous lights. That's where Hannukah's at!

To change gears a little, it is still a wonder that, in these supposedly enlightened times, the extremists are the ones whose voices are heard the loudest. And it is even more horrifically wondrous that we let them shout down all that is good, compassionate, and cooperative about the human race...all because, deep down, most of us who are good, compassionate, and cooperative feel that these people are simply talking to hear their own voices, and, when they are done having their say, they will wend their way back into whatever corner of the world they came from and keep to themselves once again.

We forget that these people not only have voices - they have brains. And limbs. And hands and feet. Everyone has the capacity to do whatever they want with what they have been given, and it is all too easy to use what is given for either good or bad. And it seems this week that The Nation has proclaimed that the bad is right in our own backyard here in New Orleans and that letting it lie is wrong. And The Nation is right.

To a point.

As a New Orleans blogger and a reader and supporter of other New Orleans bloggers, I can say that there is one thing above all the other things we write about, a thing that caused most of us to start this blogging stuff in the first place: our troubles are also this country's troubles. We do our best to refute those who would argue that the events of 8-29-05 here were simply the result of a natural disaster - they are symptomatic of a lack of real consideration for the upkeep of our infrastructure as a nation. We decry those who would let former centers of health care rot for their own financial gain, only to push even more residents out for a new, pie-in-the-sky, maybe it'll be built facility. And, as Athenae points out:

Jackass could have stayed in Chicago and learned the real "meaning" of the N-word just fine. The sentiments expressed in this story could have been expressed by any one of a hundred people I've talked to in my years living here. This isn't about the South. This is about America, as it always has been, as we keep saying here: Our fate is your fate, and it was, and it is. Our own.

I mean it, how often do you hear this? Every day? My house, my block, my neighborhood, I live here and you don't. Moreover, I BELONG here and you don't. Our lives are a crazy quilt of safe areas and danger zones, in which we make snap decisions about who "looks" like they belong here and who doesn't. But for the outright violence, but for the semi-official nature of the "militia," is there anyplace in this country this couldn't have happened? Neighborhood Watches and community meetings and everybody on the lookout, all the time, for what's coming after them. It's no wonder, no wonder at all.

No, the majority of us don't necessarily possess the religious zealotry of the Maccabees, but we do have that heavy individualism that can get just as bad. And I think that we, too, forget something important.

We, too, have brains. And limbs. And hands and feet. And voices.

There are times when we have to use those voices, and let me tell you, there is NO time like this very second.

Speak up. Write, email, call, to let The Nation and many, many others out there know that the racist idiots who shot Donald Harrington and his companions did not act as you would have acted in that situation. Let everyone know that the racist whites in the YouTube made by reporter A.C. Thompson are not expressing your views.

THEN...make sure, no matter what your race, creed, or color is, that justice will be served, not only in these shootings, but in how Charity Hospital is regarded, how the decentralization of our "system of schools" is increasing, how our finances are being messed with on a too-regular basis, and how the people we elect to act on our behalf constantly betray our trust.

This kind of thing needs to be done nationally as well.

One of the prayers said at the time of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is an alphabetical acrostic proclaiming to God, as we each beat our hearts with our fists, all of the ways in which we have transgressed against God in the past year and how ashamed we are of our actions. We then proclaim that we will act more righteously, and with greater consideration.

Consider it my wish for us all at the dawn of a new year: that we admit our culpability in all of this and act to make this right...

...and that, more importantly, we continue to do so.

E eloquently weighs in on The Nation's recent article on Algiers Point after 8-29-05 and the Color of Change's demand for justice:

What we need is an independent federal investigation into all of it: All of the vigilante killings, all of NOPD's desertions, all of Nagin's mistakes, all of Brownie's incompetence, all of Bush's neglect, and the Army Corps of Engineers for the failure of the federal levee systems. We need the truth and we need accountability, but what we really need is healing. Color of Change's call, even if it succeeds in precipitating an investigation into what happened in Algiers, is just as likely to salt our civic wounds as it is to sanitize them.

We needed it starting in late 2005 and we still need it today. Color of Change isn't going nearly far enough. They're flailing in Bobby Jindal's direction in reaction to the Thompson piece instead of actually putting forth a proposal that might help usher New Orleanians toward some sort of closure.

But again, I don't just want to call out Thompson and Color of Change. This instance is emblematic of the larger role that Katrina and New Orleans play in national political discourse.

For the nation, the federal response Katrina signalled a final deathblow to President Bush and conservative governing philosophy. Polls demonstrate that the public pretty much turned on the GOP for good as a result of the Katrina saga. The PR battle that took place between the parties was one in which the Right blamed Nagin and the natives for their lack of "personal responsibility," while the Left (and the vast vast majority of the country) blamed Bush and his henchmen for their inexplicable and inexcusable inability to respond to an entirely predictable catastrophe in a major American city.

Since then, national analysis of New Orleans is through these lenses, not just the lens of 'Katrina' but the lenses of were was the immediate partisan reactions to Katrina.

The Left, during Katrina, was justifiably incensed over the way that African Americans were labeled "looters" while whites just looking for food. That's why it is unsurprising to see the lions of the liberal netroots (HuffPo, Think Progress, Color of Change) seize upon this story - it scores points in that old front against racist right wing media portrayal.

Katrina is an eternally smoldering political fire, that actual people live here New Orleans is an abstraction that most don't, can't, and won't think about in the midst of the constant drone of the 24 hour news cycle. That the story of New Orleans continues, that it takes on new twists and turns, that its existence continues to be tenuously propped up on a three-legged stool of racism, corruption, and incompetence seems lost on much of the progressive netroots, on thinkers who I respect greatly and read every day.

The most frustrating thing to me is that the progressive netroots really can be of great assistance in this city, without really sacrificing the opportunity to score those political points.

Sign the Color of Change petition here, and keep in mind that it is a call for a beginning into an investigation of one of many things that went wrong during that terrible time over three years ago.

"Santa's gonna bring you something nice and put it in your stocking!"

"No, he won't," the little guy said.

"Don't say that. Of course he will!!!!" she insisted.

The little guy walked off, and the waitress related this story to me.

"He says he won't get anything in his stocking!" she said to me, slightly horrified.

"Well, no, he won't," I said as her face fell even more,"because we're Jewish."

With that, we laughed together.

Yep, no stockings waiting to be stuffed are hanging in our home, thanks. We won't be expecting Santa to be stuffing himself down our chimney anytime soon, either. And from what I gather, Santa won't be too thrilled to find this house if he does come...


Sorry, Santa, we won't be accepting Jesus as our savior. Not even for more presents. Back up the chimney with you, now.

Coozan Pat alerts readers to this article from The Nation examining what happened in Algiers Point on the West Bank of the Mississippi shortly after 8-29-05. A sampling:

The new information should reframe our understanding of the catastrophe. Immediately after the storm, the media portrayed African-Americans as looters and thugs--Mayor Ray Nagin, for example, told Oprah Winfrey that "hundreds of gang members" were marauding through the Superdome. Now it's clear that some of the most serious crimes committed during that time were the work of gun-toting white males.

So far, their crimes have gone unpunished. No one was ever arrested for shooting Herrington, Alexander and Collins--in fact, there was never an investigation. I found this story repeated over and over during my days in New Orleans. As a reporter who has spent more than a decade covering crime, I was startled to meet so many people with so much detailed information about potentially serious offenses, none of whom had ever been interviewed by police detectives.

Hill, who runs Tulane's Southern Institute for Education and Research and closely follows the city's racial dynamics, isn't surprised the Algiers Point gunmen have eluded arrest. Because of the widespread notion that blacks engaged in looting and thuggery as the disaster unfolded, Hill believes, many white New Orleanians approved of the vigilante activity that occurred in places like Algiers Point. "By and large, I think the white mentality is that these people are exempt--that even if they committed these crimes, they're really exempt from any kind of legal repercussion," Hill tells me. "It's sad to say, but I think that if any of these cases went to trial, and none of them have, I can't see a white person being convicted of any kind of crime against an African-American during that period."

Read more on those seeking justice for New Orleans here.

Update, 12-21: The Zombie weighs in:

I don't doubt for one second that these incidents are true...but they are a drop in the bucket to the overall level of lawlessness and crime which occurred in the days following the Federal Flood. There are so many "incidents" which occurred in those days of horror, it just really peeves me to see a "national" (pun intended) reporter cherry pick incidents and call it "Katrina's Hidden Race War"

....gets your blood pumping doesn't it?

I've got an interview, on tape, with a young lady who was in the Dome who witnessed an elderly woman thrown over the walkway outside simply because "...she was a white woman". I've got interviews with people on Dumaine Street who told me of a band of men (African-American) with guns, a police officer included, who were systematically hunting down drug dealers and thugs in their neighborhood and killing them.

Point being....a lot of horrible things took place during that time. Were there white racists with guns shooting at people? I'm sure there were. Were there black racists with guns shooting at people? I'm sure there were.

Had Thompson framed this story as "Katrina's Hidden Vigilante War" I would have no problem with it because I think there were many, many vigilante incidents which went untold or unreported...one of the most egregious being a beheading of a child molester at the Convention Center (the headless body was actually shown underneath a blanket on CNN for a about a 10 hour period then the story mysteriously disappeared). And of course I don't have an issue with him reporting that there were white racists at Algiers point who were targeting African-Americans...that story needs to be told, and those assholes need to be prosecuted. But calling it a "Race War"....that's fucking insane and purposely inflammatory.....it's simply bad journalism.

Update, 12-22: Comments on the video from Varg, who resides on the west bank, and Mr. Clio are here.

I Am A Hostilidays Wuss

Well, it happened. And ultimately, I guess I am to blame for this state of affairs.

I've been giving Dan some day-to-day recaps of the 2008 Hostilidays YouTube Wars, the highlight of which, for him, was Sheckrastos' rude, crude entry. He's actually been telling some people at his workplace about it, which I thought was bad enough...

...but he just couldn't let it go.

How do I know this?

Last night, after putting our darling son to bed and making sure he was fast asleep, Dan did a Google search for some more truly awful videos and he found the mother of 'em all....or, actually, part 2 of the mother of 'em all. He went to get ready for bed while I found parts 1 and 3, and he and I witnessed the whole sordid, socially unacceptable, blasphemous tale. I mean, NOT safe at work, NOT for the kids, GUARANTEED to start a 21st century crusade, that kinda thing...

...best expressed in a comment on the YouTube page for this thing:

well it was hilarious..but ur goin to hell...lol

Once I got out of the fetal position I was curled into and got off the floor, I thought about whether or not I oughta post it on this blog. Could I possibly get away with a "Most Awful Family In Britain" sort of presentation, in which I simply claim that the video is so, so bad, it just can't be shown or linked to at all?

How to share this H-Bomb of a moving picture with those who would be most appreciative of it?

Well, that's one of the ways in which the holiday spirit has triumphed.

I gave this abortive holiday miracle to the NOLA blogpocheh in an email and threw it out there for any of 'em to post, any of 'em at all to share it with the world. And the only one who had the steel ovaries to even throw up a link to it was Morwen.

View it at your own mental risk. Hehhehhehhehhehhehheh....

It is the tip of a massive iceberg, one that has many of us trying to figure it out. It's one of the reasons why, for the first time in this city's history, we have an inspector general in the first place.

Where the hell is the city's money going?

Since this investigation has got to start somewhere, Inspector General Robert Cerasoli begins with the "company cars" and finds that, if the city pares down the current number of cars in its fleet from 273 to 60, the maximum number allowed under city ordinance, then we will be saved a grand total of close to:



Mr Walki...errr...Mayor Nagin, just something to consider:

You know, you can own the most pimped-out vehicle on the market, but with the city's streets being in the condition that they are, why would you want to destroy its suspension like that? And you have the personal use of two late-model vehicles? That's really gonna cost us, the humble city taxpayers, in repairs on that Lincoln and that Expedition.

Please pick your battles more wisely, sir, and sell the Lincoln at least, along with the extra 212 vehicles. The cuts the Council wants to make in the city budget pertaining to fleet purchases and fuel can easily be made up in this way.

You are holding the freaking checkbook...

Mazel tov and yashir koach to Mr Cerasoli on the publishing of his first comprehensive findings concerning the (non)workings of our city's government. Please keep it up, no matter what happens. We all need this.

______________________




Whooo! Hannukah's around the corner...



and no, these are not part of the Hostilidays YouTubes.

But THIS certainly is:

It's the little things that get to you sometimes

Like when cobblestone streets are repaired with patches of scored asphalt:

...or it takes a while for the Sewerage and Water Board to get around to replacing the covers on the water meters, leaving open holes nearly two feet deep in the sidewalk:

Oh, sure, this recovery business is gonna take a while, but isn't it already December 2008?:

Hmmm...aren't there any funds for such basic infrastructure repairs?

Unfortunately, there is no more money in the 2008 budget to make streetlight repairs for the rest of this year, and the 2009 budget that was passed includes only the smallest amount for repairs in 2009, despite Council Member Midura’s efforts to get this infrastructure fund properly funded at the budget meeting.

It is possible your lights are likely to remain out for a while. We will continue our best efforts to provide a remedy to this situation.

Thank you.

More on the budget shortfalls from E here.

An examination of the Walking Id's proposed 2009 budget is here.

What Cliff thinks we oughta do to fill the budget shortfall is here.

We have 75 million dollars in the recovery budget to buy up half of Mid City for a new hospital complex that still don't have the money to build....Would it be legal to take some of that 75 million and put into the regular city budget to make up the shortfall? We should take all of it. Councilwoman Clarkson keeps assuring everybody that the disaster loans that have been the way of balancing the budget will be forgiven as the reason we won't be in crisis for the 2010 budget. When that day comes we can use that revenue to replace the Mid City money if needed. I honestly don't think the federal government is going to give us the money to make this plan happen anyway. We ought to just take what we have now and scale back the plan to fit what we can afford. We shouldn't be holding the money we do have hostage for the state, the federal government and LSU if they can't deliver on their part of the funding.

Would it be possible to move this money or is this another case where guidelines and the city charter give our leaders an excuse to not think outside the box?

Howzabout Cliff for mayor?

_______________________

ANYway, since we ain't got the dough to do much...

well, 'tis the season, right?

Just deck that caution barrel with some candy canes and boughs of faux holly!

We can dress up Jackson Square, sure!

But that hole will still remain,
and that light will still be out.

*Jackson Square photo courtesy of Charlotte

Dan keeps saying that I must counter some of the nastier YouTubes in this bloody hollerday war with some sort of porn. "Naked Christmas! Naked Christmas!" he keeps telling me, with a teensy bit of drool emanating from one corner of his lip.

Well, my neighbor told me of a little something...but it is risque, so click on the link below only when you are not at work and the kids are all safe in their beds.

Then, feel free to live it up with Hot Jewish Chicks.

In somewhat related news, Big Daddy's goes belly-up. Never been in there, but the place still had an effect on me...and on some unsuspecting relatives of mine. After a less-than-stellar dinner at Antoine's (this was before we had our own waiter over there), I took said relatives down that block of Bourbon Street and they were suitably shocked and appalled. "Topless and bottomless!!!" one of 'em exclaimed as she held onto my shirt sleeve for dear life, staring at the mannequin's legs popping in and out of the building as though they were portents of disasters yet to come.

This was pre-8-29, so perhaps she was right...

Some of you might be wondering about the proliferation of Hannukah hip-hop on the interwebs...

...the insane shtick one particular guy brings to the dreidel game in this video holds one possible clue.



Fun fact: my husband actually IS a Hebrew school dropout.

I need to find that shirt.

PLUS: Waaaay too many people got roped into this one:



And this one needs to be seen to be believed. Harvey Fierstein and Bambi do NOT mix.

Dan heard about this atrocity in the Hollerday YouTube Fest and suggested I find:

a)something combining Michael Bolton, Kenny G., and Yanni all at the same time (what, no John Tesh?)
b)something related to a certain holiday for the rest of us.

Soooo, heeeeeeere's b).



Blame Dan first. I can at least use him as a human shield to get a running start on my escape from you meshuganah hordes...

...although Dan does like this one - plug the kids' ears, now:

It's my birthday, and I'm gonna head down to Lake Ponchartrain to surf to this Hannukah classic:



So don't go tossing me down a well if I'm not as responsive to this year's Hollerday YouTube War today:



Just letting you all know what's up....

If you can decipher what these kids are singing to the elderly...



...then you haven't had enough Manischewitz.

All right, fine, you treif bivalve, you! Let's raise the stakes a little more...



Don't mess with me. I got a dreidel and I know how to use it.

'Tis that most annoying time of the year...

The second annual Horrifically Annoying Hollerday YouTube Fest!



It's da bomb!!!!*

* It certainly carries the potential to explode...

Update, 11:37 AM: Speak softly, play Maoz Tzur cheesily, and carry some strong Maccabees:



...not to mention a blast from the '80's past...

Oh, and grab the Manischewitz...you'll need it for this one...

Despite some more examinations of our recent refuse woes from Matt McBride- namely, the way in which the "house count audit" of the Walking Id's administration is being done...

The "house count audit" is supposed to independently determine for the city exactly how many houses are getting trash service - nearly two years after the contracts started. In the public's minds, this would probably involve an outside firm coming into City Hall and poring over the trash companies' address lists. But that's not what this "audit" is about. In fact, it appears this audit is not an audit at all, but simply an elaborate exercise in CYA ....

...The methodology for the audit is a whiz-bang technical mashup of vehicle-mounted GPS receivers and GCR's witches brew of data pulled from Entergy bills, post office records, and Sewerage & Water Board records.

From what I can gather, GCR is producing some kind of list where they think it is likely folks are receving trash service (not where they know service is received). GBB/GCR calls these addresses "prospective refuse collection points." Then GBB, with their GPS boxes and wireless antennas, seems to be going out on trash collection days and noting who has their cans out, and then tying that into the database.

Missing in this "audit" of the trash companies is the obvious - there is no interaction with the trash companies and their records. In effect, it is people driving around looking at trash cans and creating a brand new address list. There seems to be no provision whatsoever to determine if the city is getting double billed for any of those cans, or whether those cans should even be there. I also wonder how GBB/GCR accounts for people who might not put out their cans - or who do not have them within sight of a passing car - the days their auditmobiles roll by? And what about the year and a half of service the city had already paid for by the time the audit began?

Frankly, it's the goofiest audit methodology one could come up with. It's like going to the Grand Canyon, spending the entire time in the gift shop looking at postcards, and then coming home and telling everyone how Grand the Canyon is! It seems designed to avoid looking at the actual records in order to provide plausible deniability in case irregularities are uncovered. It also avoids placing the Sanitation Department in the uncomfortable position of having to explain their very poor oversight and contrary execution of these lucrative contracts. If nobody's looking at the records - and based on the actual records it seems no one is - then no one can say anything conclusive about them and their obvious problems.

(Please give E some suggestions as to how to present his petition to remove Veronica White from her sanitation directorate. A combo of sending it to the City Council members and a media blitz on the front steps of City Hall as E presents it to the Mayor's office is a start...and then we all must keep referring to its 568 signatures on a regular basis until she is gone.)

...I have to agree with Cliff's attention to Big Red Cotton's post New Orleans - It Ain't For Everybody, and reprint it here for your consideration:

Okay, so a soon-to-be released survey identifies the 20 cities Americans say they would most want - and least want - to relocate for a job.

Guess which list New Orleans made...

Because the national economy is in the crapper into the unforeseeable future, more Americans will be faced with having to relocate to find work. So this Washington-based professionals organization, The Human Capital Institute, created a survey to help cities determine how to market themselves to attract talented out-of-town workers. They interviewed 2,500 employees and entrepreneurs nationwide who ranked New Orleans as their fourth least favorite pick for places to move to. Amongst our cited ills are population shrinkage, murder rate increase, and post-Katrina tourism industry challenges. The negative attributes rankings were health and safety (55%), image (49%), and environment (45%).

Hmph... Well on behalf of New Orleans, allow me to say that we don't want to be with anyone who doesn't want to be with us. I, for one, am tired of Homogenous Nation's negative opinion of New Orleans. We cannot be everything to everybody, especially imagination-lacking, subdivision beige house loving, mainstream America. We're busting our asses to put this city back together and take it to the next level - it's a GD mission! So if you're not feeling this, move over and let the ones through that DO wanna get with us.

Excuse my tangent folks. I'm just OVER the whole 'image' conversation.

Ironically, the other cities that made the survey's Top Worst List happen to be our sister cities:

New York/New Orleans - Disaster Soul Mates
Detroit/ New Orleans - Chocolate Cities
Los Angeles/New Orleans - Hollywood/Hollywood South

Apparently, the respondents are not so much into catastrophe, flava, or drama. Okay, I get that. Again, this aint for everybody.

The other irony is that our economy is still growing and outperforming the rest of the nation - we're actually ADDING jobs here while the rest of the country is losing jobs. And according to CityBusiness, New Orleans is fast growing as a hot spot in the tech sector. So I have a feeling some of those naysayers are going to be eating their words about us sooner rather than later.

Oh it feels good to be able to say that and actually believe it has a chance in hell of being true...

Anyhoo, I'm filing this after a fabulous Creole Italian dinner and too much wine and song at Vincent's. Now I'm off to catch one of the best live music shows in the country - the Rebirth Brass Band at the Maple Leaf, which will be packed as it is every middle-of-the-week Tuesday night. And the night won't end till the band says it ends.

Ah New Orleans, my beloved... If loving you is wrong, I don't wanna be right!

I said it before and I'll say it again: Hell, yes and Amen!

Why are we here in New Orleans a tad obsessed with garbage?

Well, aside from the fact that I'm cleaning the house today and finding all sorts of crapola in the nooks and crannies of the living room alone... Just think about this a little, people. When you live in a city that had piles of debris from flooded-out houses all over the place not too long ago, and in which there are still many blighted properties dating from before 8-29, garbage is indeed an issue not to be taken lightly.

Seems City Hall is certainly treating it as a lark, however...and as an excuse to give the trash haulers some extra moolah, according to Matt McBride:

There are many irregularities in the Richards and Metro address lists provided to the City Council. While at first blush it would appear that both firms are actually underbilling the city, it would appear Metro is definitely overbilling, and Richards is borderline.

Among the irregularities are:

- thousands of duplicate addresses being counted in the billing totals,

- billing the city for apartment buildings with more than four units, commercial buildings, and non-existent trailers (even double billing a trailer park in one case)

- billing the city for properties that have been demolished, targeted for demolition by the city, determined by the city to be in imminent danger of collapse, or which have had demolition permits granted to them.

With this many irregularities, it seems the skepticism some have expressed over the contracts' cost effectiveness is justified.

Ummmm, yep, it is.

Thanks, E. When and how will the petition to remove Veronica White be presented? Let us know, please. 562 signatures as of today!

Morning outrages:

(Note To All: Folks, Lubavitcher Hasidim are not out in places like Mumbai to convert everybody to Judaism. When they are on the street with a mini-sukkah at the Sukkot holiday, for instance, they will first ask passersby if they are Jewish. They will not bother you if you are not Jewish. Their role is to help make secular, non-observant Jews more observant in their Jewish practices, and to assist the observant in doing things such as eating kosher meals abroad. It puts the Mumbai terrorists' actions in a truly insidious perspective: they knew the Chabadniks weren't going to approach them, so they approached the Chabadniks and gained their trust only to torture them and murder them in the name of jihad. This was probably done to people all over Mumbai.)

The Jihadi as Nazi, from 9-11 to Mumbai :

It turns out, that when Jews suspected that the Jihadi hated the Jew the way
the Nazi hated the Jew, they were right.

After all this time, I am embarrassed to admit that only when the monsters entered Chabad House in Mumbai, did I understand.

Monsters, not solely for what they did there, but, if the reports are to be believed, for the fact that they were able to do what they did after having actually gotten to know the young couple who founded the center, after asking them for shelter in Chabad House, after telling them that they were Malaysian students eager to learn about Judaism.

Monsters, for having befriended these sweet people in order to better learn how to execute them. Monsters, for having targeted a young couple who had devoted their lives to helping others better live theirs, despite having had a baby who died of a genetic disease and a second child ill and under treatment far away in Israel.

Oyster updates us on the Entergy street tile replacement fiasco dating from before Ashley Morris' passing. "OAK" is there...the street corner now needs the "BIRCH". How difficult can replacing those tiles be?...wait, the question probably ought to be "how difficult can Entergy make the task of embedding street name tiles in concrete?" I want details. I also want it done.

E tells us the media is being shut out of yet another meeting regarding Big Charity's future - the old Big Charity building, that is. Something's a tad fishy when even the governor is urging LSU to let the media into the building to see what its current condition is.

My suggestion for a soundtrack:

...written about this experience.

...Yeah, all fall down, somebody help me off of the ground...

Knew there was a reason why I pulled the Working Man's Cafe album out for listening today.

Emails came from my Queens synagogue's listserv concerning the occupation of Nariman House in Mumbai by terrorists. Said to be among the hostages were a young rabbi and his wife, as Nariman House had become a Chabad-Lubavitch House in recent years.

I knew, deep down, there was only one reason why such a place would be a target, and it had nothing to do with what Lubavitch outreach is really all about....but I had to hope a little, especially when I heard that the couple's toddler-age son was snatched away from the scene and carried off to safety.

On Thanksgiving Day, I followed many tweets about the terrorist occupation of several hotels in the city halfway around the world, read a number of real-time, in-Mumbai accounts of the horrors there, and even took great pains to unfollow (and help others unfollow) those who would deliberately spead misinformation and hate at a time when most others simply wanted the truth about what was happening right that second.

It was revealed a few days later that some Israelis were killed in Nariman House, among them Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and Rivkah Holtzberg. It was revealed to me last night that their son Moshe was right there and most likely saw the killing of his parents.

"It's clear that we don't want our Chabad Houses to turn into barricaded forts," said Rabbi Menachem Brod, official Chabad spokesman in Israel. "The whole idea of Chabad is that we are open and accessible to Jews traveling abroad."

The concern has left Israeli officials fending off charges that they should do more to protect the buildings, which serve as outposts for ultra-Orthodox Jewish culture.

"Of course we care, of course we worry, but there's not much we can actually do," said Yigal Palmor, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry. "Not only is it not governmental, it's not even Israeli."

Granted, I've had some insight into some simple safety measures that can be taken to ensure that visitors can't get past the doors of a place without identifying themselves. It's called locked doors, cameras, and an intercom connected to someone who can politely ask who you are and what your business is, then open the doors once you have done those things. I personally think the JCCs here are quite lax in their security measures, and though I've never been to the Chabad House in Metairie or the one at Tulane, I certainly hope those basic security steps will be seriously considered and taken. Because there is still one sick, twisted bottom line ultimately responsible for the senseless death of ultra-Orthodox Lubavitchers who were only there to help other Jews abroad become more observant in their Jewish practices:

"This couple wasn't living in the West Bank. They weren't settlers. They weren't occupying anyone's land. They were killed because they were Jews, simple and plain."

_______________________

Oh, and for reasons of my own, I find this especially sad that it happened in a place such as Mumbai. The beguiling way in which Maximum City author Suketu Mehta writes about his city in recent days says it all:

Mumbai is all about dhandha, or transaction. From the street food vendor squatting on a sidewalk, fiercely guarding his little business, to the tycoons and their dreams of acquiring Hollywood, this city understands money and has no guilt about the getting and spending of it. I once asked a Muslim man living in a shack without indoor plumbing what kept him in the city. “Mumbai is a golden songbird,” he said. It flies quick and sly, and you’ll have to work hard to catch it, but if you do, a fabulous fortune will open up for you. The executives who congregated in the Taj Mahal hotel were chasing this golden songbird. The terrorists want to kill the songbird.

I highly recommend his book on Mumbai. Go, go read.

Update, 7:33 PM: Head to Maitri's for more on how this has affected all of Mumbai, and indeed all of India.

The prodigal broad has returned from the buckle of the Bible Belt, where large, lit-up lower-case "t"s are prominently featured on the sides of two skyscrapers in the Oklahoma City skyline. And yes, I know there's a big one on the sides of a building in the New Orleans area, but it's the Archdiocese of NOLA's building, not one belonging to J.P. Morgan Chase.

ANYway, since we don't receive too many holiday catalogs here on the gray brick road, I took great delight in perusing one of the many that my mom gets: Neiman-Marcus' Christmas Book, famous for offering all sorts of incredible gifts such as a mauve Hummer and this fantastic gem that can be yours for only a half-a-mil:

To honor battles won and heroes lost over 38 glorious years, you can put 530 square yards of sporting history into your own backyard: An entire Cowboys Texas Stadium end zone. Our exclusive package also includes the VIP treatment for the last regular season Cowboys game in Texas Stadium. Your crew gets pre-game photos in your zone with Jerry Jones, a luxury suite for the game, and a once-in-a-lifetime post-game tailgate party on your soon-to be new backyard (with the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders, no less). There's also autographed memorabilia from Cowboy legends, and a VIP package to attend the opening of the new stadium in 2009. Better yet, the Jerry Jones family and the Cowboys organization will generously donate the entire purchase price to The Salvation Army®.

I only comment on this because a) I can't imagine Tom Benson doing anything like this ever ever. Offering this kind of package in exchange for $500,000 to a local charity? Over his soiled cars' bodies... ; b) Who would he really be able to collaborate on this kind of thing with, anyway? Hell, neither Macy's nor Lord & Taylor reopened in the New Orleans Centre adjacent to the Superdome. ; and c) The Dome had better not be facing any sort of demise anytime soon, especially in these financial climes.

Aaaah, hell, even if a Saints end zone were the thing being offered, I have no place to put it, except maybe I could cut it up and use it for wall-to-wall carpeting...

I'm gonna buy local - and spend a tad less moolah - instead.

And I wouldn't object to having some of these wrapped in blue paper in my home, either.