September 28, 2008 | 5:07 pm

E-mail to the webmaster: The writings of all the preliterate scribes

Posted by The Web Guy

Jackie Cox writes:

why don’t you use the word hebrew or israeli? Is it because of the endless debate between the scribes and the pharisees? I am 65 now and have studied all my life, taken journeys to other countries and observed any endless array of religions, each one with spiritual paranormal beliefs, If observed as an independent observer, it becomes apparent that each person has somehow created his own distinct viewpoint of his God/ Great Spirit/ Saint/ Profit whatever, In each one it seems that a spirit has manifested itself to a person or persons within each culturally diverse religion and at some point in time during the development of his/her civilization a spirit unseen by the others has given information to an individual so great that the entire culture has been affected by this spirit, working through some individual in the group. The event thusly recorded or passed down by word of mouth until a written language was developed. The most diverse and possibly the oldest is hinduism 13,000 gods,saints whatever, shiva, ignorance the really bad saint is akin to the devil. Judaic religions, possibly because no one seems to either agree nor disagree on whether their is a heaven or hell, which only says that some of the writers may not have had a visit from the spirits. plus each ones interpretation of god is frequently dissimilar has led to the catholics and christians ( very similar ) and then muhammad, and later on a never ending division of churches. each one claiming to be the one with the words we need to see our spirits thru time. Almost all have one thing in common, they are words, written a very long time ago. Most began when mankind believed the earth was flat or the center of the universe and that all the other stars and stuff up their circled the earth. All the writings of all the preliterate scribes( if viewed as an independent observer become questionable as to their actual validity) until you realize that simple languages were a long time in coming, and that only very recently have we began to get a gripe of the possible uses of the materials surrounding us that can be made into something more than simple tools for defense against our predators, the lions, wolves, bears, and other big animals, and small, the diseases, kept our life span at a minimum for an eternity. Simply dentistry, prolonging our ability to masticate our foods, was a biggy, Nylon, distilled and synthesized from petroleum (toothbrush) previously made from animal hair, affordably for the anarchy, as was literacy. writing materials have only recently became easier than rocks and tree bark. The printing press is fairly new. The lifespan has increased more in the last 50 years than all the time gone on before( for the 1st world countries) The computer/internet for public use is about 6 years old, imagine that, all the cumulative intelligence of man now in one book, enabling any child with enough moxy to read and comprehend to know anything he can spell, virtually all the children are in this category. Most people like myself have been identified as paranoid delusional or just the latter. anyone with the time to never stop learning ends up disagreeing with virtually everyone, past and present, and with good reason, we are all different, the result of our experiences, I was in the navy at 17 , I took the GED test, it was 15.7 year grade level, I quit school and studied on my on. The navy sent me to an endless array of training, from intelligence, to optics and machine shop, to computers in the day of fortran and cobol. When I got out I worked for an industrial engineering consulting firm in time study, methods product design etc etc I worked for whatever company I picked out for as long as I wanted from 1965 until 1973 I studied and improved 12 different diverse; design, engineering, manufacturing,marketing companies. My next to last last job, the first company to grow silicon mounds, slice them into wafers, design integrated circuits and use monolithic photography to make the worlds first silicon based semiconductors and integrated circuits, which IBM used to complete the computer architecture for the worlds first PC’s. On that job, a study of the entire company structure, I employed 4 phd’s, There were two other silicon startups at that time. Texas Instruments and fairchild. There is a neverending dispute as to who was first, Academia says it was Noyce, The truth is that before there were electronic computers there were electric computers, Monolithic photography enabled the integration of all the individual machines into the 1401 IBM 1st generation electronic computer, hundreds of thousands of engineering manhours brought us into IBM PC’s, But the fed and monopoly laws refused to allow IBM to make their designs, setting back the internet a good 20 years. The group who thought they could take computers away from IBM had all the money for patent attorneys and judges, as well as money to manufacture, but, they didn’t have the moxy, they had Noyce, the self proclaimed designer, who didn’t understand the actual design and manufacturing processes, so the PC clones were 20 years in coming. The internet took another 10 years or so. I spent my life in this world thinking of computer design and math modeling until my last job with Bell Northern Research Labs (Alexander Graham Bells old Company) I had developed the empirical matrix while working for john west of Manitowoc engineering ( world leader in tower lifting equipment) and believed I could convince Bell To Construct a series of printed circuit boards to employ the matrix. I got into a disagreement on the issue and left and formed my own company in ottawa ontario but moved it to montreal in 67, a mistake, I didn’t realize that starting in 79 They would ethnically cleanse the province of anyone they felt was procanadian, and they especially didn’t want americans living there. So I wasted the next 15 years fighting them, They declared me an enemy of the quebec gouvernment in 79 it took them 15 years to cook up a case for deportation. I believe all this instrumentation that man builds is coming from the great spirit/spirits. I have spent a life of devout prayer and wishing all those around me to be well and sound of thought. In my mind there was always this everpresent spector, the language breaks down on viable description.The nearest I can get to describing the realities that I see in my mind (visions) not dreams given the limitations of language is that there are spectrums/dimensions that exist whereby entities of a paranormal/spiritual exist, some I have observed with eyes wide open are but a glimmer of movement, visual to me in the dimmest of lights, these have never actually communicated with me in any form other than to permit the vision, since this is outside the realm of existing science and instrumentation, it only serves to illustrate to me of their existence. The most significant vision to me was an assembly of more than a glimmer, up higher than the rest was a cloaked figure who seemed to be sitting, on nothing resting on a desk, also invisible, in a spectrum the color of the sun, if you looked directly at it and then looked away, the absolute voidence of light but with tiny points of light going off and on—- down lower to the left of the vision was an endless group of spirits all hooded, hardly visible dark, the first one was holding a book out to me thumbing thru the whole book in an instant, all the pages were blank, they showed nothing, then farther off to the right was this enormous activity a blur of activity in black and white. I looked back at the greater of all the scene, who simply looked away. This vision was in gesu church in ceremony, the spirit looked away from the priest, an old man. I have no Idea as to why I was permitted to see this event or even how, the scene creates an enormous amount of questions. It was real, it occurred anter a few hours of prayer, and meditation, I used to go there to listen to the Marquette Choir practice and prey for the children and indeed the Jesuits, whose lives are dedicated to truth. I saw other scenes their, but nothing as significant as the one with the great spirit, and since that time my life has changed, I feel the presence of a gathering almost continually. After study on the internet I came across the” Book of Mary” which was considered but not recommended to be included in the kings bible, they gave several reasons, one, she was only a woman, peter who acknowledged she spent more time with christ than anyone she was his companion, asked her if there was anything he said to her that they had not yet said. Her words were few she said that he told her ” the mind rests between the spirit and the soul ” And that they should go out into the world starting up churches, groups of peoples meeting together in an effort to do the right thing for themselves and their families. When I read this It became clear to me that the way to my mind was through my spirit, perhaps something I have in common with all the spirits I see. It gives me hope that the world is influenced by these spirits, and an understanding of the incredible surge in scientific instrumentation we are beginning to experience that will change the world. I have seen and believe in an entity with the capacity to design and construct nature and what is, existing in a realm that not only escapes our understanding, but our ability to describe it as well. My unanswered questions, where did they come from, How were these great powers obtained, how are we related to them, are they an extension of ourselves, what is our ultimately purpose. and on and on. Oh, I know each religion proclaims to have already answered all these questions, and that they are the way, and so forth. Yet all of them require that you literally hypnotize yourself into believing to actually believe. None of them predicted the computer, a devise enabling man to raise himself to heights,magnitudes, above what man with books can achieve. Knowing all men are different, I have come to believe that God is a word ment to describe truth, and this creature, If everything came from somewhere, who is the most significant variable of our existence, would require that we dedicate ourselves to the search for truth. I believe the great spirit comes to man thru his spirit and uses some people to discover the realities around us that we have overlooked enabling us to progress with time, and that to stop discovery and proclaim any old preliterate scribe to have found the ultimate truth ( even though in all probability the great spirit visited these men as well ) is to substitute the means for the end. I read each one and can see where they made great progress for society at their point in time, yet the truth remains that there can only be truth, nothing else, and if these great men were alive today they would say the same thing, go forward in time, don’t let me slow you down, do as I have done which is to improve society, not destroy it. Don’t make decisions without access to the variables, don’t abandon nature and replace it with fashion and law, design for functionality, not fashion, stop denaturing the earth, respect the other species, instinct is not a word, but, an excuse refusing to admit the other species have languages, cultures, they fall in love, have families. Just because we don’t understand them doesn’t mean anything less than we still aren’t too bright. My viewpoint we have an insidious judiciary that makes self serving laws and employ an academic caste system to back them up, and the future generations given a single book and the ability to communicate all discoveries to all people will change the world into a better place. Jewish is this a possible meaning of the word? Will our children forgive, forget the lies and bring us into a better world, one dedicated to God, the truth.

 

September 26, 2008 | 4:27 am

Dear Mr. Bloggish, send me some dough

Posted by The Web Guy

Dear Mr. Bloggish:

I need to ask you to support an urgent secret business relationship with a transfer of funds of great magnitude.

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion USD. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you.

I am working with Mr. Phil Gramm, lobbyist for UBS, who (God willing) will be my replacement as Ministry of the Treasury in January. As a former U.S. congressional leader and the architect of the PALIN / McCain Financial Doctrine, you may know him as the leader of the American banking deregulation movement in the 1990s. As such, you can be assured that this transaction is 100% safe.

This is a matter of great urgency. We need a blank check. We need the funds as quickly as possible. We cannot directly transfer these funds in the names of our close friends because we are constantly under surveillance. My family lawyer advised me that I should look for a reliable and trustworthy person who will act as a next of kin so the funds can be transferred.

Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Yours Faithfully,
Minister of Treasury Paulson

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September 24, 2008 | 1:19 am

Rosh Hashanah means frank talk with family, not just apples and honey

Posted by The Web Guy

I'm happy to share this post from guest blogger Alissa Bader:


The year 5769 is nearly upon us -- the time for apples and honey, new Hebrew calendars, and round challahs in the supermarket.

It's a time for New Year's cards in the mail and frantically getting all of your work done in your day job in hopes of getting to shul on time. And it's a time of year, like it or not, when you will inevitably wind up connecting with the family again.

This year, it can be tough and sometimes uncomfortable.

It's an election year. And American Judaism is split into two camps these days: those who are for Obama, and those who are not.

Much has been written already about the political beliefs of our now-elderly relatives, many of whom are retirees in Florida. These are the ones who receive (and forward to us) all of the smear e-mails, who listen for hours-on-end to right-wing AM talk radio. The ones who still vehemently insist that Obama is a Muslim, that he's friends with terrorists, that he will in no way be an ally to Israel.

These feelings are so deep-set, so visceral, that bringing them up in conversation can lead to some . . .well, strong reactions.

My Uncle Isaac, in particular, is a great example. A recent conversation I had with became especially animated when we discussed of Obama's acceptance speech at Mile High Stadium.

He exclaimed: "The speech was just the same as Hitler speaking at Nuremberg!" And to this I could only respond that I was at Obama's speech (at the stadium) and I also saw Triumph of the Will (on a DVD), and the only similarities I saw were . . .well, actually none, come to think of it.

So rather than talk about trying to disprove various rumors and smear campaigns and trying to follow them up with facts, let's think for a moment about what makes some family members act the way that they do towards Obama.

I'll tell you part of what I think it is, quite bluntly: race. The term "schvartza" invariably comes up when I mention Obama to anyone of a certain age in my family. Further (again anecdotal) evidence shows that this term comes up whenever similar conversations with other friend's relatives.

Now this reaction? I blame it on a certain nasty part of the first-generation, turn-of-the-last-century, Eastern-European immigrant mindset that still has a meaning in some circles.

It's a set of thoughts, such as a flinch of horror when you see someone with darker skin also reaching into the pickle barrel. When you find yourself shouting "I won't let you schvartzas touch me!" to your home health aide, who happens to be from Trinidad. When you think that that certain words really aren't that harmful to others . . . but then you'll never find yourself saying them out loud in most company in certain neighborhoods.

I have particular contempt for the for the Republican Jewish Coalition (and no, I am not going to gratify them by posting a link to them here) because the RJC is exploiting my elderly relatives' fears.

They're the ones who've been pushing this racist agenda (and yes, depressing as it is to many of us in younger generations, racism is still there, in many of our families). They've also, more despicably, pushed the fear that can ultimately be summed up in two words: "No Israel!"

And to a generation where many saw attempted extermination up close and personal, followed by the founding of a new country, characterizing as renewal . . . the words, "No Israel!" are absolutely terrifying.

So no matter that the very observant Florida congressman, Robert Wexler, endorses Obama. No matter that the head of the ADL, Abraham Foxman, has said that both McCain and Obama would be good for Israel. No matter. The fear relentlessly encouraged by the RJC has fed the ugliness that unfortunately exists in many of our families. Yes, it's right up there in front of us now, right out in the open.

And now, it's our job to overcome it -- particularly during the High Holy Days, a time of renewal, a time when us Jews are strongly encouraged to start over with a clean slate.

It's a perfect time for us to talk with our relatives, and understand them (interesting conversational asides notwithstanding).

Then we can share the direction our hopes and hearts are taking us, and invite them along.

-- Alissa Bader

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Alissa Bader lives in Denver, Colorado, and is an Obama supporter. Her uncle, who lives around Ft. Lauderdale, is not

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September 23, 2008 | 2:38 am

Bloggers expose neocon secret: Sarah Palin is a ‘Jewess’

Posted by The Web Guy

We’re always searching the WWW to bring you choice morsels of fact-like news stories, photos and videos, and tonight’s discovery is sure to delight:

Sarah Palin is a Jewess

says the headline over at the Jewish Conspiracy Exposed blog.  We need help publicizing the conspiracy, so good on you guys.  Attendance at the Elders of Zion meetings is way down.  Is it the economy, do you think?

Anyhow, the story includes helpful hints on how to categorize the post:

Filed under: israel, jewish conspiracy, jewish crime, media control, mossad | Tags: crypto jew, jew, jewess palin, libertyforum, LibertyForum.org, LibertyForum.org shutdown, Palin jew, Palin jewish, Sarah Palin is a Jew, sarah palin is a jewess |

That’s good.  I’m gonna use the same tags here.  With keyword searches like that, we’ll get news of the Jewish Conspiracy all over the Interwebs!

And then are are facts! And charts! And conclusions!

All this research is credited to the ‘judicial biz’ blog which has an uncanny ability to spot Jews under every rock, paper and scissors.  Again, a tip of the kippah!  Where would Mossad be without you?

So, you see, it’s all documented.  And linked.  The evidence is right in front of you.

Here’s the bloggers conclusion:

This Would Explain A Lot

It is starting to look as thought Palin has Jewish blood. Palin just didn’t come out of nowhere. McCain won’t last 8 years, so this girl will be president. The Zionists just didn’t let her appear out of thin air.

Jews of America, let’s all sing ‘Havenu Shalom Aleichem’ for our long-lost sister Sarah.

She was married to Abraham, you know.  Avraham avinu,  Avraham dudenu.

 

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September 22, 2008 | 4:58 pm

Sarah Palin kosher sausage?

Posted by The Web Guy

That was what the menu board read at Jeff’s Gourmet Kosher Sausage on Pico Blvd. last week—and here’s the evidence as photographed by The Journal’s Dan Kacvinski.

Moose and deer, if properly slaughtered and prepared, can be kosher, as Rob Eshman noted in his article ‘Eating Bambi (recipe included)’.

But do you really want to put your lipstick on a moose?

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September 21, 2008 | 1:42 am

Last Jews of Calcutta have one last guardian

Posted by The Web Guy

Regular readers know I am a sucker for “Jews among the the nations” stories.

We’ve covered the last Jews of Shanghai, Chinese Jews who reconnected in Israel, the return of India’s B’Nai Menashe (one of the lost Ten Tribes) to Israel, the Ethiopian Jews, Iraqi Jews and more.

Tonight I came across a sad story from the Associated Press about the few remaining Jews in Calcutta, India, and the one guy, Shalom Israel, who takes care of them all:

Last Jews of Calcutta have one last guardian

By SAM DOLNICK

CALCUTTA, India (AP)—The stooped man in the yarmulke fights his way through this chaotic city, the weight of generations heavy upon his shoulders.

He squeezes past tea stalls and sidewalk electricians, past idle rickshaws and honking cars. He edges through rows of vendors selling sparkly hair clips and, finally, pushes open a rusty gate hidden from the street.

Today is the Sabbath, and Shalom Israel, one of the last Jews of Calcutta, has reached a cobwebbed synagogue, a once-grand building with imposing doors that nearly always stay shuttered, and spires that soar up toward the monsoon clouds.

Israel comes every Friday to light a candle, say a prayer, and check on the three synagogues still standing, however precariously, as relics of a passed era of plenty. Most weeks, he is the only visitor.

There were once 5,000 Jews living in this teeming port city, but today, as the Jewish New Year approaches, there are fewer than 35. Israel, 38 with a thin beard, is the youngest by nearly 25 years.

Israel lives inside the only place left where Jews aren’t a minority—the Jewish cemetery. He cares for the graves of his father, his great-grandparents, his uncles and his aunts, along with more than 2,000 other Jewish tombs.

He also tends to the two dozen Jewish elders still living, handles the last rites when they die, and, to stay kosher, butchers his own meat.

It’s not easy being the last of your people.

“It’s only a matter of time before people die or leave,” said Israel. “There is no future ... The inevitable, I can’t fight.”

Indeed, repopulating the community would be tough. There aren’t many unmarried Jewish women in Calcutta—Israel is single and doesn’t know any women younger than 60. His sister married a Hindu, for which the elders shunned her. The last Jewish wedding anyone can remember was in 1982.

He is weary from Calcutta’s midsummer heat, and from the responsibility of caring for his ancestors’ legacy. He’s well aware that a centuries-old community will likely die with him, but he sees nothing to do but tend to its remnants and blow on the fading embers.

“I’ve seen what the community was. To see the way it is now…” He trails off mid-sentence.

Israel survives on a combination of odd jobs, but his health is poor, his nerves frayed by his multiple responsibilities. He usually keeps his skullcap in his pocket because he tires of explaining its significance, but at the end of the day, when he’s in a taxi heading back to his solitary shed inside the cemetery, he takes it out and puts it on, exhaling for what seems like the first time all day.

continued here

To learn more about various lost, returning, hidden and new Jewish communities, visit the Kulanu (all of us) Web site.

 

 

 

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September 18, 2008 | 5:42 pm

Talk like a pirate—talk like a Jew?

Posted by The Web Guy

Tomorrow is Talk Like A Pirate Day, which means it’s time to resurrect one of our most popular articles—the story of Jean Lafitte—Sephardic Jewish pirate of the Caribbean.

Here’s an excerpt from Adam Wills’ fascinating article:

Lafitte ... establish[ed] a pirate kingdom in the swamps of New Orleans, and led more than 1,000 men during the War of 1812. After being run out of New Orleans in 1817, Lafitte re-established his kingdom on the island of Galveston, Texas, which was known as Campeche. During Mexico’s fight for independence, revolutionaries encouraged Lafitte to attack Spanish ships and keep the booty.

But in the 1958 film “The Buccaneer,” starring Yul Brynner as Lafitte, any mention of the pirate’s Jewish heritage was stripped away.

Yaaaaaargh!

Here’s our original Jewish pirates story.

 

 

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September 11, 2008 | 4:43 am

We remember 9/11

Posted by The Web Guy

At our regular Wednesday morning editorial meeting, I asked my colleagues to e-mail me any thoughts they'd like to share on today's anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Here's what they sent:


Just days into the start of my senior year, I sat in my fourth period Spanish class when I began to hear a commotion coming from the hallway of my high school in Pittsburgh, PA.

As the bell rang, I casually made my way my locker, only to be confronted by several friends asking me if I heard 'the news.'

For the next several months, all I would hear about was 'the news.'

I left school early that day and headed to my father's office across the street. Networks repeatedly played the footage as my father and I watched the two planes strike the Twin Towers.

As reports continued I learned of the strike at the Pentagon and the attempted White House strike of United Airlines flight 93 which crashed in Somerset County, about 80 miles outside Pittsburgh and just 80 miles from my home.

-- Jay Firestone



The morning of September 11, 2001, I woke up and put on my walkman while attempting to get out of bed. We were putting out a very large issue for Rosh Hashanah the next day (this was when The Journal went to press on Wednesdays).

I turned on KIIS-FM and heard Rick Dees mention something about a plane in a building. I first thought, "oh, OK it's candid phone.” I kept listening and I could tell from Rick’s voice that he wasn’t joking. I picked the remote off the bed and turned on my TV, I think it was already tuned to KTLA. I started watching and then ran to wake up my grandmother, whom I was living with at the time, and we watched it together in her room. (I didn’t know anyone who worked in the World Trade Center or at the Pentagon, so I felt kind of removed from it). I couldn’t stay long because I had to get ready for work . During the hour-long drive the roads were more open than I had ever seen it on a Tuesday. When I got into work I learned that we were removing half the Rosh Hashanah-themed pieces for 9/11 stories. I worked that day from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. -- so I didn’t even have a chance to absorb it all until I got home that night.

It turns out, I did know someone: A firefighter named Angel L. Juarbe Jr., who was killed when he was helping people at the Marriott Hotel in Tower 1 when it collapsed. I knew him — but only through television. He had won $1 million dollars the Tuesday before on a FOX reality show I was hooked on called “Murder in Small Town X.” That connection is forever etched in my brain.

-- Shoshana Lewin


On Sept. 2 -- nine days before the twin towers fell -- I slipped on a press kit of "The Princess Diaries," fell down and broke my ankle in three places -- the first broken bones I had ever experienced in my life.  It would have been fine had I just fallen on my tush but an inconveniently placed coffee table caught my right leg in its legs and the sound of the break was so loud, it sounded (grossly) like a large tree branch snapping.  After surgery on Sept. 5, I spent three morphine-addled days in the hospital and came home with a lot of metal in my leg and too klutzy to move around on crutches without falling down. 

I was pretty much bed-ridden, unable to drive and freaked out about the inability to move  (while worrying that I would crack my head open while attempting to hobble to the bathroom) when the news broke into a TV show with the first images of an airplane crashing into the World Trade Center.  My first impulse was to wonder if the drugs were making me hallucinate; the second was similar to most everyone else's in the country; the third was to freak out that terrorists would strike Los Angeles and that I would be pushed down some staircase or be left behind like the poor wretches with disabilities in the WTC.  The idea of broken bones is sickening when you have a broken bone, and the continuous TV images of injured people -- people with not one but four broken limbs, and far worse -- was horrifying. 

A few days later, I was able to go back to work (from home), setting up headquarters in my bed.  Some of the first interviews I did (over the phone, while lying down) were  with the emcees of an upcoming Workmen's Circle event:  two young actors named, respectively, Seth Rogen and Jason Segal.  I spoke to Rogen, who was then 19, and Segal, then 21, for an hour and a half each.  They were doing the Workmen's Circle event because Rogen's dad worked there; Seth's dad had given up his previous job with a Vancouver Jewish organization to move to L.A. after the underaged Rogen had landed a job on Apatow's "Freaks and Geeks" a few years earlier.  So Seth had agreed to emcee the event and got his friend, Segal, to help.  At that time, both were working on Apatow's new TV series, "Undeclared,"  and they talked about the joys and challenges of learning on the job at the School of Apatow.  The Rogen and Segal interviews cheered me up a bit (although when both became famous, after "Knocked Up," I kicked myself for 1. only having written a short piece about them, as a result of space issues; and 2. having trashed the notebooks.) 

When I returned to work at The Jewish Journal (the office was then at another location), I noted with horror the extremely steep stairs that would have to be traversed in an emergency.  One of my office mates joked (???) that I would be left in the dust if terrorists hit our building (which then also housed offices of the IRS).  Another said not to worry, he would carry me down the stairs if necessary.  That was nice to hear. 

-- Naomi Pfefferman


Night punctuates loneliness, and this was the kind that can only be forgotten by switching on a television. The fireball replay of planes striking the Twin Towers lit up my hotel room as the sun set on Munich.

The familiar din of an American busy signal did nothing to shrink the distance. The overloaded phone lines to the United States cut me off from family and friends who were only just waking up in Los Angeles.

CNN became my English-speaking surrogate. Scrawling out the timelines on hotel stationery satisfied a desire for context, but the repetitive footage of buildings collapsing and dust clouds enveloping made for an empty, unfulfilling affair.

-- Adam Wills


I usually catch on to the news pretty quickly, but there have been two broadcasts in my life which left me with a considerable time delay in my brain process.

The first was on Dec. 7, 1941, a quiet Sunday in suburban Philadelphia. I was 16 and listening to the New York Metropolitan Opera transmission, when a breathless voice broke into an aria to announce the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

The second came almost 60 years later, on the morning of 9/11/2001, when my daughter called from La Jolla. "Turn on the TV," she yelled. "They're bombing New York. I hope Mark (our son-in-law, working as an editor on the New York Times) is safe."

-- Tom Tugend


On Monday evening, Sept. 10, 2001, my friend Lisa called me to say she was going into labor. We'd made a plan that I'd take her daughter home with me, so she and her husband could be together at the hospital for the birth of their son, Bob.

Bi was 4, and she slept over in my daughter's room; there was great excitement in our house. At 6 the next morning, when my husband was taking the dogs for a walk, our phone rang. One of his staff (he was an online editor at the LA Times), called from a commuter train to say he'd overheard someone talking about a plane crashing into the World Trade Towers in New York. He apologized, because it seemed so implausible, but said someone on the train had a radio and he thought we should know. I turned on the TV to see replays of both planes crashing, and knew that I didn't want the girls or Lisa to know anything was wrong. When my husband got home, he rushed to the office, and I took Bi and my daughter to school.

I called Lisa's husband, who was filled with joy and exhausted at having gone to bed just after the baby was born, in the wee hours of the morning. I congratulated him, and told him to focus on the joy. And I told him, "Whatever you do, don't turn on the TV -- you and Lisa don't need to know what's going on in the world today."

They were spared the news for a few hours, and allowed to enjoy their new baby in peace.

Somehow, Bob's birth also helped me get through the black emotions and dark news that was only beginning to hit us.

-- Susan Freudenheim

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