העורך Editor

Dictators Are Dull As Dishwater

Dictators hilariously belabor the obvious (unsure why).

Neglected Books pokes fun at a few dictatorial cliffhangers.

On Gaddafi’s “Green Book“:

[Libyans] may find themselves struggling with the basics of human reproduction without the Great Leader’s wise advice:

Women are females and men are males. According to gynaecologists, women menstruate every month or so, while men, being male, do not menstruate or suffer during the monthly period. A woman, being a female, is naturally subject to monthly bleeding. When a woman does not menstruate, she is pregnant. If she is pregnant, she becomes, due to pregnancy, less active for about a year, which means that all her natural activities are seriously reduced until she delivers her baby…. The man, on the other hand, neither conceives nor breast-feeds. End of gynaecological statement!

And read the memorable conversations between dictators J. Stalin and E. Hoxha.

“What about eucalyptus? Have you sown the seeds I gave you?”

“We have sent them to the Myzeqe zone where there are more swamps,” I said, “and have given our specialists all your instructions.”

“Good,” said Comrade Stalin. “They must take care that they sprout and grow. It is a tree that grows very fast and has a great effect on moisture. The seed of maize I gave you can be increased rapidly and you can spread it all over Albania,” Comrade Stalin said and asked: “Have you special institutions for seed selection?”

“Yes,” I said “we have set up a sector for seeds attached to the Ministry of Agriculture and shall strengthen and extend it in the future.”

“You will do well!” Comrade Stalin said. “The people of that sector must have a thorough knowledge of what kinds of plants and seeds are most suitable for the various zones of the country and must see to getting them.”

 Stalin clearly saw that people who had been farming their lands through many generations desperately needed party cadre officers to tell them what to plant. One had only to look at the remarkable results the Soviets had achieved through collectivization to know that.

“No longer mandatory reading, these volumes languish, neglected by all but die-hard loyalists, masochists, and those inclined to morbid curiousity.”

Read the rest here…

(The original, unabridged dialogue is even funnier. Find it here on Marxists.org for free.)

DON’T Promise an Apartment!

Be the change…

An excerpt from Tzarich Iyun here:

For several years now, there has been an undercurrent of feeling that common behavior concerning children’s marriages is “abnormal,” to put it mildly. There is also a general sense that there is not much to be done about it. I have been dealing with this issue for many years, and every time I present the economic infeasibility of our existing conduct, the typical response is: “We agree with you, of course, but there is nothing we can do.” Or, in a similar vein: “This is the situation, these are the community norms, and you and I will not be able to change it.”

These kinds of responses reflect an approach whereby change can only come through intervention from above. They may even pin the blame on Rashei Yeshivah who encourage their students to demand apartments—which is far from a false accusation. However, it is worth noting that over twenty years ago (in Adar 5750), the great Torah luminaries in Israel published a joint letter declaring that the current reality that requires parents to purchase an apartment for their children “involves severe prohibitions” and even advised the correct way to marry off children. Those parents who complain today about the absurdity and impossibility of the situation might have been some thirty years old back then. Has anything fundamentally changed?

I keep this letter framed for all those who await the day when “the rabbis will wake up” to come to save us from ourselves. Everyone tells me that “public change is needed.” But the public is you and me. Rashei Yeshivah do not force parents to buy an apartment for their children. They, just like the parents themselves, are also waiting for the norm to change. But so long as it doesn’t, every groom will say to himself with some justification, “Why should I be the one to lose out?”

The truth is that change depends on us. If you and I refuse to resign ourselves to this absurd reality, there is a chance that something will change. But if we continue to wait for some higher authority to fix it, we are inevitably doomed to continue suffering from cultural standards that impoverish us all.

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