For a while, i've preferred quietly bowing out to dramatic public announcements, not wanting to endlessly retire like an aging rock band. But now, a solid three years into the exciting creation and invitation of theis forum into being, i'm stepping down formally, from any inolvement with 7fatcow, unconvinced that it exists at all.

No bitterness. Dissapointment would imply expectations, and all my hopes and expectations for this blog where satisfied right away, constantly, along with all my concerns and suspicions, re: the inevitably difficult nature of True Expression and Engagement. That was understood from the beginning to be OK. Sometimes, when you talk with people, a lot of bullshit comes out as cushion for any insight and genuine heart-of-self that might be revealed, and that condition was understood from the beginning: along with the genius in our wider community of not-quite-ex/not-quite-ohs is a multitude of protective layer of ego and dogma; of noise and principle, of assumption and of flawed language, furious at the implication that it must be probed to be understood. That's OK, as much as any of the troublesome nature of our world is to be called OK, it's part of who we have been, and how we have expressed.

All that said, it's boring now, because maybe we've gone as far as any of us wanted to go. One of our founding members has moved beyond interest in the conversation here, as a funner life beckoned where the wit was expresseable and the company close enough that trying to blog in a noise filled room of cheesy links and ironically repressive vulgarity became uncompelling, especially once the Twitter and Facebook Status update was given unto us, to let the impulse sound more immediately, without need for context, or consensus. And so, the chance to say just a few things here was all he needed.

Another founding member has tried to give up so many times, and the clamor of each dramtic farewell, combined with the unelaborated links and occasional disavowels of entire identities for fear of Who May Be Listening, and Who May Be Judged along with him, often prevented the depth of his insight from being expressed. He erased all his posts, psuedonym after psudonym, and tried to convince somebody that he was somebody, and not actually somebody. And in that noise, his genius is silenced, and a certain unconfrontational decadence tried to grow around him; alas, woe unto those who think their sacrifices will provide security, money, or love.

And around that, behind that, so much genius was expressed.  Zoroastro/IslamoYid's and Atgate231's Scholarship, Class and Humor, Shitalpin's withering and ultimately humanist hot/cold sarcasm-masking-authenticity, Hashemsucksdick's marriage of post-religious concience and artistry, Mohammed's strange and shocking form of concience, Anivaho's Mercurial genius to let words permute into sublime association (even as any conceit towards divine synchronicty was despaired of) Yalhak's Majestic magnimamity and wholeness of vision/purity of impurity of perspective (along with the  lucid clarity of Yesod, Aisav, and the other maaminim he brought) and the writers we never even really identified, who bought so much class, genius, and perfect kvetchery to the conversation (who was Hiavrom anyway? he was brilliant! I hope he's OK.)

All the Neo-Nazis who stopped by to let us now what was going on, all the feminists and fetishists, all the excited Chabadskers, all the grieving relatives– so much got circulated, and maybe so little was heard, who knows? who knows. Who knows how much we ever hear from each other that we weren't ready to chap. But I feel like a lot of rare expression and relative taboo was aired here, and i'm really proud of that. As proud as one can be of something that one just let happen.

All the martyrs and all the victims; all the heroes and all the wimps. All the Faggotry and all the ugly, ugly Charedi shock-porn. All the piety and simple faith. Everything but the bullshit, and the noise, and the hiding of ourselves inside of our conceptions. It really has been a great ride, and I can only pray that some of this survivesinto the annals ofHistory, the story of how the Jewish Problem was, if only for a moment, touched upon, if not successfully adressed, from within, rather than just from without. God bless you all, to move on, and see how easy it is just to start up a crazy fucking conversation in this great, wide future of accessible interests, may we one day merit to see it to it's end.

Shana Tov, and i'll see you at the Jubilee

Yoseph Leib,

AKA Yhosephus,

AKA the guy that fucked your sister, back when she was still cute.

FEUDALISM
You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

PURE SOCIALISM
You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all the cows. The government gives you a glass of milk.

BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM
Your cows are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you should need.

FASCISM
You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them, and sells you the milk.

PURE COMMUNISM
You share two cows with your neighbors. You and your neighbors bicker about who has the most "ability" and who has the most "need". Meanwhile, no one works, no one gets any milk, and the cows drop dead of starvation.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM
You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the black market.

PERESTROIKA
You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the Mafia takes all the milk. You steal back as much milk as you can and sell it on the "free" market.

CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM
You have two cows. The government takes both and shoots you.

DICTATORSHIP
You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

PURE DEMOCRACY
You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY
You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

BUREAUCRACY
You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

CAPITALISM
You don't have any cows. The bank will not lend you money to buy cows, because you don't have any cows to put up as collateral.

PURE ANARCHY
You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.

ANARCHO-CAPITALISM
You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

OLYMPICS-ISM
You have two cows, one American, one Chinese. With the help of trilling violins and state-of-the-art montage photography, John Tesh narrates the moving tale of how the American cow overcame the agony of growing up in a suburb with (gasp) divorced parents, then mentions in passing that the Chinese cow was beaten every day by a tyrannical farmer and watched its parents butchered before its eyes. The American cow wins the competition, severely spraining an udder in a gritty performance, and gets a multi-million dollar contract to endorse Wheaties. The Chinese cow is led out of the arena and shot by Chinese government officials, though no one ever hears about it. McDonald's buys the meat and serves it hot and fast at its Beijing restaurant.

Dear Friends,On Thursday from 9:30-10:15 am the JCC, 334 Amsterdam Ave. at 76th St., will be picketed by the Westboro Baptist Church, an extremist anti-Semitic, anti-gay independent church based out of Topeka Kansas. 
 
They plan to send 5-10 representatives who will stand on our sidewalk for 45 minutes displaying disturbing signs and provoking those entering our building.  They try to create enough confrontation to incite others to provocation. It is their constitutional right to picket. 

The JCC in Manhattan does not welcome this group's message or actions in any way. Our focus and mission as a community center is to build an inclusive Jewish community that celebrates the strength of diversity. It is a home for individuals and families of all backgrounds to grow and to learn and to care about and deepen their connections to one another.
 
As your community center we have few priorities during difficult moments such as these. Protecting our members and visitors, and most importantly our children, is a primary goal. Our internal security team is already in action and local police authorities have been alerted. Although you are entitled to your right to free speech,we ask that you calmly pass these protestors and walk directly into our building without incident. 

The JCC in Manhattan is an amazing community- one with big, wide open doors.  This group has picked us BECAUSE of our commitment to those who desire community and who stand arm in arm with us while we travel though this "vertical neighborhood." Though Thursday may be upsetting, it is important to remember that our precious values (targeted here by an obscene group) are truly a source of great pride.

Rabbi Joy Levitt

From the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv,

קנאביס חסידיס: על הזיקה העמוקה שבין היהדות והמריחואנה

האם היתה ביהדות העתיקה מסורת שורשית של עישון מריחואנה? יוסף לייב, אחרי מחקר מקיף בישיבות ירושלים והסביבה, טוען בספר חדש שאמנם כך – ושואף (עוד מאז התיכון) להפוך את היהדות להרבה יותר רגועה. תומר פרסיקו שמע ממנו איך עוזר הגראס להתקרב לאלוהים

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תומר פרסיקו | 25/5/2009 8:55

הבעש"ט - דיוקן דמיוני,  עטיפת הספר. תת-תרבות יהודית ענפה של המראה למחוזות שמימיים

המזל, אומרים רבים משומרי המצוות, הוא שהגראס לא אסור על פי ההלכה. הבעיה, יהיה מי שיוסיף, היא שחסרה מסורת יהודית (שלא לומר קבלית) שמנחה את היהודי כיצד להשתמש בסם כדי לקרב בינו ובין הקב"ה. כדי לענות על השאלה האחרונה יצא יוסף לייב, יהודי אמריקאי צעיר וצמא דעת, למסע מעושן ברחבי ירושלים וארץ ישראל, בחיפוש עיקש אחר מקורות עבריים לסוטול.

כעת יצא הספר (באנגלית) שמתעד את מסעו המפותל, תחת השם המרומם "חסידיס קנאביס: תורת הסמים הקדומה והמתחדשת" - Cannabis Chassidis: The Ancient and Emerging Torah of Drugs (הוצאת "עצמוס")

את הגראס פגש לייב לראשונה בתיכון – חברים שאינם יהודים סיפקו לו מעט חומר על פי בקשתו. בתשובה לשאלתי הוא אמר: "שמעתי רק דברים טובים על זה במשך שנים, וזה גם התקשר אצלי לכל האמנים, המשוררים והמוזיקאים שאהבתי". כשהגיע מארה"ב לירושלים, לפני שבע שנים, הוא גילה, לשמחתו, שמי שעישן בעיר הקודש בדרך כלל עשה זאת מתוך התכוונות לממד הרליגיוזי שהגראס יכול לעורר ולעודד.

לייב הצטרף מיד לעבודת השם, אבל לא התכוון להסתפק בכך – הוא חיפש את המסורת היהודית העתיקה, שעל פי דעתו היתה חייבת להתקיים, שהרי "איך ייתכן שלתרבות עתיקה כל כך אין מערכת יחסים עם אחד הצמחים הרפואיים והקסומים שבבריאה?"

וכך יצא לייב לחיפוש עיקש, בין השאר בישיבות שונות בהן למד וכחלק מ"סצנת קרליבך" בירושלים וסביבתה, כאשר את הרפתקאותיו הוא מתעד בבלוג שלו, ששמו כשם הספר. על פי עדותו, מסתבר, ישנה תת-תרבות יהודית ענפה של המראה למחוזות שמימיים בעזרת חומרים פסיכואקטיביים – תרבות שהוא קושר לה גם מסורת יהודית עתיקה. עם צאת ספרו שאלתי אותו כמה שאלות בעניין.

For the continuation & interview & picture, see here:

http://www.nrg.co.il/online/55/ART1/895/137.html

From "The Regal Way: The Life and Times of Rabbi Israel of Ruzhin" [aka "Derech haMalchut"] by David Assaf (Stanford U.P. 2002), notes to Ch. 4, p. 361 n. 16 — paraphrasing from "Der Rebbi von Sadagora" by Arnold Hilberg, printed in "Die Gartenlaube," Leipzig 1870, no. 28, p. 473:

"Hilberg […] recounts that when visitng his followers in nearby towns, Rabbi Israel always went to the local bathhouse, and that a heretic approached him there one day and aggresively attacked Hasidism. Shocked by the man's audacity, the zaddik ordered him thrown into the boiling water, which was immediately done. The heretic was then pushed with pitchforks into the furnace until he was cremated. Rabbi Israel, who witnessed the murder, returned to Ruzhin the same day."

Up through the ashes of Babylon, Cannibus Chassidus shall rise — Jah!

'Tis spring after all….

Boro Park - An 8-year-old child is lucky to be alive Thursday evening, after she fell approximately 30 feet while playing at her school.Sources tell YWN that the incident occured at the Beis Ruchel D’Satmar Girls School, which also houses “Ateres Chaya”, a popular wedding hall in its basement. The girl was apparently playing at 3:30PM on the school “play-roof”, when she fell through an opening which serves as the opening for the chupa room, landing 30 feet below in the wedding hall. (Jewish law requires the ceremony to be held underneath the sky, so most wedding halls have a roof or door which opens).

http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/news/General+News/34308/Child+Falls+30+Feet+Through+Roof+At+Ateres+Chaya.html

7fatcow sources have been told that the girl was distraught because her 9-year old sister is a shtikl a bum and "hot nisht gelozt skippin". When will the lying stop?

DelMundo for News

NYPD police officers capture a cow in Jamaica, Queens, after it got loose from a nearby slaughter house Wednesday.

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: May 7, 2009

Filed at 2:41 a.m. ET

NEW YORK (AP) — A cow has escaped from a New York City slaughterhouse and may have a new lease on life.

Police say the black heifer bolted Wednesday afternoon from Musa Hala Inc., which butchers animals according to religious restrictions.

It wandered in Queens for nearly a mile before police captured it an hour later and took it to an Animal Care and Control center, where it was nicknamed Molly.

Officials there are looking into whether Molly can be placed at a farm sanctuary or must be returned for slaughter. It depends on whether anyone claims her.

In 2002, an Ohio cow jumped a 6-foot fence to escape from a Cincinnati meatpacking plant and ran free in a park for 10 days. She was nicknamed Cinci Freedom.

UPDATE:

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/farm-living-is-the-life-for-molly-the-calf/

Since Woody Allen is acting like an imbecile suing Dov Charney like a petulant autistic child, we are offering free t-shirts with Woody Allen as Rebbe embossed. The t-shirts will be available in ten days. (I can't find the post now but 7fatcow was the first website to post a pic of the ad on Allen Street)