Purim books: A time to laugh, a time to grog

By Jay Firestone
Published on March 1, 2007

Keeping in mind that singing, dancing and drinking may be the typical methods of rejoicing, its important to remember there are other ways to truly celebrate the value of existence -- like picking up and reading a great comedy.

My Mother’s Kitchen: A Natural Disaster Area

By Burt Prelutsky
Published on November 23, 2000

My mother had a green thumb. Too bad she employed it in the kitchen, not the garden. To her credit, she was such a good housekeeper, you could have eaten off her floors. Which, unfortunately, was preferable to eating off her plates.

Humor

By Burt Prelutsky
Published on October 12, 2000

As I see it, the big problem with the political debates isn't, as everybody contends, the candidates; rather, it's the format. It's too polite, too genteel. You wind up with two men, who have spent months accusing each other of being treacherous fools, suddenly having to put on their company manners. They wind up acting as if they just might vote for the other guy. The whole thing is as phony as a bad amateur production; mediocre lines delivered by over-rehearsed robots who have been dressed by a wardrobe lady with way too many red neckties at her disposal.

All the News

By Burt Prelutsky
Published on June 8, 2000

It all began when Times columnist Al Martinez wrote a column about the events at the Pacific Palisades high school. For those of you unfamiliar with the brouhaha, a number of students took it upon themselves to publish an underground paper for no other purpose than to attack some teachers they disliked. In the course of five issues, they accused their targets of being prostitutes and pedophiles. When they promised to print the addresses and phone numbers of the teachers in an upcoming edition, the administration finally stepped in. They suspended 10 students, as I understand it, and transferred the two ringleaders.In his piece, Martinez accused the grown-ups of over-reacting. He felt that a case could be made for both sides, and wrote that, as usual, the truth was to be found someplace between the two opposing factions.Having known Martinez for a few years, I felt justified in writing him a "Dear Al" letter, addressed to his home. In it, I suggested that the students (and their parents) had gotten off lightly. The combination of blatant lies and obvious malice would make them all quite vulnerable to lawsuits, the laws of libel being what they are.