A response to the "savage" Jewish ads

Yom Kippur, as I wrote in a recent article, is a Jewish holiday to reflect on how we can be better people, making up for our mistakes if possible and moving forward into the Jewish new year with a better sense of how we can improve.

The picture below (which according to Facebook was taken at the 49th St. station) is of one Jew's response to the incredibly racist, colonialist and anti-Muslim ad that has been placed in New York train stations. Regardless of your views on Israel, the language of the ad is offensive and antithetical to what Judaism is supposed to be about.

As the note left next to it says, there is significant overlap between Judaism and Islam (and of course, Christianity) and the tremendous ignorance and racism displayed in the ad is frightening. It should never be tolerated, and especially in this time of Yom Kippur, the people behind this ad need to be doing some soul searching about how they could possibly justify such dehumanizing and sickening rhetoric. Our Jewish holidays and traditions teach us to remember our historical oppression and to always be aware of the oppression of others, not to diminish the humanity of other people by perpetuating the colonialism that was once done to us.

Photo courtesy of New Orleans-based journalist Jordan Flaherty, who reposted it from Sareh Al-Zubaidy.

The true and tragic tale of Susan Walsh

Here's a interesting story for you, just in time for Halloween. It concerns vampires, the Russian mafia and a vanished freelance reporter.

Her name was Susan Walsh, and she hasn't been seen since 1996. Susan disappeared after filing a story with the Village Voice - a story they would never print. It concerned "vampire" clubs in NYC, a phenomena that mixed the goth and S&M communities, and it seems Walsh's story was a little too sympathetic for her editors' taste. Friends say she wrote as if she believed some club-goers' stories of immortality, that she was even romantically linked to one man who claimed to be the real deal.

Despite the obvious appeal of the "Kidnapped by vampires" theory, role-playing club kids were not the biggest threat in Walsh's life. There was also the Russian mafia, who Walsh no doubt angered with her reporting on the sex industry. Walsh put herself through college by stripping, and she used her club connections to write an expose on alleged sex trafficking by the Russian mob. The piece ran in the Voice in the early 90's, and Walsh told friends she feared backlash for it.

Still, the biggest threat to Walsh may not have been external. She was attending AA at the time of her disappearance, and admitted to abusing drugs in college. She was on anti-depressants, including the heavy-hitter Xanax. Her marriage seemed to be deteriorating, and her journalism career seemed stalled.

Yet she was a good mother by all accounts, an avid writer and reporter, and a beloved daughter. And she left a son, who should know where his mother went.

I've known Susan's story for a while, but here are the links that refreshed my memory.

Dealing with the media

Here's how NYC City Councilman James Oddo deals with ridiculous questions from the press. (NSFW — language and attitude)



Okay, so it wasn't real media — the spot was for a Swedish hidden-camera show — but I think there may be a lesson to learn in this footage. I don't know about the rest of you, but I respect the hell out of Oddo for, at least, having a highly sensitive bullshit detector and for not taking crap from anybody. Could anyone imagine our own civic leaders enacting such a display of — I'll just say it — balls?