(no subject)

[sanpaku_backup]

Last year they scared us about the flu shots, and I wrote about that. And I was all ready to be good and early with the flu shot this year. Now this bullshit. Wealthiest country on earth -- can put a man on the moon, etc. -- cannot give own citizens vaccination against the flu. Sure hope al-Qaida isn't paying attention!

We celebrated chanaleh's birthday by going to synagogue this morning and marching around with willow branches and citron fruits until we were dizzy. We brought Mini-Me, too, who amused herself by playing with empty etrog boxes and then, when we were done, with the etrogs themselves. It is a very long service for a weekday morning -- two hours -- but there's something tangible and immediate about it that I really look forward to. (It wasn't really for chanaleh's birthday, though we did light a candle!)

We also continued to be social last night, having M. over for dinner in the sukkah. We ignored the debate. I am trying hard to avoid the debates entirely. My cynicism about them was just deepend so much in 2000, when Dubya grunted the same phrases over and over again and then the talking heads said that he'd "defied expectations." If I was Gore I'd have rolled my eyes too! It's really the heart of the emperor-has-no-clothes phenomenon that got Dubya as far as he is. ("A major party nominated him! A large state made him governor! He went to Yale! Sure, he looks like an idiot, but we have to pretend he isn't!")

Ah, too early in the morning for a rant, I guess, though I could go on...

Comments

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Sukkot has a wonderfully pagan feel at moments -- the lulav, the aravah. I'm honored to have had Hoshanah Rabbah for my birthday, even if I wasn't in shul myself!

The great thing about a birthday in this season is having such a high probability of coinciding with either the start or end of a festival day -- and I've had about all of them, from Simchat Torah to Yom Kippur to, next year, Rosh Hashanah (since it's so very late, Oct. 5-6).

Of course, the entertaining bit is that I nonetheless claim my *Hebrew* birthday as the 16th of Shvat ;-)

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

I never thought of it as "pagan" as much as "this is what desert tribesmen do for fun." Whapping the aravah, in particular. I never so much as heard about such a thing until the folks in minyan at grad school starting just *doing* it next to me. It's so tangible and cathartic!

You're only the second person I know with an October birthday. Very close to my friend flw's day.

Your mikvah was on Tu B'shvat? Cool!

[chanaleh.livejournal.com]

Well, the day after Tu B'Shvat, but yes. (Kosher Boy: "What are you, a tree?")

Debate Debate

[flw.livejournal.com]

I am not watching any debates either, as I think I've made up my mind with regard to who I am going to vote for. Yeah, I am pretty durn sure. So, what is the point of watching these things other than to participate in masturbatory, endlessly hyper po-mo discussions about how we think Alaskan Lesbians are going to react to how Chris Matthews reacted to a shot of "W" wringing his hands that showed up on Fox, but didn't air on MSNBC... and Matthews heard that Don Garrett said that W's campaign manager was pleased with the coverage and thought it would go over well with tattoo artists in the Great Lakes Region, particularly the use of mis-en-scene by CNN_NB-ABCMicro-Yahoo!/Time-Warner cameraman Dirk "Two-Toe" McGinty.

Everyone thinks they're a fuckin' pundit now, and by the standards applied on TV, everyone is!

I know I am not going to turn on the TV and see a calm, reasoned point-by-point rhetorical analysis of their statements, so I don't watch.