Israeli Special Forces - Sayeret Tzanhanim (IDF paratroopers)

Sex, Second Grade and Setting It Straight

You've made it your business to set people straight ever since second grade, when you discovered a bunch of kids more uninformed and much less behaved than you, namely the first graders. Today you are a blogger, amusing yourself with nothing more harmless than personality types and book reports, or getting in touch with your sensitive side reflecting on human suffering and social justice.
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Earlier on you posted "You May Say I Am A Dreamer", your take on the first blossoms of what has been dubbed "the Arab Spring", the Middle East fiasco that may well culminate in a nuclear winter. You made five declarations:

1. You are a Christian.

2. You are a woman.

3. You are an American.

4. You are an intellectual.

(I'll vouch for you on two of these, one is a matter of definition and we'll have to take your word for the fourth.)
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What struck me was item five of this résumé:
"I am optimistic……" and then you commenced to join the international spirit squad rooting for the 'young and determined' taking to the streets in my part of the world. While some of the western cyber spectators may have sincerely believed they were witnessing the budding of emerging democracies, most were cheering on the mob simply because it sounded good.
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It was sexy.
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And collectively, the voices from the west made a difference. It was the West's cue to cut their Middle East clients' lifeline, a green light to NATO commanders eager to try out their high-tech toys in the Saharan sandbox without censor or scolding. Muslim extremists manipulated the masses in Midan at-Tahrir , played as the trump card to win the jackpot in the decade's long struggle to turn Egypt into an Islamic theocracy on the Iranian model. Their take on democracy is the right of the (Islamic) majority to eradicate or expel everyone else, and dominate those who remain behind.
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 Spring and summer have past; it's the end of autumn. Lets see.....

Was it good for Christians?

Woman buried alive before being stoned for immorality

Is it better now for women living under Sharia Law?

 

Will the Middle East be peaceful and will America be safer?

Is today's bloody, burning, bigoted Middle East your dream?

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Revolutions don't always usher in freedom. In fact, they seldom do. Russian Bolshevists, Rwandan mass murderers, and the Iranian Mullah-archy all hitched a ride on popular uprisings. If you lived here, or even read up on the subject before you posted, you would have known where the winds of spring can blow.



Demonstrators protesting sectarian violence against Coptic Egyptians



 So, you are a Christian, you are a woman. So you are an American. You might even be an intellectual.
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So what?

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Did you try to paint a sexy mental picture for us of you waving the stars and stripes, leading the troops as they beat a hasty retreat from the Middle East?
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Or did you honestly and truly believe you are leading Christian soldiers onward, marching as to war, with the banner of democracy going on before?

If you appoint yourself defender of the faith, women and the American way of life, you owe it to us to know what you're talking about, to think a little. You're not in second grade anymore; before you set us straight, you have to do your homework.

jesus@yahoo.com

This summer I started chatting. Why? Maybe boredom, maybe curiosity, but for whatever reason, it opened up a whole new world for me that I never knew existed.

Apparently, serious chatting is done on MSN and Yahoo. It's free and offers chatter bugs the options of visual and audio technology. I learned very quickly that the rules and physics of nature we take for granted in real life don’t apply in the chatting world. It is inhabited by beings invisible and anonymous, and the moral forces of gravity that keep our feet on the ground in real life don't always exist. More like a séance; you can't be sure if the spirits you conjure are good or evil, male or female, old or young, or even human.

A bit of advice to the new chatter bug: not all that glitters is gold. A 'mom' more often than not can be a pedophile, 'dad' is a dirty old man, and a 'sexy young woman' is probably a gay guy preying on straight men. Be very careful about giving any personal information to contacts, and photos of your kids are off limits.

The common belief is that anything goes in Yahoo land, but it turns out that there is a code of etiquette among chatterers. Texting in capitals is shouting – not nice. Large fonts are rude, and usually used by 'bots' – computer programs designed to lure the unsuspecting chatter to sites selling porn and infected with viruses. Chatting behavior is also regional: among North Americans and Europeans using the camera is only for people that know each other well, and an invitation to 'cam' can be misconstrued as making a pass, while Asians like to see who they are talking to.

Yahoo is a dark and lonely land of shadows, but there are redeeming rays of light for the tourist. I met a young girl who described herself as a 'sad girl'. Her mom's boyfriend was abusing her with mom's knowledge and without her protection. It was the boyfriend's birthday and the sad girl was distraught because he expected to get a 'birthday present' when he came home from work. I gave her (probably unwisely) my sister-in-law's phone number and stayed online with her until her teacher came to collect her. I asked her why she was in a chat room, of all places. She said her friends told her she needed to talk to an adult, and that she would find an adult in a chat room. I think her angel was very creative that day.

Some of the stories you hear touch the heart – sometimes literally. Rebecca is a young mother of Sara, who has a heart condition that could be simply treated with a pacemaker, but their medical insurance won't take responsibility for the expenses unless she literally drops dead. Rebecca doesn’t live every day by faith – she lives it minute by minute.

Laura is recently widowed and lives in the (still undefeated) Deep South raising her only son. She has enough courage and cheer to share with others while holding down a full time job.

Lilia lives in the Philippines. She is a born again Christian in a mostly Roman Catholic nation who raised two sons singlehandedly, and now like many Filipinos she has sent her oldest to work in the oil industry in the Middle East in order to make enough money to ensure his and their family's future. Last Friday night a typhoon hit her city. She woke in the night to the sound of a flashflood tearing through her neighborhood. The power went out all over the entire city, so she and her neighbors broke out to the rooftop and then spent the night in pitch darkness drenched by torrential rains and beaten by 90 knot winds until morning. She describes it as 'the end of the world'.

I chat almost exclusively with women, but with a handle like 'Ami', I get a lot of messages from men (called 'males' in Yahoo). I have yet to meet a man that is not interested in something I cannot and will not provide. The exception to this are Arabs. Once they find out that I am from Israel they are beside themselves with hatred. These are some of my favorite casual chats. Unable to tear me limb for limb in the safe Ethernet environment of Yahoo, Jihad online is very frustrating. I return smilies for swearwords, and eventually they realize the futility of their endeavors to evoke fear or anger, and hopefully I plant a seed of doubt in the bed of misconceptions they have been raised on.

Critics will tell you that Yahoo is ruled by the devil. Speaking as one who has been traveling there of late, I would say that they are absolutely right. Chatterers hiding behind their aliases expose the darkest sides of human nature. But may I remind you that Satan is the prince of the air in the world we live in offline no less than the internet, he is just more successful at maintaining his disguise.

And at this time of the year, when the Christian world is celebrating the advent of THE cosmic surfer maybe we should remember this: He came to dwell with human beings. They were sick and poor. They were wounded and broken. They were lonely. They were slaves to the same sin, lust and greed you find in Yahoo. They were called harlots and publicans; today we call them sluts and con men. And Jesus broke bread with them. He listened to their stories and told them His. He chatted with them.

I think that if Jesus would have come in our age, you'd find Him at Yahoo.

I Want You To Meet Someone

Maayan's big dream when she was a girl was to be a bride. She wasn't too keen on being a wife, but she wasn't one to let a little detail like marriage keep her from having a wedding. Her wedding would be fancy; a white wedding dress, flowers, adoring family and envious girlfriends. The groom was an unattractive but essential accessory, like a telephone pole by the Taj Mahal.

I fixed her lunch one day after school. She was in first or second grade and sat there by the kitchen table waiting for me. I told her there was someone I wanted her to meet. She didn't show any interest or objection.

"Who?"
"You know how Savta Sophie and Saba Yaakov (my wife's parents) were matched." (60 or so years ago arranged marriages were the rule in Jewish Bombay, love matches were the exception.) She knew, but didn't get the connection.

Well, a friend of mine has a son your age, I told her. I went on spinning the yarn. Now I had Maayan's attention. "My friend and I have decided that you (Maayan and the boy) are right for each other, so we (my imaginary friend and I) have arranged for you to get married when you're old enough. We think it would nice if you get to know each other."

"I don't want to marry him."
"You don't even know him."
She didn't care. "You can't make me marry him."

She had a point there. The trick in successfully fooling someone is to never deny the truth, but to twist it.

"I can't make you marry him, but only I can decide if you will have a wedding. If you won't marry him, then I won't let you get married."

I had her over a barrel. It was the prospect of missing her day more than a lifetime of loneliness that troubled her. She paused. Then her face hardened and her forehead furled.

"Okay, I'll marry him, but he'll wish he were dead."

The drop of anger in the corner of her eye told me I had gone too far, so I came clean before she started crying.

"Abba, that wasn't kidding – that was lying!" That was when we made the rule that pulling someone's leg longer than 5 minutes is lying.

In spite of being deceived regularly by her parents, Maayan grew up to be a well adjusted young woman with a healthy distrust of authority. With the exception of her first beau in high school, she's never made the mistake of bringing her boyfriends home.

Now there's a man she wants me to meet.

I don't know much about him.

The time has come, and Maayan is bringing a man into my life. I don't have much of a choice in the matter, and I will have to live with it and hope for the best, like a bride in an arranged marriage.

Maayan is the matchmaker for herself. For me. For him.

I hope it's a good match between the men in Maayan's life. Because if it isn't, one of us will wish he were dead.

Israel Remembers

Israel Memorial Day for Soldiers Fallen and Victims of Terrorism