Och oy: Jews finally get a tartan

For all of my fellow Jews who thought wearing plaid wasn't kosher, I have good news for you!

Introducing the first Jewish tartan, "an authentic Scottish tartan created by Heritage Experts and Rabbis. It is the only Scottish Jewish Tartan approved and registered by the Scottish Tartans Authority."

So what makes this tartan "Jewish"?

According to the Jewish Tartan website:

The colours, weave, and number of threads have all been picked for their importance in Judaism. In the tartan design we have blue and white, the colours of both the Israeli and Scottish flags, with the central gold line representing the gold from the Ark in the Biblical Tabernacle and the many ceremonial vessels. The silver is to represent the silver that adorns the Scroll of the Law and the colour red is for the traditional red Kiddush wine. There are seven lines in the central motif and three in the flag representations - both numbers of great significance in Judaism.

And it's 100 percent kosher, people!

Order yours in time for Pesach!

Solving one of mankind's greatest problems

Forget getting into iPhones. Forget landing a man on Mars. Forget climate change. There is a bigger problem currently facing mankind, one that has plagued man for thousands of years, and, if finally solved, could radically change the way we live -- or sleep.

I am, of course, referring to... The Spooning Dilemma. And what you're supposed to do with that other arm.

Drawing by Christoph Neimann

For centuries, men have been losing sensation in one arm (and have been nearly asphyxiated by a mouthful of hair) as they attempted to cuddle, or spoon, with their partners. And I think it is high time, in an age where we have mattresses that contour to your body and can go up and down, that someone invents a mattress, or a device, to allow for proper spooning.

So, all you engineers and scientists and sleep experts, get on it. The arm you save could be your own.

It's the stupidity

Stupidity. According to the dictionary, the definition of stupidity is "behavior that shows a lack of good sense or judgement." Synonyms include "lack of intelligence," "foolishness," and "ignorance."

Well, this election cycle we have seen a lot of stupidity -- as in a lack of intelligence, foolishness, and ignorance. (And here I thought things couldn't get worse after Sarah Palin. Guess that was foolish thinking on my part.)

Maybe it's because I was taught from a young age to do my research and search out the facts -- though every person who has ever gone to school is taught to do that -- but I am stunned (though not surprised) by the amount of willful ignorance exhibited by so many supporters of the candidates running for President of the United States this year, as well as many of the candidates themselves.

I get knowing the facts, but choosing to not let certain negative things override (dare I say 'trump'?) your support of a particular candidate. (Do I think Hillary Clinton was stupid, or naive, to use a personal email server? Yes. Will that stop me from voting for her in the general election? No. And please, all you Republicans and Sanders supporters, do not take that comment as an invitation to dump all over Hillary in the comments, which are now moderated, for good reason.)

But being told and shown the facts, repeatedly, and refusing to believe them? That is just stupidity -- and willful ignorance -- and is not the way to make America great again.

Fact checking Donald Trump's penis

Donald Trump is very sensitive about the size of his... fingers.

Of course, we all know why Mr. Trump is touchy about the length of his fingers. It's because, as researchers in Korea found, there is a correlation between the length of a man's fingers and the length of his penis.

So when, 25 years ago, Graydon Carter, then the editor of Spy Magazine, referred to the Donald as a "short-fingered vulgarian," the Orange One took it as personal assault to his manhood. And he has spent the last 25 years insisting that his appendages are, in fact, not small but big. Really big. Make that really really big. We're talking yuge.

Frankly, I'm tired of hearing about Donald Trump's "fingers." (Frankly, I'm tired of hearing about, and from, Donald Trump period.) So I have a proposal: Have one (or more) of the fact checking organizations, say PolitiFact.com or FactCheck.org, get out their measuring tapes and actually measure the length of Trump's various appendages to see if, in fact, they are shorter than average, average, or bigger than average. Heck, measure all the Republican dicks while they're at it, to see who is who's got the biggest one.

Then we can see who is telling the truth.

(As reported in Men's Health, "the average flaccid penis length—from the base to the opening on the tip—[is] 3.6 inches and the circumference, measured around the base or mid-shaft, [is] 3.7 inches." The length of the average erect penis: 5.2 inches.)

You're welcome, America.

THIS JUST IN: From friend of the blog Fact Lovin' Liberal, "Hillary weighs in":

Orchidelirium at the New York Botanical Garden

As longtime readers of this blog know, I am a huge fan (and member) of the New York Botanical Garden. And one of my favorite seasonal events at the New York Botanical Garden is the orchid show, which runs from the end of February through the middle of April.

After missing last year's show, I was eager to catch this year's orchid show, titled Orchidelirium. And it did not disappoint.

Here are some of my favorite photos from this year's show. (One of these days I'll get a book on orchids so I can properly identify the different types.) Enjoy!

Bonus photo: As I was walking through the orchid show, I spied this sign, "Please do not touch the plants," in the center of some very prickly cacti, and just sighed. (It is sad that the garden had to even put up that sign, but you know there was a probably a good reason.)

It's Trump: The Musical!

In a bit of late-night comedic genius, last night on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick reprised their roles from The Producers. Except in this version, Bialystock (Lane) and Bloom (Broderick) are not Broadway show producers but political consultants, looking to get rich by finding the worst candidate, a real loser, and raising lots of money for themselves "him" by offering ambassadorships and other perks -- then keeping the money "when the public finds out what a nutcase our guy is, [and] he drops out of the race."

As in The Producers, and real life, however, things don't turn out as planned. Indeed, the more whacko things their candidate, Donald J. Trump, says, the more people love him.

I love this skit, but instead of "Trumped," they should have called it "Springtime for Trump,"  substituting Trump for Hitler in the lyrics, set it in America, and used Miss Universe contestants! I can see it now...

The USA was having trouble
What a sad, sad story
Needed a new leader to restore
Its former glory

Where oh where was he?
Where could that man be?
We looked around and then we found
The man for you and me and now it's

Springtime for Donald Trump and the USA
America is happy and gay
We're marching to a faster pace
Look out, here comes the master race

Springtime for Donald Trump and the USA
Winter for Mexico and Muslims
Springtime for Donald Trump and the USA...

Is journalism today worse?

I've been thinking about writing a post titled "The sloppy state of journalism," to discuss the dearth or lack of proper editing and vetting of news stories these days, which often results in typos, errors, and worse.

Then I saw this post on a friend's Facebook page:

Quick poll: Do you think that online news articles (and their headlines) are meant to objectively inform and educate, or to subjectively incite and impel greater site traffic and interaction?

The overwhelming response was the latter, which got me thinking, again, about the current state of journalism, online and in general. And this is the comment I left:

Headlines have always been written to compel people to read the article. That is not new. Newspapers and magazines make their money from advertising (and, to a lesser extent, subscriptions). And their job is to sell papers, or magazines. In the past you had yellow (or sensational) journalism. Today you have click bait. The goal is pretty much the same.

THAT SAID, plenty of news organizations try to inform and educate readers -- and use headlines designed to grab readers' attention. "Click bait" and "journalism that informs or educates" are not mutually exclusive. Today, as in years past, you need an eye-catching headline if you want people to read at all. The idea that there was some Golden Age of journalism where the media's sole or main desire was to educate and inform is erroneous.

Indeed, people often forget (or don't know) that until relatively recently, newspapers, even so-called respectable ones, would print titillating, sensational, or salacious stories, often thin or devoid of facts, for the sole purpose of getting eyeballs and driving up circulation.

As explained by the Office of the Historian for the U.S. Department of State:

Yellow journalism was a style of newspaper reporting that emphasized sensationalism over facts. During its heyday in the late 19th century it was one of many factors that helped push the United States and Spain into war in Cuba and the Philippines, leading to the acquisition of overseas territory by the United States.

As to the question of whether the Internet and social media and the rise of the 24/7 news cycle has degraded the quality of journalism, I would say that the need to "be first" has definitely taken a toll.

Most blogs and many news organizations do not fact check, copyedit, and/or proofread articles before they are published these days -- or editors are so overwhelmed or inexperienced that they often miss or introduce errors or typos. (As a journalist and editor for over 30 years, I know, and I can cite more than one instance where The New York Times and other "reliable news sources" have gotten something wrong.) This has resulted in what I call sloppy journalism. And there is a lot of it out there.

However, there is also a lot of great, or very good, articles out there, many of which are published on non-traditional news sites and blogs. There are even articles that are deemed "click bait," pieces with headlines designed to get readers to click to read the full articles, that are educational and informative. Indeed, I would argue that the reason there is so much click bait right now (though again, baiting the reader is nothing new) is because people have such short attention spans and don't take the time, or have the patience, to read unless given a good reason to do so -- and publications have just adjusted to this new reality.

So, is journalism today truly worse than it was 50 or 100 or 150 years ago? If you objectively look at the history of journalism (keeping in mind that gossip sheets have been around for over 200 years), I'm not so sure.