Gun Free Zone

Yeah, I’m going there.

Some good news for the Jews.  Those of us who are real Jews by the way.

Union for Reform Judaism announces layoffs and furloughs
Financial impact of pandemic has been ‘crushing,’ according to URJ president

Two weeks after announcing the cancellation of its summer programs in the United States and Israel, the Union for Reform Judaism announced staff layoffs Wednesday.

Approximately 60 full-time employees, constituting 20% of the organization’s staff, were laid off. The organization also implemented a temporary pay reduction between 3-16% which began in April. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, took a 16% pay cut as did the rest of the executive team.

Good.  Fuck ’em.

Then there is this:

Pandemic forces the largest Jewish denomination to cancel summer camps. The last time was in 1947

The Union for Reform Judaism, which leads the largest Jewish denomination in North America, is canceling all of its overnight camps this summer because of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

The decision, announced Thursday, affects 15 camps across the country, which served 10,000 campers last year. All travel programs to Israel and other locations will also be canceled, according to a statement on URJ’s website.

Even better.  Fuck ’em twice.

Now you might not understand why I am happy to see the Union for Reform Judaism go down like this, and why I hope they go down the shitter completely.

Let me tell you something about Reform Judaism.

They reformed Judaism like the Soviets reformed the Orthodox Church.

It has little to do with Judaism and everything to do with Kosher radical Leftism.

I know it’s been a month since Passover ended but let me tell you about what Reform Judiasm has done to Passover.

Now keep in mind that Jews have been celebrating Passover with a Seder for 2,500 years, going back to the 5th century BC.  The Haggadah as we know it dates back to the 10th century, so it is over 1,000 years old.

These are traditions practiced for millennia, tying us back to ancient Judaism in one unbroken line.

So what has Reform Judaism added?

How about a fucking orange to the Seder Plate for LGBT suffering?

Susannah Heschel, a well-known Jewish feminist scholar (and daughter of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel), was introduced to an early feminist Haggadah that suggested adding a crust of bread on the seder plate, as a sign of solidarity with Jewish lesbians (which was intended to convey the idea that there’s as much room for a lesbian in Judaism as there is for a crust of bread on the seder plate).

Heschel felt that to put bread on the seder plate would be to accept that Jewish lesbians and gay men violate Judaism like hametz [leavened food] violates Passover.

So at her next seder, she chose an orange as a symbol of inclusion of gays and lesbians and others who are marginalized within the Jewish community. She offered the orange as a symbol of the fruitfulness for all Jews when lesbians and gay men are contributing and active members of Jewish life.

I’m sorry that remembering when God brought us out of slavery in Egypt and gave us the Ten Commandments doesn’t focus on your sexual identity.  I guess the only thing for a radical feminist Lesbian Jew to do is to put an orange in the center of her Seder plate to make sure everyone at the table learns more about her sexual proclivities than the 2,500-year-old traditions of our people.

This is how you end up with articles being published like:

5 Ways To Queer Your Passover Seder
At this year’s table, draw from tradition to discuss relevant issues affecting the LGBT community.

Before launching into the four questions, it’s customary to assign four children (or young people) at the seder the following roles: the wise, the wicked, the simple, and the one who does not know how to ask. It’s not lost on some seder attendees the harshness of these descriptors—so why not reframe the conversation?

Instead of four children, Keshet, a Jewish LGBT organization, designates four allies: the ally who asks what queer means, the ally who stands up for a friend, the ally who speaks up about equality, the ally who comes out as an advocate to move equality forward.

This doesn’t draw from our traditions, it draws away from our traditions.

I try to be an empathic human being but it feels like this is designed to make me hate gay Jews.  We can’t celebrate our most important holiday without the gay Jews trying to make it all about being gay?  Can you not make your sexuality the center of attention for one night?

This isn’t the only Progressive bullshit that they want to add to the Seder.

Some Jews add a tomato for the migrant farmworkers and their rights.  What’s next, leaving out a cup for Elija and the ghost of Cesar Chavez?

There is a whole list crap like this.  A pinecone for prison reform.

A banana for Muslim Migrants in Europe.  You know, the ones who are committing all sorts of violent acts driving the Jews out of Europe.

But that isn’t the worst, nope.  Reform Judaism wants us to add an olive to the Seder plate for Palestinian solidarity.

No bullshit.

They want to pollute the Seder plate with a symbol for a group of people who have “wipe out Israel and all the Jews” as part of their official charter.

Just recently a Palestinian threw a cinder block off a roof, killing a Jewish soldier, and Reform Judaism wants me to put an olive on my Seder plate to stand in solidarity with the brick thrower.

That’s like putting a bratwurst on the Seder plate in memory of all the Nazis the Mossad hunted down and killed after WWII.

The Union of Reform Judaism has been silent on the issue of the attack on Orthodox Jews in New York but really wants us to queer our Seders in solidarity with Palestinian terrorists.

They can get fucked.

Since it’s the Orthodox Jews that have shown the most bravery, defying the illegal orders of Reichsführer de Blasio to continue to practice their religion (a modern-day Hannukah story), the children of Reform Jews should be sent to Orthodox summer camps and Yeshivas to learn what it really means to be Jewish.  Which is more than Progressive talking points with a side of gefilte fish.

From the unionized workers at Buzzfeed:

A little more than a year ago, we lost about 20% of our newsroom colleagues to unexpected layoffs. Going through that again — in the middle of a pandemic — would be devastating. We’re ready and eager to negotiate a better alternative.

— BuzzFeed News Union ✊ (@bfnewsunion) May 12, 2020

Losing a newsroom job now isn’t just a temporary setback. For many colleagues let go, this could be the end of their careers in journalism — all the more calamitous when the work journalists do has never been more important.

— BuzzFeed News Union ✊ (@bfnewsunion) May 12, 2020

Buzzfeed isn’t journalism.

It’s a bunch of hard-Leftist Millenial hacks spawned in a fetid pool of swamp water from a website best known for cat memes.

Nobody wants to pay for the bullshit that they are peddling because you can get the same virtue signaling, grievance-mongering, dishonesty for free on countless other websites.

That this might be the last career in journalism that these people have is arguably a good thing.

Not to mention that many of us get laid off or have other setbacks and have to reboot our careers in new fields.  I’ve done it twice.

If I were prone to writing Buzzfeed style headlines, I’d title this piece:

“Entitled asshole Acela bubble internet pundits angry they are experiencing suffering that they dismissed for millions of people in flyover country.”

Since the last recession, ~30,000 journalism jobs vanished. Journalists laid off today will likely be unemployed for months and likely, by necessity, have to find employment in other fields. A lay-off now would effectively end a career in journalism. We have to save jobs. https://t.co/rXzjQVQXv5

— Venessa Wong (@venessawong) May 13, 2020

Fuck ’em.

These people need to go pump septic tanks or dig ditches for a while.  Something useful for society that is more in line with their skill set, or lack there of.

Maybe after doing some work harder than vomiting up a piece that form fits whatever progressive, identity politics bromides they learned in school to whatever current situation they have been assigned to write about, from the comfort of their tine, overpriced apartment, they will develop some empathy.

Or they have an industrial accident and get turned into a paste by some piece of heavy machinery because they arrogantly thought they knew what they were doing.

Either is fine by me.

Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson is suffering from incurable lung condition, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

The British rocker, 72, was diagnosed with the disease, which causes reduced lung capacity and leads to emphysema and bronchitis, two years ago, but has been managing the condition with medication.

However, he told Dan Rather on AXS TV’s The Big Interview he fears COPD will eventually prevent him performing.

Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson suffering from ‘incurable’ lung disease

Just a couple of nights ago, I was watching Jethro Tull’s famous concert in Tampa back in 1976 and possibly one of the (if not the) most iconic flute solos in Rock history.

I am seriously hating 2020 not because the year but because time is inexorable and my musical idols are being caught in its grasp.

New York City is a God damned shit-hole run by the most evil and incompetent human beings to ever have American citizenship.

From ABC7 New York:

Coronavirus News: 26-year-old woman dies giving birth during peak of COVID-19 pandemic

A family is heartbroken after a 26-year-old woman died during childbirth at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City.

Bruce McIntyre is a new father who should be celebrating the birth of his son.

Instead, McIntyre is drowning in sorrow after the mother of his son, 26-year-old Amber Isaac, died during childbirth.

That I’d heartbreaking.  Especially because maternal mortality in the US is so low.

The reason she dies is even more heartbreaking.

Her family says Isaac’s platelet levels had been falling since February, but she couldn’t see a doctor in person even though she was seven-months-pregnant because of the pandemic.

Isaac’s family says by mid-April, her condition worsened and she was finally admitted at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx.

Three days later, her family says doctors induced labor after learning that day she had developed HELLP syndrome.

She died during the procedure.

A woman suffering from pre-eclampsia is very high risk and should be under the watchful eye of a qualified obstetrician.

She wasn’t.

She sent her final tweet that day saying that she couldn’t wait to tell everyone about her experience dealing with incompetent doctors at Montefiore.

This woman was given no early treatment and poor care in the hospital because NYC prioritized COVID patients so much that a young woman with a life threatening pregnancy related condition was treated like garbage.

This death was most likely avoidable, had NYC cared about saving the lives of people not affected with COVID who were at risk of dying of something else.

So far, what we know is that NYC murdered the elderly with COVID and young people without COVID.

I have a feeling we’re going to find out that the situation there was even worse than this because of Cuomo and de Blasio.

NEW YORK – Several unions that represent police officers are asking the mayor to fire Dr. Oxiris Barbot after comments she made about the NYPD during a heated exchange with Chief of Department Terence Monahan at the height of the coronavirus outbreak.

Dr. Barbot, who regularly appears with Mayor Bill de Blasio at his daily coronavirus briefings, reportedly told Monahan: “I don’t give two rats’ asses about your cops,” after he requested 500,000 surgical masks for the NYPD, reported the NY Post. The exchange occurred during a brief phone conversation in late March.

Police unions call for ouster of NYC health commissioner

I keep saying that NYPD needs to suddenly develop a general case of Blue Wuhan* and let the place collapse. City Hall gives them the same amount of respect as the local gangbanger population.

And if the name of Oxiris sounds familiar to you, it is because you saw it here in a previous post about the mess in NYC:

I checked her creds and she is a pediatrician who has been a health bureaucrat for the past 17 years.

And that is all I am going to say.

Hat Tip to Mortar Girl Christine.

(*) Blue Wuhan sounds like a song by Linda Ronstadt. 

Divemedic shared a link from The Guardian that says: Covid-19: nursing homes account for ‘staggering’ share of US deaths, data show.

In the article, we find a link to the Keiser Family Foundation with Wuhan Virus data and how it has affected the US. Among that data, I found this:

About the only certain thing we knew about the Wuhan virus from very early was its predilection for the elderly and the sick.  Lack of preparation seems to be the norm for certain states which also include some basic bonehead moves that possibly helped with their body count.

Once this Wuhan V crap is “over”, I believe we are gonna be shocked about the amount of wasted time, money & resources we had. Just because some people in the “expert” side of things felt they needed to exercise their temporary powers.

Was a quarantine necessary? I am going to go with YES but only for about 2 weeks till we had a better picture of who was the most likely victim pool. After that, we could have gone back to “normal with adjustments” meaning we make sure the seniors and the sick were properly cared for. Economically and socially it would have been a shock, but not the disaster we are seeing right now.

And we have no idea what will be the health cost of those who were not able to go to a doctor or hospital because we shut down the health system to basically deal with one thing.

And we better learn fast because Flu season is coming.