As a Jew, the magazines I read are primarily influenced on first who offers the best price and then quality so when Newsweek offered basically a free subscription I dropped Time Magazine (and because we get it at the office although my boss doesn't know how to read and brings it in 3 weeks late which is three weeks earlier then my father gets to read his weeklies which is about 5 weeks to late.)
I usually don't have much interest in religion itself, which is not obvious from this blog's title, but more interested in things that reflect Jewish culture so these weekly sum-ups on the downfall of power of Evangelicals Christian after their President has left office seems pretty obvious to me. Cover stories for these weekly magazines are usually the most overly verbose and self indulgent pieces of repetitive punditry spew and Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham's "The Decline & Fall of Christian America" is not really something that noteworthy. What amuses me more is the opening section of the magazine: the News & Notes, the tidbits, basically what amounts to the printed "blog entries" for people that don't do the internet in Florida except for getting e-mail pictures of their grandkids.
If you read this early section, in the span of 5 pages there are two articles that perfect combination of America & the Jews, both with amazing titles, The Fate of a Million Foreskins & in the Belief Watch segment "Is Your Rabbi Hot or Not?." Here's the gist of the circumcision article:
"Following a 1999 report from the American Academy of Pediatrics, which said that the health benefits of circumcision were not significant enough to make the procedure mandatory, Medicaid programs began dropping coverage. Ever since, new parents in 16 states have been discovering that getting it done anyway will run about $300. According to a January report by researchers at UCLA, the cost has had a serious impact: the circumcision rate in states offering coverage for it is, on average, 24 percent higher than in the states that don't. And that's based on data only through 2004, the most current year available; with unemployment rising and more Americans turning to public insurance, the disparity can be expected to grow. "The $300 is a luxury," says Dr. Andrew Freedman, director of pediatric urology at L.A.'s Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. "For many people [it] is an insurmountable barrier.""
The second article I couldn't even bring myself to read thinking of the average, non-descript Rabbi of the synagogue that I play basketball at, boring old Rabbi Weiner. This must be one of the stupidest lists in history. Do these rabbis have stats on their back of their rabbinical cards as the point of comparison and wearing those suits all the time they must get warm? I know I do just looking at them.
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As a huge fucking side note (and I'm sure I'm not alone), I'm real fucking tired of Tweeting and Twittering, watching newscasters read tweets on the air and calling it news. The modern day version of the man on the street that I couldn't give a shit about wasting airtime and before you say, "just change the channel" I wanted to see how long they could interpret texting language into speech for (the answer was ten minutes). This might be the height of hypocrisy, demeaning internet technology while writing a blog post but maybe I'm an old man of the internet.
As I'm typing this and watching the Red Sox versus the Angels is on and the sideline reporter is talking about tweeting and talking at the same time and this conversation is wasting three minutes of time of the game. I have the game on to watch baseball players not waste of space guys who pop in for comic relief every five minutes but Americans ability to focus on one channel if they aren't entertained for more sixty seconds is approaching three percent of the TV watching population so then dumbfuck Mcgee must talk about tweeting on his phone or a dipshit text poll that doesn't matter so the crowd can feel like they are interacting with the event. An event can no longer be an event, unless it's the Masters which is on a competing channel. The Masters is an anomaly with no promos or loud rock tunes leading in and out of segments and only 3 minutes of commercials per hour by two sponsors. It's a yuppie tournament by a yuppie sport that hasn't been ruined by modern technology. It's a serene event to watch although it would probably be more interesting to sit on my front step and watch cars passing by.
Did I forget to mention Chag Sameach & have a soulful Passover Seder!
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