Should the United States try to reform the United Nations, or give up on it? Tough choice.
On the one hand, the United Nations is the only club that every nation can join. It has become the principal source of international law. It embodies humanity\’s hopes for international cooperation and world peace.
Recently, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) issued an apology for its Holocaust on Your Plate campaign and exhibit, which showed concentration camp images next to photos of animal abuse on factory farms. The comparison was extraordinarily tasteless, and widely condemned. PETA expressed surprise at the negative reaction, and while they should have known better, their campaign has thankfully ended.
Someone once said, \”Convenience is the death of romance.\”
I have a friend who may come into a large sum of money. Not millions, but tens of millions. Sometimes, she told me, shedaydreams about all the charities and causes she\’ll donate to.\n\”That\’s what I want to be, one of those people who sits around all day and gives out money,\” she said.
In this week\’s Torah Portion, Shelach Lecha, Moshe Rabbeinu designates an advance party of 12 scouts to survey the Promised Land. The Jews are approaching their destination and the fulfillment of their destiny, and Moshe opts to have a team of prominent Jewish leaders, comprised of one delegate from each of the 12 tribes, investigate and report back.
Mothers Advocating Prevention (MAP) developed a safety education program based on information gathered primarily from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Over the past four years, trained educators have taken the interactive, age-appropriate presentations into classrooms in public schools across the Palos Verdes Peninsula, reaching thousands of children.
One of the more surprising moments in recent music history comes midway through the celebrated 1998 indie rock album, \”In the Aeroplane Over the Sea,\” by the band Neutral Milk Hotel. Hiding in an otherwise understated tune are some startling lyrics:
I know they buried her body with others.
Her sister and mother and five hundred families.
And will she remember me fifty years later?
I wish I could save her with some sort of time machine….
It is, as many a hipster could tell you, an album about Anne Frank. Its singer and lyricist was a shaggy-headed 27-year-old named Jeff Magnum. As far removed as his native Louisiana was from Amsterdam, his songs give the unmistakable impression that he is a man in love with a 15-year-old girl who had been murdered more than five decades earlier.
Displaying incredible negotiating skills or amazing timing, mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa helped broker a deal hours after personally intervening in a labor dispute between hotel workers and the L.A. Hotel Employers\’ Council, which represents seven hotels.
On June 13, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger extended the seemingly permanent voting season in California by scheduling a Nov. 8 special election.
One person who\’s been instrumental in securing funds for home visits by social workers and transportation to doctor appointments is Jessica Toledano, director of the Jewish Federation\’s advocacy arm. She\’s this year\’s winner of the Special Award from the Jewish Communal Professionals of Southern California, which held its 25th Annual Awards Dinner this month at Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel in Westwood.
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