Zion! Zion! Look away!
Do not let your eyes betray!
Would God that this Shekel
Bore on it a schmeckle
Than a Jew a shiksa led astray.

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

And if you have any doubts that Israelis live in close-to-theocratic conditions, with fatwas routinely issued by idiots who have state backing, review the history of Beit Shemesh’s WOMEN OUT! signs. A long, long saga of the pointlessness of Israel’s Supreme Court, it presents itself today as having been resolved

—

“The order to remove the signs with a police escort and a constant police presence will send a strong message that the rights of the women of Beit Shemesh are important,” said [one attorney]. “The ruling is a victory for the rule of law over the rule of lawlessness, a victory for the rights of women for respect and equality. We will continue to monitor and combat all instances of exclusion of women in Israel.”

— except that the police won’t show up, or after a little time they’ll give up, or their presence will generate riots after which the government will let them put up the signs again. Read a similar saga involving Women of the Wall.

None of it means UD gives up. She’s a fervent WOW supporter. But that Israel is currently basically a theocracy is hard to deny.

….HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

***********

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

… Timothy McVeigh, and Nicolae Ceausescu.

… this painting is now on sale.

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

That was quick. Sold.

Conn, who started his law practice in a trailer in 1993, had portrayed himself as “Mr. Social Security.” He fueled that persona with outlandish TV commercials and small-scale replicas of the Statue of Liberty and the Lincoln Memorial at his office in eastern Kentucky.

Yes, his name’s even Conn.

… so UD assumes that James Levine will remain alongside him, securely honored at her revocation-phobic alma mater, Northwestern University.

NU will apparently take your honor back if it hasn’t formally forked it over yet, as with conspiracy theorist Jeremiah Wright; but once it’s in your hot little hands, you get to keep it.

Levine, whose 1984 recording with UD-favorite Kathleen Battle singing UD-favorite Henry Purcell (Levine’s on piano), is, well, a UD-favorite, has been accused of sexual abuse.

… if you’d like to hear UD talk about what it’s like to live in Munro Leaf’s house. (This assumes any of my comments survive editing.)

… and talked to my old friend Marian Green about Munro Leaf. (An NPR reporter visits me tomorrow to talk about Leaf as a resident of Garrett Park, and about what it’s like to live in his house.) Also got hold of this wonderful photograph of him enthralling children in some foreign country with stories of his famous bull.

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

Best of all was this article

about a Garrett Park Elementary School cookbook in which all recipes are in the metric system because “the Maryland State Board of Education has called for all Maryland schools to be totally metric by 1980.”

Munro Leaf of Garrett Park, the well-known children’s author, not only read and approved the manuscript but chose the title [Metric Tastes Good, A Different Kind of Cookbook From the Garrett Park Elementary School PTA] and drew the cover illustration.

… Commonwealth School, has died at 97.

Charles Merrill was the son (as was his half-brother, James Merrill) of the co-founder of Merrill Lynch.

Mr UD likes to tell the story of how Merrill (also school headmaster for decades) gathered some students one day and told them he had a brother who was a poet, and they were all going to go on a field trip to hear him read.

“Eyes rolled,” Mr UD recounts. “Oh yeah, he happens to have a brother who’s a poet… Who knew he meant James Merrill??”

… tomorrow an NPR reporter, for Morning Edition, arrives to interview UD about what it’s like to live in Munro Leaf’s house.

This is all by way of preparation for the release, in a couple of weeks, of a big-time movie based on Munro’s book, The Story of Ferdinand.

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

(Photo of one of UD‘s topiary bulls
with a visiting cat by Judy Folkenberg.)

In other words, at Sacramento State, it’s a win-win!

The guy’s got balls. When it comes to freeloading, the guy has major balls.

And look at his research! This is from 2016.

Yale might want to take this down.

Big award-winner.

Keeping up with the latest in France.

Houria Bouteldja, the [Party of Indigenous People of the Republic’s] charismatic spokeswoman, has in recent years won notoriety for her defense of Muslim men accused of sexual violence. Faced with “testosterone-fuelled virility among indigenous men,” she has argued, women of color should look for its redeeming side, “the part that resists colonial domination,” and stand with their brothers.

[A] Thanksgiving football game … ended in a bench-clearing brawl and led to at least one arrest… After a separate but seemingly related fight, Branden Diaz, 18, of Teaneck was arrested Thursday for allegedly assaulting a juvenile on Elizabeth Avenue, where the buses for the Hackensack Comets football team were parked… At a snowy Thanksgiving game in 2014, a Hackensack player intercepted a pass from Teaneck, going on a substantial run before veering into his team’s sideline. When Teaneck players who were trying to cut short the Hackensack player’s run also fell into the Hackensack sideline, a fight ensued… Also on this Thanksgiving, a fight broke out during the Eastside-Kennedy football game. Earlier in the month, there was a fight between the football teams of Pope John XXIII in Sparta and St. Joseph Regional in Montvale. Police also recently arrested an 18-year-old at a Ramapo High School football game. The 18-year-old was allegedly fighting an unidentified juvenile.

… “Our schools and the district as a whole recognizes that the behavior on the field on Thanksgiving Day is not the kind of behavior that is representative or reflective of the high standards we have for our students,” said [the superintendent].

Uh. Really?

***********

And how yummy is it that Pope John XXIII beat the shit out of Saint Joseph?

Cal football suffered a drastic year-to-year attendance drop this season after home games at California Memorial Stadium brought in an average of 36,548 fans per game — a 22 percent drop from last year’s average of 46,628.

… The drop in Cal football’s attendance comes as Cal Athletics faces huge interest payments from debt incurred by the 2012 renovation of Memorial Stadium and construction of its athletics complex. In total, Cal Athletics holds more than $400 million in debt, the most of any athletic department in the country.

… [One Berkeley student commented:] “If you see all these empty seats, you don’t feel a desire to go back.”