The Anatomy of a Challenge

The latest shibboleth of the woke culture is not to

be trifled with; no challenges are to be tolerated 

that those born men who understand themselves to 

be women prepared to undergo that supreme transition 

are entitled to consider themselves female and all 

others must follow their lead. Women may have 

struggled to attain recognition in competitive sports 

to prove that like men for whom competition in 

performance speaks to their subconscious desire to

excel, they too are capable of honing their bodies

in strength and endurance, perfecting their capacity

to attain distinction in various arenas of sport, an 

achievement of pride and dedication. None among 

them might have imagined that men identifying as 

women might choose to challenge women at their 

own game. Where advantages of male hormonal drive 

and musculature live on in newly minted females 

contending among natal females for championship in 

skills requiring brute strength, that quality associated

with the male of the species yet brooking a competitive

challenge intent on winning over a woman's dominance

in women's sport gifted with the superior strength of a man.

In Gratitude

Make no mistake; this is a solemn occasion

an episode in one's life unlike any other

history in the making due to a pestilential

pathogen whose ferocious virulence has

succeeded in decimating the world population,

Perhaps nature's way of cleansing an overcrowded

slate. With fear and foreboding the world

rested in suspended animation while all that

was considered normal and of little notice

suddenly collapsed and in its place a regimen

of restraint and utter alienation as the human

animal found itself isolating against itself for

fear of contagion. This day, thanks to the quite

brilliant minds of those steeped in the byways

of science and technology your life has been

redeemed, you and all those others who quietly

acquiesced to a muscle puncture to awaken and

refresh your immunity to this deadly pathogen.

Let Us Be

 

I know, I know, you think we're all the same.

Homogeneous, see one you've seen them all.

Facial characteristics so outstanding we're readily

recognizable; hint: long, hooked nose. Allow me.

For your enlightenment, we are diverse in presence

and in nature; blond, brunette, curly hair, straight 

hair, bald, bearded, clean-shaven, slight of build,

burly, brainiacs, muscle-bound, simple-minded

wealthy, materially deprived, the young and the

old. What we have in common with one another is 

not religion for many among us are irreligious. 

What we want, all of us, is to be allowed to live 

in peace while pursuing the same dreams of

opportunity, happiness and satisfaction in life 

that anyone else aspires to. And while we're white

black brown, yellow and speak many languages

Jews by ethnicity or choice -- we ask you: let us be.

Stop degrading your presumed intelligence by 

constantly defaming, dehumanizing and demonizing

 us with your viciously vitriolic bigotry. Let Us Be! 

 

Bigotry By The Grace of God

Those among that great family of religious

tradition prepared to be citizens of the world

and comfortable in their trust of others

hold their counsel. Some few among them

immersed in the belief of the brotherhood of

humanity counter the violent malice of the

fanatics among them not aided by the fiery

condemnation and incitement of Friday imams

counselling to rejection, hatred and vengeance.

In their zeal to promote those hadiths that sketch

Jews as theocratic miscreants rejecting god and

the prophet whose pretensions to humanity

are to be rejected with vicious ferocity they

incite the faithful to stream from the mosque and

fulfill their obligations to their faith; sow slander

and make use of any means to destroy their

enemies' existence for this is the pathway to

Paradise. These are the very mouths uttering

both !Alahu Akbar! and 'Islamophobia' casting

the onus of blame on all but their blameless selves.

 

 

Her Untimely Shocking Loss

The shock reverberated from his mind back

to mine ricocheting back and forth as we stood 

together facing this woman, this old acquaintance 

we chanced upon, our smile of greeting met with 

her own briefly before she informed us she had 

sad news. Sad news could mean so many things 

but never in our imagination the bald statement 

that her husband, died of a heart attack last week. 

Her face mobile yet emotionally impassive, voice

steady and forthright, she held forth for an

interminable period, the words flowing, her eyes 

fixed on ours as she emoted the slightest of 

details to round out a story of bereavement

lacking histrionics of grief. Disbelief at the

random suddenness of her loss as she chose her

words to relentlessly shed her mind of exquisite

details of events leading to the paramedics'

declaration they were heading not for emergency

but directly to the Heart Institute where doctors

awaited their arrival, the succeeding back-to-back

surgeries, her husband's last instructions, the wan

desolation of their three sons, he finally comatose

and the advice of the cardiologists to withdraw 

life support painted a sinister drama of loss so

personal and of-the-moment, we were immersed.

The Impecunious Impudence!

 

 The small furry creature visiting our porch

is not very sizeable for a raccoon so we take him 

to be a juvenile, delinquent only in the sense that 

he foregoes caution in appearing during daylight 

hours when his species is mostly nocturnal. Like 

the rabbits and the skunks that occasionally make 

their entry in the dark barely illuminated by street

lights as they sniff out food left to entice their

appetites quite unlike the squirrels, birds and

chipmunks who make their appearance at any

time of daylight hours. Chipmunks inordinately 

fond of biscuits, squirrels preferring buttered toast

and all grudgingly accepting breakfast cereal

scattered in abundance on the porch as second-

bests. Not our raccoon. He waits patiently and

pointedly ignores the biscuits in preference to

absent Cheerios. Tucking himself under the porch

bench he waits, then emerges once the preferred

Cheerios are mounded satisfactorily to his taste.

Pacifist Gallantry of An Ogre

Quick! Name the country that arose like the fabled

Phoenix from its own ashes. In denial of its grand

imperial past in a massive historical paroxysm of 

ideological political culture that horrified its audiences 

as it convulsed its society turning cadre children against 

heritage-bound parents heralding a new era of ruthless

decimation where questioners earned themselves an 

early departure from life in ample company with others

until no one was left to object, ask questions, demand 

respect for its storied ancestral past and a humbled

chastened population settled into the framework of 

harmony ordered by their village councils obeying the 

central government's diktats. As that gargantuan nation 

settled finally into the comfort of bureaucratic homogeneity

eschewing the narcotic drag of religion and liberty its 

Politburo waged a friendship campaign with the world at 

large. Look: we will produce your utilitarian goods and

save your domestic workforce from the tedium of factory 

production, please your consumers with low-cost goods 

happy to service your pedestrian needs. And they did and 

did far more, savaging the economic output of those they 

serviced, looting their original blueprints for scientific

military, technological formulae to their own service. 

The pacific smile of friendship  transformed to the snarl 

of the territorially possessive bully, the declared possessor 

of land, sea, air, no need to share with unentitled others.