So you really don’t want a deer ending up on the grill of your car.
Not good for the deer (dead meat!) and not good for your car.
My daughter and son-in-law just gave me Deer Warning Whistles.
They are supposed to emit ultrasonic sound waves that warn the deer away.
Anything that keeps the deer away is welcome in my neck of the woods. 😉
(Credit Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
People who know me know that I am a real feminist.
Lots of wonderful women in my life have been incredibly awesome and inspired me, starting with my beautiful mother, wonderful Oma (grandmother), my wife, and my lovely daughters.
As I learned early on, girls can truly be “sugar and spice and everything nice.”
How society could have for millennia and in many places in the world still do today subjugate and abuse women is beyond comprehension.
– Women are not property!
– Women are not servants!
– Women are not to be used or abused!
Like all human beings, women are to be respected, treated in every way as equals, and loved and cared for as all G-d creations fully deserve.
What about though the issue of the right to choose whether to have or abort a baby?
While I feel we need to fully respect women’s rights, I think we also need to consider the baby’s rights.
Of course, where rape or incest is involved, or there are known serious birth defects that would make the child’s life painful or miserable, or when there is serious risk to the life of the mother or child, then by all means, the mother and father need to make a very difficult choice.
Otherwise, we are duty bound to protect the child just as we protect the mother–these are G-d’s creations and not just for the choosing and taking.
Life is life!
Murder is murder!
It’s common sense to be pro-choice to minimize danger, pain, and suffering to baby and mother.
It’s justice to be pro-life when baby and mother are blessed and well.
Really, it’s no different than how we treat anyone else–for example, we need to allow physician-assisted suicide when the pain and suffering dictates this to be merciful, and we need to do everything to protect and save life when their is still ample hope.
There is a time when a mother and father must choose and a time when the choice ultimately belongs to G-d.
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
Tomorrow is a special day indeed.
It is both Chanukah and Christmas.
Rabbi Michael Gottlieb mentions a really interesting point in the Wall Street Journal about the connection between Jews and Christians as brothers and sisters.
Reflecting on the thoughts of philosopher, Martin Buber:
The key difference between Jews and Christians is whether Jesus was the messiah.
“Christians believe he was here and they are awaiting his return.
Jews believe that the messiah hasn’t yet come.
His suggestion: let’s all pray for the messiah–Christians and Jews alike.
When he arrives, we’ll ask if he’s been here before.”
With the messiah’s arrival, we can all hope to achieve “personal and universal redemption”–to be kinder, humbler, and more human[e]”
We all have an underlying need to believe in a “superhero”–with G-dly powers that can save us from ourselves and from each other, as well as from disease, disaster, and destruction.
If G-d can speedily send us the messiah to help us with all of this, together Jews and Christians and Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and everyone can band together to celebrate and welcome G-d’s love and redemption of all his children. 😉
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
So as divisiveness continues to plague us. the option for acceptance, love, and coexistence is falling out of the favor and by the wayside.
Division and conflict has been accentuated by the ugliness of the most recent election and representative political divide, economic and gender inequality, inner city violence, racial and religious tensions, worldwide terrorism, and global conflict from Syria to the South China Sea.
This has even infiltrated the functioning of our government, social institutions, and free media big time, where vetting, negotiation and compromise, critical thinking, and fair, balanced, and investigative journalism have been largely jettisoned.
There is no place anymore to go hide from bias, bigotry, and hate.
But as the wise proverb goes things truly are not just black and white, but there are loads of grey everywhere
Many people are not good or evil, left or right, blessed or cursed.
Instead, most people are a mixture of this AND that.
How much of the complex mix of different elements is what makes up the integrity and life of the individual, group, and organization we are dealing with.
But what’s important is that you really can’t just stereotype people, ideas, or actions as simply good or bad because in reality, they aren’t.
Each person and position has elements of good and bad in them…nothing and nobody in life is perfect.
You take the good and the bad in everything from relationships to policy decisions.
So it is certainly possible and even probable to be conflicted and confused about what we see and hear–and not only because of the bias and prejudice in how it is presented or portrayed, but rather because things are not just simple, one or the other propositions, but rather a combination of things we approve of and disapprove of.
Our brains can have lots of trouble dealing with this complexity, because we are wired in terms of survival of the fittest, and that often means choosing a action based on split-second categorizing of people and things as friend or foe.
As the mere shadow of the person or idea is upon us, we are asked to respond–do we run or fight it or do we lovingly embrace it as it overtakes us.
Choose wrong and you can be badly hurt or even dead.
But we are forced to make these quick and bold choices without always having the luxury of time, the patience, or wherewithal to stop and recognize that things and people are a combination of things we like and agree with and others that we dislike and vehemently oppose.
If we could just keep in mind that most things are not just good or bad, right or wrong, but good AND bad, right AND wrong, then we can make more astute and fine-tuned designations of what we think something really is and isn’t and how to handle it, live with it, and faithfully coexist with it.
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
What a shame the hatred and anti-Semitism on college campuses and in political theater now under the guise of Israeli Apartheid Week and the Boycott, Divestiture, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
Israel is no more apartheid that any country or society in the world that has guards and erected walls to secure their inhabitants–from armed bandits, illegal immigrants, marauding armies, and dangerous terrorists.
From the castles across the European landscape to the wall around Vatican City, the U.S. border fence, and even the Great Wall of China–every country seeks border and homeland security!
Keeping out bad people who seek to inflict harm on others is not segregation, but appropriate and common sense self-defense, especially in Israel’s case where Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other avowed terrorist organizations and their sponsors seek not peaceful coexistence, but the annihilation of the Jewish people and Israel.
From the Iranian building of nuclear ballistic missiles to Hezbollah and Hamas raining missiles on Israeli population centers, from the building of terror tunnels to abduct and attack Israelis, from homicide bombings in discotheques and on buses to shootings, knifings, and vehicular rammings, the crazed hatred and genocidal ambitions of the anti-Semites does not end.
Nothing would make every Jew in the world happier than a genuine and secure peace with their neighbors, but when every peace deal that shares between the peoples is rejected by those that seek not compromise and living side-by-side in peace, but rather to throw every last Jew into the Sea then the Free Palestine movement under all it’s guises is nothing more than a very deadly wolf in sheep’s clothing.
– Listen to their chants of “From the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea, Palestine Will be Free.“
– Read their signs that say, “Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.”
– Watch their actions: teaching little children to utterly hate and arbitrarily kill Jews.
That NOT an anti-apartheid movement and a desire for peaceful coexistence, but rather maniacal ambitions to maim, murder, and take everything bar none.
Those who march, chant, and support Free Palestine, Israel Apartheid Week and the BDS Movement have shown themselves the true haters and supporters of terrorism, and usurping a mantel of legitimacy from those who have really struggled for freedom and peace is the lie and ruse of the century, but very reminiscent of murderous Jew-haters from Amalek, Haman, and Adolf Hitler from the days of old to our times. 😉
(Source Photo: here with attribution to Care2)
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