In Yiddish, a goyishe kop, or “gentile head,” is someone with a “dull mind” or “someone who thinks like a non-Jew.” I freely admit that I’m a goyishe kop in both senses of the phrase. That’s why I’m baffled by the behaviour of the ADL, or Anti-Defamation League, America’s premier Jewish organization fighting anti-Semitism, racism […]
You can trust someone who always tells the truth. But you can also trust someone who always lies. Mainstream British politics falls into the latter category. We have a Conservative party that hates tradition, a Labour party that hates the working class and a Liberal Democrat party that hates democracy. You can trust these three […]
Britain needs a new national anthem. I suggest Jerry Lee Lewis’s “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.” Just look at the vibrancy here, for example: An investigation is not Islamophobia Lutfur Rahman is Britain’s first directly elected [West] Asian mayor. On 22 May [2014], he seeks re-election. He says he aspires to the highest standards of […]
In Gulliver’s Travels (1726), the land of Lilliput is gripped by a furious controversy about hard-boiled eggs. Should they be opened at the big end or the little end? The opposing sides slaughter and persecute each other over the issue. Jonathan Swift was satirizing the absurdities of religious dispute in his day and the wars […]
OMG! Something appalling and unacceptable has slipped through the Filters of Decency and Reason at the Guardian. Earlier this year, feminist warrior Laura Bates penned another white-hot assault on everyday sexism for the Woman’s Blog there. So far, so Guardianista. But look at the photo the website chose to illustrate her item. It’s a scene […]
“May you live in interesting times” runs the Chinese curse. You could also say: “May you live in an interesting country.” Pakistan, for example. It’s full of corruption, violence, misogyny, sectarian hatred and all manner of other pathologies, from cousin marriage to state torture. Any advanced Western democracy would be lunatic to accept immigrants from […]
Heard these jokes about Jewish mothers? Q: Why aren’t there any Jewish mothers on parole boards? A: They’d never let anyone finish a sentence. Q: What did the waiter ask the group of Jewish mothers? A: “Is anything all right?” Q: What’s the difference between a Rottweiler and a Jewish Mother? A: Eventually, the Rottweiler […]
