Selected Shorts

1. “Scientists working on the Big Bang project probing the secrets of the cosmos said on Wednesday their giant particle collider is on course to make unexpected discoveries about the origins and makeup of the universe.” So... in other words, they fully expect to make “unexpected” discoveries. But what if they don't discover anything? Wouldn't that be even more unexpected?

2. What a coincidence! Mere months after the passing of Senator Ted Kennedy, the offshore wind farm that he fought for decades because it might put a crimp in his yachting has been approved. I guess you could say we've lost one significant source of wind but gained another...

3. A concept I haven't seen for quite a few years has cropped up again in connection with the shooting of a local man. A number of years back, there was a popular bumper sticker in Washington, D.C. -- “Stop black-on-black violence”. And I always wondered, at the time, what the reaction would be if I, or someone, made up a bumper sticker that said “Stop white-on-white violence”. The implication, obviously, would have been that white-on-white violence is, somehow, more wrong than other kinds. But isn't that precisely what the term “black-on-black” implies? That, somehow, there's no excuse for minorities killing each other but there might be good – or at least understandable – reasons for minorities to kill other people? Because of a “history of discrimination”, let's say... or of oppression... or even (as was argued by black radicals back in the inner-city riot era) as a “political statement”. Now, I frankly don't think (and I don't think Obama does, either) that there will ever be an end to racial politics in this country; I think it will last as long as the nation does. It's part of our heritage – part of our karma, if you will. But if it ever does end, one of the signs will surely have to be an end to idiotic (and deeply racist) concepts like “black-on-black violence”.

4. And speaking of one-sided, politically-correct terminology, what if some Christian country started giving out awards to people for being “Righteous Among the Jews”? Imagine the indignation! The implication, of course, would be that, with the exception of those receiving the award, the vast bulk of Jews are not “righteous”. And yet that could be seen as the implication of the “Righteous Among the Gentiles” awards given out by Jewish organizations – that those few gentiles were, or are, “righteous”, whereas the rest of us are all potential anti-Semites (or, at best, indifferent to Jewish suffering). I mean – I understand what those awards are all about, but it still makes me uneasy. It's patronizing. It's sort of the equivalent of the old line about a black man being “a credit to his race” -- as if all the rest weren't. But what made me think of this is a death notice for Rabbi David Forman, “founder of Rabbis for Human Rights, a prominent group defending Palestinians”. Of course, the knee-jerk reaction from radical Zionists and their supporters in this country would be that he was a “self-hating Jew”. Maybe – but he was also director of the Israel office of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations – not exactly a fringe outfit. He was also a resident of Israel starting in 1972. The notice says that “Rabbis for Human Rights leads regular protests against the demolition of Palestinian homes and uprooting of olive trees in the West Bank”. Seems so simple, doesn't it? Simple, reasonable, humane? It seems like the kind of thing any “righteous Jew” would be glad to do anywhere in the world... except in Israel, for some reason. So -- would they agree that Rabbi Forman was "righteous among the Jews"? I suspect not.

5. “Mercury spill forces school evacuation.” Nearly 1900 students had to be evacuated from an area school the other day when “a very small amount” of mercury was spilled in a science lab. And not only that, but some people had to be “decontaminated”, the HazMat unit had to come in and clean up, and school was dismissed for the day. Ah, for the good old days! I recall a similar incident involving a barometer in grade school. The mercury scattered across the floor in shiny little blobs, and was eagerly snatched up by the kids who spent the next few weeks playing with it (in the built-in pencil trays inside the desks) and using it to shine dimes. No evacuations, no HazMat unit, no decontamination. And as far as I know, we all came out of it just fine – no permanent damage. Any chance that we are presently living in a state of perpetual fear and overreaction? And, any chance that this is precisely the state the government, and its stooges in the public school system, want us to live in?