Today’s Jewcy

The Jewcer:

We believe in nuzzing, Lebowksi: You don’t fucking roll on the Day of Atonement, but if you did, you’d do it with the Dude and Walter, right? Joey reminds us of that prelapsarian state, so very long ago: “It's been eight years since The Big Lebowski rocked American cinema, and the legend and cult of the Dude grow ever stronger.” [The Daily Shvitz]

Hillary in ’08? Probably not, but she’s giving it her best shot these days: “Even her harshest critics – many of these have been to the left of the Democratic Party – have admired Hillary’s tough stance on the wars (in Iraq, Afghanistan and on terror in general) and her willingness to deliver what might be called opportunism with a human face.” [The Daily Shvitz]

The World

Yom Kippur Stoning: The rocks were being thrown by pious Jews at the EMS: “Youth in Jerusalem, Kiryat Motzkin, Netanya, and Ashkelon threw stones Monday at Magen David Adom Emergency Medical Service ambulances operating on Yom Kippur, MDA officials said.” [Ha’aretz]

The Idiot’s Guide to Parenting: The Torah: Emily Bazelon had a fascinating piece in the Sunday Times Magazine about how one psychotherapist is using the Hebrew text to glean child-rearing instruction. Apparently, behavior instantiation – “keep doing this, you’ll want to, eventually” – is as old as Maimonides and as sexy as the new couch trip:“Another way that Mogel uses the Jewish texts in her thinking about child-rearing is to embrace the importance of action as opposed to pure faith — what she calls ‘deed over creed.’ In Jewish law, there are hundreds of mitzvahs, or sacred deeds, that Jews have been traditionally encouraged to do, ranging from not taking revenge to saying grace after meals. They are to be performed whether or not one feels moved to. ‘The hope is that you will have kavanah, or deliberate intent, when you do these mitzvahs,’ explains Elazar Muskin, rabbi of the Orthodox Los Angeles congregation Young Israel of Century City. ‘But at the end of the day, the rabbis say that if a person does the act, then there was some kind of intent. And over time, we hope the kavanah will follow.’ [NYT magazine] I’ve started a new Jewcy forum for continuing this discussion: “Penguin Classics Parenting Guides.” What other hoary texts – religious or philosophical – have you found useful in getting junior to down his spinach and take out the trash? If Proust can change your life, can the Spinoza change diapers?

Exodus, English-Style: Morrissey had it right, after all: “This is the coastal town / That they forgot to close down / Armageddon – come armageddon! / Come, armageddon! come!” Margate is now the location for Old Testament Gotterdammurung, but the Pope of Mope is nowhere to be found. Instead: “As for the lice and locusts, they came in the happily less tangible form of a cycle of songs, performed by Margate locals but written for the occasion by Rufus Wainwright, Laurie Anderson and Brian Eno. Mr. Eno did the flies (a lot of buzzing) and Ms. Anderson the death of livestock (not so easy).” [New York Times]

Mark Foley Can’t Spell “Bulge”: So Republicans will learn to spell “defeat.” Who turned off Yom Kippur so soon? The IM transcript with the page who really, really wanted to continue working in D.C. [Slate]

Global Warming’s Cassandra: Look, it’s going to be 80 degrees on Wednesday, so take this with a grain of salt or a cube of ice, or whatever. But I agree with the columnist, greenhouse crusaders need to relearn everything they have done to be able to argue it against the opposition; otherwise their science becomes dogma like any other. Meanwhile, I’ll take calm skeptics like Lindzen any day. Oh, and tobacco focuses concentration and prevents Alzheimer’s. Fact. You can look it up: “’We do not understand the natural internal variability of climate change’ is one of Lindzen's many heresies, along with such zingers as ‘the Arctic was as warm or warmer in 1940,’ ‘the evidence so far suggests that the Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average,’ and ‘Alpine glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, and were advancing for several centuries before that. Since about 1970, many of the glaciers have stopped retreating and some are now advancing again. And, frankly, we don't know why.’” [Boston Globe]