Put Some Ice on that Microaggression and Grow-up

 

Microaggressions and Trigger Warnings placed on books and films and university classes? Who thought up this asinine system which sounds like the acceptance of the adult-child? Trigger warnings on classes because their subject matter might upset somebodies identity or other hang-up is what maturity was supposed to cure. University was the last place that transitory management called life was presumed to get people past their childhood hang-ups. The university should have simply had freshman orientation inform every student as a group that they were about to be treated like adults who had stepped out into the real world. But this all actually makes sense if one carries the protect the child from any harm child-rearing which was started after World War II and first applied in part to the Baby-Boomers. These were the kids whose parents rushed them to the doctor or the Emergency Room at the first sniffle, sneeze or cough. Where did we expect such activity to lead? Where did parents think, if they ever thought about this, that forcing or, at a minimum, pressuring their children to take band and learn a safe oboe or violin instead of Home Economics which exposed their daughters to dangerous items such as sewing machines, stoves, ovens, or Shop Class which exposed their sons to the threatening world of power tools or even manual impact devices and manual torque converters (hammers and screwdrivers) which could put an eye out, would lead to later in life their children feeling inadequate and unable to cope with life for themselves. Their children would never use such items; they would hire others to do such work. Make them learn to cook when they can make reservations on the cook’s night off. Fix a railing using tools was out of the question when the handyman could be paid to take such risks thus saving their sons the challenge and danger. This was some of the psyche of parents in the late 1940’s through the late 1960’s and into the early 1970’s as the Baby-Boomers were brought into adulthood. The excuse always was that they meant well and that repaired the scars, not.

 

Not every parent was like this. But even some of the less protective parents refused to permit their son to play football or other “dangerous” sports where concussions were a potential danger as their child was going to use their head for higher purposes and thus must be guarded from any and all damage. They did not realize the damage they were performing. Then, we Baby Boomers began to have the next generation and now the protection racket went mainstream. Again there were the risk adverse parenting methods and some which prepared their child for the real world. Parents who had more than two, three children at the most were irresponsible and probably would let them risk injury while growing up. How absolutely thoughtless they acted. Some of the Baby-Boomers refused to have even one child as they were overcome by the “me first” complex where any complication that stood between them and complete self-fulfillment was to be avoided, shunned like the monster under their beds as children. They served themselves and no other and would usually pair up to pretend they were a family, a childless family as it even gained terminology. But those who had children, or more often child, were tasked to see them through life free from any trauma. Bicycles were to be ridden with full safety gear including helmet, knee pads, elbow pads, wrist guards, hip pads and whatever could protect their precious little bundle of joy short of wrapping them in bubble wrap. Baseball the batters wore helmets and shin guards and forearm guards in case they were struck by a pitch. Perhaps teaching them to dodge would have been preferable but that required extreme coordination and was less than 100% effective. Better safe than sorry became the parental watchword.

 

Child Decked Out to Ride in Safety

 

With each generation having fewer children than the number of parents is a mathematical proof for eventual extinction. Ask Russia or Europe where birth rates are all well below the 2.1 children per woman replacement rate where zero growth and zero shrinkage is presumed to take place. A healthy population would have that ratio of babies to women closer to 2.5 and often much higher. But keeping junior safe from all those terrible threats and dangers out in the world takes up all their time, who has time for a second or third or heavens forbid, a fourth child. Their children never need worry about the real world as they will go to university for a decade plus and get sufficient degrees such that they will never need use tools other than a pen and paper, they will be professionals, doctors, lawyers and never work with their hands when their brains have been so cultivated. This was raising a psychosis, not actually a child, never ever considered raising their child for anything short of a professional practice and an easy and good life as defined by the child’s parents and their grandparents who would need to be consulted on virtually every choice the actual parents found difficult. The big questions would be, do we expose little junior to life on a farm as there are so many dangerous things like hay forks and tractors with plow blades and junior will definitely never need to farm. Even if junior wished to act like farmer Joe, he would do so with a trowel and raise roses or other respectful things like strawberries or tomatoes, though the latter might be too much of a challenge. Of course the parents chose a safe environment for university and these universities had to please those who wrote the checks that paid for the $100,000.00 per year or more before dorm costs, fraternity or sorority costs plus books and a weekly generous allowance so they could have safe fun and safe everything.

 

Universities became more about coddling precious and gentle, all so innocent and unaware adult-children over education. They had mandatory classes to explain how dangerous and injurious certain words and phrases could be and that the university would not couch the use of such language from its staff or students. Students were to respect their fellow students above all else so all could have a safe university experience. Life became all about safe experiences which never challenged the protected child. Nobody ever thought to simply tell a child struck by an errant pitch to simply, “Put some ice on it and take your base.” Instead an instant diagnosis was performed like triage and both batter and pitcher, the victim and the abuser were made to shake hands and make up for their acts which potentially harmed another child. This way each wears a scar, one having what we used to call a bruise but now parents refer to such injury as a contusion as none of these parents would call such a bruise as that would be so low-life talk that is totally unacceptable in their circle. It all becomes about appearance and a contest over whose child will be the most successful. There will be arguments where they decide if a lawyer supersedes a family practice or general practitioner or does a heart surgeon supersede the lawyer; then they arrange for the child to leave to seek the greatest career. Not until they are safely through receiving their law degree or training as an intern can parents relax knowing they completed the task of raising a perfect child.

 

These perfect children still have not been exposed to reality. Imagine an intern assigned one Saturday night, though it could be any night, to work in the Emergency Room in a large and prestigious hospital in a now less than desirable neighborhood. Are they prepared for the cursing and swearing they will hear? This is such a stark introduction to the world of colorful language they are likely to receive. Imagine a man comes in with a severe knife wound and there is already another man with a gunshot wound. Does anyone believe life thus far had prepared them for the language and possible actions should these two patients see one another? The level of animosity which will be displayed by both these fine and upstanding belligerents will only be outshone by the brilliant repertoire of language which will be used. If an elderly physician witnesses this confrontation he would likely have something witty and condescending to one or both men as he would quite likely tell one to, “Put a sock in it,” and the other to, “Put some ice on it and I’ll get to you when you act like a man.” Neither swears one iota but both said firmly and resolutely could have the effect of shutting down the conversation. The existence of a number of the city’s finest and security on location assists with the physician’s demands. The young adult-child intern is likely completely unprepared for such a scenario and would run to their safe space away from the noise.

 

One cannot honestly believe that parents are shelling over such gross amounts of money to have their offspring protected from reality by the very institution which is presumed to be preparing them for life in the corporate jungle. These ill prepared adult-children will get eaten alive by anybody raised spending any amount of time on what we call the mean streets. The streets educate a child into an adult with great alacrity providing a wide range of experiences. First and most obvious is the colorful language. Nothing is merely gnarly, a word possibly within the adult-child’s vernacular, but is more probably f&#$ing gnarly or bodaciously gnarly sh^t or other equally colorful adjectives used. An injured person’s language who was in the knife against a gun fight and was shot or stabbed and deeply injured and cut to the bone will use language that might be truly shocking to a Marine, though no Marine worth their salt would show shock or surprise, and life threatening to the sheltered adult-child. Emergency Rooms come as trigger warning free zones and sans safe spaces. They are reality in its most raw form with people attempting to fake injuries so that a physician will write them some prescription for some pharmaceutical drugs, most likely pain killers but sometimes pep pills. Tell the one in a muscle shirt in Detroit in February that he does not need the medication he is demanding and that a Tylenol would be just as suitable as what he demanded for his pain. Listen to the language as the physician tells the gentleman that he is being discharged and recommended to take two Tylenol every three hours as necessary for pain. The next experience comes without warning and with nowhere to run as there are no safe zones and the threats of physical violence are such that the adult-child never even knew could pass from a civilized person’s lips, welcome to the real imperfections in the real world. These youths are not being served any good purpose protecting them from contrary ideas or the more colorful side of language along with threats of violence made by real people in real situations in the real world. Things are far from antiseptic in reality but perhaps that will change and everybody will be more civilized and the world will see the dawning of the “Age of Aquarius” and we can all live as John Lennon had dreamed to “Imagine” and all will then have no need of trigger warnings and everywhere will be a safe zone. I, for one, dread such a day as there would be no free thought or further development as it is the rough and tumble of our world which necessitates change and that agitation is required to make those changes and discoveries, Rock On!.

 

 

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Hard Truth in Action

 

We need to establish a small matter for defining what makes a civilized human being. Does a civil human being assist people in distress? How about if it is a group of women? A group of women in their eighties out for a stroll when they are assaulted and two or three are hurt, even bleeding? Do you agree with me that any normal human being with an ounce of human emotions and compassions would jump in and at the very least call for an ambulance if not apply basic first aid? I would hope we are in agreement on at least this much as a true test of humanity and moral humanity. Now we can proceed with the article. We can examine a morning in Jerusalem and a string of events which scream a reality which, until the world wraps their arms around this, are faced in Israel almost daily.

 

The news I read the other day in this article about a group of five octogenarians, grandmothers or potentially great-grandmothers, but that is simply some additional information which makes these ladies potentially even more deserving of civility, was shocking in its inhumanity. Unfortunately that was quite the case this past week as they set out as they had many times before for their stroll around the Promenade near their assisted care residence. These lively ladies, well, lively for octogenarians of either gender and may we be capable of such a stroll when we reach that fine age, faced a horror purely shocking in its remifications. There was something these ladies had not prepared for, as how does one prepare to be violated walking right next to their residence. That was when they heard one of their company scream out, not in pain but in warning. Marina Fuchs, 86, shouted to her friends: “Girls, run, run!” Further information on this cowardly attack can be read here. The attack was as horrific as it was disgusting, completely disgusting and carried out by some really depraved excuses for human beings as no normal human would ever commit such an assault against women for starters and octogenarian women at that.

 

So we have an assault of five octogenarian women by a pair of bold, brave, stout, masked terrorists and also unbelievably vicious risk adverse terrorists who had been obviously seeking the easiest prey they could find and who have more to be ashamed over than they have to their credit for drawing blood from a couple of eighty year old plus women. Such boldness should never go unpunished, even by their fellow jihadists. These women who ended up as the targets for these brave soldiers of Allah were walking by the Haas Promenade as has been their habit. Perhaps having their promenade on the promenade take place around the same time day after day made them targets. Who chooses a group of eighty plus year old ladies as their target, we do not care how regular and dependable these ladies walking the promenade happened to be. Eighty year old ladies are far from appropriate targets unless the aim is to murder every last Israeli. That may not be all that far from their target, but that we will reach later. The immediate problem is entirely separate for now. These assailants, terrorists, set upon two of the women, eighty year old women, stabbing them multiple times, one stabbed from behind, and then fled before the remaining three actually knew what had struck their friends. As noted above, one of the stabbed victims shouted out her warning, not necessarily that concerned for her own welfare but thinking of the welfare of her friends. She immediately warned the others with her yelling of, “Girls, run, run!” The rest were taken aback by their friend’s scream but turned and saw their friends fallen onto the pavement with one obviously bleeding from her chest. The attackers had run off probably scared defenseless that the remaining three eighty year old women might turn on them and disarm them beating them senseless with their purses. These two brave attackers had seen how vicious old women with purses are capable of becoming when seeing Monty Python.

 

Seriously, the other women did not flee but instead returned to assist their friends as best as they were able. This was where the story became really sickening. They turned to some construction workers who were taking a break near to the scene for assistance. They did not expect these men to be physicians; they simply requested that they call for an ambulance. The workmen refused to assist initially pretending not to understand Hebrew and then feigning to be having important discussions on their phones making them unable to disconnect and phone for help, or possibly place their all-important call on hold pausing it to call for help. Marina Fuchs revealed that Arab laborers at the scene of the attack refused to help the Jewish victims, even as they bled from their stab wounds. She reported that, “We walked and next to the bathrooms stood Arabs who were cleaning there. We asked them to call an ambulance. They wouldn’t agree to do so, and acted as if they were talking on the phone.” The assailants were an evil enough representation but this was even a worse representation of the depth of the Arab hatred for the Jews residing amongst them as they desire the Jews not just gone but dead, and that was what this refusal indicates and is what everyone in the world needs to understand. There are far too many who would instead of criticizing the Arabs would claim that if this is so bothersome, then maybe the Jews should heed this hatred and simply leave and return from whence they came. The question then has to be where does the half of the Israeli population, Jewish population, who were spat out by their former Arab nations go? These Jews had never resided in Europe or elsewhere and their families had resided in their Arab homes through thick and thin for, in many cases, over a thousand years. Where do these Jews go, suggestions?

 

Eventually help was called and the Magen David Adom (MDA) paramedics treated the victims and evacuated them to Sha’arei Tzedek Hospital. The MDA senior paramedic spokesperson Shlomi Tedgi reported, “We saw two elderly women, about 80 years old, lying on the dust by the promenade. They were fully conscious and suffered from stab wounds, one in her limbs and her upper body and the other in her upper body. They talked and interacted with us. We gave them field medical treatment an evacuated them to the hospital. They were in moderate but stable condition.” Sha’arei Tzedek Hospital reported that the elderly ladies they treated are both in moderate condition with wounds to their backs and limbs.

 

Octogenarian Women Haas Promenade Terror Scene

 

Were this refusal be the Arab worker an isolated instance, then perhaps the argument could be made that it was an outlier, an isolated incident and dismissed as a boorish response to fellow human beings in distress. Unfortunately it is simply reminiscent of a more tragic incident just this past October in the Old City sections of Jerusalem. This incident was in many ways even worse scenario as in this attack Rabbi Nehemia Lavi, age forty-one, and Aharon Banita Bennett, age twenty-one, lost their lives while Bennett’s wife was seriously wounded and his two-year-old son was lightly wounded. The deadly attack took place on Hagai Street immediately adjacent to a medical clinic. This Arab health clinic was open and fully staffed at the time of the incident yet not a single staff member went to the aid of the injured and dying despite pleadings for assistance. This was not the end of the disgusting behavior as the residents of this Arab neighborhood mocked and laughed at Bennett’s wounded wife as she tried to escape the attacker and was seeking assistance, any assistance. This has not always been the response and to be fair there have been Arab families who have taken in Jews in distress hiding them from mobs which would have easily murdered them. These instances are instructive as the Arab families who decide to take such bold actions are often at the behest of the head of household who pleads to never be identified as they fear their governing Palestinian Authority, if not their neighbors, would murder them. Assisting a Jew is almost always punished as it is seen as supporting the Zionist enemy. The unfortunate thing is those willing to risk everything and act humanely are in the minority and often pay the price for their heroic deeds. Still, when physicians refuse to give aid, what may have been life-saving aid, that is a whole new area which can only leave one to wonder how any peace can be reached when the population holds such animosity.

 

This hatred has been cultivated through the Palestinian Authority and related media, schools, entertainment industry and enforced through laws making interactions such as selling an apartment or land to a Jew or Jewish institution punishable by death. The indoctrination has been instituted for over two generations and has taken such a poisonous affect that even if peace were reached tomorrow it would take numerous generations to undo the damages already inflicted. It is the deep-seated animosity and visceral hatreds which now prevent any peace from being initiated as Mahmoud Abbas, even if he desired peace, which his actions prove he does not, he would be murdered in the most horrific of manners imaginable by his own people for making such an agreement. It would not matter how he would plead that he had tricked the Jews, just the picture of him in a signing ceremony with an Israeli would be sufficient cause for his lynching. The reason Abbas demands ever more ludicrous concessions from the Israelis just to simply meet once, shake hands, and never meet again and end all even motions of negotiating a peace can be traced to the absolute poisoning of the waters separating the Arab Palestinian society from the Jews. The proof of which way the animosity and hatreds flow is easily represented as the above is indicative of Arab refusal to even call an ambulance for an eighty year old woman victim of a terrorist stabbing and the refusal by medical “professionals” to treat Jews stabbed right outside their clinic while the examples of Israeli hospitals treating Arab Palestinians are long and documented well. Here are just a few stand-out examples of Arabs treated by Israeli hospitals, Ismail Haniyeh’s daughter’s week-long admission to a hospital in Tel Aviv, Mahmoud Abbas’s wife treated in Israel, mother-in-law of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, Gazan child with severe burns is being treated in an Israeli hospital after a devastating house fire in Gaza and we could continue this for hours as this search in Google proves but one would be beyond hard-pressed to find a single case of an Israeli, Arab, Jew or other, being treated in a Palestinian Hospital. This does not mean to overshadow this terror attack against these elderly women and the refusal to even lift a finger and call an ambulance by nearby Arab workers which itself speaks volumes.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Agony and the Ecstasy

 

Writing a daily post on a news blog where you have been writing articles almost daily is that there are slow news days, no news days, and days such as today where almost all the news is about something I have already written on, and for most, written on extensively. I am sure my regular readers have memorized by now and know every letter and note written on such things as the San Remo Conference, the Iran nuclear disaster of a deal, Sykes Picot, Balfour Declaration, Green Line, Global Warming, United Nations Human Rights Commission, Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Netanyahu or even something so specific as Turkey and the Kurdish Militias so there is no real need to go these today. That is the problem and I really do not want to be bummed writing about the ongoing terror stabbings and car assaults along with rock and boulder throwing and firebombings and it will have to suffice that they are all ongoing and more. So that leaves us in the quandary as to what to write about. And quoting John Cleese, “And now for Something completely different?”

 

 

 

 

We could do hopes and things we hope to do sooner rather than later such as trips to see new things in Jerusalem, and that is what is so really exciting about Jerusalem that even if you lived there you could almost daily find somewhere you had not been or something new about a place you have been to daily such as saying your morning prayers at the Kotel. Of course a trip to Jerusalem would mean I would need to post really early on one day and then depend on my tablet holding a charge for the next day which would hopefully be about the trip. We may end up posting earlier on some days as there is a class I hope grabs my interest sufficiently to make me desire to learn more, one can always be exposed to more and hope the teachers or class interactions to make a lasting impression so one also learns more, and isn’t that the challenge of so many things in life. When we are young and so completely ignorant we learn things often the first time we are introduced to them such as the stove top is hot, a closed bedroom door means do not enter, that is unless there are sounds which definitely need investigation in your young teenage child’s room and then you enter even if it takes kicking the door open, and you have no idea how many times I thank Hashem that I never faced that challenge. There is no blessing greater than a child who even if they hated you’re telling them what to or not to do and despite protesting or yelling that you will not ruin their life still obeyed your council and even admitted that you were right in the end and are now successful and happy even if they still have one last council which will be the most difficult when that time comes, that is their making Aliyah when you tell them it is time. There are so many things in life we can thank Hashem for, those things we thank Hashem when they happen and those things it takes us time to realize why such things were for the best. It really is strange how life with all its challenges and twists and turns result in placing you where you need to be and gives you the tools to meet the coming challenge. Let us pray we always find that strength.

 

There are those events that we really have no clue and will go to Hashem when our time comes and then we will be instructed exactly how that was necessary and we will look back and understand that our part, though small and beyond meaning to us was so very vital and we will praise Hashem for allowing us to be a part of His designs and we will feel proud of that moment as we were when young and we pleased our parents as after all, is not Hashem the greatest Parent possible? Just hope that we made that sacrifice or committed to that challenge that Hashem assigned us and Hashem was not required to give that privilege to someone else as we fell short. What will amaze us is how even things which we thought were so wrong were so somebody else could take on a challenge due to our little shove on their lives because of our failings, another item that will allow us to see those acts as something so required, kind of how Joseph’s older brothers likely felt, well, besides their being terrified when they finally realized that Joseph was now the second most powerful man in Egypt and could have then slain at his slightest whim, and we read of the wisdom of him to not do so and allow for the formation of the twelve tribes as Hashem had desired. We really do not know what things were really necessary and what were things just for making our lives enriched and satisfying us like having all the vanilla (or flavor of your choosing) ice cream in the freezer and nobody to yell at you telling you that you have had enough ice cream for the day. Such are the little things which mean so much to each if us and we will be amused if not shocked when we have revealed to us what acts we performed regularly that so pleased Hashem.

 

Beyond the Cusp