Jewess » Serving Their Country: Israel Uses Hot Women Soldiers As Public Relations Tools

Do I really want to post this?
Maybe without the hot links. If you really want it, work for it.

From Jewess: By Rebecca Honig Friedman

Jews are so hot right now.
First Jewtastic launched its “Top Ten Fanciable Jews” survey. Now Maxim is featuring a “Women of the Israel Defense Forces” photospread in its July issue.
But the Maxim spread is not the brainchild of the magazine’s horndog editors. No, the idea came directly from the Israeli Consulate in New York, who want to improve Israel’s image in America:

The idea originated in the media office at Israel’s consulate in New York, where research showed that Israel meant little to young American men.
“Males that age have no feeling toward Israel one way or another, and we view that as a problem, so we came up with an idea that would be appealing to them,” said David Dorfman, a media adviser at the consulate. ...

Indeed, the Consul General, the Deputy Consul General and the Director of Media Affairs are all men. In contrast, Colette Avital, an Israeli legislator who previously served as Israel’s consul general in New York, said of the campaign, “We definitely have public relations problems, and I’m all for creative solutions. . . But there are enough beautiful and interesting things we can use to tap this demographic than to show a half-naked woman in a magazine of this kind, considered pornographic.”

We couldn’t agree more. Israel’s got breathtaking landscapes, ancient holy sites, delicious cuisine, and, oh yeah, HOT MEN!
At the very least the consulate could have arranged for an equivalent photospread of “Men of the Israeli Defense Forces” in Cosmo.
But think women won’t be swayed by some racy pictures? Ok then, even better, Jewess suggests “The Pen is Mightier than the Uzi: Poetry by Men of the IDF.”

Ugly dogs

Sonoma-Marin Fair 2007
Ugly dogs.
If you must.

Sex and the Conference Life

The Chronicle: :

By JESSICA BURSTEIN

Sex and the conference. Oxymoronic, I know, and in all three senses of the word. Yet there it is — the reason the married people go, the reason the single people go, the reason travel stipends were invented. Sex and the conference is proof positive that — in the face of all evidence to the contrary; despite what you see when you look at your fellow panelists; regardless of the fact that it is, after all, Iowa City — hope springs eternal.

...[T]he name tags are laid out on a table. I regard this as a buffet and suggest you do the same. This for multiple reasons. First, instant alibi. Like, duh. Second, parading around with someone else's name pinned to your chest can bring out all sorts of characterological deficiencies that in toto amount to an interesting new personality. After all, it is your job to make sure that Lazlo Mancini of Little Dubuque's Learning Institute has a good time; look at what he's going home to. Famous people's name tags are slightly more dangerous, but here, as elsewhere in life, reward comes with risk. For two giddy days I was Judith Butler. I actually got her that raise, not that she thanked me. This leads me to suggest that you stay within your own gender and height skew, but on the other hand, only on my third day of being Sander Gilman did someone ask me if I perhaps should be attending to my calcium intake. All in all, there is no reason why you should confine yourself to one alternative persona, given identity's performative nature. If, for whatever bizarre reason, you are content with your own personality, more power to 'you.'

Why this? I'm home, alone. My wife is at an academic conference in DC.
Have a good time, dear.

Guyanese Suspect in JFK Plot Surrenders

From The New York Times

I thought we decided it was Oswald, acting alone!

Getting bleary

MORE NEWS
* Queen Elizabeth Tours Jamestown
* Surprise Drug Tests at Kentucky Derby

Why not, "Surprise Drug Tests Administered to Queen Elizabeth at Jamestown"?

Much more matzoh: link here

Juxtaposition of the Day

U.S. Billionaire Heads to Space Station - From The New York Times:

"There was no mention of [American billionaire and amateur space traveler Charles Simonyi's friend Martha] Stewart on [Simonyi's] blog, but Simonyi did make reference to one of the lesser-known, last-minute traditions for cosmonauts heading into space -- urinating on the tire of the bus transporting them to the launch-pad."

Did Stewart instruct Simonyi to lift his pinkie finger while urinating?

Return of the Eggman?

From New York Times:
By GREGORY BEYER

THE story of eggs Benedict is a hard one to tell. The beginning is shady at best, the main character has a hangover, and there are decades when nothing much happens. But the genre is certain, and the setting clear: Eggs Benedict is a mystery rooted in a long-vanished version of New York. Despite the dish’s twisted history, it provides a link to one of the city’s more glamorous eras.

Of eggs Benedict’s origins, much has been said, but little has been settled. Key witnesses are long dead. One cookbook contradicts another. Even the Oxford English Dictionary shrugs: “Origins U.S.” What remains is a recipe that for about a century has come to represent something greater than the sum of its ingredients.

The Wise Bard has returned. It is late Sunday morning, I'm hungry, and it's time for brunch. Voila: the NYT features a story on the origins of eggs Benedict.

Trouble three ways. Let me count them. First, there is the Canadian bacon (originally, we are told, conventional bacon, then ham, before achieving its current apotheosis). Gross trayf--no way around it. Second, the combination of meat with hollandaise sauce--meat and dairy, another no go. Is this a classic non-starter?

Well, like Brother Benedict (who presumably would not have recognized one of my tribe as a "brother"), I've taken to asking restaurant chefs for what I have termed "eggs Moishe", substituting smoked salmon for the Canadian bacon. This eliminates the pork, and finesses the meat/milk problem. It also tastes quite good. Even better if I can convince the chef to add some artichoke hearts, New Orleans style. (Herewith the indispensable references: my local favorite is eggs sardou: Brennan's Restaurant, Commander's Palace)

Interesting to note that on the Times' account, eggs Benedict were named for the inventive, if somewhat hung-over, patron at the Waldorf, who first constructed them (with assistance from Oscar of the Waldorf) back around 1893. Probably too late for "eggs Wise Bard". And I prefer "eggs Moishe", anyway. The triumph of identity politics, I suppose.

There are also plausible arguments for "eggs Miriam" --associated with water, necessary for the salmon-- and, perhaps, "eggs Nachshon." Nachshon was a courageous innovator in wading into dangerous spawning waters, and he hasn't received adequate culinary recognition thus far. Not even a goblet on the seder table. He may even have bagged some fish on his way across. Actually, I think I'll go with "eggs Nachshon" in the future.

But I was counting ways, and haven't yet penetrated to the third, the critical bottom layer: the English muffin (originally toast, reports the Times. Thank goodness for Oscar of the Waldorf, who changed that). English muffins work fine with smoked salmon and hollandaise (with or without the artichoke hearts). But not today. It's still Passover.

I would not waste good salmon and hollandaise on a piece of matzoh, even egg matzoh. There are standards to be upheld, and a good name to be maintained.

It will have to be matzoh brei for me, again, this morning.

What's that, Phyllis? You're sick of fried matzoh already? Motzoh hot cereal? Oy vay!

Good to be home, and back. TWB.

My "American Idol" Posting

See my prior posting on Wisconsin sports. 'Nuff said.
Next topic.

Just in time for Pesach: In case you were wondering

A little squib in the March 29 NYT World Briefing brings this news:
By REUTERS

The pro-marijuana Green Leaf Party has told followers that marijuana is not kosher for Passover and that those who observe the holiday’s dietary rules should take a break from it. It said products of the cannabis plant, including hemp seeds, had been grouped by rabbis with foods like beans that are off limits. But if cannabis is nonkosher for Passover, it said, “it is apparently kosher the rest of the year.”

So much for Pesachdik hash brownies, I guess. No elaboration on whether Sefardi custom differs from Ashkenazi on this urgent matter. I'll have to check with some of my 'Sixties friends on how this substance would be classified under evolving standards of "eco-kashrut". (Probably depends on whether it was organically grown?)