Mayor Sam's Hotsheet for Friday
We're a few days into our moderated comment status and things seem to be going okay. The terrorists who brought about this situation have been surprisingly quiet and we're getting some really good comments. The downside is that comments may take a few hours to get up which has led to a drop in overall comments. In case anyone was wondering, even though comments are moderated, we have no idea who you are, so if the moderation feature is holding you back because you fear losing your anonymity, let not your heart be troubled.About 1,500 protesters marched along Century Boulevard during the afternoon rush hour Thursday, tying up traffic near LAX as part of a push for higher wages and improved benefits for airport-area hotel workers. This major act of civil disobedience was endorsed by our city government and arrangments were made to avoid criminal prosecution of anyone who ran afoul of the law. There was a time in this city when government looked out for the greater good, but now its all about special interests. See related commentary by David Hernandez.
Mayor Villaraigosa will endorse Proposition 86 Friday, which would raise taxes on tobacco to fund health care programs.
At his blog, LA Animal Services General Manager Ed Boks talks about the Jewish ritual of "kapparot," in which a chicken is sacrificed prior to Yom Kippur. Boks points out that most mainstream Judaism does not endorse this practice, and that is a violation of local animal cruelty laws.
Martini Republic reports that Proposition H is having trouble raising cash for the billion dollar housing bond boondoggle. It just seems that the special interests aren't coughing up dough for the campaign. With Zuma Dogg stirring up some local opposition to the measure, there's a chance this trainwreck may not come to pass.
Archie Bunker's favorite local politician - Controller Laura Chick - is once again slapping around the CRA. Read about it at LA Voice.
Posted by Mayor Sam @ 9/29/2006 12:05:00 AM
29 Comments:
Mayor Sam:
Since your comments have dropped, I want to pose a somewhat indiscreet question. What about your overall hits? Have they taken a downturn?
Regarding Jewish Kapparot chicken sacrifices, apparently most jurisdictions are afraid to challenge the archaic, inhumane practice even when it violates their local laws. The religious officials cry "foul" (or should that be "fowl"?) and the local law enforcement people hide in the tall grass.
The City of LA banned ritual animal sacrifices back in 1989 (in a move pushed by former Councilman Richard Alatorre), but apparently the ordinance hasn't been invoked much, if at all, against Kapparot practitioners.
Small wonder you haven't had any problems with the nutball posters since going to a moderated format. The reason they commandeered the blog was because they could, not because they had anything useful to say. They made the mistake of thinking anyone cared enough about their pet peeves to allow them to prattle on with impunity.
Now that they know you won't put up with their antics, they've crawled back under their respective rocks. It was the best decision Mayor Sam has made in months, and it's probably inhibiting other less-than-responsible posters too! We can only hope that the number of hits hasn't been affected.
The Daily News states yesterday's union protest was nothing more then a publicity stunt. And what kind of message are these politicans sending the youth of our city??
Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), Richard Alarcon (D-Sun Valley) and Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) — and two city councilmen — Ed Reyes and Jose Huizar WERE ALL ARRESTED.
This is shameful and embarrassing. They marched and got the publicity they wanted. They didn't need to be arrested. Now they have arrest records. Great job MORONS.
And where might you ask was our little midget mayor? Right after the clip of the union protest they showed midget Antonio walking the "catwalk" at the Santa Monica Macy's Passport Fashion Show. He's the biggest joke in town.
Speaking of Measure H, I met with the Editorial Board of the Daily News on Tuesday to try to persuade them to oppose Measure H.
You, out there, reading this, can make a difference. All we need to defeat this rip-off is one third of the votes, plus one vote. It is a tax measure so the proponents need a two-third majority to win.
Tell a friend or two. If you don't have a friend, get one.
Re: the Century Blvd. farce...
WHO IS PAYING FOR ALL OF THIS SHIT????
First of all, the arrests were all predestined and NO ONE "arrested" will have it on their record! The "arrestees" were in party mode and were treated like rock stars.
Secondly, what in the hell are they demanding???? They are already making 14.00/hr.!!!!! These are mostly illegal peasants who should be kissing the ground they walk on in this country!!!!! They don't deserve half of what they are making in this country. They would be making 50 cents an hour in Mexico and living in a paper shack with no electricity or plumbing.
They are not paying taxes!!!
They are getting earned income tax credits every year;
Their illiterate brats are getting 12,000/yr for "education";
They are bankrupting our ER rooms;
They are getting food stamps and subsidized housing;
They are getting FREE medical;
And they are turning this city into a filthy dirty cesspool just like Mexico.
And they have the fucking nerve to DEMAND more money??????
Deport every single one of these belligerant free loaders AND get rid of the slimy midget mayor and his goons!!!!!!!!!
Who in the hell do these third worlders think they are....American????? This is OUR country and we will get rid of them one way or another!
Good morning ladies and gentlemen (bows low and removes hat with flourish):
Ah, the morning after the evening before. And what do we see by the dawn’s early light? Elected officials that have arrest records to go along with their voting records. What I find to be amusing is that the two Clowncil members are content to rebuff attempts to better the plight of the homeless, yet have no remorse about sitting down on the job for those who have homes, savvy? And those that serve in the State legislature happily assisted in the disenfranchisement of those who would have a say in their child’s education, yet rally enthusiastically for those who seek to have a voice and vote.
ROMERO, NUNEZ, DELEON, CEDILLO AND PADILLA WALK THE PLANK IN NOVEMBER. The rest walk in March. Bugger the damn sitter-downers. Someone needs to pull the chairs out from under them.
MEMO TO THE "LA ANTONIA TIMES"
"THE MODERARTED EDITION"(BY YOUR LOCAL BILLIONAIRE)
Editor Baquet,
for the time being, you can place those packs of KOOL-AID back in the desk. The chiefs back in Chicago have decided to give you a repreive. No layoffs in the newsroom, scribes are happy, and more important, you have time to spend with your new found owners, err billionaire friends. It is these friends that have L.A. abuzz about the future of "THE OLD GREY HAG ON SPRING STREET". Nikki Finke has a probing story in this week L.A. Weekly on your outreach efforts to the high and mighties that would love to own the P.R. fish wrap. David Geffin has been quoted, that he is confident of gaining ownership. Eli Broad, Ron Burkle, Phillip Anshultz and others are some of the names that had been mention as protential bidders. Yet, "BIG TRIBUNE" has not stated that the Times is up for sale. That fact causes one to question your motives in reaching out to these protential buyers (job security?). Most Important, what would the sale of the Times mean to the objectivity of news reporting in Los Angeles. Will stories that reflect negatively on these powers to be, find the "CIRCULAR FILE" in the newsroom? Will a priviledge few decide the news content that is printed? What will be the editorial direction, dumb question, it will still be Leftist and Elitist.
P.S.
Will "HIS POLLONESS" be planting a few trees on your behalf for future editions?
6:13 AM
Wonder if there are any booking photos that can be posted of these morons
7:13
Tell a friend or two. If you don't have a friend, get one.
This, in a nutshell (pun intended), was the strategy for Wacko's embarrassing defeat at the hands of . . . well, pretty much everyone else running for mayor last year.
Yeah, tell a friend or two . . . that'll work!
P.S. Mayor Sam, remember when you and this blog regularly made fun of "Moore is Bitter" and endorsed VILLA-RAI-GOSA. Wasn't that just, like, last year?
It was odd timing for comment moderation
Is the Mayor married still? He certainly hasnt been acting married, when he is on the town.
Watch Out another Big immigrant march next weekend Oct. 5th by the illegals. Damn them. They are using up our tax dollars for bullshit.
the politicals on news last night were saying the union protest will be yet another backlash. People are sick and tired of these people protesting at our tax dollar expense. How much tax dollars did we spend on all the police officers, dept. of transportation and other city employees for this publicity stunt??? You can bet there was a special event waiver to close down Century Blvd. Once again our politicans made a mockery of the system getting arrested. Morons....people are making fun of them on all the blogs today.
Emerson said, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of a small mind." So you don't have to keep beating yourself up just because you weren't smart enough to vote for me. It's okay. You're older now, and wiser. You now realize who Villaraigosa is, and how your vote for him helped condemn this City to more pay-to-play special interest ripoffs of the middle class.
P.S. "Embarrassing defeat?!" Hardly. Look at the numbers:
I spent less than $11,000 per percentage point of the vote I received.
My opponents spent over $150,000 per percentage point they received.
Look at those numbers. They had to spend 10 times more than I did for every vote the received!
Who had the more compelling message?
Embarrassing? Sure -- but not for me!
Are these elected officials desperate for votes?
"Local and state officials were among those arrested including state legislators Gil Cedillo (Democrat-Los Angeles), Richard Alarcon (Democrat-Sun Valley) and Judy Chu (Democrat-Monterey Park). L.A. City Council members Ed Reyes and Jose Huizar were also arrested."
Walter Moore is a good man who is close enough to the people to have a handle on "real people" issues.
Did I vote for him? No. Do I respect him and will I consider voting for him against AV? That's a no-brainer: I'd vote for him against AV.
As for Boks' anti-semitic remark, he issued an opinion as the official representative of the City. The City of LA must dump Boks' ass like the Dodgers dumped Al Campanis for making racist remarks.
Well Cedillo and Chu are on the November ballot. Just vote them out. At least you won't see "drivers licenses for illegals" for the ninth time! There's enough Democrats in Sacramento, it won't hurt the majority to throw two over side.....
or walk the plank.....
So apparently it comes down either being anti-chicken or anti-semitic. Maybe the mensas who can't resist trying to apply that false dichotomy to Ed Boks of Animal Services should look at themselves in the mirror and decide if they really are willing to sacrifice untold numbers of animals in pursuit of their narrow-minded goals. I guess it's okay if they're willing to eat the dead chickens afterwards.
By the way, I went to look at the animal blog and I didn't see anything there about killing chickens.
Outcry from Jewish leaders, Rabbis and the Anti Defamation League resulted in the offensive "Jewish Chicken Killing" blog and article being stripped down today. That is why you aren't seeing it. Apparently many people were disgusted about it.
I'm sorry. I do not believe that for a minute. There is nobody in L.A. who practices that ritual. There is no outraged Jewish population regarding chicken killing or the controversy surrounding it, nor does anyone feel Boks said anything anti-semitic.
Well our midget mayor is going off again to Asia with 50 people. Good. Let him continue to be out of the city. We can do without his photo ops. I'm glad the media is FINALLY beginning to report the truth.
......About a quarter of the business people traveling with Villaraigosa donated to his campaign for mayor last year. In addition to Wong, they include Brown, Pak, Fleming and Sanders.
Apparently the Kapparot flap dynamic has a lot of people who don't approve of sacrificing chickens even for religious purposes still banding together in solidarity to protect against what they were told by people with an entirely different agenda was anti-semitism.
When push came to shove, however, they ratted out a West Valley synagogue that held a Kapparot ceremony Friday night. We're told LAPD showed up and found a bunch of chickens in a dumpster, some still alive after having been subjected to treatment that was supposed to have killed them. What this suggests is animal cruelty. If the chickens are supposed to be consumed after the ceremony, what were they doing in a dumpster? Inquiring, anti-Kapparot semites want to know.
That's what this is about, not anti-semitism. The Anti-Defamation League should stop being knee-jerk about defending this practice. As an article on the Chabad.org website says, "the practice of kapores (another term for kapporot) was regaqrded by some as bordering on paganmysticism from ancient and some would say less civilized or at least less sophisticated times. As far back as the 13th century, the Rambam (Maimonides) condemned it as a heathen practice. The famous Rabbi Joseph Karo also condemned it in the Code of Jewish Law (the Shulchan Aruch) calling it a 'stupid custom.'"
Not exactly something my Jewish mother would be ready to go the mat for. This whole thing smacks of religion being exploited for politics. Tsk, tsk.
Supporting a picket of A TEMPLE on the City's Website during a high holiday no less because that or any other religion has "dumb customs" (DUH?) shows that our city officials have finlly gone off the edge. Any city official who let that press release on the city website should be given walking papers. Hopefully they already have.
WINGS AND PRAYERS
As errors in The New York Times go, it wasn't the worst we've seen. It evidenced neither a misguided sense of "balance" nor a subtle bias, only simple ignorance.
It appeared on September 16, 2005 Yom Kippur, on the paper's front page, in the caption accompanying a photograph of an adorable little girl in Jerusalem with a squeal-smile on her face as a chicken was being swung around her head. The photo, the caption informed us, depicts a pre-Yom Kippur ritual. Indeed it does; it's called Kapparot. But the text went on to explain that "one's sins" are as a result of the ritual "transferred to the hen."
Ah, were expiation of iniquity only so simple.
Needless to say, the Kapporot-ceremony does not transfer sins to the bird (or to the coins that other Kapparot-practitioners use instead). While animal sacrifices were indeed a mainstay of Jewish life when the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem, the cancellation of sin still required teshuva, repentance, then, as it does now. And ritualistic sacrfices were forbidden 2,000 years ago.
There are, unfortunately, no shortcuts when it comes to taking responsibility for our actions. Repentance is the only effective remedy for sin, though it is an amazing one. For it accomplishes much more than a simple apology; it has the power, Jewish sources teach, to actually reach into the past and change the nature of what we may have done. As such, we are taught, teshuva is a "chiddush," a concept that defies simple logic and expectation. And for erasing iniquity, it is indispensable.
So what's with the chickens?
Well, the definitive primary Jewish legal text, the Shulchan Aruch, or "Code of Jewish Law," notes the custom of Kapparot, but disapproves of its practice. The authoritative glosses of the Rama (Rabbi Moshe Isserles), though, which present normative Ashkenazic practice, note that the custom has its illustrious defenders, and maintains that where it exists it should be preserved.
The custom's intent and meaning are elucidated in the widely accepted commentary known as the Mishneh Brurah, written by the renowned "Chofetz Chaim," Rabbi Yisroel Meir Kagan. Citing earlier sources, he explains that when one performs the deed, he should consider that what will happen to the bird - its slaughter - would be happening to him were strict justice, untempered by G-d's mercy, the rule. As a result, the supplicant will come to regret his sins and "through his repentance" cause G-d "to revoke any evil decree from him."
So it seems that the Kapparot-custom is essentially a spur to meditation on the need for atonement, and intended to stir feelings of repentance and recommitment to the performance of good deeds. Indeed, it is customary to provide the slaughtered chicken to a poor person.
Similar to Kapporot is the Rosh Hashana custom of Tashlich, which is likewise commonly misconstrued - even by people who should be better informed about things Jewish than The Times - as a magical "casting away of sins." The practice of visiting a body of water and reciting verses and prayers, however, has no such direct effect. It, like Kapporot, is an opportunity for self-sensitization to our need for repentance. The verse "And cast in the depths of the ocean all of their sins," prominently recited in the prayers for the ritual, is a metaphor for what we can effect with our sincere repentance and determination to be better in the future.
As Rabbi Avrohom Yitzchok Sperling writes in his classic work known as the "Ta'amei Haminhagim," or "Explications of Customs," Tashlich reminds us that the day of ultimate reckoning may be upon us far sooner that we imagine, just as fish swimming freely in the water may find themselves captured suddenly in the hungry fishmonger's net - and that we dare not live lives of spiritual leisure on the assumption that there will always be time for repentance when we grow old.
All too often we moderns tend to view ancient Jewish laws, customs and rituals as quaint relics of the distant past that evoke, at most, warm and nostalgic feelings of ethnic identity.
But, as a closer look at Kapporot and Tashlich suggest, there is a world of difference between Tevya's celebration of "Tradition!" for tradition's sake and the deep meanings that lie in the rites and rituals of Jewish religious life.
Jewish practice is laden with profound significance that speaks to us plainly and powerfully, if only we choose to listen, to confront our spiritual selves, to do teshuva - with or without the help of chickens or rivers.
[Rabbi Avi Shafran is director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America]
There are many rabbis who can be quoted here, and at an equally exhausting length, that would say the custom of Kapparot is an acceptable custom in Jewish faith. That is a worthy debate. But there are many customs of every religion that we can find objectionable, such as the Catholic Church's stand on gay marriage or even denying the need for distributing condoms at highschools. I DO NOT want to read a priest quoted on the city website. Not ever. Ed Boks obviously doesn't get that. The city gave him a job not a pulpit. The part he played spearheading this Kapparot protest, which led to some chicken nuts demonstrating outside a temple for Yom Kippur today, should be grounds for his immediate dismissal. I understand the City Council is looking into that, and also the city's liability if the temple that was targeted, should bring charges against the city. LAPD showed up when the rabbi called, not the animal people. Clearly the police understood what was going on. That temple is now the unfortunate and unwitting target for other unlawful activities, just for practicing their religion in this trouble city. Tsk, Tsk.
The protest against the Yom Kippur worshippers was announced in news group postings by one of the so-called "moderates" in the animal community who is a known Ed Boks fanatic and also purports to fear the Animal Liberation Front. Emails went out to 40 bloggers and newspaper writers around town. There was an 800 number to call to get information and someone called back about the protest.
Strangely, the cause was later picked up by an Animal Liberation Front Press Officer who was outside the temple disrupting the worship and protesting loudly today. So is that the havoc Ed Boks caused on the the LA Jewish community? He helped them become targets of the ALF? Way to go Ed Boks! Happy Holidays.
Stop saying Tsk Tsk. You did the same thing in your earlier post.
The city council is NOT looking into firing Ed Boks. There is no way in hell they would do that and give in to the .005% of the population of the City of Los Angeles who make up the "animal rights" movement. Especially not when they use the tactics that have been used on every General Manager that has ever run Animal Services. Picket, torment, shout, scream, name-call, make up lies, etc.
There is a small group of people who WANT Ed Boks fired. Luckily for the animals of the city, it won't happen and most logical activists are happy he's here.
Read about the Chickens of LA and their protest with the Animal Liberation Front supporters on LA Voice. There is more to the story than meets the eye.
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