Hey Al, your slip is showing

Injustice in the world? Al Sharpton to the rescue. Well, let me emend that.

Injustice for the black community? Al Sharpton to the rescue. Wait, wait- one more time.

Injustice or actual justice for the black community? Al Sharpton to the rescue.

If you couldn't already tell, he really irks me. He is an opportunistic, oratorical tornado of righteous indignation who touches down wherever something unfortunate happens to people of minority communities as a result of some action or inaction by the majority community or authority (two of the NYPD officers involved in the Sean Bell shooting case are black) that he perceives as unjust. He takes advantage of grieving families to further his own public exposure and political ambitions, claiming to represent their views and their furor, while often slipping into first person ("I will not tolerate..." vs. "they" or even "we").

What infuriates me more than this clown and his traveling circus is when he or others like him, when interviewed or holding a press conference before a verdict, hope or demand that "justice will be served." Now, correct me if I'm wrong (you can comment below), but the justice system generally performs justice whenever it gives a verdict (of course, I acknowledge exceptions).
What these people are really saying is, "I demand a judgment in my favor" and vesting this selfish, biased demand in the sheep's clothing of impartial, uniformly desired "justice."

AARGH!

Anyway, here's a clip of Rev. Sharpton (I will not refer to him as Dr., as he sometimes calls himself, because he never earned a doctorate or equivalent) recently speaking his true mind.

City Gripe #956

I suppose this one really doesn't have to do with living in the city, although alternate-side parking rules add to the anxiety. So it snowed over the weekend. Well first it rained, then it hailed, then it snowed, hail again, then back to rain. The long and short of it is that my car was blocked in by a foot of what used to be snow on Shabbos but later froze into one massive ice shelf.

It took me two hours using the shovel and ice plunger/breaker/thingamajig I borrowed from my super to get to a point I could pull the car out. Along the way, I discovered that it wasn't ice all the way down. If I cleared out the hard packed snow underneath, I could break the ice with less difficulty into chunks. I carried/threw/shoveled these chunks (the larger ones weighing 30-40 lbs) onto the sidewalk. It was long, arduous work, and I almost gave up a few times, but I stuck with it. As the sun began to fill our little valley of a street, it made the ice a littler easier to break.

As I was nearing the back of the car (after discovering and partially dismantling the solid ice shelf that also ran underneath my car, blocking the rear tires' path), a man came up to me. He said very politely and articulately that he wasn't going to take my time and beg, but would like to do some honest work for a few bucks, not even 5 or 10. So I let him finish the job and instruct me to take a breather. He made sure I could pull into the street and I gave him $8. I asked him where he lives, but he said he doesn't have a home. I told him to come say hello if he sees me around.

Laplap slurpslurp glubglub lub dub

So there was this really tall guy who bent down to drink from the water fountain in the hall just now. It struck me in a funny way and reminded me of something...

Actually, the giraffe's circulatory system is one of the wonders of Creation intelligent design evolution whatever. Because its head (and the brain within) is so far above its heart, the giraffe must maintain a blood pressure much higher than other mammals (about 240/160), and has a very large (~24 lbs) and powerful heart to accomplish this.

Because of their hard-working hearts and high blood pressure, giraffes are very susceptible to heart attacks when frightened or experiencing prolonged exertion, so when catching a giraffe, be sure not to chase it too long. Zoo-keepers also blindfold giraffes sometimes to avoid stressing them too much.

And finally, a mystery solved:

"...researchers explain that most other mammals, including humans, elephants, and mice, have similar blood pressures, because all of them have a similarly proportional distance between the head and the heart. Because of its long neck, a giraffe's blood pressure is twice as high as a human's blood pressure, yet it doesn't suffer from blood pressure-related diseases or dizziness -- despite an extraordinary rush of blood from the head in the two seconds it takes to lift its head 15 feet from a drinking position to a standing one.

The model reveals nature's evolutionary solution, which prevents giraffes from becoming dizzy in their predator-studded environment. A muscular cuff, which acts much like the device used to constrict a human arm during blood-pressure tests, surrounds the jugular vein. It regulates blood flow while the giraffe lifts its head, until the animal's powerful heart can pump blood up its long neck to the brain."

Distasteful

Today I had to do something I feel is wrong.

In my clinical training, I perform psychological assessments. I was finishing up one such assessment process today, and met with the examinee for a feedback session to discuss the results. The assessment report can be very technical and difficult to interpret (or interpret correctly) for the lay-public (hence the feedback session to explain in everyday language).

Of course, at this point it's entirely appropriate to reference Simspons episode 9F09 (Homer's Triple Bypass):
Dr. Hibbert: Homer, I'm afraid you'll have to undergo a coronary bypass operation.
Homer: Say it in English, Doc.
Hibbert: You're going to need open heart surgery.
Homer: Spare me your medical mumbo jumbo.
Hibbert: We're going to cut you open, and tinker with your ticker.
Homer: Could you dumb it down a shade?

For this reason, my supervisor does not like to give examinees their reports after testing and, when requested, sends the report to the proper audience (e.g. a school or other doctor). When asked for a report during a feedback session, he tells the examinee that it's not "his policy" to release the report. If they continue to ask for it, he gives it to them. After all, they have a right to it- he just doesn't like to give it to them. This is not a unversal practice (even within our clinic, other supervisors don't subscribe to this policy), but it's his, and I think it's pretty deceptive.

As his supervisee, I am expected to practice this habit. Today, after doing a good job explaining to my examinee what I'd found, she asked for the report. I told her, "It's our policy not to release the report." I told her we would send it wherever she needed it sent. She asked if there was any way to get the report for her records, to facilitate sending the report in the future, to have it for her records. All I could do was repeat, "It's out policy not to release the report."

It went on, but I feel dirty enough already. I need a shower.

Update (3/15/07): The clinic's policy is, in fact, to release reports to patients, but to make them jump through minor hurdles to get it (submitting a written request and signing consent to release their report to.. themselves- huh?). So, this examinee will get her report. I feel better now, but it's yet another strike against my supervisor, with whom we already have some major issues.
At times like this, it's important to remember advice my old alte-supervisor gave me when I left work before returning to school to start my graduate studies- "תזהר מחמור נושא ספרים" (Beware of donkeys carrying books)

Update to the update: My aforementioned alte-supervisor is a secular Israeli with contempt for the practice of religious Jews (a tradition in which he was raised; in his youth, he attended an elite yeshiva, possibly qualifying him as an authentic apikores. His advice to me suddenly takes on new meaning.

תפילה אחרי משחק ספורט

דחוף לקום בבוקר בשביל לראות משחק ספורט
תוכן השאלה: האם מותר לקום בבוקר מוקדם בשביל לצפות במשחק ספורט ולהתפלל אח``כ? מדובר במשחק של פעם בשנה. אם אני אקום לראות את המשחק ואתפלל אח``כ, זה יהיה הרבה יותר מוקדם מאשר זמן התפילה הרגיל שלי

So apparently there's this website about Judaism, where people ask questions, presumably for psak. This particular question was from January (click on the post title for the link) and seems to be referring to the Super Bowl. Those in Israel would have to get up pretty early to watch the game. This guy wants to know if it's ok to get up early, watch the game, and then daven (at a time that would be earlier than usual for him).

The response questions why a sports game can motivate this guy to wake up so early, but the Shulchan Arukh cannot. He goes on to hope that this fellow will begin the practice of arising early for the game, but make a habit of it for tefillah.

What do you think? Was this question serious or just baiting for a too frum response?

City Living Gripe #483

As my friend Arona already noted, we city folk don't always have it easy. Urban dwelling brings with it some surreal protocols and implications we must confront. Here's one that bothers me.

We are lucky enough to have a laundry room in our building (the fact that we don't have to schlep to the laundromat makes this a distinctly NY type of luck) that has five washing machines. Our building has 60 apartments. You do the math.

We're vigilant enough to catch a machine when its wash is done. The washes' owners, however, are not always so vigilant. What this means is that, as per building's consenual, tacit etiquette, we take the other person's clean laundry out of the machine and put it into an empty dryer (if there are no empty dryers, the wash goes on a table in the room). Now I know that these are freshly cleaned clothes we're talking about, but still- I don't want to be handling someone else unmentionables! There must be some evolutionary advantage to being repulsed by others' clothes (a.k.a. xenovestiphobia), but what could it possibly be if we're even disgusted by clean clothing? I'm open to hearing all forms of conjecture, speculation, and MAS on the topic.

We also had to deal with an urban laundry excursion when we were in San Francisco for vacation. Being soon after the 9 Days, we packed dirty laundry to wash at the beginning of our trip. We asked at our hotel and they directed us to the Brain Wash Cafe & Laundromat. We realized we weren't in the tourist part of town anymore when every storefront was a body shop- alternating car's and women's bodies (if ya know what I mean ;). I've never seen such a trendy laundromat; I guess that's the point. Our load was way under the minimum weight, but the heavy-lidded hipster behind the counter, apathetic and detesting of her bosses anyway, didn't even to try and make us pay the higher fee to meet the minimum.

Muslims excel in Jewish day school!

The Jewish school where half the pupils are Muslim
Some might call this article inspirational- I don't know if I'd go that far, but it is somewhat astounding. The two levels that get me are first, that the Muslim parents are so into enrolling their kids in a Jewish school and second, that other members of their community seem to be ok with it. Presumably, the Birmingham (UK) Muslim community is more moderate.

Thanks to Avi Z. for the link.

Wear Red Day 2007

I didn't think about my decision to wear a red sweater on February 2nd, I just pulled it out of the closet. I'm working Fridays doing research in a cardiovascular department of a major hospital. Someone popped her head in the room I was working in and, noting that I was wearing red, asked if I was wearing "for the cause."

Indeed, I wasn't, but what cause? Apparently, it was Wear Red Day, in support of women's heart disease awareness. Being a cardiology department, everyone's for this cause. We took a staff picture with all of us Redcoats. Afterwards, I got a red dress pin (aka a זונה* pin)

What was I doing that day? Proofreading my professor's chapter galleys, punctuation and all. Sound familiar? I present to you the Maestro, Victor Borge!

דרב אדא בר אהבה חזייה לההיא כותית דהות לבישא כרבלתא בשוקא סבר דבת ישראל היא קם קרעיה מינה אגלאי מילתא דכותית היא שיימוה בארבע מאה זוזי א"ל מה שמך אמרה ליה מתון אמר לה מתון מתון ארבע מאה זוזי שויא -ברכות דף כ,א

...with a little help from my friends

American עולה Harry, of The View From Here, reports on a blog of blacks who are friends of Israel. A small sampling includes Mike Tyson, P. Diddy, Mr. T, and Condoleeza Rice.

Good for the Jews?

Well we love you, too