What, Jews worry? (Mad Magazine)

Who, this observant Jew? He reminds me of my cheating husband, First Gentleman Doug.

.

I'll do whatever Bibi, I mean Christians want.

(RNS) — “Jeff, lighten up.”

I can imagine someone saying that to me. With all the darkness that has invaded the world — the Jewish assassinations of leaders in foreign countries, calling them "terrorists," the American political situation if Kamala Harris doesn't pick favored Jewish son Josh Shapiro — such an admonition would be welcome.

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Bernie? Doug? I'm unburdened by the past.

Which is precisely why I visited one of my favorite spots in the Berkshires: The Norman Rockwell Museum. I have been there many times, always enjoying the Norman Rockwell illustrations and “Saturday Evening Post” covers, always appreciating the subtle and often undetected artistry in his work and enjoying a diversionary excursion into a vanished America.

Alfred E. N. says, "Yes we can't!"

But the other day, my visit was like running into an old friend whom I hadn’t seen in almost 60 years.

I am referring to their current exhibit: “What, Me Worry? The Art and Humor of MAD Magazine” (nrm.org).

“Mad” magazine was an essential part of my childhood and early adolescence. For some reason, my parents thought it was far more acceptable than my previous steady diet of “Superman” and “Batman” comics.

Cruel Bibi prefers Dummy Donny

If they had only known what they were helping to facilitate. I was already developing a reputation for being, if not the class clown, then at least the class comedian (no, I was not the class Reform rabbi).

“Mad” was my tutor in that endeavor. It was “Mad” that first taught me life could be funny — even absurd.

Ah, Fiddler Made a Goof! good one

For several hours at the Rockwell, I strolled through my childhood, occasionally bumping into Mad bits that I had laughed at more than half a century ago and going through those old lessons in pre-adolescent snark.

“Mad” was my tutor in that endeavor. It was “Mad” that first taught me life could be funny — even absurd.

For several hours at the Rockwell, I strolled through my childhood, occasionally bumping into Mad bits that I had laughed at more than half a century ago and going through those old lessons in pre-adolescent snark.

I really like your wife, man. - That's fine, Don. Ship us more weapons and CIA money.

A vote for Zionism is a vote for war. Choosing lesser of two evils, Red v Blue, always means evil

• 

  Myth of the Macho army Jew

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• “Spy vs. Spy” was a playful, silent introduction to the Cold War (along with Boris and Natasha from “Rocky and Bullwinkle”).
• Dave Berg’s “Lighter Side of…” introduced me to the small absurdities of life (and when his daughter attended my college, and I met him on the first day of the semester, it was one of the most memorable days of my youth)....
• Don Martin’s cartoons were a little sadistic. In one case, they influenced my interpretation of Jewish history. Once, on Hanukkah, I told my sons about the glorious assassination attempt and martyrdom of Eleazar Maccabee, who died in a kamikaze-like attack on a Syrian general who was riding an elephant. Eleazar ran beneath the elephant, eviscerating the animal with a sword — only to be crushed to death beneath its weight. I told them this was the origin of the traditional latke [potato pancake], which resembled the hapless Eleazar. Yes, I was channeling Don Martin. (They lovingly admonished me to never, ever tell that story to anyone else. Like religious school kids. They were worried it would adversely affect my career. I never told that story to religious school kids. OK, once.)...
• But what grabbed me at the exhibit was the utter Jewishness of the “Mad” enterprise. So many of the editors and writers were Jewish: Bill Gaines, Mort Drucker, Harvey Kurtzman, Al Jaffee, Will Elder, Dave Berg. (No, no women. Sadly. They missed the opportunity with Roz Chast.)...

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American JewBu: Jews, Buddhists, and...

“Mad” magazine was a piece of modern, secular Jewish literature — almost up there with Philip Roth.

Its spirit survives in such writers as Shalom Auslander, who brings his own sardonic vision into his writing. It survived in numerous cultural inheritors, such as the movie “Airplane” and any number of very silly movies and television shows.

Let’s go back to Alfred E. Newman. The exhibit engages in a wonderful archeological dig into his character’s backstory, showing his visage was part of American culture decades before the creation of “Mad.”

What was Alfred E. Newman’s ever-present catch phrase? “What, me worry?” I keep thinking about Al Vorspan’s old quip about the Jews: “Start worrying. Details to follow.” More: What, Jews worry? (Religious News Service)

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Ben Shapiro, Bibi's final solution for Palestine

Jimmy Dore (TJDS); Ashley Wells, Sheldon S., Shauna Schwartz (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

So genocide talk is permissible and not at all antisemitic (bearing in mind that Middle Eastern Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims from that region of the world are all Semites, just like the Jews) -- when a prominent American Jew in the right wing media says it.

But if teenagers in college chant "From the desert to the sea, Palestine will be free," somehow that's antisemitic and advocating for genocide. The Israeli military is killing, clearing, and cleansing its Israel out of their Palestine. They're not merely chanting. The IDF is killing and terrorizing a people it seeks to exterminate or drive into the sea or Egypt's Sinai Desert to starve to death or build themselves a homeland and state like Israel did. Steal land from a sovereign country because another country told you it was okay, and everything should be fine. Israel will provide arms to defeat Egypt if it has a problem with it, just as the U.S., U.K., and E.U. (mostly France) fund Israel's military to spearhead its settler colonial project of displacement and dispossession, nice words for land theft and "might makes right" ethnic cleansing.

Ben Shapiro is a lawyer or was a law student, now a fast-talking radio mouthpiece for extremist pro-Semitic and white supremacist views. But being a Jew makes it okay in the eyes of our Jewish-controlled legal system and watchdog groups.

Prof. Norman Finkelstein has called out the cowardly Ben Shapiro, who only sees fit to debate naive college students he can trounce with his debate skills and canned arguments as they actually are forced to think on their feet and try to win over a crowd of peers taken in by Shapiro's legalese and seeming expertise on whatever he's talking about at any given time. He was a better student than they are now. 

He refuses to contemplate going up against someone who actually knows what he's talking about on the subjects of Israel, the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing, the definition of genocide, history, and so on.

Meditation Gaining Medical Acceptance

Text: Marilyn Elias (USA Today, 6/30/09)

Vipassana: insight or mindfulness meditation: an ancient Theravada Buddhist practice

Challenges are landing fast and furious on Capitol Hill. So Representative Tim Ryan (Democrat, Ohio) feels he has to arrive at the top of his game every day. And Ryan says he has found a way to do that: He meditates for at least 45 minutes before leaving home.

Ryan, 35, sits on a floor cushion, closes his eyes, focuses on his breath, and tries to detach from any thoughts — just observing them [without mental comment] like clouds moving across the sky — a practice he learned at a retreat.

"I find it makes me a better listener, and my concentration is sharper. I get less distracted when I'm reading," he says. "It's like you see through the clutter of life and can penetrate to what's really going on."

Once thought of as an esoteric, mystical pursuit, meditation is going mainstream. A government survey in 2007 found that about 1 out of 11 Americans, more than 20 million, meditated in the past year. And a growing number of medical centers are teaching meditation to patients for relief of pain and stress.

More than 240 programs in clinics and hospitals teach the same type of meditation that Ryan learned, says Jon Kabat-Zinn, who developed mindfulness-based stress reduction 30 years ago at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. Other types, such as transcendental meditation, use a mantra or repeated phrase.

"A colossal shift in acceptance"
Some kind of meditative practice is found in all of the world's religions, says Shauna Shapiro of Santa Clara (California) University, co-author with Linda Carlson of the new book The Art and Science of Mindfulness. Most include focusing attention and letting thoughts and emotions go by without judgment or becoming involved.

Kabat-Zinn credits "a colossal shift in acceptance" to accelerating research on the benefits of meditation. Studies suggest the practice can ease pain, improve concentration and immune function, lower blood pressure, curb anxiety and insomnia, and possibly even help prevent depression. Newer research tools, such as high-tech brain scans, show how meditation might have diverse effects. More>>