Welcome to Christmas Eve and a Hump Day (“कूबड़ दिवस” in Hindi): it’s Wednesday, December 24, and also National Eggnog Day. Frankly, I can’t abide the stuff, and never had a glass I liked. But here’s one form that might be palatable. From Wikipedia:
“Tom and Jerry is a form of hot eggnog [cocktail] that was once popular.” The Tom and Jerry was invented by British journalist Pierce Egan in the 1820s, using brandy and rum added to eggnog and served hot, usually in a mug or a bowl. It is a traditional Christmastime cocktail in the United States.
It’s also the Feast of the Seven Fishes , a Catholic tradition that I’ll eschew as I’m not a piscivore.
I saw a squirrel with a golden tail in the Quad two days ago as I was feeding walnuts to these rodents. I’m wondering if it’s a harbinger for a good 2026? (I have seen several such squirrels on campus and suspect it’s a mutation.) What do you think?
Readers are welcome to mark notable events, births, or deaths on this day by consulting the December 1 Wikipedia page. Note that today is Christmas Eve, so posting with be light tomorrow, probably limited to the Christmas Cats post.
Da Nooz:
*More Epstein files have been released, and the WaPo claims that many of them contain references to Trump.
The newly released documents also include several tips that were collected by the FBI about Trump’s involvement with Epstein and parties at their properties in the early 2000s. The documents do not show whether any follow-up investigations took place or whether any of the tips were corroborated.
In a statement Tuesday morning, the Justice Department said: “Some of these documents contain untrue and sensationalist claims made against President Trump” that it characterized as “unfounded and false.”
“Nevertheless, out of our commitment to the law and transparency, the DOJ is releasing these documents with the legally required protections for Epstein’s victims,” the statement said.
The documents were available for several hours Monday afternoon and evening on the Justice Department website but appeared to have been taken down around 8 p.m. The Washington Post downloaded the full set of files while they were accessible. The department reposted the files on its website shortly before midnight Monday night. It was not immediately clear whether officials had done any further redactions of the documents before posting.
The department did not immediately respond to questions about why the documents had been posted and then apparently removed. The White House also did not respond to requests for comment about the newly released documents.Being mentioned in a mass trove of investigatory documents does not demonstrate criminal wrongdoing. Trump has not been accused of being involved in Epstein’s criminal activities. It has long been known that Trump had a years-long friendship with Epstein that ended in the early 2000s.
Although, given Trump’s history, I would not doubt that he would “indulge” in some of Epstein’s offerings, we must presume the man innocent unless there is evidence against him. I still wonder why they removed the pictures from the website, though.
*The WSJ reports the inside dope on Bari Weiss’s decision not to air the “60 Minutes” segment on Venezuelans deported to El Salvador’s worst prison. I’ll give a few excepts showing stuff I haven’t highlighted before.
This, for example, is new: the show apparently HAD comments from the government:
CBS News had sought—and received—responses from the Department of Homeland Security, the White House and the State Department, according to people familiar with the matter. The segment, which was available to some viewers in Canada and seen by the Journal, didn’t include the fresh comments those agencies provided.
A person close to the show said the administration’s point of view was represented six times in the segment, including prior public comments from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt about the deportees and that DHS had declined a request for an interview.
. . .“60 Minutes” stories are typically screened for producers and editors ahead of publication.
Weiss couldn’t make a Thursday afternoon screening, according to a transcript of the meeting, held by Simon. She reviewed it later that night and sent people working on it notes that they tried to address, Simon said during the meeting.
CBS advertised “INSIDE CECOT” on Friday, teasing Alfonsi’s interviews with some of the deported migrants who had since been released from the megaprison and described harsh conditions.
Weiss was concerned about the quality of the reporting and the comment-seeking process, and pressed the team to make further efforts to reach the administration, people familiar with the matter said.
Alfonsi was told Saturday that the story wouldn’t run as planned.
. . .Weiss said in her Sunday email that she thought the story needed to advance the narrative beyond what other publications had reported in prior months. She also sought more analysis on whether President Trump exceeded his legal authority with the deportations and stressed the importance of reaching the key stakeholders in the story directly to get them on the record.
Weiss said in a statement to the Journal Sunday that newsrooms regularly hold stories that aren’t ready for publication and that she plans to run the piece when it is complete.
Well, that would be useful information as well, but to me not sufficient reason to pull the story. Others might disagree. After all, there wasn’t much new in the “60 Minutes” piece, was there? On the other hand, how many Americans–the kind of people who watch the show–would know much about CECOT?
Now would the comments that 60 Minutes apparently had change the tenor of the story? I don’t see how it would. But if they had them and didn’t use them, well, they should have used at least one or two. The mystery deepens.
*Apropos, the NYT has a piece called “Turmoil at CBS News after Bari Weiss pulls a ’60 Minutes’ segment.” Here we learn a bit more. Remember that the NYT and Weiss crossed swords, and she left the paper. But here’s new stuff:
CBS News remained roiled on Monday by fallout from the decision by its new editor in chief, Bari Weiss, to abruptly postpone a segment of Sunday’s episode of “60 Minutes” that was critical of the Trump administration.
Amid a swirl of questions within her newsroom, Ms. Weiss was adamant that the segment, which featured the stories of Venezuelan men deported by the United States to a prison in El Salvador, was flawed and required more reporting.
“I held that story because it was not ready,” Ms. Weiss, who joined CBS News in October, told colleagues at the top of a 9 a.m. editorial call with the newsroom, according to a recording of her remarks. She said that while the testimony of the imprisoned men was “very powerful,” other news organizations had already reported their basic story.
“The public knows that Venezuelans have been subjected to horrific treatment in this prison,” Ms. Weiss said, adding that if “60 Minutes” wanted to feature the story, “we simply need to do more.”
That viewpoint found little sympathy within “60 Minutes.” The show’s staff and correspondents convened for a somber Monday afternoon meeting, where the correspondent Scott Pelley expressed frustration at Ms. Weiss’s handling of the situation and raised questions about her management style. He asked why she had weighed in at the last minute after not attending five screenings of the segment as it was being completed.
“It’s not a part-time job,” Mr. Pelley said, according to four people familiar with the discussion who requested anonymity to describe a private exchange.
Pelley’s opinion is not to be ignored. He’s a seasoned reporter, anchored the CBS News for 6 years, and Wikipedia notes this among his many other honors:
Pelley is the most awarded correspondent in the history of 60 Minutes. He has won 40 national Emmy Awards from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
More from the NYT:
“It’s not a part-time job,” Mr. Pelley said, according to four people familiar with the discussion who requested anonymity to describe a private exchange.
. . . .That the pulled segment was critical of the Trump administration has added to the turmoil.
Ms. Weiss reports directly to David Ellison, the head of CBS’s parent company, Paramount Skydance, who is making a multibillion-dollar hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, the outcome of which Mr. Trump has said he’ll be “involved in.” On Monday, Mr. Ellison’s father, Larry, the billionaire co-founder of Oracle, announced that he would personally guarantee $40.4 billion in equity as part of the bid.
Ms. Weiss’s allies say she makes editorial decisions without regard to the views of Mr. Ellison. She had also expressed her concern over the weekend that the “60 Minutes” segment did not advance the story, in an internal email reviewed by The New York Times.
Allies of Ms. Weiss argue that as editor in chief, she has a clear prerogative to weigh in on any of the journalism produced by her newsroom. Still, even some of her supporters privately conceded on Monday that she was still learning the ropes of broadcast journalism and that she had mishandled the timing of her feedback.
But look at this:
The segment, reported by the correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, was first screened for CBS journalists on Dec. 12; Ms. Weiss did not attend that screening or four others over the next week, a person with direct knowledge of the screenings said. She watched a video of the segment on Thursday night and offered suggestions, which producers integrated into the script. By Friday afternoon, “60 Minutes” had given CBS management the green light to announce and promote the segment to viewers.
. . . Then, around midnight at the end of Friday, less than 48 hours before the segment was set to air, Ms. Weiss weighed in again, this time with more substantial requests. She asked producers to add a last-minute interview with Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff — a relatively straightforward task for a print journalist who needs to only make a phone call, but a logistically difficult one in TV news, where a camera and lighting crew is often required.
. . .Frustration with Ms. Weiss spilled out at the show’s Monday staff meeting, the four people familiar with the conversation said.
Mr. Pelley said that if Ms. Weiss planned to be more involved with editing “60 Minutes” stories, she should attend the early screenings and communicate directly with correspondents. “She needs to take her job a little bit more seriously,” he said.
Tanya Simon, the “60 Minutes” executive producer, told her staff that she and Ms. Weiss “had a good working relationship” and that she did not want “to ascribe motive and place blame” for the weekend’s events. She told the staff that she stood “100 percent behind Sharyn and her story,” and she referred to the segment as “thoroughly reported.”
Looks like Weiss had second thoughts, but they were too late. But what about those comments that the show already had, at least as reported by the WSJ? There are still questions to be answered. But given that Weiss had seen the final segment, and that what she asked too late what might have been impossible, she had, in my view, no right to pull the segment. She may well lose some of the good reporters behind 60 Minutes: these people are not slouches!
*The WSJ also has an op-ed by David Mamet called “Jews face horrors with humor,” and it contains a couple of good Jewish jokes. One of my theories of why comedians are so disproportionately Jewish is that it’s a way to defuse the constant anxiety that many of us experience, a cultural trait that might have been adaptive back in the days (and maybe now!) when pogroms could have been right around the corner.
Much Jewish humor is set in the face of horror. An old Israeli joke: “Why did Hitler kill himself? He got his gas bill.” And a favorite: “Jews of Auschwitz, good news and bad news. Tonight you will be traveling on the Trans-Orient Express, the most luxurious of trains. Now the bad news: You will be going as soap.”
Two years before my birth, Germans were murdering Jewish babies, an exercise latterly taken up by Palestinians. It is challenging for a majoritarian (that is, not directly concerned) populace to digest today’s antisemitic horrors without, to some extent, unconsciously or not, indicting the victims. For if Jew-murder and Jew-hatred aren’t inspired by some actual acts of Jews (“a Jew doesn’t tip”), the onlookers are faced with the absolute horror of our human condition.
For Jews, the stultifying fact to be faced is that antisemitism has nothing to do with Jews.
Reform and assimilated Jews have changed names, traditional clothes and religious practices (among other things), celebrating intermittent acceptance of our charade as “progress.” That is, we were “getting there” (the old African-American equivalent being “whiter and whiter in every generation”).
The essence of our assimilationist mindset is seen in “outreach,” “interfaith” programs and pleas to entertainment and journalism to “change the narrative.” These efforts define the Jews in terms of others and attempt to change the others’ minds. Why? To convince them that we “really are human.”
But we don’t believe it. What actual human being, assured of his right to live, would set about begging his oppressors to accept the sacrifice of his identity?
It is a heartbreaking but understandable Jewish fantasy that antisemitism can be addressed by changing others’ opinions or our own behavior. Which is to say, by becoming more understanding of our oppressor’s need to be placated.
Jew-hatred exploded after the Oct. 7 massacre in response to Israeli “forgetfulness” of our historic status as beggars—existing only on the gracious sufferance of others. (Note that even the supposedly humane term “tolerance” means the ability to abide the noxious.)
. . . . Antisemitism has nothing to do with Jews. It is equivalent to child sacrifice: the offering to pagan gods of the lives of the unprotected. It emerges, historically, when a sufficient mass of the populace has become terrified into unreason and ceded control into the hands of the evil but assured. Pagan societies fearing the wrath of unknowable gods fed them innocent lives. The fearful of our age, unsettled by unassimilable change, seek security in mass thought and relief in violence. That’s all.
How can we know that one thing is truer than another? If it is sadder. I conclude not with a joke but with a proverb at the essence of most Jewish jokes: What is as whole as a Jew with a broken heart?
Oy vey! There are a few more Jewish jokes, but I am not sure this squeezes as much of of the topic that there is. I’ll add one more joke at the article’s beginning.
Q. What’s the difference between a Jew and a canoe?
A. A canoe tips.This passes, just under the wire, as humor because of the rhyme. “A Jew doesn’t tip” on its own legs isn’t funny. It’s also untrue. You may take it from a longtime member of the entry-level positions: Jews are good tippers.
But I know a lot more than these. And I don’t agree that antisemitism has nothing to do with Jews, for there are other minority groups that could become scapegoats for “the fearful”, but none have–at least not over 2,000 years.
*John McWhorter has a newsletter that apparently doesn’t appear in the NYT but is sent out by it. The one I got yesterday was called “The words and phrases of 2025,” in which he presents “the seven words and phrases that, to me, most closely represent the past year of our lives.” I can’t link to it since it isn’t online, but I’ll give them and a few words by McWhorter on each one (indented):
1. Groyper. Followers of the archconservative, openly racist and antisemitic, recreationally combative commentator Nick Fuentes take their name — or did they give it? — from a sourish, homely cartoon froglike figure that they treat as their avatar.
2. No Kings. When President Trump took to social media and declared “Long Live the King,” and the White House upped the ante with an image of Trump wearing a crown, organizers on the left offered a devastatingly simple response: No. No King Trump, no King Anyone Else, no kings.
3. 6-7. You know I had to mention this one, right? “6-7,” the thing kids insist on articulating — with a knowing giggle — every time the two digits appear in that order, has been a subject of ongoing confusion by adults. For kids, that’s half the fun. Eventually those adults started consoling one another with the explanation that the expression has no meaning at all. That’s wrong, a mistake based on the false belief that all language serves to communicate facts. Language — starting with plain old “please” and “hello” — also serves social functions. Did “6-7” emerge from a line in a rap song that refers to the height of a basketball player? It’s almost irrelevant. For Gen Alpha folks, the phrase is a form of group identification: You have to be a teen or tween to get it.
4. It’s the phones. 2025 wasn’t the first time anyone lamented the influence of ubiquitous cellphones on our kids and our culture, but it was the year that this three-word declaration became the go-to formulation. Today it’s less a sentence one composes word by word than a set expression, a short, handy reference to a larger argument, advanced by, among others, the psychologists Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge, that smartphones are transforming children’s lives and brains for the worse.
5. The price of eggs. This humble home economics phrase became a stand-in for inflation but also for more than that — its rise and fall, the effect on consumers’ lives, the way that effect is influencing our nation’s politics and the discourse that has arisen to explain that influence.
6. Giving. Don’t groan. I know that the expression — as in “That song is giving Taylor Swift” or “That dress is giving old lady”— has been around for a while, originating in Black gay and ballroom culture, along with “slay” and “serve.” But 2025 is the year that “giving” became what linguists refer to as entrenched, meaning it’s no longer a dash of wit, color or attitude; it’s just normal everyday speech.
I still don’t know what it means. And, finally:
7. He and she. I’ve been saying for a while that the gender-neutral “they/them” was going to become even more widespread. As a linguist who studies the ways language changes, I noted the rise in people resisting the gender binary and got caught up in — and perhaps even biased toward — what I processed as a pronominal revolution. But surveys show that the number of young people identifying as nonbinary has decreased considerably over the past two years. Binary genders are on the rise again, and therefore so are the pronouns most closely associated with them.
So it goes. I still don’t know what “giving” means.
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is anticipating Christmas! But this is a hard one, and I asked Andrzej to explain it to me. Here’s what he wrote:
It’s not that hard – it’s not just Abbas and his entourage claiming that Jesus was a Palestinian. Quite a few fools in the West twist themselves into knots trying to prove Jesus was Palestinian. How come? Well, he was born in Palestine. And if he was Jewish? Then surely he must have been a decent guy, not some Zionist. You’ve really never seen stuff like this? And he sent a drawing of Jesus in a keffiyeh.
No, I haven’t see such palaver, thank Ceiling Cat! But on to the dialogue.
Hili: I’m watching to see whether it’s going to be Jesus-the-Palestinian or yet another Zionist.
Andrzej: And?
Hili: For now, all you can hear are the groans of labor pains.
In Polish:
Hili: Patrzę, czy narodzi się Jezus-Palestyńczyk, czy kolejny syjonista.
Ja: I co?
Hili: Chwilowo słychać tylko jęki spowodowane bólami porodowymi.
*******************
From Now That’s Wild:
From The Dodo Pet:
From CinEmma:
And The Divine Sarah on Jews at Christmas:
From Masih. First, a translation:
In the Islamic Republic, women do not have the right to sing. In a country where Qamar al-Moluks, Googooshes, Haydehs, Mahastis, and Marzieh’s have sung and song has found meaning through women, now women are deprived of singing.
We all remember Mehrnoosh Sohaili, the Iranian female artist and singer, for that beautiful song “You, whose eyes are so beautiful.”
Now, in protest against this gender apartheid that considers singing a right only for men, she addresses male artists and singers: Isn’t it time to stand by women’s side? Isn’t it time to say “Never without women”?
You too can amplify this voice and this request Join along, dear Don’t stay alone in pain This shared pain Will never be healed Separately!
You too can amplify this voice and this request Join along, dear Don’t stay alone in pain This shared pain Will never be healed Separately!
There are captions to the Farsi:
در جمهوری اسلامی زنان حق خواندن ندارند. در کشوری که قمرالملوکها، گوگوشها، هایدهها، مهستیها، مرضیهها خواندهاند و آواز با زنان معنا یافته است، حالا زنان محروم از خواندن هستند.
مهرنوش سهیلی هنرمند و خواننده زن ایرانی را همه با آن ترانه زیبای «تو که جشمات خیلی قشنگه» به یاد… pic.twitter.com/J97jqCUbsH
— United Against Gender Apartheid (@UAGApartheid) December 22, 2025
Andrew Doyle has his alter ego, the spoofish Titania, give the case against Christmas. A quote, which I can’t copy and must embed (h/t Ginger K.):
“The case against Christmas” @TitaniaMcGrath reflects on this most problematic of seasons. https://t.co/SPDvx65lN9
— Andrew Doyle (@andrewdoyle_com) December 24, 2025
From Malcolm; slow-motion fishing:
Throwing a cast fishing net in slow motionpic.twitter.com/kpBffQMeaK
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) November 21, 2025
From Emma Hilton; I had no idea about this lawsuit or its result:
OMG, pinch me. This is real?
The Court’s order specifically directs California to add the following statement “in a prominent place” in the teacher training:
“Parents and guardians have a federal constitutional right to be informed if their public school student child expresses… https://t.co/CtGsgmPwqj
— WomenAreReal (@WomenAreReals) December 23, 2025
From Science Girl:
Snow ducks making everyone’s day
pic.twitter.com/evxiAWd2Yh— Science girl (@sciencegirl) December 23, 2025
One from my feed. Unless my guess, this piece shows not anti-Zionism but antisemitism. Israel didn’t even exist when Anne Frank was alive, and I don’t think she expression any Zionistic tendencies.
An artwork by Italian artist Constantino Ciervo depicting Anne Frank wearing a keffiyeh has sparked outrage for desecrating Holocaust memory.
Both the artist and the museum dismissed accusations of antisemitism, claiming: “This work is about Israeli actions, not Judaism.”
If… pic.twitter.com/eTflpOviTc
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) December 23, 2025
One I reposted from the Auschwitz Memorial
A Belgian Jewish boy was gassed to death as soon as he arrived in Auschwitz. He was two years old. Had he lived, he’d be 86 today. https://t.co/fjUP0QGI3W
— Jerry Coyne (@Evolutionistrue) December 24, 2025
And two posts from Dr. Cobb. Watch the video with sound up. A werewolf! A werewolf!
A male rock ptarmigan (Lagopus muta) in winter plumage.Ptarmigan is from Gaelic 'tarmachan' meaning "croaker". The p- was added when people mistakenly assumed it was a Greek word.A bird forever warning people: "A werewolf!" (just in case of werewolves).
— c0nc0rdance (@c0nc0rdance.bsky.social) 2025-12-06T13:46:58.117Z
As Matthew says, “There are some sensible answers in the comments.”
my modest collection of flies with WIDE heads 🙇a hammer-headed Richardia (Ecuador), a stalk-eyed Chaetodiopsis (Mozambique), a pointy-eyed Ophthalmoptera (Colombia), and an antlered Richardia (Colombia)why though? male-male competition? sexual selection? chime-in if you know!
— Thomas Shahan (@tshahan.bsky.social) 2025-12-22T18:53:10.006Z
A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
You have not converted a man because you have silenced him. -John Morley, statesman and writer (24 Dec 1838-1923)
…yes, despicable, antisemitic, and outrageous…and…yes, leave her alone!
+1
“ One of my theories of why comedians are so disproportionately Jewish is that it’s a way to defuse the constant anxiety that many of us experience, a cultural trait that might have been adaptive back…”. That implies that genes could explain group differences.
Nope, I believe I said it could be cultural. I doubt that it’s genetic.
+1
Humour. perhaps. But I would contrast this with a disproportionate Nobel prizes and authors on my bookshelf who happen to be secular Jews. Including a signed copy by yours truly.
I suspect intelligence is in part genetic/hereditary. Perhaps, so is a sense of humour. Full disclosure: I am only 3% Ashkenazi according to Ancestry.
I was curious, so I googled and found this:
“[T]he relationship between anxiety and intelligence was positive in GAD patients but inverse in healthy volunteers. The collective data suggest that both worry and intelligence are characterized by depletion of metabolic substrate in the subcortical white matter and that intelligence may have co-evolved with worry in humans.”
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3269637/
Same exact story as with political jokes in Poland under communism. If one can’t safely say out loud that one is not a fan of some official decision, policy, propaganda item, statement, or person, the only other option is to make fun of it, but with such finesse that one is not likely to be confronted about it by someone with the power to turn one’s life into hell.
BTW, I find it somewhat irritating that people who never experience fear of persecution this way, are completely deaf to this type of humour. Humour is paradox experienced, and these paradoxes do not register in free societies.
The bird who cried ‘wolf’? Reminds me of one of my favorite scenes from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Doctor Basheer is telling the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf to his friend, the alien, Garak. Garak asks Basheer what he thinks the moral of the story is, to which Basheer says it’s that one shouldn’t lie. Garak thinks for a moment and says, I think you’re wrong, Doctor. I think the moral is, You should never tell the same lie twice.
“A werewolf! A werewolf!”? Maybe, but I also heard “Available! Available!” — not a warning but an advert. Maybe both — an ad by Werecreatures ‘R’ US.
60 Minutes fuss: Streisand effect. The segment aired in Canada and now copies of it are all over the web. More people will see it now than if it had aired without interference.
https://open.substack.com/pub/muellershewrote/p/watch-the-60-minutes-cecot-segment
“Giving”? I think it means “giving a vibe”. “That dress is giving old lady” seems to mean “that dress is giving off an ‘old lady’ look”. Perhaps there is someone more hip to the youngsters’ lingo than this 62 year old, white, cis, suburbanite?
You’re right, garman. It means exactly that.
Two points.
1.From a journalistic point of view, it was Bari Weiss’ prerogative to pull the piece. It was slanted and there was nothing in the piece that had not been reported before. It just added pictures to a well reported print story. That’s the nature of broadcast news. Broadcasters call themselves journalists, but rarely break news.
From a management point of view, spiking the story at the last minute was a huge mistake. This yawn inducing piece will probably end up the most watched CBS News segment of the year. Most importantly, Ms. Weiss royally pissed off the staff and damaged her credibility.
This episode and the decision to air the Erica Kirk town hall, which proved to be a ratings disaster (Ms. Kirk has been all over Fox) has shown me that as a manager, Ms. Weiss has a lot to learn.
Ms. Weiss does have a lot to learn! But I’m not sure if she will do that.
For the 60 Minutes debacle, it seemed to me that there was the appearance of her interference bc of financial entanglements from the Trump administration coming from above. That does seem very suspicious and unseemly. But otoh new bosses sometimes want to make their mark early on. I’ve had a number of new University presidents, deans, assist. deans, and so on who have interfered with normal operations, just to prove who is in charge now. In any case, the staff at 60 Minutes have every right to be pissed whether the matter is bc of political interference or bc Weiss is just trying to throw her weight around while being obtuse.
Perhaps we will discover that John Oliver was more right than wrong! But I still no longer find him all that funny.
The Administration response to the 60 Minutes story on CECOT (that 60 Minutes did not include):
“60 Minutes should spend their time and energy amplifying the stories of Angel Parents, whose innocent American children have tragically been murdered by vicious illegal aliens that President Trump are removing from the country.”
Och nae!
There just has to be a bottom somewhere.
Good point, Mark, as usual.
The “new guy (or gal) shakes things up, causes some chaos..” is a pretty known and effective trick, at least in the corporate America (mainly finance) I’ve noticed.
I’m guessing that is particularly true where the new CEO has been paid huge bucks and there’s a lot of buzz around them.
The shareholders want some bang for the big bucks the board paid for the new, snazzy boss!
D.A.
NYC
“And so the dialectic continues.”
-Delgado and Stefancic
Critical Race Theory – A Primer
2017
“And so the diácritic continues”, with grâve consequences.
There is a great deal of truth in what David Mamet says here:
“The essence of our assimilationist mindset is seen in “outreach,” “interfaith” programs and pleas to entertainment and journalism to “change the narrative.” These efforts define the Jews in terms of others and attempt to change the others’ minds. Why? To convince them that we “really are human.”
For many decades in the U.S., Jews worked tirelessly to assimilate into all the right “helping” organizations, only to learn after October 7 that those groups really don’t want us. Just about every synagogue Web site today has a section devoted to social justice (Tikkun Olam among Reform Jews) and offers programs that provide opportunities to help others in the community—Jews and non-Jews alike—a manifestation of Mamet’s point that Jews seek ways to belong.
Even after being told that they don’t want us, many Jews seem to be doubling down, trying even harder to endear themselves to the organizations that left them—or were perhaps never with them in the first place. Column after column expresses surprise at the way Jews have been treated since October 7, and distraught that they seem no longer to be welcome at the organizations to which they have devoted so much time and treasure. “Why are all our women’s groups suddenly silent when it’s Jewish women who are raped and mutilated by Hamas terrorists?,” they ask.
The underlying cry has always been this: “Please accept us. We may be Jews, but we really are good people and we truly want to help.” I suppose that I was brought up the same way. But unlike so many who are still pleading for acceptance by those (mostly) left-leaning groups and organizations, I am not. To me, the secret was revealed by the October 7 massacre. They don’t want us. And, when they tell us they don’t want us, we should believe them. In my view—and I am not alone—Jews need to direct their attentions inward and rethink the company they keep.
Absolutely, Norman.
One useful counter-tonic to this is for non-Jews to donate to Jewish charities (or buy Government of Israel bonds.) Then we get to help on their terms, not on ours. There are a couple of “allies” organizations in Canada. I won’t mention them because the host doesn’t like us to publicize charities by name, a policy I agree with. One of them sponsored (with the umbrella Jewish appeal group) a recent showing of the documentary film, The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue in Toronto. (Readers will recall it had been selected then cancelled at TIFF earlier this year, then shown after all after outcry to an enthusiastic audience at a large symphony hall, an example of the Streisand Effect.) This recent re-screening was followed by an on-stage panel discussion with the filmmakers and the movie’s star, retired IDF General Noam Tibon. Non-Jewish allies are warmly thanked at all these events I’ve attended.
Anyway, this particular “ally” organization doesn’t raise money on its own. It permits its partner Jewish charity to receive all money that donors might wish to donate to the ally. (This may free it to do necessarily political lobbying of the Canadian government, so important for the government to hear coming from non-Jews.)
This is a concrete example of how non-Jews can reach over to get involved in helping Israel and combating anti-semitism. We shouldn’t expect Jews, who have learned bitterly from experience, to think we will come to love them for helping out with traditionally leftist environmental and social justice causes. We won’t. Only the ones who will go over and stand on their side, the side of civilization, count. If our government doesn’t support Jews and Israel, we can’t support our government.
I’ve been donating to Jewish charities for a long time, more so after Oct 7. I was glad to see these allies organizations springing up. But if there isn’t one in your area, I say to non-Jews, just donate to whatever umbrella Jewish appeal group you can find. Ceiling Cat knows so many organizations we used to donate to have disappointed us. We should be awash in charitable cash.
Even little things help. I wear one of those crossed Canadian/Israeli flag lapel pins everywhere I go. I can’t tell you how often I’ll be walking along in a crowd and someone will make one of those broad smiles that rises to the eyes as we pass. At first I wondered, why is that person smiling at me? Then it sank in.
Thank you for your thoughtful response. You’re brave for wearing a Canadian/Israeli lapel pin in public. But the smiles you get tell you that people recognize you’re on the side of justice.
I’ve been wearing an Israeli flag t-shirt in (swanky) Chelsea since Oct 7th. Most days, esp before the hostages came home. A bold move. I bought four of them (laundry 🙂
Pretty much every day I get somebody with an “attaboy” “Am Israel Chai” or “love the t-shirt” comment. Sometimes just a look and a wink, a thumbs up.
Nearly every day and Chelsea isn’t particularly Jewish, it is mainly just rich and very gay.
Almost no push back.
D.A.
NYC
“Why are all our women’s groups suddenly silent when it’s Jewish women…?” is like “Why are they silent when it’s biological women”? Founding something called a whatever’s-rights group doesn’t keep it so.
True. The GC movement has been campaigning to prevent strict Jewish women, and Muslim women, from losing access to the women’s pond at Hampstead. There is an ongoing legal case about it. Just because it doesn’t say Jewish on the tin, it doesn’t mean that we are ignoring Jewish women.
I find this attitude quite wearying, and it is often said in a patronising manner. We still get (predominantly) men turning up to ask why women aren’t fighting to retain their single sex spaces. Even well known media people like Jeremy Vine asked why women aren’t fighting for their rights 🤦♀️. I’ve been campaigning for 8 years, and I was LATE to the game! There are a lot of men who regularly ignore women’s voices and automatically assume that if it’s ‘feminist,’ then it must be wrong.
A man who identifies as trans recently accused me of not caring about victims of domestic violence because I spend too much time complaining about men in women’s bathrooms 🤦♀️ One of my followers did a search on my Twitter feed for him and found loads of occasions where I specifically commented on domestic violence. It was interesting as I’d completely forgotten my first entry into GC World was when my local Women’s DV Refuge announced it was going to allow men in. I asked, naively, how they would stop the abusive partner of residents putting a dress on and coming in, but they didn’t reply, so I had to get involved.
Thankfully though in the last year, I’ve seen loads more men stepping up. I think they are realising this issue affects men as well, because men have daughters too.
Jerry has been great at getting information out there, I have shared many of the posts about Masih that I have read here. Whilst women are struggling to retain their rights in my country, we must not lose sight of the fact that women in some countries have never had rights in the first place. So many TRAs hate JKR so much that they never acknowledge how she managed to get a plane load of endangered women out of Afghanistan to safety.
I’m still getting used to ‘wicked’ meaning ‘very good’. I recall the time I heard ‘Oh my gawd Julie, you look totally sick in that dress’. It’s not just how young people speak, it’s how people speak in different parts of the world. I quite like it.
I came here to post a link to the CECOT segment and see that someone already beat me to it. Well, in case the other link goes down: https://archive.org/details/60minutes-cecotsegment
The court’s decision with regards to California teachers and secrecy is a step in the right direction; I know some CA teachers, and they are under a lot of pressure from both camps. This will give those who support the court’s decision cover. Those who don’t will stick to the same secrecy anyway. Those who care more about the kids than their own ideology will take it on a case-by-case basis; it is not difficult to imagine a situation where revealing a child’s confusion to their parents could put that child at serious risk of harm.
I’m glad I’m not a teacher.
Re “Parents and guardians have a federal constitutional right to be informed if their public school student child expresses gender incongruence…. These federal constitutional rights are superior to any state or local laws, state or local regulations, or state or local policies to the contrary.”
IANAL, but I call bullshit. Where, specifically, is this alleged constitutional right proclaimed? It’s not in the Constitution itself. Is it in some Supreme Court ruling?
Says AI which I have quoted the relevant point….
affirmed in Mahmoud v. Taylor, 145 S. Ct. 2332, 2357 (2025) (applying Yoder as “embod[ying] a principle of general applicability”) — taken from the text of the judgement pdf below.
As to where the constitutional right is “proclaimed”, the Court says this:
and…
And finally, state-created rights (to privacy of minor students in this case) must yield to federal constitutional rights (of parents in this case.) — Ibid p. 12
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Mirabelli-Benitez-judgment.pdf
Thanks.
I don’t think it’s fair to say that people are indicting the victims, even subconsciously. I think there are plenty of antisemites who do it deliberately and consciously, but I think most other people understand that Jews are not to blame for what is happening. Having said that, it may be changing as there’s a growing number of people who don’t understand world history and they are being duped by the woke brigade. I’m glad to see more people coming out and challenging them now. The ‘hunger strikers’ have been getting short shrift on social media and in the news.
Sadly I think it will get harder for non Jewish people to comprehend the horrors of antisemitism as time goes on. Many in the current generation have a comfortable life, so they find it difficult to imagine anything else.
I only know about the horrors second hand as my dad was among the troops who relieved Belsen. The depravity was too terrible for him ever to talk about it to us kids himself, but my mum said he often had nightmares about it.
Churchill said “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”. I’m sure he was quoting someone else, but I fear that’s what may be happening now. I’m disgusted at the number of people who are professing support for Hamas. They forget that Israel, while certainly not perfect, has been subjected to threats from Muslim nations since its birth.
I put the blame for a lot of this on the western nations who carved up the Middle East without having the first clue about tribal politics in the area.
Joolz I think a lot of the antisemitism comes from ticktok (CCP owned).
Other Middle East dust ups in previous decades didn’t have the same effect. MOST kids these days get their “news” from that horrible platform.
You pile tiktok on top of a generation of hippy lefty professors and this is what you get. I came to the USA to study graduate level Middle East pol and here, and in Oz, the whole field was WILDLY biased to Third World Socialism and Palestine.
It was …challenging for me. 🙂
best as always,
D.A.
NYC
Greetings, David, but I must file an objection to the phrase “hippy lefty professors”. The bluenose lefty politicals (direct ancestors of the later wokerati) always denigrated us hippies for being insufficiently focused on the theater of Revolution.
I should add that the power-hungry, lefty politicals several times attempted power-plays to take over a hippy-freak, culturally anarchist non-commercial FM station I was connected with in the olden times.
Thank goodness I don’t use TikTok and only see it when Exulansic includes stuff in her videos.
I’ve been puzzled where this latest wave of antisemitism has come from. Heck I’ve criticised Israel’s actions too, but criticising them won’t ever push me into adulation of Hamas. I can’t get my head around the that cognitive dissonance of claiming that Israel is committing genocide while simultaneously supporting a terrorist group that has a stated objective of committing genocide “from the river to the sea”.
The actions of the pretend hunger strikers here seems to have generated a lot of criticism of Palestine on X, especially now even more of them have ‘paused’ their ‘hunger strike’ in time for christmas lunch.
What actions of Israel have you criticized, Joolz? The War Cabinet doesn’t care what you think and will ignore your suggestions made 2500 miles away where you are not under attack by armed people who want you dead. But has it occurred to you that any criticism of the way Israel prosecutes an existential war actually does feed antisemitism? “Israel should do less of X and more of Y”, you offer friendly criticism. But Israel instead does more of X and less of Y. Don’t you infer that Israel, in ignoring your criticism, is killing more women and children than it needs to? If it took your advice, you believe fewer women and children would have died (else you would not have made the criticism.)*
This must feed the view that Israel is committing genocide or at least wantonly killing people out of blood lust. If Israel, a Jewish state, really was doing that in the name of the world’s Jews, antisemitism would be rationally justified in the same way that anti-communism and anti-Nazism were justified. Those who believe the Jews of Israel are engaging in blood lust will wear their antisemitism with pride. The old blood libels were/are true! “Free Palestine from the murderous Jews!”
That is where this latest wave of antisemitism comes from, to answer your puzzlement. It comes from criticism of Israel’s existential war effort….as it always does. Antisemites always hope Israel will lose, so it can be exterminated. When it doesn’t, it’s those accursed Jews fighting dirty. Or at least not heeding foreign tut-tutting to “do better”.
(*Maybe more IDF soldiers would have been killed under the “better” course of action, but that is of no concern to the foreign advice-givers.)
For goodness sake, it is not antisemitic to criticise actual wrong doing. No group gets a free pass from criticism. NOT calling out wrong doing can lead to antisemitism because, if people think Israel can do what it wants without any criticism whatsoever, then it feeds the conspiracy nonsense that it is above the law.
We can acknowledge the incredible restraint Israel has shown in the face of unspeakable horrors, but that shouldn’t stop us expressing criticism where it is warranted.
“The War Cabinet doesn’t care what you think and will ignore your suggestions made 2500 miles away where you are not under attack by armed people who want you dead.”
Gee, thank you for pointing out the bleeding obvious, but I haven’t sent my thoughts to the War Cabinet, so I’m not really expecting a response. Where did you get the idea that I’m unaware of the Hamas aim to erase Israel? I’ve referenced their genocidal aim many times in my criticism of the ‘hunger strikers’ This is a global forum and ‘da roolz’ don’t limit the expression of opinions by geographical area.
“Don’t you infer that Israel, in ignoring your criticism, is killing more women and children than it needs to? If it took your advice, you believe fewer women and children would have died (else you would not have made the criticism.)”
I didn’t infer anything. What advice did I give Israel in that comment? It was criticising Palestine supporters. Please don’t make assumptions about what I believe. You assumed wrongly. Why are you telling me that my criticisms of Israel are about killing people when I haven’t stated that and it’s not true? You are arguing against straw men that you have created in your own head. You asked what my criticisms of Israel are, but didn’t wait for an answer before criticising what you had already decided my opinions were. You were wrong.
“foreign advice-givers”
The comment you were responding to didn’t give any advice to anyone, but I don’t give advice to Israel anyway as I have no channel through which to do it, but that doesn’t mean I can’t express my thoughts and let others express theirs. It’s called having a conversation.
You expressed puzzlement over where this latest wave of antisemitism came from. I offered an explanation. Criticism of Israel’s war methods isn’t necessarily driven by antisemitism in itself (though it often is.) But it necessarily aggravates it, which I think is what you were puzzled about, because antisemites will use that widely disseminated and self-amplifying criticism, however well intentioned, as a form of aid and comfort to the enemy. When an ally is involved in an existential war, best to keep your conversational doubts and reservations to yourself. Unless, of course, you no longer consider him an ally and want him to lose.
Nuremberg – Its Lesson For Today, 1945. The trial, including as evidence clips shot by the Nazi’s themselves. Lest we forget.
A shorter version:
https://tubitv.com/movies/100010624/nuremberg-its-lesson-for-today
Re: the juvenile, fatuous “6,7”: it is time to resurrect and respond with “23 Skidoo” and refuse to explain oneself.
LOL!! :>D
joolz:
“I put the blame for a lot of this on the western nations who carved up the Middle East without having the first clue about tribal politics in the area.”
I’m not sure that is completely accurate. The initial response was pretty positive:
[from AI] “Emir (later King of Syria) Faisal of the Hijaz / Iraq:
At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, Faisal signed the Faisal–Weizmann Agreement with Chaim Weizmann, in which he agreed that “all necessary measures shall be taken to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale, and as quickly as possible,” on condition that an independent Arab kingdom was established.”
Well, Trans-Jordan, a Kingdom of Arabs, was created out of 78% of Mandate Palestine in 1919 via British instigation and approved by vote of the League of Nations. See:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/96198796@N05/49818033738/in/album-72157707143215584
The Arab Mayor of Jerusalem was also positively-inclined.
But it was the British, after gaining favored trader status with Saudi Arabia by installing a cousin of the Royal House of Saud as King of Trans-Jordan, that declined to defend Faisal from being deposed, and installed his polar opposite, Hajj Mohammed Effendi Amin El-Husseini in Jerusalem in 1921. Amin El-Husseini, was a despicable Nazi-collaborating anti-Zionist anti-Semite who radicalized the entire Arab and most of the Muslim world.
To a large extent, we owe the last 105 years of Arab terrorism on Jews to that one bastard. Him, and to a lesser effect, quite frankly, Winston Churchill, who did Israel and the Jewish people no effing favors.
Thank you for the additional info.
My comments were referring to the wider mess created in the middle east by Britain and France after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. As usual, Britain tried to control everything by carving up the area strategically to suit themselves, as they did in India, ignoring what was best for the people living there. My comment about not understanding “tribal politics in the area” was referring to them lumping Sunnis and Shias together without regards for the future and causing problems for the Kurds. I think this destabilised the whole area even before Israel, and stirred up a lot of militancy that has affected the whole area since.
I totally agree about Churchill. He wasn’t directly responsible for Sykes-Picot Agreement, but I understand that he was later a key implementer of it and the Balfour Agreement, and his clumsy finger prints are all over the middle east.
I’m no expert, and no doubt couldn’t come up with a solution to this myself, but with hindsight, I definitely think we made a lot of mistakes.
I think it is important to remember that the Balfour Declaration itself was part and parcel of the San Remo Conference which was essentially approved by the 51 nations of the League of Nations, which voted unanimously for the various Mandate Territories, including the Mandate for Palestine.
So, the whole world voted for, and approved, the creation of Israel based on the Balfour Declaration. It wasn’t just a British thing:
““recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country” is explicit text from the Mandate for Palestine.
By 1921, the Arabs were aligned by one overriding principle – they wanted all of Palestine for themselves with no Jewish state allowed (ie, an Arab Caliphate), and to hell with what the rest of the world wanted. They still want that (despite getting 78% of Mandate Palestine), and imho, THAT is the problem. Sunni vs Shia is peanuts to that.
I realise that Balfour wasn’t just driven by the UK, but the initial agreements to split the Ottoman Empire were drawn by Britain and France, although they were amended several times after, and changes weren’t always done purely in the interests of the people living there.
There are many problems that don’t seem major in themselves, but that have contributed to instability in the whole area, and unstable countries are more likely to get into conflict with neighbours.
Well, changes to borders, and the creation of new states, are always going to result in some unhappy people and claims of interests being ignored.
And how easy it is to look back retrospectively and criticize the (Mandate) system for x, y, or z. (The French Mandate, for example, denied a new Arab state in Syria which is pretty interesting.) How easy it is to design an academic treatise, Doctorate defense, or career using such a model. Not much academic future in lauding the sagacity of the decisions made.
I’m no historian, or scholar for that matter, but I wonder how much instability and conflict in MENA should more rightly be laid squarely at the feet of Arab/Muslim religiosity, intransigence, and Medieval honor culture. These are difficult people.
“should more rightly be laid squarely at the feet of Arab/Muslim religiosity, intransigence, and Medieval honor culture. These are difficult people.”
This.100%. When you are raised to believe that everything you do is approved by your god, it becomes impossible to have any humility, and if you truly believe that dying while killing your enemy will send you straight to heaven, you become a fearless monster, ready to massacre without reason or compassion.
Jews tip. Ask any NYC waiter/ress. Different population groups do tip differentially.
But Jews tip.
“Palestinian Jesus” grinds my gears.
I stole the hippo meme for my twitter account. 🙂
D.A.
NYC
-friends – don’t do twitter/x. It’ll melt your brain.
The version I heard was from Canadian country singer Connie Kaldor who told it from the stage ca. 1989 during her patter as she was leading into her song about a waitress in a Saskatchewan Husky truck stop café, “Bird on a Wing.”
“An old waitress joke from the West: What’s the difference between a canoe and a Canadian? [Guffaw from somewhere in the audience] Canoes tip.”
Remember, in humour, alliteration trumps rhyme.
Jesus was a Jew born in the Roman province of Judea – land of the Jews – when Augustus was in power in Rome. It was more than a century later that the Roman emperor Hadrian wiped out or drove off the Jews of Judea and renamed the greater region Syria-Palestina. So there is no way in heck that Jesus could be considered a so-called “Palestinian”. The “Palestinians” of today are the descendants of much later Arab invaders and colonizers.