First Responders Need PPEs and We Need Our Government to Do Better

I've been trying to get a petition going to send to the President to Maximize the Defense Production Act to require production of PPEs & ventilators NOW. 356 people have signed, as of Tuesday morning, which is a good number, but not viral. I'm too small potatoes to go viral, but it frustrates me because I'm right, and it's something our country should be doing.

I get the big fear. I actually agree with the concept that less government is more. Often when the government is involved in anything, it ends up crappy. I totally get that. But the Defense Production Act doesn't actually have the government produce anything. It forces private companies to produce the goods and services that we need in war time. They get to make money, people get to work, and products are made that are vitally needed.

For the love of God, it's not a slippery slope to Communism or Fascism.

Here's why we need this petition to go viral: 

HHS Survey revealing lack of training, shortages even in CLEANING SUPPLIES

The video above is a nurse who worked infected and is certain other medical professionals are infected as well, as they rewear their masks and gowns.

A Doctor who is risking his life to intubate patients because he's 33 and single, but he has asthma.

What is going on with the United States, Iran, and Iraq? How did we get here?

Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, head of the Quds Force was killed by a US drone at the Baghdad airport on January 3, 2020.

The Quds Force is kind of more like the CIA. It was created, in part, with the mandate of liberating Muslim lands, especially Jerusalem (called al-Quds in Arabic. It’s a cognate with the word “kadosh” in Hebrew).

Why?

Qasem Soleimani has been in control of Iran’s Quds Force for more than 20 years. His current greatest hits include helping Bashar al Assad slaughter hundreds of thousands of his own people in the Syrian civil war, stoking the Houthis in Yemen’s civil war, and overseeing the killing of hundreds of Iraqi protesters recently demonstrating against Iranian influence in their country. But most importantly for Americans, Soleimani was behind the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers during the Iraq War. Last year, the U.S. State Department put the number of Americans killed by Iranian proxies in Iraq at 608 since 2003...The killing of hundreds of our troops in Iraq, the constant terrorism it sponsors and supplies against Israel, and even the recent provocations against oil traffic in the Persian Gulf are all acts of war from which there really is no retreat without severe consequences (Novak).

Beginning with why was an Iranian Major General, an avid enemy of the United States, hanging out at the Baghdad airport, a country that continues to have a pretty decent sized US military presence (approximated at 6000).







Let’s start with Sykes Picot 1916:



When the British/French/Imperial Russians drew the map of the Middle East during WWI, they didn’t take into account that, specifically in Iraq, there were Shias, Sunnis, and Kurds who may or may not want to be in one state together.

The British propped up a Sunni (Hashemite) King named Feisal I, despite protests by other groups (Shia, Yazidi, Assyrian Christians).

What was the point of having a group with fewer people (Sunni) rule over Iraq rather than Shia (majority)? This gave the Sunni more reason to keep power. They knew if the Shia ever took power, they, as a minority, would have none.

There were many wars, civil wars, coups, etc during the time period after WWI during the British Mandate, then when Iraq became a state (1932), to when it became a Republic (1958) to its time ruled by the Baathists (1963-2002). The Baathists were loyal to the Soviet Union.

Which brings us back to Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.

In 1979, Iran had a revolution to overthrow their monarch Shah Mohamed Reza Pahlavi. Although it wasn’t the intention of all (most?) of the revolutionaries to live under a theocracy, the people who gained control were the Ayatollahs. The Iranians were against the United States because of their support for the Shah and a 1953 CIA sponsored/supported coup against the sitting prime minister of Iran. This hatred culminated in the storming of the US Embassy, where 52 US diplomats were held hostage for 444 days. This is where and when Suleimani got his start.

From 1980 to 1990, Iran and Iraq fought a war that resulted in the deaths of a million people! Suleimani was very involved and considered heroic during this war. Towards the middle of the war, Iraq (which was more loyal to the Soviet Union) was provided arms by the US government.

However, that relationship changed in August 1990, when Saddam Hussein, the leader of Iraq, invaded Kuwait. In the first post-Cold War showdown, in January 1991, the United States, led by George HW Bush, joined or supported by most other Western countries, bombed Iraq forcing Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait.

Over the next 13 years, the US would accuse Iraq of trying to build or having weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). Two years after the attacks of 9-11, US President George W. Bush convinced Congress that Iraq was an imminent threat leading to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. No WMDs were found, but Saddam Hussein was hanged by Shiite leaders. Since 2003, Iraq has tried to build a democracy, but sectarian tensions have made it difficult as Shiite leaders are in control and former Baath party members (pretty much all adult male Sunnis prior to 2003) were banned from being in government. Given the size of the bureaucracy under Saddam Hussein, this put a lot of people out of work opening an opportunity for militant groups, like ISIS to recruit. When ISIS took Mosul, Iran (and the US) were the ones who "freed it."

Fast forward eight years later, as the Iraqi democracy is struggling, the Arab world revolts against its dictatorships. The short lived Arab spring has had long lasting implications in Syria, kicking off a brutal, ongoing civil war. The Syrian dictator, Bashara al Assad is supported by Iran (re: Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani) and Russia in his fight against Sunni rebels, ISIS, and the Kurds. (The US was fighting ISIS by air, while the Iranians were fighting them on the ground, according to the New York Times). His fingers are also in the Yemen Civil War as well as training Hezbollah fighters against Israel. All in an effort to make Iran the supreme Middle East country over Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Which brings us to why Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani was at the Baghdad airport on the last day of his life. Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani was also responsible for training Shiite militia who were thwarting democracy in their own country. While the US has a troop presence there, it has essentially left Iraq, meanwhile Iran is there to pick up the pieces. Iran is being held responsible by the US for the murder of a US contractor on December 28 on an Iraqi military base. The US responded by attacking Iranian backed targets in Iraq and Syria. This angered Iraqis, as they said the US was violating their sovereignty. However, the US did not back down, and when Suleimani was at the airport in Baghdad, on his way back from a trip to Syria, he was with with two Popular Mobilization Committee  (Shiite militia) senior officials. The US military provided intelligence to President Trump who ordered the strike which killed all three.  President Trump's predecessors had never ordered a strike on Suleimani so as to not provoke a war with Iran.

You may be wondering how is this legal. Assassinations are not legal, but according to the President and other experts this killing is not an assassination. It is justified force in a military conflict. Other experts say that it does not meet the standard as the US is not at war with Iran.

Iran has vowed revenge and President Trump has vowed to crush Iran if there is any retaliation. The Iraqi parliament has voted to expel US troops. News has broken today that alleges that the Pentagon didn’t actually want President Trump to choose the kill option. Also, Iran has completely backed out of the nuclear treaty it signed under the Obama administration, and in the fallout from this strike the US has already ordered thousands more troops to the Middle East and halt its counter-ISIS efforts.

So, what’s next?

Works Cited

Abdo, Geneive. “Egypt: The Religious Root of Conflicts in the Middle East.” Pulitzer Center, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, 8 May 2017, pulitzercenter.org/reporting/egypt-religious-root-conflicts-middle-east.

Abdul-Zahra, Qassim. “Syria and Iraq Airstrikes Target Group Blamed for American's Death.” Time, TIME USA, 30 Dec. 2019, time.com/5756651/us-airstrikes-iraq-syria-contractor/.

Anderson, Scott. “Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 11 Aug. 2016, www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/11/magazine/isis-middle-east-arab-spring-fractured-lands.html.

Arango, Tim, et al. “Qassim Suleimani, Master of Iran's Intrigue, Built a Shiite Axis of Power in Mideast.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 3 Jan. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/01/03/obituaries/qassem-soleimani-dead.html.

Berger, Miriam. “Where U.S. Troops Are in the Middle East and Afghanistan, Visualized.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 4 Jan. 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/world/where-us-troops-are-in-the-middle-east-and-could-now-be-a-target-visualized/2020/01/04/1a6233ee-2f3c-11ea-9b60-817cc18cf173_story.html?arc404=true.

Cooper, Helene, et al. “As Tensions With Iran Escalated, Trump Opted for Most Extreme Measure.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Jan. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/01/04/us/politics/trump-suleimani.html?action=click&module=Top%2BStories&pgtype=Homepage.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Sykes-Picot Agreement.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 13 Nov. 2018, www.britannica.com/event/Sykes-Picot-Agreement.

Hubbard, Ben, et al. “Iran Pulls Back From Nuclear Deal as Killing of Iranian General Upends Mideast.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 5 Jan. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/01/05/world/middleeast/iran-general-soleimani-iraq.html?action=click&module=Top%2BStories&pgtype=Homepage.

Kennedy, Merrit, and Jackie Northam. “Was It Legal For The U.S. To Kill A Top Iranian Military Leader?” NPR, NPR, 4 Jan. 2020, www.npr.org/2020/01/04/793412105/was-it-legal-for-the-u-s-to-kill-a-top-iranian-military-leader.

Novak, Jake. “Op-Ed: America Just Took out a Man Many Consider the World's No. 1 Bad Guy.” CNBC, NBC Universal, 3 Jan. 2020, www.cnbc.com/2020/01/02/trump-just-took-out-the-worlds-biggest-bad-guy-qassim-soleimani.html.

“The Sunni-Shia Divide.” Council on Foreign Relations, Council on Foreign Relations, 16 Feb. 2016, www.cfr.org/interactives/sunni-shia-divide#!/sunni-shia-divide.

I'm not Oprah, but Here are my Favorite Things

Another day home with my master cougher so I thought I'd write an unusual blog post for me. These are items that I've purchased over the past couple of years that I really love as a mom of young kids. What would have made them even better is if I hadn't had to pay for them!

So I'm providing you with a list of these items. There is a caveat. Besides the books, the kids might not squeal with pleasure over these things. So if you need that affirmation, my list isn't for you. However, their parents will (might) be happy.

Books

1. The Gingerbread Girl

by Lisa Campbell Ernst
Run to get this book appropriate for preschool and up. It's our all time favorite.

2. The Piggy and Gerald Series

by Mo Willems

I dare you not to love these books. I double dare you. These books are good for preschoolers through first grade. 

3. Running Across America: A True Story of Dreams, Determination, and Heading for Home
McGillivray, Dave
The title says it all. Primary grades.

4. Just Ask!: Be Different, Be Brave, Be You
by Sonia Sotomayor
Also for primary grades. I read this to a class of first graders and they loved it. The book details people living with different challenges and describes them in a way appropriate for children. The kids loved it.

5. I Dissent
by Ruth Bader Ginsburg
We bought this for my daughter when she was in Kindergarten, but had I read it in advance I would have waited another year. The book is so awesome and inspiring.


Products

6. Natural Citronella Bracelets (not a specific brand)
This might be a weird gift for the holidays. However, my kids and I are mosquito magnets and use these all of the time during the summer and fall.

7. Trueocity Kids Toothbrush 4 Pack - Soft Contoured Bristles - Child Sized Brush Heads (3-10 year old) -
Yeah, if you get a kid toothbrushes for the holidays, they will probably hate you. However, their dentist will be happy.

8. Stainless Steel Lunch Box and Food Container set
and
LunchBots Medium Uno Stainless Steel Sandwich Container 

These items are a game changer for lunch and snacktime storage. They are also great to use as tupperware. 

9. CamelBak Eddy Kids BPA Free Water Bottle

Although it's annoying to have a water bottle that has parts to it, these hold up well in the dishwasher. Throw in some extra valves and straws. Good for ages 3 to 7. 

10. Mabel's Labels 

https://mabelslabels.com

Another game changer item. Buy stickers or a stamp with your kid's name on them. No more lost items. No more sewing in name tags. 

11. Ezy Dose Kids True Easy Syringe 2 TSP (10 ml) | Baby and Kids Liquid Medicine Dispenser | Infant Oral Syringe
Okay, I get it. This would be a really strange gift. However, little kids get sick. Some more than others. This product provides assurance that you are giving the correct amount of medicine

12. Physio Logic Fever-Bugz Stick-On Fever Indicator

Another weird one. But no kid likes their temperature taken. You just stick this puppy on their back, lift up their shirts, and you can see if they have a fever. I don't find the number to be all that accurate, but it helps me to determine whether or not to give my child a fever reducer. 

13. Munchkin Arm & Hammer Disposable Changing Pad - 30 Pack

When our kids were babies, we traveled on very long flights. These are very light weight and disposable, so it made our travel easier and a tad bit cleaner.

14. Paint with Water Books

This isn't a specific brand recommendation, but a type of coloring book that only requires the child to use water. It will keep them occupied for at least three minutes.

15. Sight Words Flash Cards

You need to know your "sight words" says every teacher ever. This is a great way to help out a little one to learn them. 

16. Dry Erase Workbooks

Remember when we were kids and you'd write in a workbook and then throw it away? Now there's dry-erase workbooks for kids to learn how to write letters, numbers, and more. You'll need to also buy dry-erase pens because there's no way that one pen is going to last more than a week. 

17. Crayola Washable Kids Paint, 10 Neon Paint Colors, 2oz Bottles, Gift

I'm not sure why these paints are better than any others, but I can tell you my kids love them. 

18. Microsocope for Kids or a Telescope for Kids

Schools are emphasizing science like crazy (STEM/STEAM). In addition, prior to school crushing their souls (not my school) kids still have a natural curiosity for life. These products enhance that curiosity. 

19. Sewing and Knitting Kits for Kids

Look what's back in vogue. Learning to sew and knit is all of the rage now, particularly since kids have such poor fine motor skills. Let them tack a crack at it. It might become a useful skill or a way to wind down from this crazy world. 

20. Disposable Children Placemats Stick-on Table

Admittedly, not great for the environment, but these are lifesavers if you are traveling and need to feed your kid in places that just aren't that clean. 

I hope this list was helpful. The cougher is napping, but I need to wake him up. Have a happy holiday season. 

What's really behind the Dolores-Jackie conflict on the RHONJ

I watch five shows on Bravo. One of them is The Real Housewives of New Jersey. I mostly watch as a form of escapism, and as a way to turn off my brain and focus on something totally superficial. However, sometimes I find the character arcs provide fascinating studies in human behavior, sociology, and psychology.

The last two episodes of the RHONJ delivered on all fronts, and I'm wondering if the editors crafted the storyline purposefully.

If somehow you don't know, the docudrama films several women from New Jersey who are wealthy. The women get paid fairly well to get into conflicts and attract Twitter followers. The motivation also is to have 20-something minutes a week for 21 weeks to promote whatever product the person is pushing at the time. Examples include a clothing store, cookbooks, a husband's plastic surgery practice, etc. Sometimes there's a charitable aspect to the promotion when the woman champions a philanthropy and the event is center stage for some ratings friendly drama. 

The conflict that is intriguing me is the one between Dolores Catania and Jackie GoldSchneider. At a dinner during a trip to Jamaica, it is revealed and confirmed that Dolores does not like Jackie. It's a rather rude admission based on the fact that Jackie is not Dolores's "cup of tea." Nor is she "cut from the same cloth" as Dolores and her friend Teresa Giudice.

However, when you examine the conflict closer, it is not over culture or the way each were raised. Instead it is over something they have in common: an eating disorder or at the very least an over-preoccupation with weight. Jackie, as we were told last season is a recovering Anorexic. You can practically hear the director telling the cameraman to focus in on her barely eaten plate. Jackie, the child of Jewish liberal professionals, is a writer (the show has helped her writing career), smart and sensitive. 

Dolores is tough as nails. She lives with her ex-husband and father of her children. Together they rehab houses, run a gym and have a frequent-customer card at a nearby a spray tan place.

While it's understandable that these two might not have a lot in common, what's causing conflict is their shared eating disorder. Dolores calls her ex-husband Frank to complain about being fat. She talks about being fat on the beach. She wears a cover up while her friends flaunt their bodies. She looks physically uncomfortable trying to hide whatever imperfection she perceives.

Indeed, while Jackie has addressed her issue through a dietician and therapy and admits to having a problem, Dolores languishes in self hatred. (By the way, Dolores looks great. She's very fit). However, often the parts of ourselves that we don't like are the parts in others that we find the most irritating and unbearable. Dolores hates Jackie's vulnerability, sensitivity, honesty, openness and intelligence. These very qualities Dolores wishes she could access, but can't. So what does she do? She is mean and acts like a classic bully, even imitating Jackie's voice like my preschool-aged son does. 

I hope as the season goes on, Dolores addresses her own food and body demons and apologizes to Jackie. I hope Dolores learns to love herself. 

I hope you haven't judged me too much for writing this. :) 

Wanted: Holocaust Cybereducators

Please read my post that was published in eJewish Philanthropy a few months back. 

https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/wanted-holocaust-cybereducators/

Free Free Set Them Free

I am a guest in Israel and hesitate to comment on the Israeli elections. But I do have what to say, and I hope that I won't have a problem getting back into the country.

In education we talk a lot about norms of collaboration. One of those norms is to assume good intentions. For the purpose of this blog post, I am going to assume that the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, has always had good intentions during his tenure as the leader of this complicated country.  I believe that there is nothing more that Netanyahu loves than Israel. There is nothing more important to him that the State and its inhabitants. He has two focuses - to ensure that the Jewish people will never suffer another catastrophe like the Holocaust, and that the Jewish state will be a hub for innovation and investment.

Netanyahu 💝Israel.

But as the wise man Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner said, "If you love someone, set them free."

The word free has a double entendre here. Another reelection of Netanyahu is not good for a free society. There is no Israeli law to dictate term limits so Netanyahu must do what's in the best interest of his people and cede power to the number two in Likud, Yuli Edelstein. Then see what the Israeli electorate decides. By continuing to hold power, Netanyahu is becoming an electoral authoritarian leader which is degrading Israel's standing as a democratic state. He is enabling an addiction and capitalizing on fear that no one else can lead. However, he's wrong. They can and they will.

The government, the military, and the people of Israel will keep it safe. You have given enough, Mr. Prime Minister. It's time to give Israel the biggest gift of all, entrusting your country's democracy to a new crop of leaders.

Books

When I was pregnant with both of my children I experienced terrible insomnia. The sleeplessness wasn't from the discomfort of pregnancy, but rather this constant feeling of manic energy that I had from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m. I couldn't take anything for it, so I had to suffer with the echoes of medical professionals and other women saying unhelpfully, "It will pass when the baby is born." These were the same people who said equally unhelpfully, "Sleep now. You'll never sleep well again."

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I would sit on the red el shaped couch in the living room watching shows on TLC. Little did I know that this kind of trashy network would help me solve a big problem in my life.

I lived in a 2 bedroom apartment in Chicago for 6 years until my boyfriend who became my fiance who became my husband moved in. The master bedroom was mine (ours) and the guest bedroom belonged to my books: five bookcases overfilling with books. I needed to get rid of those books before my daughter was born, but I couldn't.

I started collecting the books immediately after I moved into the condo after a failed engagement. I brought books from my parents house. I bought books at used book stores. I'd never pass a Barnes and Noble without buying several books.

When people would enter the second bedroom, they would say, "Wow, that's a lot of books." Whether that statement was uttered with admiration or trepidation didn't matter. I was proud of my collection and the idea of parting with it was painful.

Which brings me to TLC and being six months pregnant and not sleeping.



I would watch a double header of "My 600-pound life" and "Hoarders." My husband suggested that perhaps watching those shows was making it more difficult for me to fall asleep. I knew he was right, but I couldn't stop watching.

The episodes had the same pattern, kind of like Law and Order, but with real human beings. There was the shock of seeing the person or home, followed by the interviews with friends and family, inevitably there would be an enabler, then an intervention, followed by medical or psychological intervention, ending in a resolution of no more hoarding or weight loss. Inevitably, there would be a set back at some point, but hopefully the person was on the road to recovery.

I would listen as each therapist in each part of the country that would be contracted by TLC or the producers would say that the hoarded item or food represented an emotion or more accurately a repressed emotion. Therapy would involve addressing those emotions. Often the people on the show had suffered some horrible trauma. After the shows I would Google the subjects of the episodes to see if there was an update. TLC would have something on their web site for certain and sometimes local news outlets would cover the person being featured.

To be clear, I wasn't a hoarder nor was I 600 pounds. However, the shows made me realize that the books represented much more than their title pages.  So what was their purpose.

• They filled a void during the several years between my broken engagement and meeting a new partner. They were there for me as relationships with the opposite sex proved unreliable. 
• They were a sign of my baggage for future partners or friends. You may like me, but just so you know, I come with a lot of books. 
• They covered up insecurities.  "I may not seem that intellectual, but I am because see, I have lots of books."
• They would be there in case of some apocalyptic type scenario. If it was the end of the world, at least I would die with my books. If I needed to be hidden or hide someone, like Anne Frank and Miep Gies, there would be all of these books to read to keep my mind  (or the mind of the person I was hiding) off of the impending doom. 
• As a child, I was a voracious reader. I read at meals, college basketball games, in the car, and at the store. I used books to disassociate and they never let me down.  

At 3 a.m. Central Time, with the baby kicking my ribs, I realized that I was ready to give up the books. I was married to a wonderful man who wouldn't let me down and accompany me until the end of days. And even if for some reason things didn't work out with him, or something happened to him, the books wouldn't be able to help me. I would need to help me.

Slowly, I began ridding myself of the books. I gave them to friends and acquaintances. Eventually, though, they needed to be boxed up. A charity picked them up. I sold the book shelves to a medical student. My husband helped him carry them to his car.

Today I live in a different apartment in a different country. I own very few books and mostly read on a Kindle. However, my kids' rooms are filled with them. They are  like the mezuzahs* on the doorposts of their rooms. They can't hurt. And in this crazy world, I want them to have all of the extra protection they can get.

This is an example of a  Mezuzah. It is supposed to be on every door post in your home, except the bathroom. 

This story is dedicated to my good friend Doda Jojo who has been my mezuzah for several years now.