A few weeks ago while working at the shelter a man accused us on the phone of trying to "Jew him", i.e. take his money and rip him off by not giving him anything substantive in return, or something to that effect. He wanted to return a dog he adopted several months ago that we told him had behavior problems and told him exactly what to do to keep working and training with the dog to minimize them and correct his habits, yet he failed to do this and the very large and strong dog with huge seperation anxiety issues has done several thousand dollars of damage to his rented home. We told him he's welcome to surrender the dog back to us, as it's a return we won't charge anything for the surrender, but it's way beyond the time limit stated in the contract he signed to get any sort of money back. We don't manufacture cars, we try to adopt animals to family's and we do so making every effort to educate them on any and all issues the animal might have. Because we would give him no money back he said, "Ya'll are trying to Jew me here." I stopped, said "Excuse me? Did you just say we're trying to 'Jew you'?" "Yeah, yeah man, you all are ripping me off! You're trying to Jew me here, man!" "Excuse me, but that is not at all an appropriate thing to say, sir. For the record, I am a Jew and your casual ignorance is highly offensive. I could say to you that you are probably too niggardly to have continued the dog's training properly and that's why he's ripping up your house, but wait...that would actually be a grammatically appropriate use of a word only later co-opted into a racist phrase yet never the less still offensive to you, I'd bet...(this is where I'm pretty sure I lost him entirely.)"
Casual ignorance. Much like the kids on campus demanding university divestiture from Israel on human rights grounds, despite the fact that Israel is easily one of the leading countries in human rights preservation in the middle east region, much less probably in the world. Apartheid state? Please! Could the black citizens in South Africa petition the Apartheid regime's supreme court for redress and WIN not only a legal victory but a factual and effective one with immediate, real life results? For fuck's sake.
I feel more and more a call towards rabbinical study, if not actual ordination and work as a rabbi. I may not be a good Jew, but at least I'm an involved one!
On a happier note, as of this past Friday I adopted a dog from the shelter. He is a ridiculously runty looking chihuahua I have named Horatio. His tongue sticks out the left side of his mouth and his eyes are buggy and too big for his head. He thinks he's a huge, tough dog but is really smaller than my cats. Horatio fookin' rules, though, and don't you forget it. I got his name tags made up so that on the back side it says "Judge me by my size, do you?" Hi-larioius, if you ask me.
A friend of mine has a digital camera, I have discovered. If you would like to see crazy pictures of me, ones that will probably give you a better idea of what I look like than the one of me smoking a blurry cigarette...mmm cigarettes....drop a comment and I will attempt to satisfy your desires. Even, perhaps especially, if they are desires not relating to photos.
My mind may be in the gutter, but my feet are in the stars! Wait a minute...check that, reverse that.
Casual ignorance. Much like the kids on campus demanding university divestiture from Israel on human rights grounds, despite the fact that Israel is easily one of the leading countries in human rights preservation in the middle east region, much less probably in the world. Apartheid state? Please! Could the black citizens in South Africa petition the Apartheid regime's supreme court for redress and WIN not only a legal victory but a factual and effective one with immediate, real life results? For fuck's sake.
I feel more and more a call towards rabbinical study, if not actual ordination and work as a rabbi. I may not be a good Jew, but at least I'm an involved one!
On a happier note, as of this past Friday I adopted a dog from the shelter. He is a ridiculously runty looking chihuahua I have named Horatio. His tongue sticks out the left side of his mouth and his eyes are buggy and too big for his head. He thinks he's a huge, tough dog but is really smaller than my cats. Horatio fookin' rules, though, and don't you forget it. I got his name tags made up so that on the back side it says "Judge me by my size, do you?" Hi-larioius, if you ask me.
A friend of mine has a digital camera, I have discovered. If you would like to see crazy pictures of me, ones that will probably give you a better idea of what I look like than the one of me smoking a blurry cigarette...mmm cigarettes....drop a comment and I will attempt to satisfy your desires. Even, perhaps especially, if they are desires not relating to photos.
My mind may be in the gutter, but my feet are in the stars! Wait a minute...check that, reverse that.