Picture Terror

AP

"The terrorist yelled, 'God is great.' I grabbed Oron's handgun and fired three bullets. As soon as I was sure he was dead I lifted the gun so as not to hurt passersby." Israel Policeman Eli Mizrahi

Picture yourself on vacation, sleeping peacefully in a hotel bed. Maybe you're having a nice dream. Perhaps your partner is snuggled up to you, making you sweat a little in the summer heat but adding even more peace to your last moments of sleep.

You wake up, get dressed, have breakfast, prepare for the day's schedule of site-seeing, shopping, whatever. You find the right bus, jam into it with locals and other tourists like you --well, they're tackier than you, but still, fellow tourists-- and hope like hell the bus has air conditioning.

Picture the noisy streets, crowded, clogged with traffic, especially in the heart of town, around the old bus depot where construction workers are building a shiny new train station. Also, you notice with a smidgen of interest, it's near the central headquarters for local broadcasting stations.

Now picture you're feeling a little annoyed, all that equipment blocking the way, making traffic a nightmare. Resigned to a long wait, you gaze out the window apathetically.

Then you notice the bulldozer. It's driving away from the construction site, moving against traffic. Cars are crashing, horns blaring. Finally, unbelievably, you realize it's heading directly at your bus.

Picture terror.

The bulldozer plows into your bus, knocking it over onto its side like a bowling pin. Like more pins, passengers and debris are flying everywhere. In the process a small Toyota is flattened, it's female driver killed instantly. Other cars have been hit. Pedestrians too.

Picture a horrifying scene of carnage, blood, broken bodies, crumpled metal, destruction. Picture an elite police terror squad as they climb onto the bulldozer and kill the terrorist driver at point blank range.

Then, picture this: ordinary citizens rushing toward the scene, giving all the aid and comfort they can as ambulance sirens wail closer. Jerusalem is now under an official state of emergency.

Picture too, that an event like this is so commonplace my niece called this morning from Jerusalem to apologize she couldn't pick up the special tee shirt for my son because the store she'd planned to visit was in the heart of the chaos. But, she assured me, she'd try another area of the city not prone to attack.

This is my family. This is where they live. This is where I am now. Safe and sound. But only because my family lives in the right place. So far.

Picture the real truth. In America and most of the Western world, terrorism is a political issue. In the Middle East it's the real deal.

It's been quiet in Israel recently with hope focused on the proposed peace talks. But as every Israeli knows, quiet is relative here. Today one crazed, fanatical criminal took peace into his own hands and shattered it. Tomorrow it could be dozens, hundreds, thousands.

I want to hear from Barack Obama and John McCain what they're going to do about protecting Israel. No more tap dancing, dammit. I want a clear picture.

Heading Back to the Homeland

The picture above is from my nephew's wedding this February in Israel. There's nothing like a wedding to bring people together.

Our family's weddings in Israel do more than that -- they bring worlds together. I missed this one because I had surgery. I've finally gotten the go-ahead to fly and am leaving Tuesday (tomorrow!).

As always, I will be welcomed back with joy and excitement. As always, my family will shower me with unconditional love. As always I will offer my love in return, plus a warm welcome and some of Aunt Sally's special guidance to my nieces and the newest family bride. And as always, I will come away having learned more than I could ever teach.

There's much to admire about our family in Israel, but the level of their commitment to a Higher Power is highest on my list. There's something deeply comforting about the purity of religious rituals, both simple and complex.

They provide so much more than merely rules. They offer guidance. And a path toward inner peace. I wouldn't trade that for anything. And every time I visit, I find myself further along that path.

Though our Israel family is much more deeply religious, we're not really so different. In the end, we are the sum of our unique individualities. Which could be a positive way to walk the road to peace. Someday. We can hope.

So off I go. Have computer, will travel. If you don't hear from me for a while, I'll see you in July. Tawk amongst yourselves. I certainly know you can.

Hillary. Oh Hillary

"Politics is the art of the possible; creativity is the art of the impossible." Ben Okri

I watched. I choked up. I was uplifted. I was, as usual, impressed. The rest is about grief. Denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance.

I am one of those "older women" who feel so robbed. And it's not just a philosophical issue to me, I've worked in politics at the highest levels. I know how far women have traveled, and yet when it comes to choosing between a man and a woman, we are still Second Class. In the eyes of the White Male Politicians who still run the show and who believe in their guts women and minorities are all equally second class citizens, it appears even a man of color was deemed preferable to a woman.

I first felt she shouldn't be VP but now I'm not so sure. As for those who worry about comfort level between Barack and Hillary, there's a parallel to be drawn: JFK and Johnson. The youthful purveyor of hope and the tough, savvy warhorse. They hated each other but look what they accomplished. If not for that historic partnership, Barack Obama might not be where he is today.

It could work. I just hope and pray all Hillary's history hasn't been written yet.

Enough said.

Obama's Pyrrhic Victory

"Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds." Henry Brooks Adams

Let's face it, Barack Obama didn't so much win as Hillary Clinton lost. Just as Obama will lose to McCain. That's (almost) all I have to say. I've said so much already, it's just air. Until it becomes reality.

I hope I'm wrong. But I fear that white people will, in the privacy of the voting booth, vote their personal prejudice, not our supposed national conscience. And I believe there are many, many women who will vote for McCain because they feel Hillary was robbed, and patronized in the bargain.

This is the 21st Century, this is America, how absurd to celebrate "the first Black presidential candidate." It shouldn't be an issue. Skin color and gender shouldn't matter. I hate that they still do. It degrades us as a people, and as a country.

In a way, singling the candidates out as "historic" is an insult not only to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, but to all people of color and all women.

These two candidates stand out on their own, for their intelligence, education, abilities, public service and passionate commitment to rights and freedoms for all people. Not because of their color or gender.

Politically, we are the most backward country in the civilized world. And when we elect John McCain president next November we should hang our heads in shame.

DNC Follies

Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

"This body of 30 individuals has decided that they're going to substitute their judgment for 600,000 [Michigan] voters." Harold Ickes

I tried hard to watch the DNC rules committee hearing. Really I did. I know many of the players. I have a personal, pro-Hillary, pro-Democratic Party stake in the outcome. But I knew what it would be, what deals were made, how the die was already cast.

The hearing on CNN: Ponderous pomposity. Transparent toadying. Boring bullsh*t.

The ruling: No surprise. As it has so many, many times, the DNC let us down.

Why has this country suffered almost eight long years of incompetent, indifferent, criminal behavior from the Bush administration? Not because George W. Bush won two elections ... but because the Democrats threw them away.

And now we're about to do it again. Have we learned NOTHING? Count the votes. Count all the votes. All. And let the people speak. Yeah, right, like that'll ever happen.

I'll tell you this: I don't give a damn any more about He Said, She Said. I'm tired of opinions pro this or anti that. Woulda coulda shoulda. I just want to win! What is there left to say?

(Okay, that's it, burnout has officially commenced).

SATC - Entertainment, Not Politics

"... we have come a long way. No question. Definitely. But it's not because of 'Sex and the City.' It's because of what real women have done in real lives, not on TV sets." Susie Bright

Just when my brain is about to explode from too much media coverage of the presidential campaign, along comes the movie version of Sex and the City.

What does it say about our values that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama get a break from the spotlight while the media engage in a virtual masturbatory orgy of psychobabble about the global impact of a fictional group of horny, romantic, often silly women?

Enough! Sex and the City is a movie, not a movement. The real, political movement already happened -- back in the 60's and 70's. I know. I was there. It was called Women's Liberation. Equal Rights. The Sexual Revolution.

Those hard won battles weren't fueled by a TV show or a movie any more than the SATC movie or TV show launched any kind of new cultural breakthroughs. So today's 20-somethings seem obsessed about sex, why does that have so many writers' panties in a twist?

Every generation of young people thinks it invented sex. Our great grandparents were having group sex in bathtubs full of gin, for cryin' out loud. It was the Baby Boomer generation --Make Love, Not War-- that opened a truly new and open discussion.

We Boomers can claim, legitimately, that ours is the generation who brought sex, drugs and rock 'n roll out of the closet and into the forefront of our culture.

We took away the shame, the blame, the insulting game whose rules told us that healthy sexual appetites are for men only. That sexual objectification and worse, abuse, is tolerable. That women don't have the right to control our own bodies.

That's the bottom line. Now, we can not only control them, we can enjoy them. Do what we want with them. Discuss them. Trust me, we dished down-and-dirty then, and we still do.

Most of us weren't strutting the streets of Manhattan in $800 shoes and $1500 dresses. We wore jeans and flip flops. (Oh, you thought you invented those too? Jeez). But we had just as much sex just as casually and reviewed just as many details with our BFF's as do fictional Carrie and crew.

By the way, I'm a devoted SATC fan. Especially because the openness, dreams and vulnerability portrayed resonate with me and my generation of sexually active women from 30-to-50-something. And, one hopes, beyond.

SATC was a hot, sexy TV show with a lot of snappy dialogue, sex, flash, dazzle, and women dropping the F-bomb as casually as they dropped their panties. Yes, they all wanted to be married or at least cared for, but guess what ... so do we all. We don't need someone with a PhD in relationship therapy to tell us the obvious.

I've been eagerly waiting for the movie, but I'm planning to wait just a little longer til the crowds of over-dressed, overly self-conscious and pretentious SATC wannabes are gone. Then, my girlfriends and I will go. And laugh and cry and maybe get annoyed (I already hate Carrie's wedding dress) at the excess.

But in the end, it's just entertainment. Not politics. Which, frankly, gets more fantastical every day.

Air Travel Tips

"Today, most people consider just getting there to be the only remaining value in air travel." Zagat Survey

It's travel season and as a seasoned traveler I'm sharing some tips on how to make your airplane trip smoother, easier and a little safer.

Zen Approach
A realistic, even fatalistic attitude is the key to sane air travel. Today's reality means you will be dealing with underpaid, overworked people in positions of power without proper training or enough supervision.

Many of those people can--and will--abuse that power and make your life hell. If you let them. (I'll tell you how to minimize that in a minute).

Chant to yourself over and over before you leave the house, "It's out of my control. It's out of my control. It's out of my control."

And face facts: if you can't deal with the inevitability of being overcharged, underserved, ordered around, invaded, ignored, pushed, prodded, poked and possibly insulted ... all while enduring endless, boring waits, don't fly. Just stay home. Really.

Money Matters
Keep a collection of ones and fives in a separate small holder, in your pocket or in the top compartment of a carry-on. This is for tips. Don't be stingy. You can afford to hand out a total of twenty bucks to people making minimum wage schlepping heavy stuff for tired, cranky travelers.

Make sure your wallet is packed way down deep in a bag that never leaves your side. I stow my cash and credit cards in a make-up case or anything else that isn't all that interesting and doesn't resemble a wallet. Put some extra money and one credit card in a different place or on your person.

If you're traveling overseas, try to get some local currency before you leave. Do not change money in a foreign airport unless it's a local bank branch. And even with our economy and buying power at an all time low, everybody still wants American dollars.

Send yourself email with your passport info, including number and expiration date, your itinerary and your credit card and bank numbers.

Packing Lists
Make a Travel Packing List and save it on your computer. I have different lists for different destinations. Florida, Israel, California, Denver ... each requires different clothes and gear.

I also group my lists into categories, i.e. Backpack, Carry-On, Checked Luggage. When I'm ready to pack, I print the list and check things off as I put them in the bags.

Tape a copy of your list to the inside of each bag as a reminder so you don't leave anything behind on your return. Plus, it's a good way to keep track of your stuff ... and to let the airline know you're doing just that.

By the way, this is not overly anal. Disagree? Okay, get back to me when you reach your destination and realize you forgot your prescription reading glasses, special shampoo, camera or phone charger.

Pro Packing
Pack meds, toilet articles, iPod, etc. in see-thru cases and fold clothes into plastic packing bags and big zip-locks, which you can buy at Target or CVS.

Remember, your luggage will be searched over and over, your belongings moved and touched by strangers. Security screeners only wear those blue plastic gloves to protect them from the cooties in everybody's luggage.

If they can see everything through your clear plastic cases and bags, security personnel are less likely to open them and physically touch your stuff.

Important: Pack all medications, essential small toiletries, a set of underwear and one outfit in your carry-on to get you through at least a day of lost or late luggage. Include a pack of tissues. And a small bottle of hand sanitizer to use after you've visited the bathroom. Especially on the plane, you don't want the lavatory water even to touch your hands.

Lugging Luggage
If you travel with a lot of stuff, buy the cheapest, lightest luggage you can find. A $35 roomy 30" rolling upright from Walmart has lasted me six round trips and counting from Philly to Tel Aviv.

Mark the outside of your luggage front and back with duck tape. I write my last name in bold marker on the tape. I don't know why more people don't do this, but I can pick out my bags in a flash from the other side of the carousel, and so can a porter (or a kind stranger) if I'm exhausted and needing help.

Don't forget to put your name and address INSIDE your luggage. If those fancy monogrammed luggage tags you bought from Eddie Bauer fall off, how will the airline find you?

Take a digital picture of your bags inside and out and keep it on your camera (print a copy, too) in case the airline loses them. The copy of your travel packing list will come in real handy then too.

At the Airport
Have your ticket, ID or passport and a credit card all together up front where you can grab them instantly. How many times have you stood in line behind someone digging endlessly through her bag making everyone wait? Don't let that person be you.

Bring along a book or magazine, your iPod, take a pill if necessary. Whatever you can do to reduce stress, relieve boredom and let you go with the flow will save you a lot of aggravation.

It's a given you will stand in line quite a while to go through security. Seize that opportunity and use the time productively by preparing for the scanner. Dump the Pepsi. Take off your jacket. Get the laptop out. Unlace the shoes (slip-on's are so much smarter). Have your quart Ziploc ready to drop in the bin.

We all know we have to do this. Savvy travelers don't wait til they reach the belt to start the whole process. They also know you don't make jokes or conversation with TSA employees. Unless you need to point out the metal pins in your knee, the best approach is silent compliance.

While you're in the departure lounge be pleasant to people. Admire babies, smile sympathetically at the parents of crying or restless children. Help an older person with a bag or offer to get her a bottle of water. Strike up a conversation with the person next to you. All will make time pass and gain you points, if only in heaven.

And if you have a question or request for airline personnel, be nice, be patient, try to be courteous even if they're frazzled. Remember, they don't run the airline, their job mainly consists of stamping tickets and listening to angry people bitch and moan every hour of every single day.

On the Plane
Have your boarding pass (and ID if required) in your hand when boarding is called. If possible, have your book and glasses out or at the top of your carry-on too.

Read your boarding pass, figure out approximately where your seat is, find it fast, stow your bag(s) above and below your seat and sit down as quickly as possible.

Help your seat mate do the same if necessary.

You will have gone to the bathroom while waiting in the departure lounge.

Then you can settle back, open your book, embrace your Zen attitude and be well prepared to wait until the waiting's over.

FL Jews vs Obama or the New York Times?

Eric Thayer for The New York Times

Shirley Weitz, right, talking to Ruth Grossman in Boynton Beach, Fla. The Jews she knows will not vote for Senator Barack Obama, Ms. Weitz said, because of “his attitude toward Israel.”

There's an article in The New York Times on the ambivalence many Florida Jews feel about voting for Barack Obama. It's a serious article about an important issue. But somebody at the Times didn't pay attention to some decidedly unserious gaffes.

Let's start with Mrs. Weitz of Boynton Beach, pictured above in the article's cover photo. Styled dark hair, expert make-up, trim figure, trendy clothes. I see similar lovely ladies when I visit my parents in nearby Boca Raton.

Not one of those women would ever choose to be identified in the New York Times by her age, except possibly in her obituary.



Okay, maybe a small thing. But let's move on to Ms. Grossman, literally outed by the Times on race and her voting preference.



I think the cat's out of the bag now, Ms. Grossman. Unless none of your neighbors read the Times.

Then there's the sidebar photo. Unintentionally hilarious. Oh, don't give me a hard time about fat-bashing. I don't care what you look like as long as you're healthy. But I'm guessing the lady pictured isn't too thrilled with the offer to um, further enlarge her image.



Finally I have to ask Rabbi New how he thinks his senior constituents will respond when they read his highlighted Times quote as he mused about "The fate of the world for the next four years."



Oy.

Happy and HEALTHY Birthday, Karen

"Nothing contributes so much to tranquilizing the mind as a steady purpose -- a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye." Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Today is my niece Karen's birthday. You could ask, who gives a whoop besides her family? Anybody who's ever faced cancer, that's who. They know, as Karen knows, that every birthday is a gift. More, a triumph.

Karen's been fighting cancer for 8 years. During most of those years not for herself, which would be hard enough. But for her young son, which is, to a parent, much, much worse.

Alex was diagnosed at age 4 with a rare disease called VHL. An operation removed all the mechanics of his right ear, carotid artery and part of his brain. The outer ear is still there, but the hearing is gone.

You all know Alex. I haven't written about him for a while because although he's an extraordinary boy, thank god there's been nothing out of the ordinary to say. Last week Alex celebrated his 12th birthday.

A continuing triumph. Of family and medical diligence, healthy lifestyle, good karma, mind over matter. Whatever, we'll take it. Especially now for Karen's birthday too.

Because incredibly, a year and a half ago Karen got cancer. Not VHL. Skin cancer. Melanoma. Oh yeah. we've all heard of that. And not in a good way.

Karen's was first a small patch on her leg. Excised, clean margins, finished. Then, six months later tumors in her right eye signaled the much rarer, much more dangerous, ocular melanoma.

They tried everything, but it came back. On April 16, barely a month ago, surgeons had to remove her right eye. An outer cover is there, attached to the muscles which still work, but the sight is gone.

Karen and Alex. Mother and son. Different cancers, similar losses, totally the right attitude.

Fight. Mobilize. Energize. Laugh. Love. Live. Learn all you can. Gather your physical and emotional resourses. Seek and accept support and counsel and advice. Lean on your loved ones and stand on your own two feet.

According to Karen's example, that's what you do to survive. More, that's how you live life to the fullest.

Karen is a survivor of the highest order. An inspiration to cancer victims, mothers of cancer victims, other survivors and those who are trying to be. An object lesson to those of us who waste time moaning about petty problems.

Tomorrow Karen has her first appointment to be fitted for an artificial eye. She's been wearing cool eye patches, but is really looking forward to looking like she's got the real deal.

What a birthday present, eh? And not just for another of life's milestones, but for a true celebration of life itself.

Happy and HEALTHY Birthday, Karen. We're all wishing you many, many, many, many more.

Get the whole 411 on Karen HERE.

Family Fun Facts

"If you can't make it better, you can laugh at it." Erma Bombeck

Okay, so I'm a week late for Mother's Day. Most mothers are farther behind than that.

I was supposed to leave for Israel today but my sore paw is still acting up and will delay my trip at least a month. I need a distraction. And I thought we could all use a laugh, even a week late.

Our family in Israel has 10 kids, youngest is 7. There are now 7 grandkids, oldest is 6. Here's something funny (and potentially too true), supposedly written by a mother in Austin, TX.

25 THINGS I'VE LEARNED FROM MY CHILDREN

1. A king size waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2000 sq. ft. house 4 inches deep.

2. If you spray hairspray on dust bunnies and run over them with roller blades, they ignite.

3. When you hear the toilet flush and the words "Uh-oh," it's already too late.

4. One 3-year-old's voice is louder than 200 adults in a crowded restaurant.

5. Brake fluid mixed with Clorox makes smoke, and lots of it.

6. No matter how much Jello you put in a swimming pool, you still can't walk on water.

7. Pool filters do not like Jello.

8. Certain Lego's will pass through the digestive tract of a four-year-old.

9. Play Dough and Microwave should never be used in the same sentence.

10. Super glue is forever.

11. Garbage bags do not make good parachutes.

12. Marbles in gas tanks make lots of noise when driving.

13. You probably do not want to know what that odor is.

14. Always look in the oven before you turn it on. Plastic toys do not like ovens. Neither do gerbils.

15. The spin cycle on the washing machine does not make earthworms dizzy.

16. It does, however, make cats dizzy.

17. Cats throw up twice their body weight when dizzy.

18. If you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to rotate a 42 pound boy wearing Batman underwear and a superman cape.

19. It is strong enough, however, if tied to a paint can, to spread paint on all four walls of a 20 by 20 foot room.

20. You should not throw baseballs up in the air when the ceiling fan is on.

21. When using the ceiling fan as a bat , you have to throw the ball up a few times before you get a hit.

22. A ceiling fan can hit a baseball a long way.

23. The glass in windows (even safety glass) doesn't stop a baseball hit by a ceiling fan.

24. Your sister's head will, however, stop that same baseball.

25. Sisters hit in the head by baseballs cause a LOT of commotion.