By the way that was quite clever of Bob's Discount Furniture to use the term "double dog dare" in his commercial that aired after the double dog dare tongue on the flagpole scene of the movie!
The original idea was to run Pumpstradamus's psychic predictions and take a week off from the column since I am on vacation this week. But a few things have been going on this week so I decided to cobble together some stuff and edit the Pumpy multimedia podcast for New Years Week!
Here are some items in the news this final week of 2007.
THE MOST INCREDIBLE POKER HAND IN FIVE CARD STUD
Yep, it happened to me on Christmas Night at The Taj. I hit a Royal Flush in a game of 5 card stud which according to the mathematicians has odds of 1 in 650,000. Thank you very much Donald Trump for that extra 500+ dollars! I won it on a 75 cent bet on the double down stud video game; however it was after 1 in the morning and neither Trophy Wife nor myself noticed through our sleepy eyes that after 4 cards were dealt that I was one short of hitting the best hand of any five card deal - and since I rarely double down for a flush I just hit the deal button, wrongly thinking it was just a regular ol' flush and not a royal flush. Yeah I know I should have doubled down for a Royal Flush but I didnt even realize what I had... and Trophy Wife seems to think that the machines are rigged that you only win the flushes and the straights when you do NOT double down. Interesting theory. By the way, as soon as we hit the jackpot, we cashed out and bolted out of there before the temptation would strike to try to give Mr. Trump back some of his shekels!!
MORE AL SHARPTON HYPOCRISY
I also have been following this John White trial in Suffolk County. This is the guy who shot and killed young Daniel Cicciaro. IF you havent followed the story Cicciaro was white and White is black. There was apparently a skirmish developing between Cicciaro and White's son and Cicciaro came to Whites house to confront him. However, White came out of the house with a gun... walked to the end of his driveway and during a confrotation he shot this poor kid to death claiming the gun accidentally went off.
White was convicted over the weekend and in a reaction that was begging for Al Sharpton's big mouth, White's supporters claim the jury was racist because White is black. Isn't that the stupidest thing you have ever heard? If Cicciaro had stormed into the house and been shot, it would be extremely reasonable that White not be charged if he shot the kid in self defense. But the fact that the White supporters falsely claim that this is how it went down is incredibly misleading. The fact is that Cicciaro and his friends were on the sidewalk at "the end of the driveway" and that White took the gun, and walked all the way out to the sidewalk to confront and ultimately shoot Cicciaro.
Now that idiot Al Sharpton is getting involved. He plans to lead a protest and cause more trouble in the town where the crime took place protesting the jury's conviction of White. I don't have an issue with people rallying for a cause - but when it comes to Sharpton I don't have the patience for his cowardly hypocrisy. Sharpton lies (or doesn't get it) that the crime took place when the gang of white kids stormed into the White house.... White says Cicciaro was shot because his gun "accidentally" went off... and that is ok enough for Al Sharpton to protest the jury's decision... yet when a hero Roselle, NJ cop shot a kid who refused to surrender to police when caught outside a Roselle drug den, the fact that the hero cop's gun "accidentally" went off apparently is impossible to comprehend for Sharpton and his gang of double standard hypocrites.
Amazingly the World of Sharpton feels that White was ok for shooting that kid but Imus should have lost his job for his Rutgers comments in April. This year ended beautifully with the firing of Ron Kuby from WABC as Imus took away his show. . The now silenced Kuby is the same moron who defended a crazed black man that murdered innocent people on a Long Island Railroad Train using the incredibly ridiculous notion of "white rage" that had pent up in his client causing him to kill a train car filled with innocent people! Imus by the way was off this week making you wonder why he worked 3 wks just to take a vacation. However I believe it was his fundraising for cancer kids which Sharpton sabotaged... people who make donations to the Imus ranch in '07 get the tax write off - which I presume is the reason the I-man came back in December instead of waiting for the New Year. WABC goes into 2008 as possibly the best lineup of Radio Legends. Imus is on in the morning, Paul Harvey does his commentary, Bob Grant is on late at night... Rush is on at noon and John Gambling's son is on after Imus.
CHRISTMAS EVE EDITORIAL
This is not the type of column I would do before Christmas... but now that it's over I must really take offense to an editorial in Monday's Star Ledger that was originally published in The Baltimore Sun. The editorial which ran on Christmas Eve is titled "Jews in Mixed Marriages Should Get Past Guilt and Make Merry".
First of all the article is written by a dude named Arthur Blecher. whose pronunciation of his name coincides with the noise one makes when bringing up phlegm or mucus. He is the Rabbi of a synagogue in Washington DC that is a "Humanistic" congregation which means these are people whose identity with Judaism is basically secular and/or cultural and the actual belief in God is pretty much optional. He conducts Shabbat services once a month in a local church - according to the Temple's website the actual service lasts approximately 10 minutes. Yom Kippur services must be a blast - especially the prayer about how God seals one fate - I guess these wackadoodles throw in a caveat - IF there is a God!
Now that we have established the writers "credentials", the editorial basically states that intermarried Jews shouldn't feel guilty about celebrating Christmas. We had some friends over on Monday night and there on the news was Mayor Bloomberg outside St. Patrick's Cathedral all excited for the mass. He said he attends even though he is Jewish as did former Jewish mayor Ed Koch. I wonder if Bloomie spends as much time at the synagogue on Yom Kippur as he does at St Patricks on Christmas Eve.
Blecher actually writes in his waste of space editorial that the Jewish intermarrieds guilt of celebrating Xmas is due to what he calls the false notion that intermarriage is causing the number of Jews to dwindle. In reality if it wasn't for the huge families and low intermarriage rates of the Ultra Orthodox and the Hasidim, the Jewish numbers would be incredibly low thanks to the intermarrieds. And these chusids whose wives never have headaches are running into serious socio economic problems with their incredibly huge families. Blecher also seems to say it's ok for intermarrieds to spend some guilt free time buying and decorating a tree. But how much time should be spent on that versus the amount of time spent for Passover Seders. Amazingly, Blecher claims its ok for his congregants to go on celebrate the birth of Jesus, yet at the same time questiion the existence of God. And then he says the audacity to say that we are not losing our Jewish population!
This week's Moron of the Week Award should have been me for not doubling down on a potential Royal Flush - yet even though Al Sharpton deserves kudos... you really have to give the Moron of the Week Award to Arthur Blecher and his incredibly stupid editorial that wasted valuable Star Ledger newspaper space that should have gone to "Yes Viriginia, There is a Santa Claus!"
PUMPSTRADAMUS PICK OF THE WEEK: The late season swoon continues for Pumpy as he lost yet again last week dropping to 10-6... keep in mind at one point he was 10-2! Last year he finished 10-6-1 so he needs a win to beat last year's record. This week one of the only meaningful games is Washington hosting Dallas where the Skins are 9 point faves in a game that means nothing to the Cowboys. Sayeth the Pump: "I predict the Skins will start a huge home slump this weekend that will carry over into 2008 since a Redskins home win prior to the election means the incumbent party wins. The slide starts now and continues past Election Day! Take The Cowboys!!"
UNBIASED GIANTS FAN PICKS OF THE WEEK - Hey we ran the table last week to clinch a winning record of 25-21-2. I am incredibly as many games over .500 as Pumpstradamus!! Last month he was +8 while I was -1. This week since The Giants game is meaningless to them,. lets pick the 3 most meaningless games of the week.
Chiefs 6 1/2 doggies over THE JETS - Which team sucks more?
MIAMI 3 doggies over The Bengals - See above
Rams 6 doggies over ARIZONA - Let's make it a 3 Dog Night!
CLASSIC CLIP OF THE WEEK
Tom'w December 29th marks 6 years since I met Trophy Wife!! It also is 2 years since I was hit by a bird during our trip to Florida. Here is that classic clip:
HAVE A HAPPY AND HEALTHY NEW YEAR!!
4 comments:
Hey Nate, Rabbi Blecher is coming up in April to share Communion with me. Afterwards we're going to the Clifton mosque with our prayer rugs. We're praying to Ganesh thay you'll join us, waddaya say? Happy Kwanzaa, bro!
A Gut Yontif to you dangerspouse and... Welcome Back!!!! Great to have you back in the blogosphere!!
Yom Kippur services must be a blast - especially the prayer about how God seals one fate - I guess these wackadoodles throw in a caveat - IF there is a God!
To borrow a joke made about another group of Jews, because it certainly applies even more so to this group: they address all their prayers "to whom it may concern".
OTOH, nu? remember the old line "atheist, schmetheist, so long as you daven"?
On yet another hand (why is it we Jews have so many hands?), according to some we Jews are atheists anyway ...
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I would say that the degree to which some Jews get a little high strung about who is a Jew (and end up being less than welcoming) is a little ridiculous. I'm sure if we dug up Rabbi Fruml Bergsteinowitz' family history over the past 2000 years, we'd find a lot of Germans and Slavs who were not Jewish according to Rabbi Fruml's standards.
OTOH (there again with the hands! what is with we Jews and hands?), I certainly agree -- the goal does need to be reducing intermarriage rates as well as making sure Jewish continuity remains. If people aren't doing Jewish, they aren't being Jewish. Or if it is so watered down, what is it?
I am generally not too thrilled with the Rabbis that do the intermarriage weddings... but this guy's comments were so out of left field. I just couldn't believe he was minimizing the diminishing population; and the embarrasing thing is he allegedly was ordained at JTS... which otherwise has produced some fine rabbis!
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