I’m not participating in 3WW this week as I’m going to New York to see friends and family and eat too much food I wouldn’t usually eat as it’s Passover and my sister is a great cook.

I hope to have news about my apartment soon.

I will say that if Obama is an elitist, then I’m____. He said what many of us say and/or think including people of faith. I used to say I would give people the Second Amendment if they would give me The First Amendment but…..The First is being slowly and not so slowly tampered with while the Second remains intact.

Boston Legal was incredible tonight. Nantucket, the Island, wanted permission to make a nuclear bomb. To truly over simplify they wanted to show that because of the present admin, every country has permission to make one–which means the country can use one The Judge was really incensed as Pakistan probably has one and that’s the country Bin Laden is probably hiding in. Of course he couldn’t grant Nantucket permission. My personal favorite line was “who will save us? The Vineyard?” I guess I am a Northerner.

Meanwhile, Shirley’s (Candice Bergen) father has end stage dementia. She had to go to court to get an order to let him have a morphine drip. Again this is a bare outline. Alan (James Spader) did a brilliant summation and talked about his best friend Denny (William Shatner) who has the very early signs. Someday Alan will have to make decisions about Denny–who unknown to Alan was watching the summation.

I have worked with many people with all different stages of dementia. I have also worked with people who were about to die yet they couldn’t get hospice care which would have allowed them a morphine drip. I have screamed at nurses and doctors.

The nursing home argued that this would set a bad precedent as so many teens and middle aged people try to kill themselves. Alan said it should be done on a case by case basis.

I disagree. Every person who is considered “terminal” and is or might be in dire pain–they argued that Shirley’s father was too far gone to feel pain–she said his agitation showed that he feels pain–should be allowed to have morphine drips. If they become addicted, so? The slight fallacy with her argument is that people with mid dementia become agitated simply because they are so confused.

I cried watching Shirley. She talked about what a great man her father had been. Now he was a shell. I have always said the greatest gift my father gave our family was dying within five days of having a stroke.

He died over Passover, his favorite holiday. My father discovered religion when we went to a seder in Mobile, when I was fourteen.

Now I live in North Myrtle Beach only it feels so North. Everybody is from somewhere else. I spoke to a woman from the Jewish Center, who invited me for a seder though I’m not really a believer. I thought that was very nice. Especially since I told her so–but many Jews aren’t. It’s a cultural thing for me.

She told me that if I just go 20 minutes South from here I will be in the real South. Maybe, baby.

Stumble it!

If I had a countdown clock it would be counting down the hours until Wednesday morning. People keep saying “wow, you’re going to be living in America,” as if life outside of New York, Southern Florida or California requires a passport and shots. So many people have been doing big and little things for me, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude and happiness under the anxiety.
My sister has not just come to terms with it but seems to like the thought of the move.
In 1997, I was self employed. My health insurance premium was $347–found checks when going through files. It’s now over $1200 a month–not because I’m older or have any conditions as anybody can buy health insurance in NY who can afford to. I bought my apartment that year. The monthly charges were $535–now over $1200. Most of the increases happened after 9/11. Yet they say inflation is just beginning. Not in New York.
This all began to be real to me when I canceled my subscription to The New York Times.

This move to a place I didn’t know before last year couldn’t have been possible before I began to blog. I learned so much about people and this incredibly wonderful country that just needs a lot of fixing.

Lucia and I took Little Luce to this Simon & Garfunkel reunion concert when she was eight months old. Her father was scared that something bad would happen–but Lucia and I know Central Park. I don’t know if anything will be in my skin and bones as much as New York, but I’m going to look.

The first concert my sister and I went to was a Simon & Garfunkel concert in Lincoln Center. Our parents sat several rows away. It was horrible that they insisted on coming. I wasn’t going to admit knowing them nor would I be seen talking to them.

This has always been one of my favorite songs. It reminds of being the age Little Luce is now when life was one of infinite possibilities. I’m beginning to feel the possibilities again.

This next one is for the friends I saw last night and a few more. After 30 years, so far I think we’ll be sharing park benches somewhere when we’re 70. It has a bonus song with one of those seminal 60’s words

I will be commenting and posting more regularly once I’m a bit settled.

Stumble it!

I delete spam pingbacks so don’t even think about it. Actually you can’t as I turned pingbacks off. Tired of deleting them. Don’t know who pings to everything I post–at least twice but they don’t even get the name of this blog or my blog right. which would be the only thing saving them–but I don’t like blogs that are made just to ping articles and then sell products that would land in any persons spam

Cooper has great Obama posters.

Here is Frank Rich. on the “Kennedy myth.”

Here is Nicholas Kristof on “Christian evangelicals.” I don’t think that Kristof understands that many liberals talk about the radical right–no religious denomination–for a reason. We are intelligent people who can separate the good from the bad.

I care about the zealots losing power and believe that they have.

It does upset me that so many minority group members in New York are planning on vote for Hillary. Fact: Downstate New York has long supported Upstate. Any good she has done for Upstate has been mitigated for what she hasn’t done for Downstate.

She’s a carpetbagger (I was never in love with Robert Kennedy) who has had one aim and one aim only since she began to run for president, uh that was a typo I will live in–since she began to run for Senator. Continue Reading »

Stumble it!

I delete spam pingbacks

A good blogger to me is somebody who moderates comments, is constantly reading new blogs, and commenting. I just don’t have the time or mental energy for that. Not now. I need to write and to write I begin blogs. I have a few private ones and one not so secret one.

Courting isn’t going on hiatus. I will be writing and moderating comments but I won’t be commenting until I’m in a different space. I mean that physically. Actually I go through this every few months. I’m obsessed with blogging and admire bloggers who never tire of commenting. I’m not comment crazy and enjoy reading blogs without commenting often but then I’m called a lurker. I don’t understand why “reader” isn’t acceptable and people can’t be happy with people reading their blogs without commenting at times.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••

The three most exciting parts of the State of the Union address to me where:
3) Looking at men’s ties–and I don’t have a large TV or LCD or plasma
2) Watching Ted Kennedy sleep–for one of the few times in my life I agreed completely with David Brooks–on my birthday, or the next day in 1969, he knew he could never become President so he focused on becoming a great senator
1) Watching Nancy Pelosi try to find a proper facial expression–she went through every fake smile I know

I don’t usually link editorials but I loved this one. On what could have been had our president made a different speech six years ago.

CAN YOU SAY PORK BARREL? I ADMIT I KEPT FALLING ASLEEP BUT I WOULD WAKE TO HEAR BUSH TALK AGAIN AND AGAIN ABOUT ENDING OR DRASTICALLY REDUCING EAR MARKED RESOURCES.

Stumble it!

I wrote an earnest first person account I used to be known for, but didn’t feel like putting it up as I have many other more pressing fights today.

I’m not saying that this is a generational issue. I am saying that along with many other women and men I fought for passage of abortion rights bills. I know the seriousness of the issue

I don’t think many young people today do. I think they think there will always be a pill, abortion will always remain legal for such and such reason.

Yes and America will always have fair elections and a president who is so crazy he set off a world wide panic last week.

When I was 20 I went to a worker student demonstration that was demonstrating against capitalists, the war in Viet Nam, abortion and ageism. It was a one size fits all demonstration. I left when I realized I was demonstrating against my father and hence my own interests.

I will always be pro choice. I will always have stories to tell about the girl who died before abortion was legal and the like

Right now that’s one part of a much bigger fight. A fight to make the US a country where people can live in freedom, peace, health and prosperity.

My stock broker who is older than I am said he could never imagine feeling the way he does about this country and its government. I welcomed him to my world. For a brief moment there was Carter but he was too intellectual and then there was Bill but he was Bill.

I think people who grew up under Bill grew up spoiled and always expecting more. Again welcome to my world.

We have to come together. We have to put our own issues aside and work for a united America. Until I began to blog I had no idea how wonderful the people really are. We have fought many fights since I began blogging three years ago and some months but now there is only one real fight

The fight to retake America. There is one candidate who has the potential to unify America–Barack Obama. I was for Edwards but one day it hit me. I truly like Obama. i was scared for him. I still am. But I know he can do it. America needs a healer I’m a First Amendment absolutist and I believe it needs faith. True faith. The kind that comes from believing in something bigger than yourself. In this case the USA.

I have to go back to being cooly hysterical. Everything I predicted is coming true. My friends, family–broker–all laughed at me–and they’re not any longer.

I have to admit I still don’t believe the people and I know a few who believe we’re headed into a depression. They’re all my age and have been laid off, have huge mortgages and no way of paying them. Nobody comes to look at their large homes that are for sale. I had to cut them off. Too negative. I couldn’t take the constant whining. It left a mark.

I’m not in that position. But everything in my life depends on Wall Street. And one day many of you will realize the same thing. It might not happen the way it did to me–at a demonstration. That was a big turning point in my life– I was 20. I went to many more demonstrations, fought many fights but never again felt that sense of invincibility and wonder. I only believed that I was doing the right thing

I hope some young women laugh at me and go about being vehemently pro-choice today. We need idealists. I can’t be one anymore. Idealism can only happen when you either don’t care about consequences, purposely face consequences or are just too innocent. I have fallen into all three groups.

I will make out alright. Well I say that too fast. How I make out depends on how this country does. And we’re in deep shit to put it crudely.

I understand what Obama says when he says that Reagan gave people, not me or my friends, optimism. After a long time of not believing that America was the great country we had been raised to believe it was–or older people just had believed–people began to believe that anything was possible in the land of the great, home of the free.

Bruce Springsteen captured the irony perfectly in “Born in the USA” but too many people took it at not quite face value. Reagan made me depressed. I believe the America of today began in his administration. But hey, who am I?

Be pro choice, be anti the war in Iraq. Do everything youth is supposed to do. Don’t expect too many people my age at any rallies today. It’s not that we don’t care we do desperately. We could bring Blackberries. We don’t want to stand behind barricades. Been there. Done that. We will if we have to. Our future–our savings, our pensions, social security, homes and everything might depend on it. We have taken nothing for granted for too long now. We came into adulthood during stagflation. Nobody talks about that anymore. Everybody seems to think that baby boomers had a free ride.

We’re the most educated generation for a reason. There were few real college grad jobs around when we finished college. Grad school began to become an imperative. We came into true adulthood during a recession. We want to enjoy our older years as many of our parents did. We don’t see that being a reality right now

I just really want to see people under 35 understanding that the liberties they take for granted could be taken away from them. Don’t ever take legal abortions for granted. Because soon I will start rehashing my old stories and I’m sure you’re as sick as them as I am.

Vote in your primary. Vote for Obama. He can help change this all around

Here’s an article about RudyG that quotes many people who worked for him.

Isn’t it amazing that the Fed just did an emergency .75% rate decrease to offset the panic Bush spread? And the Dow went down 500 points immediately. If you think it doesn’t affect your life, you’re delusional. it can affect your job, your pension, everything about your life. I was born into this world, and I don’t understand it. Don’t tell me you do. Nobody can truly understand what’s happening other than we’re a country in deep deep crisis.

Vote in your primary and vote for Obama Barack.

Stumble it!

I didn’t do anything for Martin Luther King Day as he said it all. I was a little girl who hung onto his words. My grandmother had recently died. She was a Communist (and feminist, my mother always made me add) who worked for “Negro” causes. I didn’t have visions of us being together in DC together the day of his speech. I did want to be there, and never forgot the words, the eloquence, the power and fire in his voice. Cooper has articles of the many sides of a very complex man. You also get to see an item from her very youthful wardrobe, which is as good as a Cooper and the Queen of Twin Sets post–almost

One song, and one song only, played at one occasion by one man fits.

Don’t take a Democratic win for granted. Vote in your primary.

PEACE NOW

Stumble it!

We took down the post we wrote on Barack Obama as we don’t want to add fuel to…in any way. We hope that people have the sense to realize that pride in ones racial or ethnic background is a good thing as long as it isn’t used the way Hitler or white supremacists used it. We know that any group Obama is part of would use pride for the good.

That directly leads to how we cut our blogging teeth. We were innocent in the ways of blogging back in 04 and part of 05. We didn’t realize that the radical right wanted to rule the blogosphere and found ourselves in too many fights with them

When we were asked to defend our moral relativist stance we could only say that our parents teachings, our education, our experiences, and most of all something inside ourselves knew right from wrong. Now our favorite and most hated newspaper The New York Times has a cover magazine story on moral instincts. I said “favorite” and “most hated” as it is both, and this article would agree with me.

I have never seen life in black and white but many shades of gray. This article shows why. I say, jokingly some of the time, that I have a built in guilt meter–again just read this article.

Morality is much more complicated than biblical teachings. Our brains are hard wired, usually, to do the right thing. Now that much is being learned about how the brain operates we’re learning about how morality takes place in it, and our morality is fashioned by our brains, our experiences, the communities we’re part of.

The article is much more complicated than that and very worth reading. But yes I was right all along. Our inbred guilt meter–we’re half Russian Jewish/half Irish Catholic, and were raised in our family of choice, a wonderful, funny, smart and oh so anxious family. Our guilt stood no chance. We have been learning to feel less guilty and less anxious as we want to ive a long and healthy life. We know that anxiety played a role in both our parents deaths/ They covered in public so well, nobody but me really knew the extent of their anxiety. Our sister was too learn more about our mother in later years but we were the older daughter.

We knew the first question was a trick one as we have long not thought Mother Teresa to be the saint people thought she was. She healed people but did nothing to better their life conditions.

We here at Courting are unapologetic about the people we have angered. We do wish we had spent less time trying to be rational when we were dealing with irrational people and just said what we think.

For a whole other side of me read my new blog. If you want the url please ask. As this blog is very new and we haven’t been pimping it much, we’re amazed by the number of hits it’s been getting. It’s about a single subject and can be funny. It’s fun to write and is very cathartic. It’s not political or issued based. We might actually include a link to the URL in a few weeks.

It got an incredible comment from the matriarch of a royal blogging family. TLP or Tan Lucy Pez We’re not usually pithy or clever enough for her. It’s OK. We have dreamed of this day

Reason number nine for not voting for Hillary: She speaks out of both sides of her mouth. She claimed much experience as practically being a member of a cabinet during Bill’s presidency. Now she says the opposite.

We speak in the royal we in this post as today we feel like royalty. The things we intuitively thought about morality arre being given a true scientific basis.Sometimes we slip into the first person. What can we say? We’re human.

We probably won’t be leaving for South Carolina until 2/6 so we can vote on 2/5. We will be a legal resident of New York until the apartment sale closes and that might be sometime in 2010. We say sort of jokingly and hope we’re not jinxing ourselves.

Stumble it!

Usually I can’t get Bone to talk about issues or anything involving decisions.

It was very exciting when he announced, to me, he’s firmly against David Letterman’s beard

That was both a stance–there are Letterman people and there are Leno people and never the twain shall meet, and a decision–the beard should go. Unfortunately he will wear it in solidarity with the strike and the strike seems to be a long one. David you look like a taller version of my uncle–who looks great for 80–or even 70, but David you’re not there yet. Please don’t be another person to rush my own aging.

You have done enough for the writers. 1988, when he had a beard in solidarity with the last writer’s strike, was 20 years ago. This strike is so much more important.

We are a DVD society though I prefer “on demand” or pay per view–cheaper and cleaner. It doesn’t matter. We are becoming a home theater society, and the writers get bupkus. I’m not sure how to spell that. It’s Yiddish and means “nothing.” Kind of.

Seven million people watched Leno last Wednesday and only four million watched Letterman–who did a whole show in support of the strike. I’m hoping they didn’t include people like me who watched it on DVR. That says something bad about us. People will go for bland and familiar against a man who will risk his looks for a cause.

In a quick survey of people I found many who could give discourses on David and nada on Leno. I know people who have tried to give their first born to get a seat on Letterman, or at least have their first born memorize every David fact for the phone pop quiz or street crowd quiz to get tickets.

Actually I have never met anybody who watches Leno or would admit to it. “Everybody” says Leno is popular because it’s The Tonight Show but uh as I remember it Johnny wanted Letterman.

Do something for the writers, Letterman who paid his staff from the beginning, and the future of America, watch Letterman Leno stands for regressive politics and ways. Letterman stands for progress, puts his money near his mouth, cheeks, chin–and admit it, don’t you secretly dream of being a guest? Who wants to make it and her number two reason is to be a guest on Leno? Didn’t think so.

Bone did the button for Colliding Worlds and I thank him.

Thanks to Bone–3WordWednesday–another decisive move by the blog king of indecision, I was able to meet Kate and her daughter A. I couldn’t help but adore them immediately.

As life has it, Kate’s best friend lives in the same building my sister’s best friend was raised in and uh gave up the apartment when her parents moved to Florida. She’s not the kind of person to live in the past and have regrets, but who knew in 1980something, a two bedroom Upper West Side apartment would be something people would kill for, not get divorced because of, and much more?

I’m listening to Warren Zevon as I write this and Dave a really wonderful housewarming present for my imaginary townhouse that will be a reality would be a copy of the show Warren and friends were sole guests on. I have bits and pieces on Youtube videos, but really really need the whole thing.

Frank Rich wrote one of his best columns ever. Again he said what we have been thinking but so much better. His title is so brilliant and sly.

Though we have been reading a lot about the economy, and are more than a bit scared as every indicator is bad, we are essentially optimistic–despite reading the Magazine cover story. OK we are scared that this will be another contested election. The stakes are high. We know a seventeen year old who believes that America stopped being a democracy in November 2000 and therefore she should do nothing to help change this country.

We really can’t argue the democracy part. We can and do argue that every person has to do h/h part to make America great again. We know it has great people. We just know too many jaded teenagers. Teenagers are supposed to have unbridled enthusiasm to make this a better country and world. That’s what we told our father many semesters our grades weren’t great and he bought it. We were too busy working for change. He might have been a Republican but he understood that teenage energy is best expended working for causes

Courting Destiny–that’s me, Pia Savage, would love to see an Obama/Edwards ticket. They have the energy that this country so desperately needs. They can and will inspire. We have been leaning toward Obama for a long time. Honestly we were scared that he’s too easy a target for racists, bigots, people who have nothing to do but make up scandals. The Bill Clinton ones were so unnecessary but too many people couldn’t stand to see a vibrant Democrat in office. Forget the machine part, forget everything that has been said recently, Bill Clinton did great things for this country and could have done much more.

Obama doesn’t come with his baggage. Obama is above reproach, but that won’t stop people from trying.

This just might be a great campaign. While I would never want Democrats to stoop to the levels that Republicans keep doing, I hope Democrats can sell a platform of change, hope, peace, prosperity. No dirty tricks. Just put them in their place. Isn’t it funny how the Republicans are supposed to be the party of money, yet put one in office….Our economy is only as vital as every unemployed person who was sucker-punched into a subprime mortgage. There’s much shame to be shared, and somehow I think Barack Obama can dole out the shame without mucking in the mud.

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I’m a baby boomer. No I don’t want to be quantified or put into a group. Don’t dare call me old–ain’t eligible for Social Security for a decade or so–our parents weren’t lamenting the death of their youth in their 50’s–they acted and worked and were able to save. Don’t let my parents generation be the last generally to be fully vested in the American dream. My parents mortgage was 1.5%. It would have been one percent if he weren’t self employed and two percent if he didn’t have excellent credit. The mortgage was a joke to my parents that I was too young to understand at first.

Having a mortgage enabled them to put the money they had elsewhere. That mortgage gave them the means to keep investing and to eventually buy four stores. I am a proud product of the 60’s go-go economy. It was over by 71,and we did almost lose the house, but my father at 57 was really just beginning. He showed me that second or third acts could be the best ones.

I have to say they began to travel the world in their 50’s and made it to almost every country at least once. They were my role models. I want the kind of life they had. My dad almost literally died at his desk. I know the 60’s aren’t old. I know because of my parents, their friends and our family.
••••••••••••••••••••••••

The difference was they lived in a country that had infinite possibilities. We can make it that way again. Obama gives me hope. He does, he really does.

Don’t ruin it by making it another Florida. We might not have revolted after Florida 2,000–that was our mistake. We won’t make it again
•••••••••••••••••••••

The age part of this rambling discourse came because of an article on how to market to old people. Since when has 55 been considered old? Or 60? Or even 65?

My sister and I used to consider people old whenever they were a year older than our mother. That would be 93 now–we were later in life kids then, now we’re normal.

I can’t find the article and know that The Times did the title for its funny shock appeal. The generation that was never going to age is aging. Most of us like it. There comes a day when you realize you’re not the youngest or cutest person in the room. Not even close. Once you get over the shock life looks different. Better really. There’s a certain calmness to it.

But you read a newspaper that’s obsessed with aging, and you count your savings against other baby boomers, count your health, count everything. All in all you’re doing pretty well but there’s always tomorrow. Sometimes I feel that by the end of 08 my diet will be limited to five foods. It’s pretty much there anywhere. And you think damn, this isn’t worth it. So you go off your diet for a month, gain weight, feel horrible, and go back to a diet that essentially consists of salmon in every guise.

Obama’s younger than I am. I like that. But it doesn’t mean I’m going to cosign myself to the “the 55 and over” housing communities or a life devoid of friends who are younger, excitement–I know many 35 year olds who live lives with less excitement than mine, fun and learning new things

Being in my 50’s has been the most liberating thing that ever happened to me. I finally feel the excitement of the personal blogger. i love having lived long enough to have a little corner in cyberspace. Yes I do. There’s so much else I could say but I have to go back to getting ready to move. I think I’m truly learning patience.

Lucia bet me that I will sell my apartment for a “handsome” profit. I have never won a bet with her. I bet that Clinton wouldn’t be impeached, that Gore would be president in 00–things like that.

Comments are off. I will probably, sadly, close trackbacks permanently as I’m tired of ping spam. Too many blogs have began that say things like “Abe Allan of Courting Destiny had an interesting post today….” Not only do they get my name and sex wrong, if I dig deep enough I see ads products I want nothing to do with.

Stumble it!

Shayna posted a commentary by Ben Stein on being Jewish and Christmas. In four Christmases of leaving comments or writing posts on the Christmas war, I left the longest comment I have ever left.

I like Christmas. Though I’m Jewish I’m never offended when people wish me “Merry Christmas.” I wish it to people all the time, go to Christmas dinners, Christmas Eve seafood dinners and have been known to go to Midnight Mass. Ok once but….

The USA is a Christian country in numbers. It’s not a Christian country in spirit or shouldn’t be. I always get Thomas Jefferson and James Madison mixed up in as to who actually wrote the amendment. i know that Madison gave a speech and I believe wrote the first draft of The First Amendment which was very explicit in its discussion of church and state.

I have nothing against children learning about Christ in public school. But I have a lot against them learning that Christ is The Saviour in publicly funded settings. Maimonides is a person I believe somewhat akin to Christ in brilliance and beliefs. See I’m already out of bounds. But Maimonides is the person who said that the highest level of giving is to teach. The second highest level of giving is to give anonymously.

I put him in as an example because in this season of joy and giving I come across too many blogs stating that this person is doing this to help and that person is doing that. I think to talk about how I help and why I help them is to offend them. It used to drive me crazy to go to Temple on the High Holidays and hear about how much money a particular person was giving the Temple. I thought that went against Maimonides and what he taught. Fortunately that’s becoming out of vogue.

If I had children, and if they went to public school, I would want equal time given to all religions and great and bad leaders from each. There is no time to do that, and a teacher would have certain biases anyway. The religion of the majority of students might be given more and “better” time.

That I personally find God to be a mystery isn’t the point. I try to respect all beliefs though I do have trouble with religions that offer animals for sacrifice. As long as the animal isn’t human, who am I to say its wrong? Yet if the religion offered dogs for sacrifice many people would object.

I’m doing what Ben Stein, who I like a lot though don’t often agree with did. I’m getting off the subject of the Christmas war and God in the public arena.

Actually Stein did what I often used to be told I did. He wrote two separate articles and neither ended up making sense. Not believing in Christmas–well he didn’t say where that means you’re an athesist. And when did “athesist” become a horrible thing? He was confusing when he went from Christmas to belief in God.

I could counter every example he gave. I was scared of Madelyn O’Hair when I was a little girl. Read one too many National Enquirers that bashed her–never in my parents house. My mother didn’t let newspapers like that in her house. I thought athesist was a horrible thing until I realized my parents were cultural Jews and ignored the God part.

In America belief in God is supposed to be personal. Kennedy understood that when he was running for president and said that his personal beliefs didn’t belong in the public arena. Romney pandered to the radical right when he gave his answer the other day. I don’t like RudyG so much I won’t give him a last name–and can never spell it. One thing I do know is that he wouldn’t put his religious beliefs into the government. Is that because he’s Catholic and Catholicism isn’t the Christianity of the American masses? I don’t know, and will vote for any Democrat over either of them. Like Liz Lemon on 30 Rock I once voted for Reagan so I have nothing against a Republican. I just wish I had voted for a better Republican. What made it so funny, on 30 Rock was that many of us voted for him for whatever reasons. Once, we all got one Reagan chance. To vote for him twice….

I don’t see it as Ben Stein sees it completely, yet I do. For whatever reasons the American family has become weaker. It’s up to the family to impart its values, good or bad, right or wrong, to their children. Hopefully the American family is just taking a break and will one day again understand that it’s up to them to teach their children ethics and values.

My parents desperately wanted to believe in God but couldn’t. That didn’t stop them from teaching my sister and I that as individuals we bear responsibility to help other people. That life isn’t just about materialism but if we are fortunate enough to have to give back and “have” can be very little or defined in many ways.

As a Jew I want to take a sleeping blog pill this time of year. It’s my fourth Christmas on the blogosphere and I became a “name” blogger because of my stances. I never felt comfortable with that reputation. I despised the comments telling me that I’m lacking morals. I despised the comments when I defended Christmas that got into the Founding Fathers religious or lack of religious beliefs. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that they founded this country to be one of religious tolerance.

We seem to have grown away from their beliefs. As a nation we seem to put religion above tolerance. It can’t help but scare me as I prepare to move from New York where I do know many Evangelicals. Little known fact about New York–it has many. The difference between New York and other places is that we have so many religions and so many ethnic groups no one group can try “to be above” the rest. It’s an amazingly tolerant city and I already miss it for that. I get into discussions with people about their religious beliefs all the time. Not one has ever tried to get me to go to their church because it’s the “only” church. Except for people on the subway who hand out pamphlets, but I can ignore them.

I’m moving to the deep South as I do know so many individuals with strong religious beliefs who respect my right not to believe what they do. I think my sister believes that within a month I will be “converted” and speak in fire and brimstone terms. I don’t think she’s right. I know I can’t be converted and I do hope not many try.

Religion should be between a person and God, not this country and God. As for Christmas, celebrate it proudly, and I will never be the one to tell a grown man there is no Santa Claus.

This was my annual Christmas war post. Now I can go back to fiction.

Stumble it!

Here’s a love of my life, Frank Rich on Rudy and the end of our country’s being influenced by the radical right. Here’s The Evangelical Crackup People ask how I, a card carrying ACLU member can move to South Carolina. Bloggers taught me that to be an Evangelical doesn’t usually mean being a member of the radical right. My Evangelical friends have as much in common with them as I, a cultural Jew, have with the Ultra Orthodox Jewish fanatics. Blogging did open this country to me. It is because of bloggers that I can make this move. I am much more American than I was three years ago. I am also open to many more wonderful possibilities.

As it was the first real Fall day I spent it outside with friends. I had forgotten how wonderful Autumn crisp weather feels. We went to the weekly Sunday street fair at IS 41 off Columbus Avenue. Usually I dislike it but today it was fun and I know that when I come back to New York as a tourist it will be on the list of things to do. Oh I love talking to the people who have booths there. We speak the same language—New York but I will learn to speak other American languages.

When I put the apartment up for sale in a few weeks I will probably go to Myrtle Beach so as not to mess it up. it’s easy for me to keep a townhouse looking company ready and oh so difficult to keep two and a half rooms in perfect order

Hopefully I will find a person or persons who will go into contract quickly, but you never know. Then they have to prepare the Board package, the Board has to review it and interview them. That process will take at least six weeks which will give me time to see all the doctors I need to see before a move to South Carolina which in some ways does feel like a foreign country to a Fourth Generation New Yorker. Though many people have told me medical services are better and have the personal touch I so miss, it feels strange. I am so ready for this move and so fearful.

I fear my apartment being judged by realtor’s and prospectives buyers. This fear is worse for me than most people because I live in fear of being judged. But I fear it less since learning about Non Verbal Learning Disorders

I am woefully behind in everything that I have to do but feel an energy surge coming on.

I dared not go out from Thursday through Saturday for the rain at time was a fierce pouring one and all I could think about was my stress bronchitis turning into pneumonia. Any other time I would have risked it but this coming Saturday is my niece’s Bat Mitzvah and I come as both myself and my late parents older daughter. That thought is causing me joy, sadness, and more than a bit of nervousness as many of the guests are from my sister and my extended family.

I was asked to go on a cruise this spring that begins in South America and ends in Europe. I felt too unsettled to say yes. People tell me not to buy for six months at least but I have become used to home ownership even if it’s in the form of shares in a corporation. I have checked the owner box for so long, I will probably forget or feel like a vagrant or weird somehow. Though it will be nice to have the false feeling of being rich when I look at the balance in my brokerage account. False cos I ain’t, not in this world at least and that’s one reason I’m making this move.

People here do act as if money is made by the ATM and I fall into that warped mentality at times.

I have been writing fiction, experimental to the edge fiction. I have four more chapters to my 3WW. If I didn’t have so much else to do I could work on it all day and night. It’s made me love writing once again.

When I move I hope to work on it constantly. I hope I have room in the condo or hopefully townhouse for a studio to paint and play with photographs

I will very much miss this apartment. In the morning sun streams in so strongly I feel as though I’m getting a tan. My bedroom is perfect. It feels like a jewel box but really how much time do you spend in one? I watch TV in it. When I move I will watch big screen TV in another room and the bedroom will be used for the two functions a bedroom is supposed to be used for

I am beginning to feel psyched again both about moving and life. I made it in New York. I can make it anywhere I used to feel that I felt so at home and made friends so easily here because it was the only place I knew well. That’s partially true but I’m friendly. When I would make friends other places I would put it down to the phases of the moon and many other variables.

The street face I wore too well for too long is gone replaced by a smile that can’t get me in trouble as I am a New Yorker, street smart and wary.

Everything I have to do will fall into place quicker than I think. I don’t know why I believe what so many people have been telling me but I do. After the Bat Mitzvah I can focus full time on the move. What seemed so overwhelming just a week ago seems almost fun now—but I was having my yearly stress bronchial attack so….I wish my body could be satisfied with stress headaches.

Stumble it!