How Far We've Come in Caring for Babies

I'm a bit confused. I understand breast milk. I understand organic. Frankly, I understand commercial food production and distribution. I grok Wal-Mart, I grok Target. Marks and Spencer. Ahold. Whatever the global equivalents are.

Food is food. When my parents grew up in Poland in the 20's and 30's, they did not worry about the kashrut (allowed to be eaten by religious Jews) rules. Wheat contained... wheat. Bread had none of the current ingredients. Here's a list of the ingredients in the challah my mother made when I was a child:

• Wheat, water, eggs, yeast, sugar, corn oil

To my left what is in the Hawaiian bread that I use now when I make my Friday night blessings (this is from their web site, so pardon the image instead of text).

Please note that this is a much longer set of ingredients than what any normal baker (and I am one, so no lip, please).

We are getting so inured to ingredients that when the FDA assigns a maximum amount of melanine to food, we are expected to take that as a normal ingredient. Rat hairs I understand. Even impurities like dust, dirt, or even rocks (yes, we all find them in our dried beans from time to time) are acceptable.

What is not acceptable is this list, to my left, of ingredients deemed necessary to make my food somehow more palatable. Since when are dough conditioners necessary for me to taste good bread? And exactly why do I need ammonium sulphate in my food?

The issue of melanine is painful, certainly. The more there is, the more kidneys are compromised. Enough, and the kidneys fail, and the person shortly thereafter.

So why, given the obvious toxicity of this chemical, and its entirely inappropriate existence in the food supply (other than to raise the level of perceived (but unavailable) protein in a sample of food. So why would the FDA feel the need to determine a maximum level of melanine, other than to appease either the Chinese or the local American manufacturers of food.

I object. As a person who pays good money for food, I want to eat food. Not furniture composites, not ammonia derivatives, not any crap that I should not be eating. Yes, I know, there are alternatives. I could spend 2x, 3x, whatever to pay for organic foods.  And I would like to be local, organic foods, except that not all of us have the luxury of paying top price for food. Those of us not working (and our ranks grow larger by the day, unfortunately) can't afford the "luxury" of eating healthy.

There should be no minimum or maximum limit for melanine. For that matter, if it's made in a test tube, it should not be there. America is poisoning its own people, and we are complicit in that poisoning if we do not protest to our limits against these insane acquiescences.

Citi Bunk and Recess Appointments

Bush did it before, and he (and his administration) are doing it again. It seems that weekends and any time not burdened by the weight of the free market are excellent times for the government, and specific companies, to do their dirty work.

Citigroup is a great company. They gave me a break in 1979 that no one ever gave me, and convinced me then that they are an effervescent agent of change. Seriously. Citibank was doing things in 1979 that I see startups doing today. Sure, they've become a behemoth. Sure, some of their tentacles are probably doing good.

But the bottom line is that a company (in which I was considering investing) is in really terrible, and possible terminal, difficulty.

And my response, in this coldly capitalist society, is that Citibank, like every other banking organization, deserves the same consideration for a bailout as General Motors, Ford, and even (despite their non-public status) Chrysler.

Look: if we're looking for a good ROI, then I am personally a much more likely prospect for a postiive ROI than any of these companies. Put $1,000,000 into my life, and I will ensure that I will be cash positive for the rest of my life. Give the car companies, and Citi Group, several tens of billions of dollars, and we will get... um... I don't know? from them. And that will provide the American Public with how much money?

I would be more than a little confused if I didn't have questions. Certainly, as a taxpayer/stockholder, I definitely have questions about the way in which my tax dollars are being redeployed as investment dollars.

The American Treasury, as a taxpayer and voter, does not have the right to take my hard-earned an ill-transferred tax dollars, and turn them into investments in private companies. I would much rather have those funds (to the 1/10th or 1/000th), invested in ways for me to earn a decent, tax-positive living in the new economy.

Postscript: In the space of my writing this post and going to sleep, Citi Bank has garnered $300 billion dollars in loan guarantees for toxic funds (which had heretofore been rejected as a viable path for spending dollars) from the government. I am angry and ashamed.

Embarrassment = Murder

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There is a strong Jewish prohibition against embarrassing someone in public: public humiliation is equated with murder.

Character assassination is almost unknown, except in cases when it is unexpected. Reality television has leapt into the breech. Sad, slightly whacky, purposefully unknown and truly sick people have been enouraged to apply to compete in singing, dancing, and knowledge feats. If, for no other reason, to be ridiculed by people who are in little to no way qualified to judge their peers.

In Jewish theology, someone saving a life is thought to have saved an entire world. Would those who aided or abetted Paula Goodspeed's rush to fame -- and public humiliation -- be guilty of having destroyed a world? Certainly, Ms. Goodspeed's world has disappeared.

I fault not the specifics, but the general: Paula Abdul is culpable of trying to save her "career," along with her showmates, by lending her name and aura to the "American Idol" contest. But she bears, as do her showmates and anyone associated with the show, responsibility for bringing the concept of "Idol" from the theoretical to the real idolatry of a cult of personality, of a cult of fame, of a cult of despair.

Shame on you, Ms. Abdul. And shame on the system, and the viewers, for participating in this particularly cruel Bread and Circus pageant.

Stupid People with Top Hats

One of the most irritating things about President-Elect Obama's win is the number of entirely insane people with whom I must interact or read about.

Whacko nutjobs in Kenntucky (is anyone keeping track of their sanity, let alone literacy, statistics) planned on killing multiple minorities, capping things off by driving at Senator Obama dressed in tuxedos and top hats, firing fully automatic weapons. These 18 and 20-year old folks would be total idiots in my book -- except they had access to the requisite weapons and had made plans. (Can anyone say: "neuter the idiots so they don't breed?")

A friend of mine talked about "cowboys" snatching white sheets off the shelves of local department stores. We're here in Central Texas, see: land of the semi-rational and home of the 'do what you want so long as we can't bust you' brigade.

Same friend talks about how terrible it'll be "when" Obama gets shot.

I don't know how to push love, trust and calm out past folks like this, but if we don't, the Secret Service will certainly be chasing a legion of village idiots before things calm down. And acting uber-paranoid with the President Elect until we get all the easy nut jobs out of the way.

This friend -- and a few others with similar views, talk about the race war and terror that would follow Obama's assassination (g-d forbid!).

My question is this: is their fear, their hatred, their small-minded vision so pervasive so powerful that the next President of the United States  must worry about these lunatics? Or can be take a deep breath, concentrate on the realities of global warming, magnetoshphereic dissipation, and drive these false dybbuks of our generation aside long enough for truth to ring free?

I'd like to think we can rise above these idocies. But the Cheney/Bush regime has created early warning monsters that we would ignore at our own peril.

I Have Been Blessed to See This Day Come

It's a peculiarly Jewish custom to recite a blessing when encountering an incredible moment in one's personal history. We have a blessing on seeing rainbows, awesome sights, and living to see yet another year's holidays.

Today is a day of blessing. Blessing that we have seen the defeat of racism by truth. The defeat of fear and hate by trust and hope. Like coming upon a bridge over the Grand Canyon, ringed by double arcs of rainbows, this is a day for the United States to see a way through the darkness and weakness that have cloaked our country for the last many years.

Baruch Ata Adonai, Eloheinu Melech Ha'olam, asher kiddishanu ve'ki'imanu ve'higi'anu laz'man hazeh.

Blessed are you our master, god and king of the world, who has blessed us, sustained us and brought us to these times.