BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

This is no surprise to me. Any group that constantly bloviates on about ethics, correctness (some of them in the religious sense by quoting scripture to you...) and how awful anyone who isn't them... always seems to do so to hide the 800-pound gorilla standing right behind them. Hi there, Mr. Gorilla! I've seen you for a while now. And Mr. Gorilla - zip it up. Americans may paint themselves in increasingly bright shades of red and blue, but new research finds one thing that varies little across the nation: the liking for online pornography. A new nationwide study of anonymised credit-card receipts from a major online adult entertainment provider finds little variation in consumption between states. "When it comes to adult entertainment, it seems people are more the same than different," says Benjamin Edelman at Harvard Business School. However, there are some trends to be seen in the data. Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conser...

JUDAISM & ABUSE: EXPECTING BETTER This was written a few years back. Despite strides in educating leading rabbinic authorities it seems that nothing much has changed… not yet. Some are truly working on the problem and I beg them to keep working on it. Sometimes preserving a marriage AT ALL COSTS or allowing a manipulative man to make a woman an AGUNAH and then looking the other way - is NOT the way to go. Allowing the verbal & emotional abuse of children in the name of Torah and keeping it hush-hush for appearances is enabling the abuse! Loshen Hara can be a mitzvah if it stops an abuser from taking advantage of his family, his friends and the world at large. If You Beat Him He Will Not Die by Richard Silverstein A personal and theological meditation on child abuse As spiritual communities, it is enormously important that we provide grief work as part of the process of healing [from the effects of abuse]. At the same time, we have to take that lesson of choosing to...

I had just dropped my children at pre-K. It was early so I decided to drive over to the grocery and pick up a few things for dinner. I was still living in Astoria, New York. My cell phone rang, a friend asked me frantically, "Barbara, where's your husband?" I answered "he's at work." She said "doesn't he work near the Trade Center?" "Yes," I said, "across the street." "My God, Barbara don't you know ?" (PAUSE) "Turn on your radio!" I hung up, turned on my car radio and heard what sounded like an elaborate joke. People talking about terrorists, a plane accident downtown. I froze. My cell rang again. It was my then-husband, "someone just flew into the Trade Center with a plane. Looks like an accident. Just want you to know I am fine." "O.K." I said, "thank goodness." My husband told me later that he literally was putting his phone back in the cradle when ...

I have suffered with this disease for 49 years. If you have questions, write me.

My blogger sista Layla, wrote such a good post in July 2007 about a subject which I have discussed with many bloggers during the last 7 years which I have been fiddling around with blogs. Blogging was a great way to keep my mind active, now that I am unable and diagnosed unfit to work. I am teaching myself CSS and other coding little by little. Old horses do learn new tricks! When I started blogging I refused to talk politics.  According to my therapists I still lack a lot of self-esteem. Over the years I was told by far too many people I was stupid, ugly, worthless, too intense, had a big mouth and ended up saying 'yes' to things any rational person would have said "NO WAY" too.   Undiagnosed PTSD had me doing irrational things that no one would accept an apology for.  I went out of my way to make people happy, to my own detriment. So my blog was a mishmash of this and that. Stuff I had written on a good day and so on. I helped out 2 websites for a ...

Being diagnosed with a chronic disability can be very devastating. I'm not throwing a pity-party here, just sharing some insight. I went through every single one of the stages in this article and sometimes I back up and do them again. With the return of hot weather, I have been in terrible flare. I read JOB a lot and his bargaining and arguing with Hashem. I relate. I hate being like this. HATE IT. There is no relation between the me I am now and the person I was. My own children will never know the person I was. I grieve that a lot. One of my own late parents (who was pathologically disordered) told my ex-husband to "leave me" because I was "useless to him" now. It took me years to give away the power suits I wore to work or auditions. Now, I have thrown myself into motherhood - the best I can - the way I threw myself into work projects. Being disabled means you are part of an underclass that is neither to be seen or heard. Maybe because we invi...