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What if you gave a blowjob party but nobody came?

The Article: Are You There God? It’s Me, Monica (How nice girls got so casual about oral sex) by Caitlin Flanagan of the Atlantic.

Choice Bits (and I’ve never heard Jewish oral sex discussed so deeply):

The first time I heard a mother of girls talk about the teenage oral-sex craze, I made her cry. The story she told meā€”about a bar mitzvah dinner dance on the North Shore of Chicago, where the girls serviced all the boys on the chartered bus from the temple to the reception hallā€”was so preposterous that I burst out laughing. The thought of thirteen-year-old girls in party dresses performing a sex act once considered the province of prostitutes (we are talking here about the on-your-knees variety given to a series of near strangers) was so ludicrous that all I could do was giggle.

The moms in my set are convincedā€”they’re certain; they know for a factā€”that all over the city, in the very best schools, in the nicest families, in the leafiest neighborhoods, twelve- and thirteen-year-old girls are performing oral sex on as many boys as they can. They’re ducking into janitors’ closets between classes to do it; they’re doing it on school buses, and in bathrooms, libraries, and stairwells. They’re making bar mitzvah presents of the act, and performing it at “train parties”: boys lined up on one side of the room, girls working their way down the row. The circle jerk of oldā€”shivering Boy Scouts huddled together in the forest primeval, desperately trying to spank out the first few drops of their own manhoodā€”has apparently moved indoors, and now (death knell of the Eagle Scout?) there’s a bevy of willing girls to do the work.
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When I first began hearing these stories, I was convinced that we were in the grips of a nationwide urban legend, and the prevalence of stories centered on bar mitzvahs seemed to me suspicious, possibly even anti-Semitic in origin. But sure enough, in 2003 a feminist Jewish quarterly called Lilith addressed the storyā€”not to debunk it but to come to terms with it as a recognized problem within the Jewish community: “No one is suggesting, even for a moment, that Jewish teens are leading the oral sex revolution. But they may have earlier and more frequent opportunities for sexual contact in a supercharged social milieu than their non-Jewish peers.” The authors observe that the oral sex is “almost always unilateral (girls on boys).”

… Somehow these girls have developed the indifferent attitude toward performing oral sex that one would associate with bitter, long-married women or streetwalkers. But they think of themselves as normal teenagers, version 2005. For a while, whenever I passed groups of young girls, I looked at them anew. Were these nice kidsā€”the ones playing AYSO soccer and doing their homework and shopping with their momsā€”behaving like little whores whenever they got the chance? It was like some weird search for communistsā€”was the sweet, well-spoken daughter of a friend actually a blowjobber? I looked at the small girls in my children’s schoolyardā€”as cosseted and protected and beloved a group of children as you will find anywhere on the planetā€”and tried to convince myself that in a matter of five or six years they would be performing oral sex on virtual strangers.

he Rainbow Party, an offering from Simon Pulse, a young-adult division of Simon & Schuster, takes place on a single day, in which a tough little sophomore named Gin issues invitations to a party at which she and five of her friends will perform oral sex on the lucky guests, a group of popular boys. The girls will each wear a different color of lipstick, so that when a boy has completed the circuit, his penis will bear the colors of the rainbow. The party is to take place after school, to last about an hour and a halfā€”including time for chitchatā€”and to conclude before Gin’s father returns home from work.

In addition to the predictable, outraged criticism that this vile book has received, there is a question of veracity: as many readers have noted, wouldn’t the different colors of lipstick smear together, destroying the desired rainbow effect? Not once, however, has another question been posed: How many boys could successfully receive seven blowjobs in an hour? Surely even the adolescent male at the peak of his sexual prime needs at least a few minutes to reload. One would assume that the first transaction would be completed at light speed, that the second might take a bit longerā€”and that by the fourth or fifth even the horniest tenth-grader might display some real staying power. But asking questions like these will automatically preclude you from entering the current oral-sex hysteria, which presupposes not only that a limitless number of young American girls have taken on the sexual practices of porn queens but also that American boys are capable of having an infinite number of sexual experiences in rapid succession. It requires believing that a boy could be serviced at the school-bus train partyā€”receiving oral sex from ten or fifteen girls, one after anotherā€”and then zip his fly and head off to homeroom, first stopping in the stairwell for a quickie to tide him over until math.

Why it’s important: If you weren’t lucky enough to be bestowed with “back in my day, a liver pie cost 5 cents and you’d still have enough change afterwards to sleep with a fat prostitute in Harlem”, here’s your chance. Nothing says old or out of touch then an old and out of touch person writing about generational differences. *GASP!* Younger people think about subjects and act in different ways (*GASP!*) including sex then their elders do! To the Batmobile, Sherlock Fucking Holmes.

Analysis: Thank god for this article and the reasoning behind it. It makes my day when I can peruse one of my favorite periodicals to hear the logical fallacy behind rainbow parties: “How many boys could successfully receive seven blowjobs in an hour? Surely even the adolescent male at the peak of his sexual prime needs at least a few minutes to reload.” I suggest to Ms. Flanagan the ever popular bukkake film, which will show her first hand the idea that ‘sharing is caring’. And by caring, I mean smearing a male humans protein strands all over a females face. Mmm mmm mmm, love at first sight. The point and summary is simple: blowjobs rule, blowjobs make you popular, and every girl between 13 and 18 are giving them out for free. I’ll see you, dear reader, at the nearest high school parking lot.

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The Short, Drunken Life of Club Row

The Article: An excellent article in New York magazine by Isaiah Wilner detailing the rise and fall of 27th Street.

Choice bits (since the article is long, read it at the New Yorker website):

Nightclubs were big business now. If you carried a black AmEx card, you could count on getting in, somewhere. ā€œBottle serviceā€”it was a killer,ā€ one club worker recalls. ā€œBecause now you didnā€™t have to look right to get in. The owners didnā€™t care about the quality of the crowd. The bottom line was the money. It was, Sell those tables, sell those tables, up-sell, magnums, bottle minimums. And you now hadā€”forgive me for saying itā€”every undesirable seated in a nightclub.ā€

The same summer, B.E.D., which had opened in January on the sixth floor, debuted its rooftop lounge. ā€œThatā€™s when all the bridge-and-tunnel guys came in,ā€ a 27th Street veteran recalls. ā€œThese are the guys who brought the Jersey girls and the short shorts. They mobbed the whole street. And then, when you walked to Bungalow, you saw seven trashy blonde chicks standing outside begging to be let in, and guess what? It takes away from the atmosphere.ā€

By the summer of 2006, the street crawled with peopleā€”forcing the police to barricade both ends. Masses of visored men in bright T-shirts stumbled through, smoking joints, carrying plastic cups, urinating on the walls. Thin girls toddled out in spike heels. It was a boozy CancĆŗn North. People threw up in front of buildings and on their clothes; turned away at the door, they spat at the doormen. ā€œWeā€™d find people passed out in the bathroom,ā€ recalls a former employee of B.E.D. ā€œYou would think it was a dead body. Passed out, like scary passed out, like smack them, pick them up, theyā€™re like Jell-O, like someone took their spine out. And on the street. You would literally see people face down in the gutter.ā€

And the keeper:

ā€œItā€™s not about who you know, itā€™s how you carry yourself,ā€ says one visibly excited man, tonguing his teeth and working his jaw as he strides with his friend toward the bar in back. ā€œIā€™m the guy that walked in, said ā€˜hi,ā€™ paid for my drinks, did my blow in the bathroom, and came out smiling. They respect me for it.ā€

The importance: Not much frankly, except for the lesson of keeping people from New Jersey out of your club if you want it not to be a cesspool of disgusting human beings.

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Israel’s surge of despair

Update: Salon made my letter an Editor’s Pick.

The Article: In today’s edition of Salon, Gregory Levey evaluates in Israel’s Surge of Despair Israeli politics following the war against Hezbollah and Israeli diplomacy as the United States sinks further and further into Iraq. The article can be summed with the authors own anecdote:

To many in or involved with the Israeli government, George W. Bush’s presence in the Oval Office was once reassuring. Now, it is increasingly worrying. Back in early 2004, when I started working in the Israeli Mission to the U.N. — during the first year of the U.S. occupation of Iraq — one of the senior diplomats there had an autographed photograph of Bush hanging behind his desk. But by the summer of 2005, as Iraq spiraled into chaos, I noticed that he had replaced it, without explanation, with a photo of U2’s Bono.


Analysis
: Available as a letter on Salon and below.

The war was certainly lost, but not in traditional measures of goals accomplished or battles lost. I think we can compare Israel’s recent efforts in Lebanon to the United States involvement in Iraq. While we may equate both the physical battles as a standstill, both conflicts have been complete diplomatic fiascos. Public opinion and international trust have mitigated any positive effect military action may have created.

Israel, in many ways like its diplomatic big brother America, has suffered a debilitating setback in its international standing. Israel is far from the victim of anti-Semitic persecution or the biblical David of the Middle East, as many geriatric Zionists or muddled neo-Conservatives would want you to believe. It is perceived to be a purveyor of violence, intolerance, occupation, nationalism, and religious and cultural ethnocentricism. This is not a perception limited to the Arab world: Europe and the American left, once firm supporters of the ‘Jewish’ state are coming to the realization that unwavering and uncritical support for a belligerent state is hypocritical and against long term strategic interests. This may have been in the cards though, as what serious, well-thought liberal would openly support a state thatā€™s based on the values one should isolate and condemn (religion, societal divisions, fierce and violent nationalism).

In the short term, we have witnessed a complete diplomatic isolation of both states. America is impotent and enfeebled on this front, failing to stop the bloodshed in Lebanon this summer, to bring about peaceful resolution to ongoing Hamas and Fatah strife, or serious change to the Israeli Palestinian situation. America’s allies are quickly distancing itself as it continues to stumble over itself in the region: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan have all splintered from American methods on Iran, Israel/Palestine, and Iraq. Further, only America could turn an issue that most in the international community agree on — the desire to limit the nuclear capabilities of Iran — into a political conflict that may result in war. This has manifested itself by proxy in Israel’s diplomacy as well. As Israel sinks itself farther into the talons of Bush’s zero-sum game, the farther it is incapable of pursuing normalized relations with other countries.

I personally hope that for many this realization emerged this summer. These are not wars we are bound to be civility, these are not countries people are bound to because of identity. These are political conquests carried out by the agents of the right under the pretense of fear and safety.

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Make Money the ‘Jewish Way’

The Article: ‘Sold on a Stereotype’, that was on the front page of yesterday’s business section of the Washington Post. It details in depth how self-help books based around the idea that Jews make lots of money are a huge enterprise in China. I’ll leave you to read it, followed by analysis:

SHANGHAI — Showcased in bookstores between biographies of Andrew Carnegie and the newest treatise by China’s president are stacks of works built on a stereotype.

One promises “The Eight Most Valuable Business Secrets of the Jewish.”

Another title teases readers with “The Legend of Jewish Wealth.” A third provides a look at “Jewish People and Business: The Bible of How to Live Their Lives.”

In the United States, where making broad generalizations about races, cultures or religions has become unacceptable in most circles, the titles of some of these books might make people cringe. Throughout history and around the world, even outwardly innocuous and broadly accepted characterizations of Jews have sometimes formed the basis for eventual campaigns of violent anti-Semitism.

In Shanghai, which prides itself on having provided a safe haven for Jewish refugees fleeing Europe since the 1930s, some members of the city’s small Jewish community are uneasy about the books’ message.

These Jewish success books are “very dangerous,” said Audrie Ohana, 30, who works at her family’s import-export company and attended China’s prestigious Fudan University. “What they say — it’s not true. In our community, it’s not everybody that succeeds. We’re like everyone else. Some are rich, but there are others that are very, very poor.”

Nonetheless, in China, a country where glossy pictures of new billionaires have become as common as images of Mao Zedong, aspiring Chinese entrepreneurs are obsessed with getting their hands on anything they think can help them get an edge on the competition.

In the past few years, sales of “success” books have skyrocketed, publishers say, and now make up nearly a third of the works published in China, and perhaps no type of success book has been as well marketed or well received as those that purport to unveil the secrets of Jewish entrepreneurs. Many of these tomes sell upward of 30,000 copies a year and are thought of in the same inspirational way as many Americans view the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series.

Among this booming genre’s most popular books is William Hampton’s “Jewish Entrepreneurial Experience and Business Wisdom.” It comes packaged in a red-and-gold cover, and a banner along the top brags that it was a “gold list” bestseller in the United States. Among Hampton’s credentials, according to his biography: “Business Week editor,” part of the “pioneer batch of Harvard DBAs,” “professor in business strategy and philosophy” with “many years of experience in Jewish studies.”

More on that set of claims in a moment.

China is the fastest-growing book market in the world, with 130,000 new titles published in 2005. Sales that year reached $8.3 billion, a 50 percent jump from 2003, according to China National Publications Import and Export’s data research arm.

The business success books provide idealized notions of what Chinese people should strive to become and serve as templates for teaching people who have been working at communist, state-owned enterprises for a generation how to transform themselves as capitalists. Acclime has a team of professionals who can help you if you’re looking for Australian company registration services.

Several of the books, despite their covers, focus on basic business acumen that has little to do with religion or culture. But others focus on explaining how Judaism has ostensibly helped Jewish people’s success, even quoting extensively from the Talmud. Use dimensional signs to improve your brand.

Practically every book features one or more case studies of the success of the Lehman brothers, the Rothschilds and other Jewish “titans of industry and captains of finance,” as one author put it.

Some works incorrectly refer to J.P. Morgan (an influential Episcopalian leader) and John D. Rockefeller (a devout Baptist) as Jewish businessmen.

Yin Ri Shuai, a 29-year-old from Henan province, west of Shanghai, who is opening a cosmetics franchise, has purchased and read two such success books. Recently, he was back at the Shanghai City of Books, flipping through some recent titles.

“I feel they are interesting not only because they teach about business but because they teach about family and education and other values,” Yin said.

Most Chinese people have never met a Jew — they number fewer than 10,000 in a country of 1.3 billion people. But several of the most successful businessmen in the nation’s financial capital, Shanghai, have been Jewish. The Sassoon brothers, for instance, were real-estate moguls of British descent from Baghdad who constructed the landmark Peace Hotel.

Today, one of the deans of the Jewish community in Shanghai is Ohana’s father, Maurice, 57, who has lived in China for more than 10 years.

Maurice Ohana has mixed feelings about the Jewish business books. On the one hand, he believes that the books’ assertions that many Jewish people value punctuality and never go back on their promises are “absolutely correct.”

But the books’ tendency to mix religious scripture with business lessons makes him uncomfortable. “I know very well the Talmud,” he said. “They don’t talk about business.”

Positive stereotypes about Jews and their supposed business prowess have given the Jewish community iconic status in the eyes of the Chinese public.

The cover of January’s Shanghai and Hong Kong Economy magazine wonders, “Where does Jewish people’s wisdom come from?”

Jewish entrepreneurs say they are bombarded with invitations to give seminars on how to make money “the Jewish way.”

Last year, a Jewish businessman’s family was featured on a popular TV show. As the husband and wife gave viewers an introduction to the Jewish faith, the cameramen went around filming the family in action as they performed mundane household tasks. Reporters asked them what they ate.

Zhou Guojian, deputy dean of the Center for Jewish Studies at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, said people in China may be so fascinated by Jews because they feel both cultures share a strong entrepreneurial spirit.

Yin Ri Shuai, a Chinese entrepreneur, says Jewish success books “teach about family and education and other values,” not just business. (By Ariana Eunjung Cha — The Washington Post)

In his opinion, though, there is one big difference. Many Chinese businessmen have “Chinese restaurant syndrome,” Zhou said. “They are content with small-scale enterprises; they are happy just to make a living. But Jewish people want to be the best and make a huge company.”

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Wang Zhen, a researcher at the Center for Jewish Studies, also says he recognizes that the stereotypes can be considered anti-Semitic but thinks it’s important that “even if people in China have the wrong impressions of Jewish people, the Chinese are very kind to them.”

One puzzling phenomenon about the Jewish business books is that it’s often unclear who wrote them. More than 50 titles are sold in China’s bookstores, chain stores and other outlets.

He Xiong Fe, a visiting professor in Nankai University’s literature department, estimates that more than half of the books are fakes, written by people who are not familiar with Judaism or Jewish history and who have made up their qualifications.

“There are only a few books that have value,” said He, who has lectured on such topics as “Why are Jewish people so smart?” and “The mystery of the Jews.”

When asked for contact information for William Hampton, author of “Jewish Entrepreneurial Experience and Business Wisdom,” a representative for the book’s publisher, Harbin Press, said the company obtained the manuscript from a translator and had never met the author. Several days later, the publisher said she had trouble reaching the translator so she could not provide more details about the origin of the book.

A search of international ISBNs — the 10-digit codes that identify books published in the United States and other countries — pulled up no hits for books by a William Hampton with a title similar to “Jewish Entrepreneurial Experience and Business Wisdom.”

Harvard Business School has no record of a William Hampton in the first class of its doctorate of business administration program. Officials at Business Week magazine said there was a former employee with that name. William Hampton publishes an automobile newsletter.

Reached at his home near Detroit, Hampton said he was a former bureau chief and auto writer for the magazine, working there from 1977 to 1984, but had never served as an editor.

Moreover, he said he had no idea where the book came from. “I can confidently tell you that this is not something that I did,” he said. “This would not be a topic I would be knowledgeable about in any way. It would be helpful to be Jewish, for one thing.”

Why it’s important: Because old media doesn’t get it and I finally have the proof, culminated in a single article.

Analysis: This article was on the front page of the business section of the Washington Post. This was published in a major media newspaper. And yet, this may be the worst article I’ve read in my 23 years of existence and 19 years of literacy. Great, the Chinese like to read books about how Jews get rich, even though they are approximately a ten-thousandth of their population! Sounds like conventional wisdom and intelligence really has asserted itself in China with the emergence of the free market. I have some books about how Vikings make boats if they’re interested!

If anyone actually wonders why people are turning away from main stream media sources, well, here’s your answer. This poop pile wouldn’t even get highlighted on a major blog, yet somehow finds itself on the Post’s business page.

Here’s my tip for the Post: How about an article about the quirks emerging between a Communist political system and a free market system? Or if that’s too much (because the Economist you are not) and are so intent about writing about self-help books that talk about Jews and money — how about talking about THIS AS THE STUPIDEST FUCKING THING ON THE PLANET? These people make on average $2000 a year, do you think any of them are solving their lot by purchasing this? Because I’m certainly not solving mine by continuing my subscription to the Post.

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Glenn Beck – A Cause for Concern

The article of the day comes from AAI’s President Jim Zogby in regards to CNN ‘journalist’ Glenn Beck. Full text is below, followed by commentary and analysis:

Glenn Beck represents a truly troubling trend in television journalism. Since May 2006, the radio talk show host has had his own one hour nightly program on CNNā€™s Headline News channel. While the network may have hoped that Beckā€™s flamboyant style would increase ratings, the cost to their integrity has been staggering.

It is important to note, from the outset, that Beck doesnā€™t stand alone. The insertion of the personalities and style of radio talkshow hosts into mainstream television news programming has been taking place for a number of years now. Their crude, cynical and cutting edge commentary, their feigning the role of the common man, and their inflammatory ā€œus versus themā€ rhetoric is now standard fair on many of the major networks.

The result of this trend is evident on a number of levels. There has been a coarsening and dumbing down of our political discourse on several issues of national importance. When Beck refers to President Carter as a ā€œfatheadā€ or speaks of Saudi leaders as ā€œnut-jobs,ā€ serious discussion is displaced by crude and demeaning jabs.

There is the additional problem that instead of educating the public, this new breed of television pundits reduces issues to their lowest common denominator, thereby reinforcing preexisting, uninformed biases. Never shy to share an unenlightened view, Beck, for example, will note ā€œIā€™m not an expert, butā€¦ā€ and then proceed to make his case using a mishmash of clichĆ©s that reflect the prejudices of conventional wisdom.

While much of the same could be said about a number of other similar personalities that now populate the airwaves, Beck comes with a significant difference. I have carefully reviewed the transcripts of Beckā€™s shows and his so-called, obsessive crusade against radical Islam left me both horrified and profoundly concerned. In just the past two months, for example, one half of Beckā€™s shows have focused on matters Muslim. Beck insists that he is not opposed to all Muslims, only what he refers to as the ā€œ10 percent who are evil.ā€ He then counters this observation by stating that the vast majority of good Muslims have been cowered into silence by the extremist 10 percent, so that they too stand indicted by their cowardice. Only when they do speak out, Beck says, will radical Islam be defeated and the rest of us be safe from their scourge. The net result of this circumlocution is that the majority of Muslims are to blame.

When Beck is not venting his own prejudiced view of Islam, he invites on-air guests who amplify his views. They are of three types: Israelis, right-wing Americans with a long-established ax to grind against Arabs and Muslims, and lastly, a handful of Muslims who are largely alienated and self-styled outcasts who have found their shtick striking out against their co-religionists.

His right-wing guests or Israelis, like former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (who was Beckā€™s guest for an entire hour on a special program that aired three times in one month) are only too happy to reinforce Beckā€™s views. His Muslim guests similarly serve to validate Beckā€™s complaint about the broader Muslim community. In all of this, there is not even the pretense of balance.

The impact has been predictable and frightening. After I raised some concern that ABCā€™s Good Morning America was hiring Beck to serve as a commentator on that once respected program, I received a taste of what Beckā€™s impact has been. Emails from Beckā€™s supporters have called me ā€œan animal Muslimā€ (Iā€™m a Catholic). Theyā€™ve told me that I donā€™t belong in America (when in fact my family has lived in this country for over 100 years, serving in every branch of the military), and that I am shielding terrorists by refusing to protest against them (wrong on both counts, but my critics have obviously never read my denunciations of terrorism and terrorists).

And it is this that concerns me. We are, in fact, engaged in a troubling conflict against extremism fueled by religious fervor, both ours and theirs. What this period and this conflict require is intelligent discussion, not inflammatory rhetoric. To guide us through this, we need journalists like Walter Cronkite, Edgar R. Murrow and Peter Jennings; we donā€™t need flame-throwers like Sean Hannity, Don Imus and Glenn Beck. Unfortunately, itā€™s the later we are getting more of. And it is this I find disturbing.


Why it’s important: Glenn Beck in undoubtedly one of the dumbest human beings to be given the opportunity to present his stupidity candidly on a national news station, which is saying a lot. He has continuously made outrageous statements with little detriment and seems to be in an unofficial contest with Sean Hannity for publicized ignorance and demagoguery. Taking from his reports and treatment of anyone with brown skin as a terrorist and freedom-hater, I suspect he gets the hand-me-down, picture-book versions of the AIPAC talking points written for Wolf Blitzer. In the words of the Beast:

If the dumbing down of political commentary continues along this trajectory, the next pundit to make the grade will be a hyena. Even the leather-winged shouting heads at Fox News look like intellectual giants next to this bleating, benighted Cassandra. It’s like someone found a manic, doom-prophesying hobo in a sandwich board, shaved him, shot him full of Zoloft and gave him a show. What makes Beck special, aside from appearing to have derived his entire geopolitical outlook from a five-minute segment about Iran on “The 700 Club,” is the folksy “golly gee” manner in which he accuses his guests of collaborating with terrorists.

Analysis: People like Glenn Beck exist in this world, but they are usually confined to lower level white collar jobs that outstretch their intelligence, where they exist to talk about the local sports team around the water cooler. Unfortunately, the defeating element is that no matter how many of us analyze and debunk what he puts forth, somehow Glenn Beck has a television show and an audience. See in you Iraq, toys.

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