Shiver Me Timbers!

MiDC has found a great, fun pirate website. It's full of games and puzzles, and can be played for free. (You can also play a hyped-up version for a subscription. None of that for the iDC household.)

He asked me to post a widget to show off his piratey skills, ranks, and trophies.

Also, if your inner child, or your real live child, joins the site through the cool widget above, you, he or she will start out with extra "pieces of eight" (that's the coin of the Puzzle Pirates realm) and MiDC gets some extra pieces of eight for the referral.

Avast, matey. No need to remain a landlubber with this great passport to the puzzles and mysteries of the Seven Seas.

Ahoy there!

Help Wanted

We're thinking about doing a fundraiser at my shul's religious school. Here's a description:

XXXXXX is very interested in working with us in a fundraiser. Their coffee is fair trade and organic etc.

They buy the whole beans and roast and grind them right in their store. They said they would sell the coffee to us at whole sale for about $X.00 a pound including the packaging into a pound bag. They would put Beth El Blend or whatever other name we might decide on, on the label. We could print out stickers with the 150 year logo printed on them and just stick it on the bag.

They would make a caffeinated blend and a decaf one. They suggested that we come by to taste and choose the coffee(s) we would want to use and to discuss all the particulars. We could make up a flyer to advertise the coffee and perhaps sell it for X - Y dollars a bag. We would then make Z - A dollars per sale. We could pre-sell it and then deliver it, or have some at the ready and sell it right then and there.

They would also be willing for us to do a tasting like during religious school hours.

I've suggested the following slogans:

Jewish Java
Beth El Blend: 100% guilt-free.
Beth El Blend: How do you think G-d gets up in the morning?
Beth El Blend: Buy this coffee to support the religious school or our kids will egg your car.
Beth El Blend: It'd be a sin to pass up a bargain like this.
Beth El Blend: The coffee that made Moishe Valdez more successful than his twin brother Juan
Beth El Blend: The official non-alcoholic beverage of the Beth El Boy Band.*

*I'm a member of the band, a group of middle-aged, paunchy, balding rock star wannabes who play at synagogue events a couple of times each year.

Now it's your turn.

Suggestions?

Playtah once won a brick this way.

Insomniac's Movie Recommendation

One great thing about insomnia is late night movies. I watched one the other night that was just awesome. A real slice of life, capturing a time and a place perfectly.

Johnny Be Good

Anthony Michael Hall as a super jock high school athlete. Robert Downey, Jr. as his comic foil and the movie's sarcastic Greek chorus. A young Uma Thurman, demonstrating in a million small ways why she was about to become one of the leading film actresses of her generation.

The movie employs subversive, sometimes surreal hyperbole to skewer big bucks sports. The teen love story has a happy ending, as does the main character's moral journey.

It's full of character actors and cameos (Jim McMahon, Howard Cosell), it's got a decent soundtrack, it's light and it's fun.

Did I mention Uma Thurman?

Separated at Birth?

The fruit of idle time.

What's a Community Organizer?

I've written about Saul Alinsky, and the Industrial Areas Foundation, and efforts to organize for progressive change in Northern Virginia before.

Man am I pissed to hear the Republican attack machine trying to turn "community organizer" into a dirty word.

So what's a community organizer? This is.

Words Can't Improve On This

With thanks to my friend Michel for passing it along.

Two Questions For Governor Palin

1) Do you know the word "recuse"?

2) If the employment status of your ex-brother-in-law as an Alaska State Trooper --- while he was in the midst of an ugly custody and divorce battle with your sister --- was not an appropriate case for you to recuse yourself, what on G-d's green earth would be an appropriate case?

David Saperstein Hits a Home Run at Invesco Field

David Saperstein is the rabbi/attorney who runs the Religious Action Center, Reform Judaism's jewel in Washington. He's in his third wondrous decade there now. His vision is prophetic. He comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.

Here's the invocation he gave last night at Invesco Field:

Rabbi David Saperstein
Thursday, August 28, 2008

Eternal God,
God of our memories and our hopes,
God of this urgent moment,
You ennoble our lives,
By empowering us to do your work here on Earth
In creating a world of justice and peace for all.

To this task, we pledge our hands, our hearts, our devoted service.
We pray this day, for the safety of the valiant men and women of our armed forces
And for the recovery of body and mind of those who have been injured.
And to the families of those who have fallen, in service to our country,
We say, in the traditional Hebrew phrase:
Zichronam livrocha:
May their memory be for an everlasting blessing.

Grant your spirit to these proceedings,
To the delegates gathered here tonight,
And to the millions of viewers and listeners, that they may be stirred to work for a better world.

We pray for America,
That it may ever be a light unto the nations,
A beacon of freedom,
Human rights,
And economic opportunity;
The protector of this precious Earth,
Which you have entrusted to our care;
The guardian of Dr. King's dream of equality for all,
Proclaimed 45 years ago this day.

As this election proceeds,
May your name be invoked only to inspire and unify our nation,
But never to divide it.
In that spirit,
We ask your blessing on all the leaders and public servants of our nation,
Of whatever political party,
That they may lead wisely and, with civility, work together for the common good.

And we ask especially that you be with that mighty guardian of the contemporary American conscience, Edward Kennedy.
We ask that you send your blessing on Joseph Biden.

And now, on this historic day, upon Barack Obama,
As he is charged with such urgent responsibilities as candidate for the highest political office in our nation.
Guide him that he may ever be a champion for justice.
These things we ask of you, eternal God, in the light of renewed hope.

May we go forward with confidence,
Inspired by America's wondrous achievements,
Undaunted by the challenges before us,
Secure in the knowledge that we can be the shapers of a brighter future,
Committed that the torch of hope shall pass from hand to hand, From heart to heart,
Until the radiance of peace and righteousness for all God's children shines to the ends of the earth.

Amen.

I'm Baack!

Thank you for your patience.

And for occasional comments here, offblog messages of friendship and support, birthday greetings and all the other ways you have checked in on me now and again. I noticed and it made me feel good.

The whole world seems a lot more manageable now.

I'm pretty sure the world hasn't changed appreciably, so it's probably me. Yaay!

Now, just to prove I can still be counted on for a giggle, check this out.

This Tickled My Funnybone

With thanks to Moonbeam.

Would M.A.D.D. Approve?

More About Wikipedia

Checking In

Dear Friends,

A variety of things are keeping me occupied. None of them fit blog fodder. I'm less depressed, and I'm busy, but I'm not right yet. The predominant stressors seem to have migrated from having a work-centered origin to other areas for the moment, but everything still feels fragile and overwhelming.

Thank heavens for a good pshrink, good meds and loving support

One bit of sad news that hit me a lot harder than I expected was the death of a family friend. He and my mom had known one another since public school days.

When she returned to her hometown, a young widow with a two-year-old David-not-yet-in-DC in tow, he helped her with some legal stuff, as he continued to do for the remainder of his life.

More to the point, when I was the right age for the YMCA's Indian Guides program (about ages 7 through 9), he took me along with his own sons.

He was one of my hometown's most prominent lawyers, and he was a mensch and, for me, a role model.

May his memory be for a blessing.

In other news, MiDC is thriving and summer awaits.

My fantasy baseball team is doing better than my Washington Nationals. There a little bit of cash and a lot of bragging rights at stake in the fantasy league, but I'd gladly be losing in fantasy if my Nats could put a few more crooked numbers on the scoreboard and curly W's in the standings.

And I'm still beguiled by the promise of Wikipedia and frustrated by the behavior of trollish editors there.

Hope you're all doing well.

Best,

David

Remembering D-Day

This picture comes from the best site I saw, while looking for a way to honor the brave young men of June 6th, 1944.

Check it out

Humor from Moonbeam

Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to, doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.

Ralph and Edna were both patients in a mental hospital. One day while they were walking past the hospital swimming pool. Ralph suddenly jumped into the deep end. He sank to the bottom of the pool and stayed there. Edna promptly jumped in to save him. She swam to the bottom and pulled him out. When the Head Nurse Director became aware of Edna's heroic act she immediately ordered her to be discharged from the hospital, as she now considered her to be mentally stable.

When she went to tell Edna the news she said, "Edna, I have good news and bad news. The good news is you're being discharged, since you were able to rationally respond to a crisis by jumping in and saving the life of the person you love. I have concluded that your act displays sound-mindedness."

"The bad news is, Ralph hung himself in the bathroom with his bathrobe belt right after you saved him. I am so sorry, but he's dead."

Edna replied, "He didn't hang himself, I put him there to dry. Now how soon can I go home?"