There is no way now to bridge the divide between those who saw the events of Yom Kippur in Tel Aviv and other cities across Israel as an attempt by religious fanatics to defy the High Court ruling and force gender-separation on a liberal city, and those who saw there radical secularists preventing Jews from holding a sacred event.

Yes, absurdly enough for such a small country, people are talking about the separation of populations.

UD is heart and soul with the Tel Avivians, but she wonders how many will want to keep fighting the fight. Large numbers of rational, self-respecting people are leaving Israel, and who can blame them.

“Alabama always ranks at the bottom” of every state-based quality of life list, notes a local opinion writer; and if you want to know how they do it, look no further than Auburn University’s Neville Arena, purpose-built for basketball, but – er – converted the other night, by the school’s multimillionaire sports coaches (football and basketball), into a massive Christian revival/pep rally/public baptism. We Ask You Lord/In Jesus’ Name/Make Us Win/ Tomorrow’s Game…

Some have dared point out that Auburn is a public university, and here in the States, uh….

But the Guv herself just shot that right down as in like how dare sicko atheists dare tell us what to do down here …

And meanwhile all the smart people on campus (Jews, Hindus, Muslims) take one look at this sponsored, schoolwide thang and say Wow this is even freakier than Notre Dame… I’m getting the hell out of here…

*****************************

And that’s how you do it. That’s how you keep your school – and your state – stupid. In the name of the Father, the Run, and the Goaly Posts, Amen.

… on deep state bonfire day.

… Lecher.

******************

“I feel his frozen fingers trail up my thigh. He tilts his chin up. The whites of his eyes look jaundiced. My eyes dart to [Trump adviser] John Eastman, who flashes a leering grin.”

Eastman’s a “devout Catholic,” see.

Temple’s acting president died of what sounds like a sudden heart attack during a university event today.

Soccer fans beating each other to death happens quite often in Greece, Brazil, Portugal, Indonesia, Argentina, Croatia… all over, really. But mainly in Europe.

Now we’re doing it too, at our football games.

I’m figuring security’s really really good at confiscating guns, because so far we’re just beating fellow fans to death with our fists. As soon as Americans figure out how to smuggle Glocks through the gates, we’ll start seeing mass shooting.

UD‘s been socializing like crazy at a wedding up in Vermont, and has had no time to blog. She’s now going through various essays/news items ISO something to say. Ne quittez pas.

No kidding.

… Chapel Hill.

Every week they sprint.

‘Ultra-Orthodox Rabbis Decide to Sue New York

Over Having to Teach English, Science‘

A week after the ban was implemented, the level of opposition has been low.

There have been some acts of defiance – 67 girls refused to change out of their abayas on the first day of the new term.

But of a mass movement of resistance there is no sign. No mass-donning of abayas, no sit-ins.

*********************

There never is. I mean, there never is a mass movement of resistance – to burqa bans, hijab bans, abaya bans – anywhere in the world. Wonder why not. Wonder where the masses of women who adore being fully, or mostly, covered are… Hmm… hmm…

Well let’s see. First of all, a lot of these girls and women come from subcultures where — I mean DUH. Why do you think they’ve been all covered up since they were five years old? The whole point is to make them invisible! So nu – you’re expecting them to mass on the Champs Elysees and get their picture in the paper? Not bloody likely.

As for secular, jeans-wearing Frenchwomen donning abayas for a day to express solidarity… I mean, look at the statistic in my headline, mes petites. I believe it’s finally gotten through to that demographic — along with virtually every other demographic — that abayas are an appalling constraint on young women, and no self-respecting liberal state should countenance them in its public secondary schools.

Okay, so then where’s the Muslim Brotherhood when you need them?

Er, not sure they’re too eager to be seen, en masse, in public either.

I think this only leaves that blithering idiot, Jean-Luc Melenchon.

And of course down there “People are armed to the teeth.”

And from the comment thread on a 2021 NYT story that asks in its headline “WHY DOES LOUISIANA CONSISTENTLY LEAD THE NATION IN MURDERS?” :

Combine the [nation’s] highest rate of gun ownership with the lowest rate of education, sprinkle in some STRONG white supremacy and insurrection and that spells doom for all Louisianans.

There are close to five hundred comments on the article, many of them from Louisianans, and most commenters agree that while you’re free to consider variables like a history of violence and an engrained distrust of government and its institutions, the crucial element is simply stunning numbers of guns in the hands of hyperemotional (the motive is often ‘disrespect’) and unschooled people.

Equally stunning but absolutely predictably, the killers are getting younger and younger, as in the latest story out of the blood-soaked Baton Rouge area, involving a high school kid blowing away one schoolmate and injuring two.

On-field brawls abound these days; but this one, as a team was losing 0-24, stands out.

Apparently the losing team fought among itself — presumably due to frustration (“The Warriors are winless on the season and have been outscored by opponents 70-0 in two games.”); the opposing team seems not to have been involved at all.

So it turns out the whole high school has around 150 students, of whom let’s say half are boys; and of course a football team usually carries 40-50 players. Are we doing the math here?

Id est the school’s too small to field a competitive football team, but someone’s insisting on keeping the comedy going, paying a coaching staff (this is a poor part of Miss.), etc.

‘Bacon: I wasn’t sure about the Jesus Christ parts of the sermon… I was struggling with whether I believe this….

So if I could find a church, and this may already exist, where the Sunday school is very low on the beliefs of Jesus and very high on the community part, that’s what I’m looking for.

[I’d like a church] focused less on Jesus rising from the dead and more about being compassionate, caring people…

Martin: Do you think though, to even loosely wear the identity of a cultural Christian, don’t you need the resurrection part?’

***************************

America is secularizing at an astonishing rate, and this NPR interview with a young man raised in the Black charismatic church tells you part of the reason why — and it’s a very simple reason: Increasingly, the very content of the Christian faith strikes a lot of people as untrue.

Zat all you got? 2.5 kids a month plus at least one adult gun death a day by homicide or suicide? Give me a call when citizens’ brigades are mopping up twenty buckets of blood every morning in Civic Plaza and getting shot at while doing it! Okay?

Meanwhile, Guv, if you think a few pulverized brats justifies seizing our AKs, you are looking at a world of pain.