This isn't an original. My friend Marlene Goodman sent it. It's too good not to share! Don't know who wrote it:

A journalist heard about a very old Jewish man who had been going to the Western Wall (of the ancient temple in Jerusalem) to pray, twice a day, every day, for a long, long time. So she went to check it out, and there he was, walking slowly up to the holy site.

She watched him pray and after about 45 minutes, when he turned to leave, using a cane and moving very slowly, she approached him. "Pardon me, sir, I'm Rebecca Smith from CNN. What's your name?"

"Morris Feinberg," he replied.

"Sir, how long have you been coming to pray at the Western Wall?"

"For about 60 years."

"Sixty years! That's amazing! What do you pray for?"

"I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews, and the Muslims.

"I pray for all the wars and all the hatred to stop.

"I pray for our children to grow up safely as responsible adults and to love their fellow man.

"I pray that politicians tell us the truth and put the interests of the people ahead of their own interests."

He stopped talking. She looked into his wistful face a moment, then asked: "How do you feel after doing this twice a day for 60 years?"

"Like I'm talking to a wall."

This isn't a blog promoting pornography, and if you believe that nudity is always pornographic, well, I pity you. This is about a courageous young Egyptian woman who posted nude pictures of herself, although in a predominantly Moslem society, even wearing a pair of modest shorts in public can get a woman arrested, beaten, even killed.

This is one salvo in Eliaa Elmahdy's war against the official gynophobia and other suppression of individual rights in her culture. Of course it's shocking. That's the idea.

So was the public burning of American flags during the Vietnam war. I didn't do it, but understood the message, which many politicians and pundits didn't. The vast majority of flag burners had no interest in destroying the United States. Their actions told society worldwide that many American citizens disapproved the actions of our government and detested the ongoing slaughter of innocents being perpetrated in our name. (If this ingrigues you at all, you might want to read my earlier post about a battery from Vietnam.)

Take a look for yourself: http://arebelsdiary.blogspot.com/?zx=438f964c204f2676

Frankly, I've seen women who looked a lot better in the nude than she does. But I've never seen one I admired more.

(This is a re-run from about a year ago. Spring is here, but there are other reasons I want to share my thoughts on this again. Here in the United States of America many of us are pessimistic about the future. There’s an almost universal feeling that we’re headed down the wrong road. Worse, we’re angrily divided over which wrong road it is that we’re following. It’s a good time to remember that, however strange we may be in however many ways, we Americans are a resilient lot. Whatever mess we dig ourselves into, we survive, hopefully a little stronger, if rarely much wiser. We need spring, in the weather, of course, but also in our hearts and our national conscience!

Meanwhile, in the Middle East, a demand for freedom has burst through the walls of repression. At long last the masses are being heard, and directing their anger at their oppressive dictators, rather than against the traditional American and Israeli scapegoats. Sadly, many lives will be lost in the process, but like the first flowers of spring, democracy is putting forth its tender shoots.)

Yes, Passover and Easter have deep religious meaning for Jews and Christians respectively, but each has additional meaning for everyone. In older cultures outside of Judeo-Christian influence, spring itself had religious significance.  Continue...

Not too long ago the largest Roman Catholic diocese in Illinois declared defensively that "only" two percent of its priests had engaged in sexual abuse of children. Only??? Let's put that in perspective: When I lived in Chicago, I estimated that there were about 600 adults living on my block, Ainslie Street from LeClaire to Laverne. If "only" 2% of those residents were pedophiles, that would mean that we had twelve adults predisposed to molest or rape a child, within a five-minute walk from my house. Knowing that, would you leave your child alone anywhere on that block?

The latests scandals about flagrant child abuse and coverups by priests in Ireland and Germany underscore the need for the Catholic church to rethink its priorities. The first focus should be on the preposterous requirement of celibacy for priests. If there was ever a justification for this denial of sexual normalcy for the clergy, which I doubt, there certainly is no justification now. It's not as simple as priests having no legitimate sexual outlet so that they satisfy themselves with children, whom they can bully into silence. Continue...

David Harris recently had a thought-provoking article on Huffington Post (link), entitled "It's not about Israel." I received a copy by mail and then checked the site to be sure that what I received had not been selectively edited. It had not.

Before I go further, let me say that I hold no animosity toward Arabs as a whole, nor toward the Islam religion. One of my sons is hosting a Moslem girl from Indonesia as an exchange student for a year. She's a delightful person who has sung in church choirs and plans soon to participate in a Jewish Passover seder. When I lived in Toledo I had many contacts with business owners who were Arabic immigrants; on average they were more fair and conscientious in their dealings than the majority of entrepreneurs.

Looking back 500 years, it was Moslems who preserved ancient writings and employed medical knowledge handed down from the Greek and Roman empires. Continue...

You can come out from under the bed now.

Who would want to live under Soviet-style communism? I certainly wouldn't. Supposedly that was "socialism": USSR = Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. It would be more accurate, however, to describe the Soviet system as one of state-governed feudalism. The brutality and deprivation suffered by citizens of the USSR is one of the main reasons that "socialism" has become such an effective scare-word for many. Continue...

Words can't begin to describe the plight of the people of Haiti, a close neighbor in the Carribean. You surely know by now: Countless thousands lie buried in rubble, dead or dying, even more are homeless, hungry, thirsty, in need of medical attention. My wife and I made a special contribution via the internet last night; I'm asking you to do the same. If you can afford a large gift, well, I can't think of a worthier and more urgent cause. If all you can afford is the minimum $10, by all means, do your part.

To my knowledge, no one I have ever known is in Haiti, but we are all humans, and I personally thank you for anything you choose to give. Please do it NOW. Here's the link:

Red Cross for Haiti

1: Any promises by pompous politicians to "get tough on crime"; we already pay around $500 per household to keep people behind bars. Let's try getting smart instead of getting tough for a change. 2: Related topic. Hysterical reports about ex-convicts committing nasty crimes. Yep, it happens. People who have no criminal records do nasty things also. I'd love to hear some reports about how many ex-cons are busy doing their jobs, paying their bills, and raising their children. 3: Any more poppycock claims that President Obama isn't an American citizen or that 90% of the people in prison are illegal aliens or climate change is a socialist hoax. 4: Detailed reports of the naughty bedroom frolics of politicians and preachers, followed by tearful proclamations of remorse. Persons of either gender who provide this fodder for unimaginative paparazzi should learn to say "none of your damned business!" or else keep their knees together or zippers up, as the case may be. The voyeurs among us can pay for their fix at the porn shop rather than relying on Fox News. Continue...

The treatment of women in some eastern nations shocks and disgusts me. How can a society with any sense of honor permit such horror, I wonder. How can the males of such a society dare to call themselves men, while condoning unspeakable atrocities against women. Sometimes criminal punishment prescribed by law in those countries is also shocking. Then at times the two meet, in a way that doesn't seem all bad. Take what some fiends in Pakistan did recently to a young woman in revenge for a marriage proposal rejection.

Fazeelat Bibi, 22, was a pretty, fun-loving girl, whose cousin, Sher Mohammed, wanted to marry her. He came with relatives to ask her family's permission. Continue...