7fatcow.com

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.

I too would love to turn my back on my friends, and justify it that helping them would just be enabling them to harm themselves even more.It would be far more convenient if I could just drop all my struggling brother and conclude that I am just better than them, that we have never really been friends anyhow, that my greed is compassion, that I am all good while they are all no-good junkies. Than I too would be able to spend my money on myself and other fellow well-to-do gift-exchanging freaks.

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

"I was just thinking and wondering if, despite what Christ tells us in the twenty-second verse of the fifth chapter of St.Matthew, we are ever permitted to make use of the forbidden weapon"

http://www.news12.com/articleDetail.jsp?articleId=229813&position=2&news_type=news

It's about time NY did somthing good for itself  and humanity, here's an expert from the AP

 But after cracking down and incarcerating hundreds of thousands, cash-strapped states including New York, Kentucky and Kansas are pulling back. They face an uncommon confluence of dire economics and prisons bursting at the seams and several have changed, in whole or in part, their stances on hard punishment.             

Their reasons: the get-tough laws didn't always work, especially when it came to slowing recidivism, the revolving door of prisoners who get out, mess up again, and come back. There were legal challenges, and questions about whether the punishment always fit the crime.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         And of course, there's the money. In tough economic times, the expensive laws are increasingly being deemed expendable.                                                                                                                                                                                                                         Last week, New York reached an agreement to repeal the last vestiges of the Rockefeller drug laws, once considered the harshest in the nation.                                                                                                                                                                             It's expected to save some $250 million per year — New York spends about $45,000 annually per inmate while treatment cost estimates are $15,000 or less — at a time when the state is grappling with a projected budget hole of $17.7 billion 

from Abba (Shua’s father) yes our son left us with broken hearts and shattered dreams of making his wedding, holding his children and enjoying and crying with him in his successes and disappointments. But one thing is clear Shua only wrote this letter and other letters after he felt strong enough to take on this cause for the innocent children who are abused, in addition to many other causes he was working on. Shua was in process of starting a recovery house for lost children from his neighborhood and was setting up counseling and paying for it from his own money. Shua was also helping kids find jobs and encouraging them to hold on to them and help build their character. Shua was also planning to announce his engagement to the beautiful love of his life, which he made clear he wanted to do only when he was sure he had beaten the disease. I know Shua hopes and will be happy for anything we can do to help each other and ourselves. I love you my son and spilling many tears but grateful for the twenty years that Hashem let me have you.

Footsteps on Zev Brenner

-atgate231 with a hat-tip to The Hedyot

In the early 1970s, Gladys Ferra was told by her Hasidic landlord to
pack and move out of her rent-controlled home. Scared and unsure of her
rights, Ferra and some tenants in her building went to visit a housing
attorney who came highly recommended. But when they walked into his
office, they got nervous. “We looked at him and the girls said, ‘He’s
not going to help us, he’s Jewish!’” recalls Ferra, even though at the
time Needelman had no religious affiliation. His name and face said it
all. That was the first time Ferra met Needelman, but not the last. To
her surprise, the young Jewish attorney successfully defended the women
against his co-religionists, something he has never shied away from in
his time in Williamsburg.“We never thought he was going to be one of our best friends,” Ferra says.

A surpringly frank and personal BrooklynInk article, about the legendary gothic foe of Chassishe Williamsburg's landowning elites.  Particularly relevant in these polarized times.