Lion’s Legacy- Sen. Ted Kennedy RIP
August 27, 2009
The new generation of press and political operatives who swept into Washington with Obama’s administration last year, may only remember the ‘Lion of the Senate’ as the lone, bent figure shuffling the Capitol’s marble halls. Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy’s(D-Mass.) astounding political achievements, however, and his baritone Massachusetts inflections will continue to weigh heavily into the raging health care debate and countless other domestic issues for years to come…
This Kennedy obit for the JP*st may not be my best composition but was written with litte time and mixed feeling on the deceased.
Mystical Grave
August 26, 2009
Mitch was puling rocks out of the hillside one day about six months his own bed & breakfast in Tzipori Galilee when he uncoverd a flat vertical surface made of stones.He kept digging and soon found a stone lintel and door hewn of rock. Above the entrance ‘clear as a newspaper’ was an Aramaic inscription with the name of his village, and the name of an ancient mystical rabbi, who lived 1700 years ago and, according to some traditions, never died.
The door was ajar, and so he peaked in. Besides brown mud and rockshe could see on the left side of the space a sarcophagus that was sealed.Ancient mystical Jewish traditions say the Angel of Death cannottake a person who is studying Torah(or the Bible.) Rabbi Yoshua ben Levi, as his name is carved in rock, never stopped studying Torah according to tradition. Some Jews believe he never could have been taken.
In September, a branch of the Israeli government, the Israeli Antiquities Authority, will begin excavating the site against Mitch’s will. It lies on his ground, next to his swimming pool. Mitch is a religious man, who believes the dead should be left undisturbed. The bed and breakfast has prospered his family is well. Why open the grave? The government disagrees and has acted with strength to defend their right to his land.
Decide for yourself…
To visit the B & B:
If you would like an example of imprecise journalism on the same subject, please click here:
‘Lion of the Senate’s” influence in Washington will continue, despite death
By JOSIAH RYAN
054 990 7935
The new generation of press and political operatives who swept into Washington with Obama’s administration last year, may only remember the ‘Lion of the Senate’ as the lone, bent figure shuffling the Capitol’s marble halls. Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy’s(D-Mass.) astounding political achievements, however, and his baritone Massachusetts inflections will continue to weigh heavily into the raging health care debate and countless other domestic issues for years to come.
Though absent from the Senate in body in recent months, that voice was still present in private conversations with lawmaker’s until days before until Kennedy, 77, succumbed to a malignant brain tumor Tuesday night at his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts. American’s can expect the phrase “I promised Teddy” to ring from the lips of their leaders as the future of Health Care and issues other issues are determined later this year.
Perhaps the Senate’s greatest champion of left wing-causes, Kennedy’s larger than life image, cultivated by the limelight of Camelot, and his proclivity toward vice made him a natural target for Republican politicians and fundraisers. But in reality, frontline workers of tumultuous congressional politics will remember Kennedy first as as a tireless broker of bipartisan compromise.
Kennedy became the youngest member of the Senate at just 30 years of age when he won an election to fill the vacated seat of his older brother John F. Kennedy Jr. who was elected president.
Kennedy chose a quieter path than either of his brothers, John and Robert, choosing instead to work to become a master tactician of the minute mechanisms of the Senate. Sen. Joseph Biden(D-Del.) remarked in 1968 that Kennedy was “no bullshit…the best strategist in the Senate.”
Just three years after his election Kennedy led the Immigration and National Act through the Senate and also lent his weight to legislation that created the National Teachers Corps.
After his son, Edward, had a leg amputated due to bone cancer in 1973, Kennedy dedicated himself to the cause of Health Care reform and began to lay that groundwork that remains essential to the debate today.
In pushing the Civil Rights Act of 1991, an act that expanded employee rights against employer discrimination, Kennedy reached so far into the Republican side of the aisle he was harshly criticized by members of his own party.
Following the Republican Revolution of 1994, Kennedy defined his role as a champion for liberal causes by rallying his colleagues to fight the “Contract with America.” Only parts of the legislation were passed by the Congress, due, in part, to Kennedy’s leadership among Democrats.
Despite lingering bitterness of President Bush’s controversial electoral victory in 2000, Kennedy became a key ally of Bush, helping him pass the no Child Left behind Act in 2002, and forcing higher standards on teachers despite the protest of unions.
In 2001 Kennedy supported President Bush’s invasion into Taliban occupied-Afghanistan but on October 2002 he was one of 23 Democrats who voted in opposition to the Iraq War resolutions.
Senator Kennedy’s career was remarkable its length of 47 years which was only exceeded by Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.V.), whose health is also failing, and former Sen. Strom Thurmond(R-S.C.)
Despite the magic of Camelot and life in the Senate, known as the world’s most exclusive club, Kennedys’ life was haunted by tragedy and moral shortcomings.
His brothers died unnaturally. Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. was killed in 1944 on a World War II bombing mission, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated while campaigning for president in1968.
On June 19, 1964, after casting votes on a civil rights bill, Kennedy was aboard a plane that crashed killing an aide and cracking three of his vertebrae. Kennedy walked with a cane for the rest of his life.
Kennedy’s lifestyle at times also cast a shadow over his political career. He was expelled for Harvard for cheating on Spanish exam, and his nephew was accused of raping a girl outside a party he had arranged.
His famed playboy lifestyle came to a head in 1969 when Kennedy left a party and drove his car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island drowning the woman in the seat next to him.
His failure to inform the police until hours later, after he had already consulted lawyers and political operatives, as well as speculation that alcohol was involved, was a major part of his defeat in the 1980 Democratic presidential primaries, and also contributed to the loss of his Senate leadership post in 1971
Even today more than one Capitol Hill watering hole have photos of the Senator on their walls as testament to his ability to party. “Let the good times roll” reads the inscription below one such photo.
The shock of Kennedy’s diagnoses of a malignant brain tumor swept through the Capitol on May 20, 2008, and usual Senate proceedings ground to halt as Senators from both parties emerged from prayer meetings with tear-stained faces for the man they dubbed the ‘patriarch’ of their institution.
Kennedy did not return to the chamber until June 9, 2008, when he arrived to break a filibuster on legislation that reversed a 10.6 percent pay-cut for doctors who treat Medicare patients. He was ushered to the chamber by his son, Rep. Patrick Kennedy(D-Mass.), and greeted by then-Sen. Barack Obama(D-Ill.) Upon his appearance, cheers emanated from the gallery, a practice usually forbidden within the chamber.
Kennedy’s seemed to pass his family’s political legacy onto Obama in the winter of 2008 when he announced to an enthusiastic crowd his support for Obama and a “new generation of leadership.”
It was that endorsement in part that boosted the young Sen. Obama towards wins across the nation in the Super Tuesday primaries.
After the election Kennedy remained close to the Obama family despite his illness, and gave the Obama daughters “Bo,” a Portuguese water dog earlier this year. Obama was vacationing at Martha’s Vineyard, near the Kennedy’s home, when Kennedy passed late Tuesday night.
Meanwhile, members of the press and congressional staff who remain in Washington’s oppressive summer heat for the annual congressional August break say that grief is palpable.
Two oval canvases on the wall of the ornate Senate reception room, next to the chamber, remain blank, reserved for the portraits of late-great Senators.
Staffer and a Senate historian said on Wednesday they believe one of those may soon be filled by the visage of the great Massachusetts‘Lion of the Senate.’
hanged himself.
August 21, 2009
After Dudu Topaz, who was something like the Israeli equivalent of Michael Jackson, hanged himself in prison Thursday, his lawyer declared in public that ‘the media had killed Dudu.’ The slogan caught on and our reception at the funeral, Friday morning, was less than cordial.
The angry crowd pressed in and took a principled approach to excluding the media from the proceedings. When one innovative cameraman exerted himself by shimmying an exposed pipe to the buildings spacious and unoccupied roof, he was rewarded with a spectacular view of the chaos below. Naturally, we followed. Slippery in sweat from the white heat of another Mediterranean day, and heavily burdened by equipment, taking our news operation vertical was no easy feat.
In consensus disenfranchised mourners seemed to disapprove of our ascension. “You in your tower of Babel, you killed him,” screamed one. Others simply booed in Hebrew and shook their fingers telling us to leave.
But the funeral went on, the body was buried, and despite heat exhaustion and some sore feelings suffered from an hour of verbal barrage, we got our shots, ran the story, and I guess most of our most vocal critics searched for their own faces among the pages and videos of the weekend edition.
You Killed Dudu
The Procession
on assignment
August 20, 2009
Passed this evening studying Arabic in Palestinian nargilla café half a mile below me in the Old City Jerusalem. A winding walks through tunneling street towards the Damascus Gate.
After a hard run Ill spin through the cool Jerusalem evening to the West city to transfer most of my belongings to my new apartment in the neighborhood of Nachlaot.
Later I’ll spend my final night at the Petra Hostel. Though I am fond of the ancient Arab hotel that has served as a base in the beginning of both my journeys to the Holy Land, I have come to understand through experience that the crumbling building has slipped in standards of cleanliness & and friendliness.
The entire structure may be flea-ridden… and certainly the mattresses. I’ve grown tired of itching while interviewing dignitaries and I am certainly weary of the white heat that tears through gaping doors inviting malodorous odors from the stinking streets below.
The bathrooms are abysmal and for fear of losing my small audience I hesitate to delve into a profane but precise description of their horrors.
In the morning I am taking a bus to a city by Tel Aviv to write a story about the funeral of Israeli television star Dudu Topaz. I will spend the night strolling the beaches soaking in Mediterranean moon and urbane Hebrew.
Sunday morning is a workday in a Jewish country so I will take a bus to Nazareth from Tel Aviv to write a story about a Wakf that is apparently brokering peace deals with neighboring rival sects and religions and generally bringing out the best of the town’s residents.
From then I will travel to tzipori, a small village where the grave of a long dead kabala rabbi whose body was uncovered this week. The story is complicated and to tell properly and I must seek out the proper religious and legal authorities who are preparing to battle in court Monday on whether the tomb, which has religious significance, ought to be revealed.
I am told thousands of restless Haredi in Jerusalem wait to hear the story of the tale of the tomb upon which the integrity of the Kabala rests.
Ill return Sunday night or Monday morning to join a documentary filmmaker on a sortie into the capitol city of the (relatively) moderate Fatah party.
Monday night I will log video for JP*ST.com.
a touch of grace.
August 20, 2009
By the Jerusalem poet Amichai Yehuda
At times Jerusalem is a city of knives,
And even the hopes for peace are sharp enough to slice into
The harsh reality and they become dulled or broken.
The church bells try so hard to ring out calm, round tones,
But they become heavy like a pestle pounding on a mortar,
Heavy, muffled, downtrodding voices. And the cantor
And the muezzin try to sing sweetly
But in the end the sharp wail bursts forth:
O Lord, God of us all, The Lord is One
One, one, one, one.
Huckster Visits Israel
August 19, 2009
Former Gov. of Ark, rockstar, and presidential candidate extraordinaire visited the Holy Land this week. Myself and four other foreign journalists had an intimate breakfast with the man Wednesday morning. Because of other encounters in less holy places the governor and I had quite a bit to speak about.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1249418638530&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
On Tuesday Huckabee visited the Shepherd Hotel, and Israeli development in West Jerusalem. Because press was excluded from the soiree I found myself face down in a pile of chicken crap using my 300mm spy cam to shoot these excusives of the die-hard zionist shmoozing.
Huckabee 2012!!!
Operaton Learn Arabic
August 11, 2009
Update: :
About one week at the Petra Hostel perched on the edge of the walled ancient city.
Living in this hostel is a near camping expirence. The place is full of ancient filth and grime that blows with the wind int the open doorways and windows from the Arab markets below.
Its loud. There are soldiers and merchants and mendicants jews christians arabs Armenians
The Jaffa Gate, just outside the room’s balcony is the main entrance to the Old City and thus a lively place to bunker against the summer heat and its also been effective for staging ‘operation learn Arabic.’
Petra Life
August 8, 2009
My current home in The Petra Hostel is reportedly the oldest continually-operating hotel in Jerusalem. The hostel itself was built in the 1800s by the Russian Orthodox Church and first served to house military guards or officers. The building itself is lodged behind the massive walls that enshroud Jerusalem’s Old City and it dominates one side of the plaza in front of the Citadel.
Past guests included heroes Mark Twain, Theodore Roosevelt, Lawrence of Arabia, and Herman Melville.
Until I begin writing for the Jerusalem P*st on Sunday I am spending my days in the Petra’s shaded hallways and balconies studying Arabic & Hebrew, taking cold showers, and drinking hot tea with mint to stay cool.
Jilly’s is Quiet Tonight
August 6, 2009
By Kate Harrison and Josiah Ryan
The memory of Frank Sinatra’s New York City headquarters, located in the back room of a circa 1960’s saloon called Jilly’s, has faded along with the memories of so many other relics from that roaring era. The room was immortalized in journalist Guy Talese’s “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” featured in Esquire magazine in 1966. However, Jilly’s has since been replaced by Russian Samovar, a vodka bar. It is occupied by Russian natives, celebrity artists, and drunks who pass their days and nights drinking herb infused vodkas, wholly unaware of the glorious past of their surroundings. As recounted by Talese, Sinatra once considered the barroom his throne room. Soaking in bourbon and Lucky Strike smoke, the Chairman presided over the minions who worshiped him from that dark room on 52nd Street. “[Jilly's Saloon] is where Sinatra drinks whenever he is in New York,” said Talese. “There is a special chair reserved for him in the back room against the wall that nobody else may use.” “A rather strange ritualistic scene develops,” writes Talese describing a typical Sinatra night at Jilly’s. “Dozens of people, some of them casual friends of Sinatra’s, some mere acquaintances, some neither, appeared outside of Jilly’s saloon. They approached it like a shrine. They had come to pay respect.” Sitting in the booth in Samovar, looking around the empty, low-lit room, Talese’s vivid descriptions are easy to envision. Loping jazz melodies, amber liquid being poured into glasses. People edging around each other, craning their necks for a glimpse of him. And he, Sinatra, subdued and yet tense, scowling from the back. It is easy to leave out one character from this scene, however: Guy Talese, who was probably sitting a few booths away. Talese, watching as closely a spy, with eyes as attuned to details as a portraitist. Because Sinatra repeatedly refused Talese interviews while he was working on the profile for Esquire, he was forced to shadow him, to observe him on both sides of the coast and talk to the people in orbit around him. There is something preposterous about trying to capture someone’s life in words, especially when that person refuses to open up to you personally. But there is something very critical about Talese’s mission to show Frank Sinatra, the man. At one point in the profile, Frank Sinatra, Jr. vents: “Here is the great fallacy, the great bullshit for Frank Sinatra is normal, the guy whom you’d meet on a street corner. But this other thing, the supernormal guise, has affected Frank Sinatra as much as anybody who watches one of his television shows, or reads a magazine about him…” One of these television shows plays an important role in Talese’s account. From the beginning of the profile, Sinatra and his crew are worried about a CBS special about Sinatra’s life that is soon to air. He needn’t have worried: “It was a highly flattering hour that did not deeply probe, as rumors suggested it would, into Sinatra’s love life, or the Mafia, or other areas of his private province.” The show serves to contribute one more element to the glowing myth of Sinatra, and it is this very myth Talese strives to strip away. CBS may not have probed, but Talese does. He does not do so in a sensational, scandal-mongering way, but in a manner that re-humanizes him. With his vivid storytelling and magnification of detail, Talese pulls down the “supernormal guise” of magazine covers and golden cigarette lighters, to examine the man with the firefighter father, the man with intense mood swings, the man with a cold. Talese does not diminish Sinatra by showing his fears and flaws. Rather, he elevates him by showing that Sinatra is something bigger than a celebrity–he is a man. This must be the goal of any journalist covering a celebrity. It would be irresponsible to dismiss the fact that celebrities–singers, actors, artists–are an integral, iconic part of our culture. But coverage of celebrities has become a bloated, self-sustaining industry. It splays pictures of celebrities’ affairs, newborns, grocery lists, and cellulite across grocery store magazines and gossip shows. Because celebrities have become a commodity, celebrity coverage “serious journalists” tend to avoid, wishing to distance themselves from the trashy, exploitative paparazzi. Yet a deeper, more human perspective needs to be seen of these important men and women than E! and People give. To adopt Talese’s approach and seek to give an honest, fair, and deep look at celebrities does not only benefit the culture–it benefits these stars themselves by bringing them back down to earth. After CBS’s Sinatra special aired without incident, Sinatra received a telegram from Jilly’s reading, “WE RULE THE WORLD!” But tonight, just 43 years later, Jilly’s is quiet. Its 1:30 am now and the party then would have just been starting. But tonight it’s just the barman and three or four suspicious figures huddle in miasmas of cigarette smoke whispering through a haze of alcohol. Not a single photo of Sinatra adorns the walls and there is no neon sign blinking over the corner where the Chairman once presided over the Rat Pack. Though Jilly’s address, now occupied by Russian Samovar, sits just a couple blocks from major tourism thoroughfares, this bar is not even really for Americans anymore. How does Frank Sinatra, a name that has come to define an era, a look, even a mood, evaporate from the very temple in which he was once venerated? Why is Jilly’s quiet tonight? Could it be that Frank Sinatra was a man– just as the Russians slumped on the bar are men, and just as the tourists who stroll down 52nd street tonight are merely men?
A Jerusalem Dawn
August 6, 2009
Weary from days of travel I soaked in this Jerusalem dawn
Arrived from Belgium too Jerusalem at 3am Wednesday morning. Though I managed to sleep several hours with my head lodged on the shoulder of an obliging young Isreali seated on the plane to my right, I arrived exhausted.
Once in thethe Old City I garnered the strength to push through several more hours of wakefullness to witness the daily miracle of world rebirth over the city. Pitched in the mystery of night the sun fought its way over the Judean Hills and brought with it the smells & sights of commerce in the streets below as well as the guns the tension and the hot sun that makes Jerusalem Jerusalem.
It is 7.39pm and the Muslim call to prayers resonate over the valley and through the labrynthine streets just below me.
