Arctic Monkeys - R U Mine?
So I told Mrs. Goldblog last week I had a revelation.
My revelation for German cars, I just told myself, it was revealed that it is now theoretically possible for us as a Jewish family, buy a BMW Belief chains and feeling and psychic malaise me prevented from making this purchase were in pieces.
Mrs. Goldblog immediately registered his dissent, even if she understood the source of my about-face has been the result of a visit that we had just done an Icelandic volcano dormant.
I'll explain the link Iceland in a while and as a bonus, I'll also include a free Leibovichian This time of the city, but a brief history of my long boycott of German cars Like many Jews, I found the idea of associating me in a conspicuous, or at least highly visible, and with the German car discrediting a little ethnic, and vaguely nausea-inducing German industry was deeply complicit in the work of the Nazis, and I felt that to some distance between my family and the Mercedes BMW Volkswagen combine Volkswagen in particular was a way to honor the memory of Jews murdered by the Germans My boycott doesn t extend German coffee or Lufthansa although its seats are very hard to comfortable, or to visit Germany itself why some of my best friends are German that's not true, but not for a reason quelc onque policy I do not know just t many Germans.
My boycott has targeted cars that many Jews, of course, don t participate in this show unofficial boycott that is only partially honored can be found in the parking lot of my synagogue on Rosh Hashanah and I recognized long time that this boycott is not rational or intelligent rooted in political thought.
The first time I went to Israel, I was surprised to see a large number of German cars on the roads Most taxis are German, and many trucks and this is the byproduct vestigial paid repairs Israel and the Holocaust survivors living in Israel, in Germany, I guess many American Jews who see these vehicles in Israel are first shocked and taken aback, and then end up accepting this strange world post-war reality I know a couple of people who bought German cars only after visiting Israel also for an interesting discussion of German reparations, please see Ta-Nehisi Coates on the subject by the end of his important article on the issue of reparations for African Americans.
There's a deeper and highly symbolic connection between German industry and Israel a potentially historical world that has helped advance my thinking on this, and that is the composition of the Israeli submarine fleet Currently, nuclear weapon submarines Israeli patrol in the Persian Gulf, off the coast of Iran, ensuring that the Tehran regime has the second strike consequences threaten Israel's existence the first two sub- Dolphin-class diesel submarines in the Israeli fleet were gifts from Germany, made in the days that followed the first German companies the Gulf war have been identified as having sold chemical weapons precursors to the regime Saddam Hussein an embarrassing development Two other were then purchased, and a fifth is on its way.
The point is, if German submarines are good enough for the Israeli navy, they should be good enough for an American Jew obsessed Holocaust.
Still, I'm ambivalent about it, until last week.
My family and I were in Iceland in beautiful vacation, very expensive, very wet and we decided to visit a dormant volcano called Thrihnukagigur no, I can not say it, or anything else in Iceland is the only volcano in the world, we were told by the propagandists of the Iceland government that can actually be explored from the inside for some reason, when Thrihnukagigur arrested about 4500 erupted there a few years ago, its magma chamber didn t collapse on itself, perhaps in anticipation of future tourism revenue.
We talk to blow a hole in the side of the volcano, allowing easy access to the cathedral chamber as a rough idea, wrong that I hope does not come to pass for now, the only way is to inside to be lowered down the throat of the volcano by a narrow vent at its peak in the last few years, a group of persons qualified decided that the basket of a window cleaner, connected to a pulley system rigged a prone crane stretched over the mouth of the volcano, would be an effective means of providing visitors ground magma of the vacuum chamber.
I was not completely comfortable with the concept In particular, I was not thrilled by the idea of sending my children to sleep not, it should be noted, extinct volcano, but simply sleep in basket of a dishwasher Thrihnukagigur window is not Bárðarbunga, the volcano currently rumbling largest ice cap in Iceland, but it ain t be entangled.
On the walk of three miles of the volcano through a desolate lava field and beautiful, I asked a guide to explain in detail elevator volcano She said that the process is simple, we strap you into a harness and then you walk on a board on the mouth of the volcano to cart you off in the shopping cart window washer, holds six people, then the basket motorman drops you 400 feet to the floor of the volcano.
No, she said it is a very reliable German engine.
I was about to entrust my children to the life of basket dangling window washer on a volcano, and I am pleased that the machine was German.
A German motor They weren t screw around the volcano, I was about to entrust the lives of my children in a cart window washer dangling from the mouth of a volcano, and I am beyond happy to learn that this machine was German to my surprise, the German motor has in mind at that time happy picky Bavarian white coat images, instead of the usual, that is to say, Himmler.
It's time I told myself that my boycott could have reached its natural conclusion, I am ready for a boost anyway, but now, since the German motor words were filled me with hope and of relief, then maybe the car I used to carry my children to be powered by a.
The engine worked as promised, the basket was lowered successfully in the cold, empty is beautiful and impressive and frost and most important, the basket gave us 45 minutes later, it was actually quite exciting, but no one was talking about it on the long lonely walk through the lava field, I'm not one of those people who overshares putative interesting travel experiences with good luck strangers sitting next to me on a long flight Fortunately, the middle of the walk, a small group of tourists appeared in the distance the next wave virgin volcano, we were on a narrow path, and the line of tourists passed us, I scanned their faces, looking for someone who might want to hear my excitement Fortunately, I found one.
Mike Froman I said one of the tourists was US Representative Mike Froman That's what I said to my children's children, it is the US Trade Representative Mike Froman Mike was surprised to see me as well, because we were in an Icelandic lava field No place is safe from the press.
When we returned to Reykjavik, I said to my wife, Mike Froman, eh And I said, I'm very glad it was a German engine weren t you.
It's funny, I was so happy that our Jewish children would be protected by a German engine How is the irony.
I have two tasks before me convince the boycott ended, and find a way to actually pay for a BMW.
I hope the US Trade Representative Mike Froman might be able to help me find an agreement.
Soon after Jay Z welcomed their first child, Blue Ivy Carter, last year, a poem, the rapper was apparently dedicated to his new baby girl zipped around the internet before I'm in the game, made a change and became rich n I think not difficult to use the word B ---- he opened I rapped I leafed through it, I sold it, I was living now with my daughter in this world I curse those it give the poem turned out to be a hoax, but a series of recent research supports the idea that close relations with women can greatly influence men's attitudes and behaviors at home and at work, for better and for worse .
Male CEOs generally pay their employees less in themselves more after son, but this trend did not hold with the girls actually male CEO with girls, firstborn actually pay their employees more, by giving employees female Raises the largest one.
Louis C. Ks 2017 a Surprising, Uncomfortable Back to form.
New special Netflix actor is his first in years to feel coherent and really difficult.
Louis CK new special 2017 starts with the closest of the stripped-down comedian can get to visual spectacle the sight of him in a suit Throughout its stratospheric ascent as stand-up, CK has always taken the stage in a T black shirt and jeans, uniform rules of art for someone who feeds if universal secular approach and often dark comedy at its most observation time in 2017 CK clearly wants it has changed somehow, he takes the stage dressed formally, looking more like a funeral director -home a worker Then, in another departure, he launches into a very prepared material.
CK has never been particularly interested in properly open and close his comedy games Early in the year 2010 Hilarious probably the peak of his stand-up career, he takes the stage and opens unceremoniously, hello everyone then spends two minutes deconstructing the futility of the term everyone in 2011's live at the Beacon Theater, it requires the audience cheering sit back and says it's the law no opening, shit that's just starting But 2017 CK starts as uncomfortably as he can so I think abortion is, uh, here's what I think he said at an awkward laughter from his audience, I think you should not get an abortion, unless you need a In this case, it is better to get one.
A new book by David George Haskell invites us to listen.
Like bird watchers can identify birds by their melodious calls, David George Haskell can distinguish trees by their sounds The task is particularly easy when it rains, as it does so often in the Ecuadorian rainforest Depending on the shapes and sizes their leaves, different plants react to falling drops by producing a splash of metallic sparks or low wooded, clean, boom or the sound of a typing speed Each species has its own song Train your ears and abandoning distracting echoes of a plastic rain jacket and you can carry a botanical inventory by her alone.
I taught ornithology students for many years, says Haskell, a natural history writer and professor of biology at Sewanee And I challenge my students Ok, now that you've learned the songs of 100 birds, your task is to learn the sounds of 20 trees Can you tell an oak from a maple ear that I'm going to, pay attention to their ears, and harvesting of sounds is an almost meditative experience and this, you realize that the various sound trees, and they have amazing sounds coming Our ears can help them without hearing how a maple tree changes his voice as tender leaves change early spring in the dying of autumn.
Charlotte and other cities of the South, poor children have the lowest chances of making it to the top income bracket of children all over the country why.
CHARLOTTE Shamelle Jackson moved from Philadelphia in the hope of finding work opportunities and better schools for his four children, ranging in age from two to 14 instead, she found a city with expensive housing, few good jobs, and schools that can vary greatly in quality I have ever had the wrong as hard as I do here in Charlotte, Jackson, 34, said.
Jackson isn t only data suggests that Charlotte is a dead end for people trying to escape the poverty that's particularly surprising because the city is a leader in the economic development of the South Bank of America has its headquarters here, and over the past two decades, the city has become a hub for the financial services industry in recent years, Charlotte and the surrounding Mecklenburg County, ranked among the most dynamic regions of the country Charlotte is a place of economic wonder in some respects, but it is also a city facing harsh disparities, which includes increasingly worrisome pockets of real deprivation, said Gene Nichol, a professor at UNC School of Law who has completed a detailed report on local poverty Some of these disparities bubbling to the surface in September, when demonstrations lighti side after a black man, Keith Lamont Scott, was shot dead by police.
A beautiful time-lapse capture the landscape in infrared light.
Why I end my boycott German cars Atlantic, end boycott, German.