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Discussion (32)¬

  1. Dave says:

    Reminds me of an old joke.

    One devout Jew sees another reading a neo-Nazi pamphlet.

    “Oy gevalt! What is a mensch like you doing reading that meshugganeh anti-semitic drek?! It’s not even fit to wipe your tuchas! Nu?”

    “You see, when I read the regular papers, those shmattas, I see all about how the Islamist schmucks and the Nazi momzers are trying to kill us, and they *plus* the evangelical Christian shlemiels are trying to force their ways on us, and even the atheist shlimazels are denying the existence of our God! It gets me so verklempt I could plotz! But then I read this shlock, and they kvetch about how our tribe is actually very powerful, full of machers with lots of chutzpah, who really control everything behind the scenes… and it makes me feel much better.”

  2. Oozoid says:

    And all this time I thought I thought I was being paranoid. (There was rare subtlety in NewsThump last week when the usual spokesman ‘Simon Williams’ was reinvented as ‘Labour MP Joshua Williams’.) I saw TV for the first time in years this past weekend, and could hardly believe the BBC are still using their ancient and awful ‘news thump’ signature tune. Must have been composed by the BBC equivalent of Mr Bean, and no-one has the guts to say what rubbish it is.

  3. Jesus wants Moses to “pull a few stings”? And here I still recall from the bad days of my childhood that Jesus was supposedly the son go doG. Well, strange things do happen in the world of religion and other fantasy cults.

  4. FreeFox says:

    So, they got you, too, eh Author?

  5. Son of Glenner says:

    Dave: Can you provide a glossary for the benefit of us goyim?

  6. foundationist says:

    A few months back I found a pamphlet lying in a park here in Berlin. It stated in rather lousy German that the Jews were not only behind the Americans and the United Nations (the sUNOgogue they called it) but also behind Russia and – wait for it – the government of Iran. I must confess that last bit really surprised me.

    And remember the last speech that Mahmoud Abbas gave in front of the EU parliament? The one were he stated that Israel was poisoning the Palestinian water supplies? He got standing ovations for that one, and Martin Schulz, then head of parliament and subsequently the social democrats nominee for the German chancelorship thanked him for an “inspiring and moving speech”. A speech in which the old “the Jews are poisoning the wells”-gag was dug up from the middle ages.

  7. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    Excuse me whilst I rinse the coffee from my nostrils, shirt, trousers and dog.
    It’s http://www.jesusandmo.net/comic/suit/ all over again.

  8. Nassar Ben Houdja says:

    A pile of recycled news
    Blame everything on the Jews
    muslims think everyone
    Can’t see islam is stunned
    islam will forever lose.

  9. DocAtheist says:

    @Author, what timeliness! You posted this on the 70th anniversary of the UN partition vote. The Palestinian territory had already been partitioned into the very large part, Jordan, for Arabs (Muslims), but the smaller remainder was then repartitioned for more Arabs (now called Palestinians) and for Jews (i.e., the modern State of Israel). Then, the Arab nations attacked, and the bits given the Jews were militarily indefensible as such. As the Israeli ragtag army defended itself, it took territory necessary to continue that defense. Such lands are now in dispute, just as some of those affected are still considered “refugees”, though nowhere else in the world would this apply. The lands would be recognized as properly Israeli, lost from the aggressors, and refugee status would have ended with the next generation’s birth, just as in Europe’s wars and elsewhere.

    Incidently, every 7 years is considered a year of rest, particularly for the land, allowing it to lie fallow and regain its nutritional strength. The 70th year is especially so, and with wider application. That makes 29 Nov 2017 extra special. Thank you especially for posting this eye-opener right then.

    And even incidentlier (though I doubt there is such a word), that date is the last of my first year living in Israel as a new citizen. Today, 30 Nov 2017, is my first “aliyah-versary.” What a nice opening, to find your cartoon in my email! Thank you.

  10. DocAtheist says:

    Oy gevalt! = Oh, wow! Ay, caramba! Ufda fida! Are you kidding me?

    mensch = A good man, “a real human being”, someone with heart and soul and morals and ethics worthy of respect.

    meshugganeh = crazy

    drek = shit (from German for same)

    tuchas = buttocks, bottom, derriere, ass

    Nu? = Huh? So? See what I mean?

    shmattas = rags

    schmucks = dicks

    momzers = bastards (though technically in the Old Testament sense, but that is another story)

    shlemiel = idiot or goof-up

    shlimazel = unlucky person

    “It’s a schlemiel of a waiter who spills soup on a shlemazel of a customer.” Poorly paraphrased from my memory of the “The Joys of Yiddish”, a very fun dictionary.

    verklempt = worked up

    plotz = fall down

    shlock = trash

    kvetch = whine

    machers = people who really get things done

    chutzpah = guts, or what is now called “leaning in” — to the extreme

  11. Son of Glenner says:

    DocAtheist: Thanks for the glossary! BTW, did you have to be circumcised (assuming you are male!) to become a citizen of Israel?

    If you are actually female, I apologise for jumping to sexist conclusions.

  12. Laripu says:

    Small correction: to plotz means to burst. It’s a cognate of the German verb platzen, which means the same thing.

    The problem with Yiddish is that pretty much the only speakers of the language are the ultra-religious, and to non-speakers it has become a punch line. It is mostly not spoken in Israel, where the national language is Hebrew. (And unfortunately I don’t understand Hebrew.)

    My affection for the Yiddish language comes from the fact that it was my parents’ best language. They spoke English only poorly.

    The last bit of Yiddish culture I’ve enjoyed was in the summer of 2016, when I was in Montreal on business and saw a production of Mel Brooks’ “The Producers” in Yiddish. There had to be super-titles because the audience largely didn’t understand. https://www.broadwayworld.com/montreal/article/BWW-Preview-Yiddish-World-Premiere-of-THE-PRODUCERS-A-MEL-BROOKS-MUSICAL-Opens-Tonight-at-Segal-Centre-20160624

    As to the premise of the cartoon, there is a tiny grain of truth, which is that disproportionate achievement yields disproportionate influence. It’s the achiement that’s the real story, where the elements are partly culture and oppression, but mostly natural selection as a function of those elements. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_Nobel_laureates

  13. HelenaHandbasket says:

    Thomas Sowell was once asked “What do the jews have to do to get rid of all the hatred?” and his answer was “Fail”

  14. Ah, Freefox. Good to hear from you. Enigmatic as ever. Please let me know what you were referring to with your message to Author. I’m feeling a bit dense today.

  15. All this talk of Yiddish reminded me of this old Al Capp cartoon. Unfortunately the only way I could think of to show it to you was to put it up on my website. So, sorry once again for the shameless self promotion, here it is: http://www.darwinharmless.com/thoughts_and_comments/?p=1360
    Check it out.

  16. Abhijeet says:

    @Darwin – Freefox is going meta level by suggesting that the Author is saying that Jews don’t control the media because _he_ is being controlled by Jews to say so.

  17. Abhijeet, that would have been my guess. But there are so many other possibilities that I wanted confirmation.
    Of course a witticism explained is not at all witty, so it was unfair of me to ask. “It’s a New Yorker cartoon. Just smile and pretend you get it.”

  18. Speaking of Al Capp, you wouldn’t know this but he had a prosthetic leg. I know this because I had a friend who had been his lover. She told me that they ordered breakfast in bed at a five star hotel. Capp had put his false leg under the bed with a shoe and ankle sticking out. When the breakfast had been delivered and uncovered, the waiter asked them “Would the gentleman under the bed like anything?”
    Obviously an unflappable servant, a servant who had seen everything of human behaviour for whom the world holds no surprises.

  19. Some Dude says:

    @Freefox: your subtlety is worthy of a poet.

    @Abhijeet: nice reference to our beloved Author’s secret identity, still enigmatic. I look forward to the day anyone can make any cartoon without having to resort to absolute anonymity.

  20. Laripu says:

    @HelenaHandbasket, you wrote:
    Thomas Sowell was once asked β€œWhat do the jews have to do to get rid of all the hatred?” and his answer was β€œFail”

    Sowell was wrong, because hatred doesn’t work that way; it finds a different rationalization for each circumstance. Unlike the middle class Jews of Germany and France, the Jews of Eastern Europe were dirt-poor subsistence farmers. They were hated anyway. The rationalization was that they were sick and dirty. I remember my mother complaining about how often she heard the phrase “parszywe Zyd” in pre-war Poland. It means “lousy Jew”, or “scabby Jew”. “Lousy” as in “having lice”.

    Americans who hate blacks will hate them when they’re poor, and hate them just as much or more when they elevate themselves into the middle class, or when they create great success and get rich.

    The hatred comes first, the rest is rationalization.

  21. two cents' worth says:

    DH, thanks for the Al Capp cartoon. I’d heard most of the terms before, but now I’ve added shtoonk, shnorrer, and shloomp to my vocabulary.

  22. Jim Baerg, thanks for the links. The articles agreed with my opinions so of course I liked reading them. πŸ™‚

  23. FreeFox says:

    Tehehe. Best comment ever, Darwin Harmless. <3 ^_^

  24. Deimos says:

    Laripu : a wonderful summary of a terrible truth, my only possible comment is to steal a line from episode one of “Sharpe” – ‘ You Sir are an Edel Mensch’

  25. wnanig says:

    Laripu, did you listen to this discussion between Jordan Peterson and Jonathan Haidt? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IBegL_V6AA (especially the discussion on disgust from about 18).

    It may be that what comes first is disgust – in a physical and/or moral/ideological sense. Unfortunately language of disgust seems to be used in quite a few different contexts presently (both left, right and religious), which is disturbing.

  26. hairbear says:

    If I click the link in DarwinHarmless post above on his personal website, It triggers my Anti-Virus

    object is infected by HEUR:Trojan.Script.Generic

    May not be a real issue, but needs investigation.

    Regards

    hairbear

  27. Laripu says:

    @wnanig: I hadn’t heard it before, but listened to a few minutes for purposes of answering you. πŸ™‚

    It contradicts my personal experience, which may mean nothing because I could be an outlier. So it may have value, and I may be a poor judge.

    The contradiction is that I’m a liberal not experiencing disgust for foreigners, and yet have a high requirement for orderliness at work or when cooking at home or in my personal life. (And it bothers some people, e.g. SWMBO.) And yet I can point to the utility of the requirement: when I’m preparing a dish, I never have to search for anything, and when I’m done, everything I’ve used is rinsed and in the dishwasher. Nothing left to clean up, because I work in an orderly way. Same with the software I write. (In both cases, people should stay out of my way, for everyone’s safety. πŸ˜‰ )

    A possible explanation is that I’m highly conservative when it comes to my own behavior and responsibility, but liberal in what I would impose on others.

    But at least it casts doubt, for me, on the degree relatedness of disgust and xenophobia. I’ll listen more in time, to see whether I can change my level of understanding.

  28. HaggisForBrains says:

    Hairbear – me too, using Kasperski.

  29. Acolyte of Sagan says:

    Colluding with Russia, Haggis?

  30. Oh pook. If malware had infected my computer I’d know what to do about it. I guess I need to contact my server to figure out how to get it off my website.

    Thanks for the heads up, Hairbear and Haggis.

  31. HaggisForBrains says:

    Vlad and I are just good friends, AoS. And I’m sure Kasperski had nothing to do with Nikola Beluga’s election (oops, nearly gave the game away, that should be Nicola Sturgeon).

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