The FeinStall Plan

Back in 1957, Harry Golden (patron saint of the Carolina Israelite) wrote his most memorable item: A Swiftian satirical piece titled “The Vertical Negro Plan” in which he suggested that many desegregation conflicts could be resolved if one removed sitting from the equation, as his observations taught him that the racist white folk of the time were comfortable standing up next to African-Americans in lines in banks, stores, and government offices, and friction was only created when they were required to sit down next to each other in restaurants, schools, public transportation and the like. Harry’s solution was that schools be integrated via the simple removal of all chairs. It was a brilliant article and, indeed, was his great break: Time Magazine carried the piece, numerous interviews ensued, a book offer made, and the rest could have naturally happened “Only in America”… Well, Messrs. Swift and Golden, it’s my shot at the title:

The national debate over public facility usage by people who identify with genders other than the ones they were biologically born with is at fever pitch. Conservatives are expressing absurd fears regarding the potential intermingling of genders in restrooms, while Liberals are completely disregarding the inherent concerns of those who are expressing discomfort with change. Time to put everybody at ease by implementing the FeinStall Plan for Public Restroom Integration:

Just get rid of the damn urinals.

Harkening back to Roman times, public pissoirs are usually smelly, filthy, and unsanitary. Depending on design, many of them are not very forgiving of, put gently, lack of user accuracy. Especially in high-traffic areas (such as public transportation hubs or large performance venues) the urinals’ sanitary condition deteriorates most rapidly. In one of the military bases I’d served on, our communal urinal had a sort of a step in front of it. Sick and tired of the perpetual disgusting mess on the floor, our Commanding Officer assembled us in front of it early one morning to demonstrate acceptable usage, focusing on the requirement to stand on top of the step in advance of emptying our bladders.

Moreover, there is an entire set of unwritten rules regarding urinal etiquette, mostly involving the appropriate distance from others, and how gazes should be averted and eyes lowered (but not too low!) at all times. Fail to follow these guidelines and you’ll stand out like, well, you can imagine. I’ve relieved myself at hundreds of urinals all over, from the stunning Art Deco massive Roman marble facilities at New York’s legendary Radio City Music Hall (on which famed British journalist Alistair Cooke had commented that “it made one’s anatomy look awfully shabby”) all the way to the galvanized steel troughs at “historic” Legion Field in Birmingham, Alabama (where sharp-eyed sanitation engineers can still easily identify the parallel plumbing system that ran through the “Old Grey Lady” during Segregation) yet behavior is quite similar, with more and more males (especially younger ones) opting to use the stalls instead, where, interestingly enough, no-one almost ever urinates without closing the door behind them. And while most men’s facilities nowadays feature a changing table for infants, it is typically in plain view of the urinals, effectively preventing most dads from changing their daughters’ diapers there.

Contrast this with that great democratic fixture: The Port-a-Potty. Gender neutral, completely private, with equal access. Would one even dream of complaining about who happens to enter the unit next to ours, or what their gender identification might be? Of course not.

Hence the FeinStall Plan for Public Facility Equality: Remove all urinals, replace them with stalls, and all restroom access and sharing complaints and concerns will instantly vanish (along with the smell and the mess). Men will no longer have the unfair advantage of shorter lines over women, and all that remains is for an enterprising engineer to invent a device that would keep the toilet seats in them perpetually raised, and we’re in business.

Good Stuff

News had just come out of the Pentagon that a group of B-52 bombers had been transferred to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar and assigned to participate in strikes on ISIS as part of Operation Inherent Resolve. In active service since 1955, the lumbering Stratofortress is relieving its younger sibling, the B-1 Lancer bomber, 31 years its junior, which was rotated out of the theater. Once again, the US Air Force’s most venerable aircraft aloft is stepping-up and reporting for duty.

Designed by a team of brilliant Boeing engineers over a weekend in a Dayton, Ohio hotel (they even went to a craft store and purchased supplies to build a model, to this day still on display at Boeing headquarters) in late 1948, the B-52 bomber was built primarily as the ultra-long distance delivery platform for America’s nuclear arsenal, back before Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles were perfected. This massive aircraft has eight jet engines, and had bicycle wheels mounted at the end of its super long wings to prevent them from dragging on the runway. A true behemoth of the skies, the B-52’s can travel and loiter for up to twelve hours between refuelings and fly at an altitude of 50,000 feet. The whole shebang, fully loaded and fueled, may weigh upwards of 480,000 pounds. There have been numerous iterations and revisions of the plane: the version currently in service is known as the B-52H, and was introduced in 1960, substantially older than the crews flying and maintaining them. The updates included, over the years, new wings, new fuel tanks, new landing gear, new electronics and new weapons systems. One of the characters in Charles Frazier’s modern-day classic “Cold Mountain” speaks fondly of a one-hundred year old axe and declares it to be in the same shape as the day it was purchased “but for the two new heads and four new handles”. That’s essentially what the B-52 is. A bulwark of the Cold War, it flew missions in Vietnam, Afghanistan, both Gulf Wars, and now over Syria and Iraq. It is the modern-era equivalent of the long-departed battleship, although its personnel usually eschews its proper name “Stratofortress” for the more colloquial and endearing “BUFF”, an acronym for “Big Ugly Fat (you can figure out the rest)”. Always an icon of popular culture, it was featured in many movies, and even had a hairstyle named for its beehive-shaped nose cone. The famous band (hinted-at in the article’s headline) was actually named for the hairdo, not the plane…

While its engines date back to the Sixties, replacements are being planned. In 2007 it became the first US Air Force plane to become certified for alternative fuel, and it is currently estimated to remain in service until at least 2040, a good eighty-five years after its introduction.

War is inherently a terrible thing, and far be it from me to romanticize a weapon. However, this astonishing aircraft is nothing less than a supreme feat of engineering, and while many newer military planes have been retired and mothballed (or, in the case of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, decades of development have resulted in a multi-billion dollar fiasco) it’s comforting to know that, when called upon, these leviathans of the sky (and the courageous airmen and women who operate them) are once again hard at work, defending their nation. Godspeed, and happy landings.

H.B. Duh

The first thing that the public ought to realize about the recently-enacted House Bill 2 is that it is not about bathrooms, but about something far more profound and sinister: Do the one hundred and eight Republican members of the NC General Assembly have the right to usurp the power vested in thousands of elected officials throughout the state, only because they have ideological differences?

Alas, many have fallen for the myth that H.B. 2 was enacted to prevent transgender individuals from entering public restrooms designated for the gender with which they identify. Not so: at its heart the bill seizes power from all local authorities (not just Gov. McCrory’s old stomping grounds, the Charlotte City Council) and denies them in advance the right to pass any local ordinances regarding civil liberties, wage-setting, and eliminates North Carolinians’ ability to pursue remedies in State Court for violations of the so-called “Protection of Rights in Employment and Public Accommodations”, effectively forcing plaintiffs to seek relief in the Federal court system. Essentially, this is a raw power grab orchestrated by the Republican leadership who, after having these issues rejected by the General Assembly in the past, conveniently piggy-backed them on the “hot issue of the day”, Transgender restroom access in Charlotte.

The General Assembly has had multiple instances of these types of power plays in recent history: The town of Morrisville had its local ordinance prohibiting weapons in its town parks overturned, the Wake county school board was stripped of its school-building authority, the Wake county Board of Commissioners was abruptly “redistricted” after recent elections created a Democratic majority (in one of the most Democratic counties in the state, no less), The City of Asheville had its water system taken away from it, the city of Charlotte had to put up a serious legal battle to prevent its airport from being taken over, and the list goes on.

I find two things to be absolutely stupefying about this turn of events: The first is the legislators’ complete disregard for the will of local voters who’ve elected officials and entrusted them with running things in their own communities. The second is that those who are causing this strife are Republicans, the party that is usually anti-Federalist, pro-States Rights, and always in favor of decisions made locally by those who are closest to the affected citizenry. Just imagine the outcry if Congress tried to tell the folks in Raleigh how to manage their State Parks or their public utilities. This is all corrosive partisanship of the worst kind, the political equivalent of bullying.

From a legal perspective our state is in hot water: multiple lawsuits have been filed against it as a result of this recent bill, citizens rights have been trampled upon, possibly unconstitutionally. The Republicans in the General Assembly have squandered precious resources, scared away visitors and investors, and given the state a black eye which will take years to recover from. And Gov. McCrory? In a recent article in the Charlotte Observer it was disclosed that McCrory’s team saw the Charlotte restroom debacle as a way to cause political damage to the Democratic candidate for governor, NC Attorney General Roy Cooper. So this wasn’t at all about any particular ideology or belief system, strictly a political hit designed to hurt the AG. Talk about a miscalculation.

14

It was July of 1974, the first week of Summer break. I was sitting in my grandparents’ living room, transfixed to the black & white images on the screen. It was the 1974 World Cup Final, in which one of the greatest national teams in history, Holland, led by captain Johan Cruyff, took on another one of the great national teams ever, West Germany (that’s what they were called those days) led by Franz Beckenbauer. Two minutes into the game Cruyff was fouled, Holland awarded a Penalty Kick, and scored a goal before any German had even touched the ball. I distinctly remember the Israeli announcer intoning that we should not get too excited, as history showed that the team which scored first in the Final usually ended-up losing. Eighty-eight minutes later three million Israeli hearts were broken when the final whistle blew in Munich and the Dutch lost, 1-2. There are very few boys from my generation who don’t remember that game, and the sadness of its outcome. Even those of us who were able to repress their memories had it all come back a few weeks ago when the upsetting news came out of Barcelona that our childhood idol, one of the greatest footballers ever, #14 Johan Cruyff, had passed away from lung cancer.

Cruyff was special on many levels: first and foremost, he was a supremely talented player who had an unparalleled “read” of the game. Nominally a forward, he was everywhere on the pitch, all the time. Be it on his beloved Ajax Amsterdam, the Dutch national team, or FC Barcelona, where he helped, first as a player and later as a manager, implement the strategy known as “Total Football”, a possession-oriented playing style which permeates the sport to this day, and is a core part of Barcelona’s ascension to greatness over the past three decades. Cruyff loved Catalonia and was a strong supporter of its struggle towards autonomy, not an easy thing for a foreigner to do in the Seventies and Eighties. In fact, he got into a scuffle with the Spanish authorities when he named his son “Jordi”, after the patron saint of Catalonia. On the pitch he also helped create the modern model for goalkeepers: the sweeper. He was frustrated by keepers that only stopped shots, and agitated his coaches to field keepers who also used their feet, essentially gaining an eleventh player. No one represents this approach more than Germany’s current national goalie, Manuel Neuer, who was developed by Cruyff’s students of the game.

Johan was an opinionated, outspoken character. A working-class kid from Amsterdam, he never hesitated to speak-up on social or political issues that mattered to him. He also spoke a unique “language”, known as Cruijffiaans, and became somewhat of a European Yogi Berra on that account. Some of his better-known maddening-yet-endearing phrases were “Every disadvantage has its advantage”, “Before I make a mistake, I don’t make that mistake”, and the ever enigmatic “If I wanted you to understand it, I’d explain it better”. It all sounds even funnier in Dutch.

To this day there has not been a more beloved non-native athlete in Israel than Cruyff. Always viewed as a friendly country, the Dutch went on to further endear themselves to Israelis by not succumbing to the Arab boycott and oil embargo in the early Seventies, preferring to ride bicycles instead. Johan understood the significance of this and won the hearts of all Israelis when he proclaimed that he will play in the World Cup “not only for my country, but also for my three million fans in Israel”. He always remained close to Israel, and helped establish soccer facilities there. What truly cemented the bond was his son Jordi becoming Israel’s storied football club Maccabi Tel Aviv’s Sports Director, largely responsible for turning the club around and leading it to three consecutive championships. Johan was evidently proud of his son’s achievements and would on occasion travel to Israel to take in a game, always an exciting moment for his many fans.

In the week following his passing many European football matches were stopped in the fourteenth minute, and players, supporters and officials joined in a minute of applause in Cruyff’s honor. As for me, I went on Facebook to find out which of my generation would admit to have broken down in tears on that fateful afternoon of July 7, 1974, when everlasting glory was snatched away from us all.

Oh-Boycott

One of the better-known outcomes of the North Carolina’s General Assembly and Governor’s approval of the quickly-infamous “House Bill 2” has been the speed and scope of the various boycotting of the state by corporations, performing artists, and individuals. It started with PayPal announcing that they would not go ahead with plans to open an operations center in Charlotte, the very place whose city council voted in favor of gender neutrality in public facilities in the first place, infuriating the Republicans in Raleigh. This was followed by a slew of convention cancellations, Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band pulling out of their planned Greensboro concert; ditto Ringo Starr, Pearl Jam, and Cirque du Soleil; and the Deutsche Bank shelved its expansion plans to its development center in Cary. NBC estimates the potential economic damage to-date as high as $186 million. We certainly would like to hope that that was not Governor McCrory’s intent.

However, as odious as H.B. 2 is, and as disgusted as I am with the intent of its authors, I find this type of boycotting to be at best counter-productive, and at worst the epitome of sensationalist hypocrisy.

First off, there currently exists no Federal law mandating public accommodation to those who identify themselves as Transgender. Moreover, only 19 states have such protection written in law. Those who boycott North Carolina should equally be boycotting at least 31 other states. I fully understand that certain performing artists are always intent on promoting social justice, and that’s admirable, but I sense that in this particular case there was a “rush to judgement”, greatly driven by the current political atmosphere in our country. Deciding a priori that the Tar Heel state is somehow more discriminatory or less accommodating than others, and that our lovely slice of the Bible Belt is where this particular battle should be fought is preposterous, especially given the fact that this all started with a local government supporting public accommodation. Springsteen, Starr, Vedder et al. would have been wise to take a page from other acts such as Cindi Lauper and Brandi Carlile who are going ahead with the shows and donating proceeds to support the cause. Or there’s comedian CK Louis who went and booked shows intentionally, in Asheville, in order to promote awareness and financial support for the issue. And there’s Jimmy Buffet who wisely decided to go on with the show and, understanding his role, say nothing about the matter (although it’s at his concerts where I’ve encountered the largest amount of males wearing skirts and bras). Ultimately fans will have to decide wether they appreciate or resent the actions of those performers they support with their money.

Second, on the corporate side of things, the behavior is simply appalling. In a sensationalist, pseudo-socially-aware manner, PayPal (the money transfer people) has decided to cancel its plans to open an operations center in Charlotte, the very city that tried to do good. This makes as much sense as if Sears, Roebuck (as they used to be known) would have decided to pull out of Greensboro in 1960, as punishment for F.W. Woolworth’s refusal to integrate its lunch counter. Worse, PayPal maintains operations and does business in countries such as Saudi Arabia, a place where being Transgender is tantamount to a (legal) death sentence. Now, if PayPal truly wanted to retaliate against the North Carolina Government for its discriminatory actions, wouldn’t it have made more sense to cancel the accounts of the various state entities who allow easy payment of taxes via PayPal? Or perhaps to go ahead and open the center in Charlotte, and declare its restrooms gender-neutral, inviting public use? The exact same logic applies to Deutsche Bank, but for the fact that they’re probably doing business in even more discriminatory countries than PayPal…

And as to the Cirque du Soleil, who is cancelling their NC performances (while going on with their plans to tour that bastion of human rights, Russia) I actually consider their boycott a blessing in disguise, as I can’t stand their shows.

A Story Told 3300 Times Over

As we get ready to observe the week of pesach (Passover) one contemplates the longevity and tradition of this most important Jewish holiday, especially as it manifests itself in the seder, the annual tradition of retelling the story of our peoples’ exodus from slavery to freedom. This traditional annual storytelling has been going on uninterrupted for over three thousand, three hundred years, and is significant not only for religious reasons, but also for cultural and national identity purposes. I am not familiar with any other religion or culture which has such a sustained, universal tradition as that of the Passover seder. Perhaps the reason for the longevity is the fact that we use food as the framing device to tell the story. Moses may have laid-down the laws, but it was Jewish mothers that laid-down the chicken soup, brisket, and gefilte-fish…

So it is always interesting to learn how such an ancient ritual still finds its way to the news. This year, in two very different ways:

First, Ohio governor and presidential hopeful John Kasich went on a tour of New York City neighborhoods in advance of the state’s primaries. This consisted mostly of him eating prodigious amounts of ethnic food (and pizza with a fork!) all over town. Wags commented that he had more calories than votes… In any event, the Catholic governor found himself in an ultra-orthodox matzoh bakery in Brooklyn, where he proceeded to sermonize to the Jewish audience (and non-Jewish media in tow) about corollaries between the lamb’s blood that was used by the Israelites to mark their doorposts with, so the Angel of Death would know to “Pass-Over” their homes (for some inexplicable reason the Governor called them “Lamp-posts”) and the blood of Christ. I have no idea what he was thinking of, as this is as an appropriate a discussion as, say, if he was visiting an Arab-American community and telling them how tasty he thinks BLT’s are when made with pita bread… Needless to say, the Jewish community was left rolling its eyes collectively at his homily.

And second: For over eight hundred years Ashkenazy (European-ancestry) Jews were banned by a strict rabbinical decree from eating legumes (peas, beans, lentils and the like) or rice during Passover. Sephardi Jews, who originate from Spain, Portugal, and the Ottoman Empire were exempt. No one is exactly sure of the origins of this ban. One theory is that grain dealers in Medieval France (where the ban originated) were unable to properly separate the beans from the flour, leading to it all being declared verboten. As any one of us that sat through “Fiddler on the Roof” knows, most Judaic rituals have little to with reason, and everything to do with (in my best Zero Mostel impersonation) “Tradition!”. Problem is that while during the diaspora Jewish communities were pretty much distant enclaves (which is why, for example, Yemenite Jews were exempt from the rabbinical ban on polygamy), nowadays there is no real separation between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews, especially in the US and Israel, leading to all kinds of friction at the seder table in families that had intermarried.

Happily, the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards has recently received appropriate rabbinical responsa, and is now stating that the 800-year old ban is officially over. For those who had experienced dietary holiday conflicts, this is indeed good news. For those of us (such as my family) who have observed the ban over the centuries out of a sense of tradition, this new “greenlight” to eat legumes will be as meaningless as the ban itself. Ask why? It’s a tradition! Happy and Kosher Passover!