Open letter

to (alphabetically) Senators Bidin, McCain, and Obama and Gov. Palin,

Politicians

This one accuses that one of something.

That one points an accusing finger at the other.

We are being told why NOT to vote for "the other guy."

Frankly, Scarlett, I don't want to know why NOT to vote for someone.

Convince me why I should vote FOR someone.

There are some headlines worth talking about.

North Korea, for one.

North Korea apparently threatens (promises?) to re-start its nuclear plants, claiming the US failed to meet its agreement with it.

How, lady and gentlemen, would you handle the situation?

How about Iran, which HAS reactors AND claims to have bombs and delivery vehicles (missiles) AND claims to be ready to use them, if not on the US mainland, then on US allies, both Arab and otherwise.

How , lady and gentlemen, do you react to the Saudi Muslim cleric who calls for vigilante murder of owners of tv stations that show what the cleric considers improper material? Is this strictly an "internal-to-Saudi" issue or does the fatwa threaten tv station owners and employees here as well as in Islamic states?

How, lady and gentlemen, would you handle financial recovery - remember it's an international issue - and what would you do to avoid or mitigate a similar situation on your watch?

Stop telling me what "my worthy opponent" would do - tell me what you would do.

Stop telling me your "worthy opponent" changed his/her stance on something - actually, I can respect that, it shows the person is open to new information and able to react accordingly - and tell me what could cause you to re-evaluate an issue and your stance on that issue.

Don't tell me what you will do if elected when, if elected, you don't control the issue. Case in point, abortion. The executive lacks the authority to issue a fiat banning it; that's a matter properly for the States, and if not the individual states (we went to war for that once), then the federal House and Senate (and not, in my opinion, the Court). Don't want to talk about abortion? How about same sex "marriage," another issue properly left to the States (I think).

The executive can, and should, have an opinion and it can and should (try to) influence both the legislature(s) and the general populace.

But it lacks the authority to issue a fiat, (papal) bull, or iman's fatwa.

If you are pro-life or pro-choice, that's fine and if you insist on telling me, that's OK, too. But don't tell me "If elected I will ..." because you can't.

Attacking each other is dishonest - few attacks are 100% truth.

Attacking each other is covering your own trail.

Tell me about you and your opinions and your desires and what you would (want to) do in the event that (pick a subject) occurs.

Tell me what you would do to avoid a future financial crisis - not what you would have done to prevent this one. Hindsight is wonderful, but mostly worthless - my portfolio has lost too much already.

Tell me how you would help the States reduce their welfare roles -how you'd like to see the Federal government help people help themselves.

Tell me how you would discourage people from succumbing to their own stupidity and rebuilding in environmentally threatened areas (e.g., on gulf coast beaches).

Give me a reason to vote FOR you, not reasons to suspect the other candidate.

Be honest with yourself and with me.

Try it.

It might actually help get you elected.

yohanon

Friendly IRS

Over the course of the years, I have filed more than a few US tax returns.

Earlier in my life I was a newspaper reporter/photographer/editor.

With a wanderlust.

I worked newspapers in California, Florida, Indiana, Nevada, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Wyoming. I've crossed the country coast to coast and from north to south.

Some times the papers paid mileage, some times not.

Some times the papers paid relocation, some times not.

One (Newhouse's Harrisburg Patriot-News) charged me to park in the lot.

Back in the day, mileage was a tax deduction.

So my tax returns went from 0 mileage to "lots" of mileage.

When I did a cross-country jaunt - Florida to California, for example - my mileage was high.

Each time I filed by 1040 (there was no "EZ" in those days) I'd staple a note to the form telling the person who got it for review why it was different from the previous year.

To the best of my knowledge, my returns never were audited.

At least I was never "invited" to come in for a chat with my friendly IRS auditor.

But earlier this year I got a message from IRS telling me it reviewed by 2006 return and the IRS decided to disallow a deduction.

Why?

One phone call to the IRS to define the problem.

Turns out I did a very brief contract gig for a company and the company, despite my instructions to the contrary, set me up in its pension plan.

The IRS reviewer saw a contribution to a personal pension plan and also saw that the W-2 from the contracting house had the pension plan box checked, indicating I was in the company's plan.

What to do?

I called the company and explained the problem. The person on the other end was sympathetic. She said that the company contracts with another company to do the payroll and that the "pension" box is automatically checked. (Remember, I specifically told the company to exclude me from its pension plan.)

I asked for a corrected W-2.

We can't do that, she said.

"But," she offered, "we can send you a letter stating that you were not in the pension plan."

Well, OK, I replied, adding that if that fails to satisfy the IRS I'd be back.

Her letter, on letterhead as requested, arrived a few days after the call.

I put my cover letter to it and sent it all to the IRS.

Worst case, the IRS rejects the letters.

Time goes by.

No word from the IRS - neither positive (all is OK) or negative (pay up).

The Financial Manager and I were discussing it and wondering.

The day after our discussion we received The Letter From the IRS.

In the great IRS-Glenn Tradition, the IRS reviewer accepted the (documented) explanation and its letter to us said, basically, "Thanks, everything is cleared up."

Bottom line: once again the feared IRS proves to be, at least for this taxpayer, "human."

I know it has its detractors, and no one enjoys paying taxes (and compared to other countries, we pay a pittance, but then there's not much ROI), but credit where it's due; the IRS isn't (always) the ogre its made out.

We complain, loudly and publicly, about organizations when they fail us; I think we should acknowledge them when something goes right, as well.

Yohanon
Yohanon.Glenn @ gmail.com

I'd stay but . . .

My - our - daughter is, B"H, getting married in February.

In Israel.

She lives in Rehovoth.

My - our - son-in-law to be also lives in Rehoboth and his parents live nearby.

We are in The States.

My wife went to Israel with her parents when she was about 9.

I got there in my 30s.

We met in Zefat and, as a married couple, lived in Holon. She taught school and I worked first as a flack for a university and later as a technical writer for the electronics division of a mega-firm.

We were doing OK until Tnuva went on strike and fresh milk for my first born son disappeared from the makolet.

One straw and then another and we decided to follow Ramb"am's example and leave Israel.

Since then, I held more than a few tech pubs jobs and I drifted into disaster recovery, then business continuity, and now enterprise risk management.

The wife, who spoke "only" Hebrew and Arabic and French and "a little English" when we met in Zefat now corrects my grammar (which delights me greatly).

Our two boys remain in the States, but over the years the Spouse and I talked of returning. Usually one talks of going back and the other isn't ready.

Now we're both ready.

But we still can't go back.

Why?

Even though the children are out of the house, we still have every day bills to pay. Minor things like food and utilities and . . . Basic household expenses.

Translation: As much as we'd like to come back - with the exception of our two sons, all of the family is in Israel, some near Haifa, most in Bet Shean - we can't make the move.

Bottom line - kav ha'takton - is we need employment. I need employment if only to keep from going stir crazy. My Spouse gets "cabin fever" when she is "trapped" in the house. We need to work, not just to pay those household expenses, but to Save Our Sanity.

---

This, then, is a blatant Job Wanted advertisement.

• Writer (marketing, proposals, pr, technical, user guides) - American English mother tongue
• Enterprise risk management (business continuity, disaster recovery, "COOP")
• Consultant and staff
• Experience in Israel and experience in the US with Israeli (and other) companies
• Dual national

---

We will, B"H, be in Israel in February.

I really hate the flight and I'd love to cash in the return trip.

How can you get a resume? Yohanon.Glenn@gmail.com .

Just a little theft

It's not a "big deal."

It goes unnoticed by most.

We are told to "find a rabbi" and follow the rabbi's lead.

But while we are told to "find a rabbi" - actually "get yourself a teacher (rav)" (Joshua ben Perachicah, Avot, 1:6) we are not told to "follow blindly."

It is a two-way street.

I am fortunate enough to have several books on halakah. Almost without exception, a ruling is followed by the details of how the rav arrived at his decision. This is what Maran wrote, this is what Ramba"m wrote, this is what Rem"a added, on and on. Each time an author is cited, the author of the book I am reading cites exactly WHERE his source made the statement.

The reader knows - because it is there before his or her eyes - who said what and, if the reader cares to check it out, exactly where to look - book, chapter, and verse.

Occasionally I'll have a question and I'll ask a living source, often an on-line rabbi since in theory at least they have access to and use that access to pass my query along to rabbinical Subject Matter Experts (SMEs).

But I find that the answers I receive from many are "this is the way it is, accept that."

Each generation has its "poskim b'dor," rabbis whose rulings are generally, if not universally, accepted. Recent personages who fall into this category, at least for Ashkenazi Jews, include Moshe Feinstein, Yosef Soloveitchek, while for Mizrachim there is Ovadya Yosef and for Sephardim of North Africa, the Messas and Abuhatzera dynasties. The list is hardly "all-inclusive."

I can pull from the shelf works by the North African poskim and each one CITES HIS SOURCE.

Aside from lending credence to their works, these gentlemen prove they are not thieves.

We are told in The Big Ten that stealing is prohibited. We also are told to return a lost item to its owner.

As a former newspaper reporter, I consider plagiarism stealing.

As it happens, US civil law also considers plagiarism stealing.

If you take the property of another - physical or intellectual - that's stealing.

Understandably, because we all have at least a little vanity, we don't object - at least not enthusiastically - if someone cites our thoughts PROVIDING CREDIT IS GIVEN THE THOUGHT'S ORIGINATOR.

Ramb"am, the story goes, was roundly criticized for failing, in one of his works, to "cite his source." Ramb"am having to "cite his source?" Apparently inquiring minds of his age wanted to know.

I confess to sometimes taking things too far. When someone tells me "the Talmud says" I usually have two questions: which one and what is the Torah (bik-tav) source.

I don't challenge the authority of poskim such as Ramb"am or Maran, but I want to know how they arrived at their decision.

If I insist on challenging the "gedoli b'dor" (giants of the age) you can imagine that I take umbrage when I'm told "this is the way it is, accept that."

I visited a synagogue Web site the other day and read an article on mezuzah klaf, specifically when to check it.

Interesting article. Nothing new.

But the article cited "poskim" and "rabbis." Not one name.

I wrote a note to a rabbi friend noting this.

He replied that the original article cited the sources and the article could be found at such-and-such a Web site.

I went to the site and sure enough, the authorities were cited.

In a copyrighted article - the copyright statement appeared several times on the Web page.

I contend that the synagogue management is guilty of theft - plagiarism, in fact, blatant plagiarism given the bold copyright notices.

The synagogue management "stole" from the article's originator and it, indirectly, stole from the poskim and rabbis cited in the article.

Is this "theft" OK because "everyone does it?"

I don't think so.

Unlike some, I don't hold rabbis and hazans - professional Jews - to a higher standard, but I DO expect them to set an example for us - the "average" Jew.

We - Jews - are charged to be "ore l'goyim," a light to the nations.

We ARE held to a higher standard, by ourselves and certainly by the goyim.

A quick aside. I never understood how "goy" became a term of derision.

Abraham was told he would be father to a "goy gadol," a great nation (for which we still long).

Non-Jewish individuals were never, in Bik-tav, "goyim"; they were nok'rim.

We "elect" our leadership and our leadership - the board - "elects" the professional leadership, our rabbis and hazans akin to the Electoral College's election of the president.

We need to elect professional Jews who hold themselves to a higher standard and who will be an example to us, the average Jew.

In the Greater Picture, plagiarism is a minor issue; hardly on par with murder or rape.

But, at least as this scrivener sees it, plagiarism IS theft and theft is forbidden.

Ore l'goyim.

yohanon