Portention and pretention in the beginning:

Slivers of genius float in my head. I had so many shining ideas, so much to share with the world, when I put up my blog, and here we are, a week later, and the ideas have splintered into a random swirl in my head. Obviously, each fragment glows with it’s own brilliance as it passes, but sadly, there’s not enough material to form even one coherent post.

It seems there are three kinds of blogs. There's the Journal blog, like an online diary. There's the editorial blog. And there's the random observation blog, which tends to be a lot like the journal blog if you aren't very observant. I hope that a combination of the three will give me enough material to mintain this one.

So to get started, I will regale you with the one joke I can truly say I have made up myself. (Or, as my daughter would say, by self.)

Q: Why did the elephant rub his foot on the road?

A: To scrape off the chicken.

Admit it, you’re laughing in spite of yourself.

I (hope I)will never be a real Jewish blogger. It seems that in order to be a real playa on da blogging scene, you need to make bombastic statements about the State of Orthodoxy, the Ruination of the Rabbinate™, and the glory of the last frontier, The Internet, which is the one place the scourge of Yeshivadoxy has yet to touch.

I (hope I) could never do that. Sure, I see the problems that arise every day in my community. But I also see the other side of the story. Nothing is ever black and ---- forget it, that was going to be a cliché.

My point is this: There are problems that are common in our world. Kids are unhappy. Kosher food is expensive. The world seems veryvery old. Gedolim are not infallible, nor, it seems sometimes, are they even Gedolim. Sometimes (honestly, I tremble as I say this) mechanchim have become predators.

But for me, my brother is at risk, but it’s my father who you’re claiming is at fault. I know how old the world must really be, but I also know how hard it is to adjust a belief you’ve built your life on. Kollel may be preposterous, but my brother who’s in it has nothing to eat.

The Rabbi sat down to adjudicate. The plaintiff made his clear. The Rabbi stroked his beard and said thoughtfully, “You know, you’re right.”

Then the defendant made his case. The Rabbi stroked his beard thoughtfully and said “You know, you’re right, too.”

The Rabbi’s wife standing nearby, protested. “But they can’t both be right!”

Said the Rabbi, “Who the **** asked you? Get the ##### back in the kitchen where you belong!”- (Source-www.Ihateallyoudumbassloserswhoarestillfrum.blogspot.com. and he KNOWS it happened because his BROTHER was THERE and he HEARD it!)

As Very Lucky Guy says, on Hashkafa.com: Nothing. I have nothing to say.