Monday, September 29, 2008

Chag Sameach!

Chag Sameach! Lshana tova tikatevu! Have a happy and healthy new year.

Monday, September 08, 2008

Yellow Belt

It was Friedrich Nietzche who wrote, "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger." I've been repeating that to myself a lot lately. It has become my new mantra. To me, it's much more upbeat than, "This too shall pass."

This past Saturday, I was muttering it over and over again as I tested for my first Krav Maga belt level. This was not the 2-hour "wait for your turn, get up do your thing, go sit down" testing that Omri did when he took Taekwando. No, this was 5 1/2 hours of continuous, strenuous, sweat-pouring, heart-pounding activity. This was hard core. This would have made Nietzche whimper.

But I made it through, and I am feeling pretty proud of myself. As I said previously, sometimes you have to meet 40 head on. Sometimes, you've got to push yourself to the limit, hit the wall, and keep on going.

And once I can get up again, I'll do my victory dance.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

YouTube Video of McCain-Palin Love Tryst

...would be a totally ludicrous headline. But who reads past the headlines anyway? Certainly the mainstream media has done a horrible job presenting a fair and balanced view of the candidates. How many times have the newspapers called McCain a maverick despite the fact that he voted with Bush 95% of the time (FactCheck.org). Or, how about the media replays of Fox News's false claim that Obama is a Muslim (not that there's anything wrong with that...).

So, here is my underground suggestion for the blogosphere. Let's start publishing blog titles that claim ludicrous rumors. We can explain in the blog text that we simply made up a rumor, but as long as we spread the headlines, the supporting text won't matter.

The headlines should be just within believability. "McCain Loses Count of Personal Jets," is a good example. "McCain and Palin Secret Vegetarians" is a little too silly. I mean, what kind of nut job would be a vegetarian?