My Birthday

Just wanted to thank you all for coming to my birthday party. You really made it SO special for me!! I would also like to thank my amazing chosson(FFD) for everything he did to make my birthday special. How many chossons go out of their way and have a catered event for their kallahs 23rd birthday! Not even that, he hired a band, 2 awesome guys to sing(well 3...but whatever!), had lots of shtick...couldn't be any better!!!

For us, the next wedding is OURS!!!!

Borat, laughing with me?......

<-- Potty Humor

As my earlier post indicated I was a great fan of Borat, and his comedic role in exposing anti-Semitism. But after watching the Borat movie last Thursday I wonder whether this movie will expose a hidden level of anti-Semitism, or grant reprieve to any and all who wish to practice anti-Semitic practices as a form of comedy. What i really liked about borat was the fact that the people around him felt free to express their Jew hatred around him because they believed him to be a Jew hater himself. However, some of the scenes in the film portrayed Borat mocking Jews or Jewish ideology without any other person present. This is an entirely different level. When I listened to the audiences outbursts at these jokes I realized how offended I really was. He took a giant step from allowing other people to make a fool of themselves by mocking Jews to personally mocking them to try to get a laugh.

Now you will tell me that Sacha Cohen is a Jew, and you may even tell me that this is what Jewish comedians do, and you wouldn’t be wrong, but this movie sees the line passes it and then drops a kerchief full of excrement on it (literally). This is no longer the level of making fun of a stereotypical Jewish mother or cheap Jew joke, this isn't Larry David scalping a ticket for shul on Yom Kippur (hilarious!), this is pure and unnecessary mocking of everything Jewish. What’s stranger is that had I not been in the theater surrounded by a virtual cornucopia of different peoples and creeds, I may never have realized how offensive the film was. I would have sat comfortably at home and laughed the way everyone in the audience did.

I did find it slightly amusing that Cohen’s attempt at speaking the Kazakhstani language was for the most part him speaking Hebrew with an Arabic accent. Maybe this was his way of telling all the offended Jews in the audience “hey I’m really one of you”, but I remain unamused.

A look at the film independent of its slightly hurtful parts reveals not much more than a bunch of Borat skits pieced together with a plot so thin it’s nearly anorexic. In fact, to those familiar with many of the Borat skits many of the scenes are simply remakes of skits he has already performed on television.

I will admit there were times when I did find myself laughing out loud…. But in truth they were at jokes that would entertain a high skoool kid who still thinks the word poop is side busting. All in all I’ll give the movie a 6/10 which makes it just worth it if you are already a Borat fan, and not if you still don’t know what im talking about.

Jen Kwee….Yed-gibesh !

OK Boys and Girls....

B"H and with his help you have all heard the good news. I AM EMPLOYED! I have recently accepted a position at The Albert Einstein College of Medicine, in one of their neuroscience laboratories (neuroscience and neurotechnology are two fields in which AECOM is at the forefront). I could not have asked for a better position. I look back to some of what I had been looking at, and how desperate I had actually become, and smile to see how great things have actually worked out. I am slightly worried as to my lack of experience with some of the techniques utilized in this lab, but I will try my absolute best to ensure that my work brings only impressed faces to all of those around me, so that hopefully they have only welcome accolades and lauding jubilation for having hired me.

In addition, I am also applying to the medical school at AECOM for the 2007 incoming class. This too is very exciting to me. I will not post too much about this just now and will return to it at some later point in time. I will, however, say why my medical school application is focused on Einstein. Besides being a great institution for the advancements of the life sciences, the Medical School at AECOM has stated within the University policy that no classes, seminars, lectures, etc., be scheduled on Jewish holidays. This is a tremendous advantage to Einstein which is not available in any other medical school nationwide (that I know of). Of course AECOM does not advertise this fact, which I guess is understandable being that they wish not to stigmatize themselves by being considered a "Jewish" Medical school. umm... thats what they were intended to be! you wont find it online and AECOM will never openly admit to it but the college was created as an institution in which Jewish medical students could avoid the quotas placed on them by all the other medical schools. But thankfully times have changed and the anti-jewish quotas have been replaced with medical schools packed with guys who I can only assume are making their Jewish Moms proud. Which brings me back to the Borat movie.......

WOOHOO!!!!!!!!

FFD will now be back in the blogosphere because...HE GOT A JOB!!! This is AMAZING news!!! IY'H starting September 11th, FFD will be working at Einstein. I'm sure he will update with more details, but I just wanted to beat him to it and share the news!!

Well we are close so.......

I know I said no blogging until I have a job for the coming year at least, but lately things, B"H, have been looking up, and I wanted to get one thing off my chest. I am about to say something that may cause many to lose respect for me but I feel strongly about it. On Thursday I am going to see the Borat movie with a friend.
Now for those of you who do not know, Borat is the Khazakstani character portrayed by Sacha Baron Cohen on the Ali G show. Many of you might be familiar with the show and its stoner like antics and skits, but to me when I watch it, I see the deeper goal of Cohen (or at least I hope so). He poses as the citizen of an Arab nation not to spew any personal vitriolic Jewbuse, but to allow those who believe him to be an authentic Arab (and a Jew-hater [why would they assume that??]) to vent and display in front of the camera their own internal anti-Jewish sentiments.
With the popular world recoiling in disgust from the antics of Mel Gibson, Cohen reminds us in another similar way the hidden hatred that many in our fine nation have towards the Jews. In Judaism we have a saying "when alcohol goes in, inner secrets come out", it's essentially the equivalent to Seinfeld's "key" to the vault. Anyone who says that Mel was simply inebriated is a moron! The man has a deep seated hatred towards the Jews, and simply having hide behind the thin veil of sobriety will never suffice.
What Cohen does is remove the restrictions on the "id" of the psyche in much of the same way that alcohol does. Yes, many disapprove of his methods and consider him to have tricked those around him, but nobody is forcing anyone in these clips to say anything anti-Semitic. So I applaud Borat my friend from Khazakistan and hope that others too can see past the infantile and purely asinine antics of the show to see that yes there is a message.

If you have no idea what im talking about see the following links.
Jew Hunting

Throw the Jew Down the Well

you will need to watch and wait as he pulls it out of them all

I'm an uncle

I know I said no more blogging until I have a job but so what...Shoot me. I just became an uncle for the first time and am in a mild state of euphoric elation (is that redundant?) but I don't have any pics of my newborn nephew so instead I will post the only picture you will ever see of me and FFW!