Diggapedia

Another trip to Israel and the dichotomy surrounding is still pronounced and prevalent.   It also comes at a time when I find myself exploring Jewishness in the context of race and religion; a confounding concept to many non-Jews.   A concept that seems to be confounding many Israelis too. What is Jewishness?   A religion, a genetic marker, a way of life?   I have written previously about being a Good Jew (see http://diggapedia.blogspot.com/2012/04/being-good-jew-and-what-is-christian.html ), but is there a scientific explanation too?   There have been genetic studies that trace an Ashkenazi gene throughout millennia, and I can remember being confused by the concept that Jewish people had a higher risk to certain diseases than others.   How could religion make someone more likely to contract a diseases?   And yet recent studies have traced the male Y chromosomal DNA to the fertile crescent and the female Mitochondial DNA which, according to Beh...

Americans have a hard time dealing with nuance.   We love black and white and we need clarity on good guys versus bad guys. Maybe it’s the byproduct of Hollywood’s Cowboys and Indians movies, professional wrestling’s heels versus baby faces, or because we have been told to ‘root root root for the home team.’ And it certainly doesn’t help when President George W. Bush tells the world “you’re either with us or against us.”   Seemingly, during the 1 st half of the 20 th century things indeed were simpler, we fought the Huns, the Nazis, and the Japanese.   We were attacked and responded with fierce determined force; it was black and white.   But things started getting cloudier soon after, and perhaps ignoring President Eisenhower’s dire warning of the ‘military industrial complex’ we chose to rely almost exclusively on military solutions as opposed to diplomatic solutions.   We had no long game, just short game. And as we have seen in the last twenty years, t...

·          What happens when your national cyber alert center gets hacked? ·          Want to know why USPS is in free fall?   Bad processes, ineptitude, and worse attitude at too many branches. ·          Chris Christie could lose 200 pounds.   It’s called the Mitt Romney distancing surgery. ·          There were 26,000 reported cases of sexual assault in the U.S. Armed Forces.   If there was ever an organization in desperate need of reform…. ·          Meanwhile at the Air Force, its head of sexual assault prevention Lt. Col. Jeffrey Krusinski, was charged with sexual battery. ·          Progress comes in the form of negotiation and compromise.   When the Tea Party crazed GOP proudly calls itself the “Party of ...

·          Rating a tams NFL draft before any of the players take the field is like rating your meal   after you order it a restaurant ·          ”Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.”    An Obama the tyrant administration statement?   No, that would be Hank Paulson, George W. Bush’s Treasury Secretary. ·          Good thing the sequester hasn’t affected the White House Correspondents Dinner. ·          Apparently Mississippi’s Northwest Rankin High School was unaware that the Constitution’s 1 st Amendment and the Supreme Court have ruled that school prayer is unconstitutional.   It seems the school held an assembly where a member of Pi...

As the flood of new reports and interviews on the marathon bombing and the Tsarnaev brothers mounts,   analysis will ensue and every pundit, expert, and host will offer guesses, hypotheses, and theories.   Today Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was in front of the magistrate and a criminal complaint was filed against him that could lead to the death penalty if convicted.   That, of course, is a long ways off.   In the meantime, we have more questions than answers, more opinions than facts, more emotion than logic, and more politics than justice.   And no shortage of stupidity, yes Brian Kilmeade I am talking to you. The usual calls from Republican lawmakers such as Peter King, Mike McCaul, and Michele Bachmann will center on the growing concern of radicalized domestic Muslims, because, after all,   that is the only source of terror.   So while investigators try to stitch together the timeline, and they will, we will learn why Tamerlan Tsarnaev did what he did ...

What a week. Marathon bombing, ricin in the mail, Senate vote on background checks, fertilizer plant explosion, and the shoot-out manhunt in Watertown.   If there was ever a week for Kim Jong Un to step away from the brink quietly this would have been the one.   At least, the ridiculous antics and the media created frenzy of the Jodi Arias trial was put on the back burner.   I cannot remember a single week producing such strong and wide ranging emotions; shock, horror, rage, sadness, disappointment, and ultimately satisfaction.   We will continue to mourn the deceased, ask why, wonder how, question who was responsible, say our thanks, pray for the injured, call loved ones, offer a shoulder, pledge support, applaud the brave, assign blame, and hope for the best and plan for the worst.   No wonder so many people felt physically and emotionally drained. In times of crisis, nobody circles the wagons like Americans.   Whether it’s a terrorist attack, a n...

  Today there is anger, disappointment, and shock on the left and glee, gloating, and snark from the right.   Yes, today in the U.S. Senate 54-46 was a losing score; no there isn’t a vote spread, it’s just the American Senate where 60 is the new majority.   Today, an already watered down bipartisan bill, the Manchin-Toomey bill, a bill that would mandate criminal background checks for all gun purchases via the internet or at gun shows was defeated.   The watered down version exempted family member transfers, private party sales, and ‘non-commercial’ sales and yet it was still defeated.   This bill, a far cry from the President’s goal of universal background checks, could not muster the necessary procedural 60 votes.   Depending what poll you look at, the American public, republicans and democrats, gun owners and otherwise, NRA members and not, universally supported increased background checks.   Why?   Because most intelligent Americans ...