We are inclined to define things by their opposites in these splitapart times. Me, I’ve been noticing the cleavage between number people and word people. I am number literate enough to, say, slog through reconciling a checkbook or reading a P&L. And I did survive a career in auto parts where the whole world rests on the part number. I had committed thousands of part numbers and industry benchmarks to memory, each one of which vanished overnight when I left that job.
How do people live without a cat? No, really, it’s a serious question. Who licks the butter knife? Surely people don’t just . . . wash them. And who fucks up the curly ribbon at Christmas? Nobody gets to sit down and wrap Christmas presents without it turning into a game/battle with the cat, do they? I ask because I have recently endured almost a year of forced catlessness, the first since I was a young’un, and discovered I hardly knew how to live. This year, when I was talking to myself I was really talking to myself and had some concern for my sanity. For the rest of my life I was able to delude myself I was talking to the cat.
A pagan's response to the defamatory article Rabbi David Wolpe published in The Atlantic, December 25, 2023 entitled “The Return of the Pagans.”
Rabbi Wolpe;
Like many pagans I was hurt and angry when I read your article in The Atlantic. I forgive you because it’s obvious you hadn’t thought it through.
At first I thought (hoped, maybe) it was a satirical piece. A Jew vilifying another religion about being tainted with and by money is ironic to such an extreme it made me hope that maybe you just had a misguided sense of humor and had whiffed it. Given that Jews have been vilified for the taint of money and usury by Christians since before the crucifixion and all.