Showing posts with label Embarrassment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Embarrassment. Show all posts
November 19, 2024
October 2, 2023
The Grouchy Neighbor Who Brought Me Closer to G-d
Please see my new article in The Times of Israel called "The Grouchy Neighbor Who Brought Me Closer to G-d."
However, I realized that G-d sends me certain encounters so that I can reflect, write about them, and share with you some things that really aren't the Torah way. We all have to deal with difficult people and challenging situations, but fundamentally and always, G-d is all good and wants us to turn to Him despite and even because of these happenstances.
While there is no such thing as hurt, insult, embarrassment, or suffering that is trivial, I hope that G-d will bless us to see past the pain of life and continue to find our way to embrace Him with all our heart, as well as to forgive our neighbors.
(AI Generated Image by Andy Blumenthal)
April 28, 2021
The Feeling of Shaming
October 7, 2018
Shame As An Effective Motivator
He was being interviewed by the media.
But the protesters drowned him out with chants of "Shame" and "Shame on you!"
Similar to the series Game Of Thrones, where the evil Queen Cersis must "Take the walk of shame" for sleeping with and having a child with her own brother.
She must walk through the city with all the people yelling "Shame" at her, spitting on her, throwing rotten vegetables at her, etc.
There is no place to hide.
Her hair has been shorn off.
Her clothes have been stripped from her.
Without her clothes and pretense, she is naked, but she is also naked because her soul is bearing her sin before everybody.
This week life imitated art and the protesters stood in judgment over Senator Manchin's decision to vote yes for and support Kavanaugh.
He was surrounded by shame.
It was not meant to be politic, respectful, or open any sort of dialogue, but simply to tear the Senator down and humiliate him for his decision.
I could imagine how he must feel being surrounded by all these people telling him he was a disgrace and that should be completely ashamed of himself.
There seemed no one left to strand up for him, defend him, and let him save face.
I am not saying his decision was right or wrong, just that when seemingly everybody passes judgment on you as evil and a disgrace, there is no where to hide or anyone to defend himself in this mob lynching.
I imagine that this feeling of shame is sort of what happens when we die and we must face everyone we dealt favorably and unfavorably with.
For those who we wronged, the chant of shame echoes through G-d's heavenly court.
There is no place to hide as we must now pay the piper for each and every thing we did or didn't do.
Our deeds are no longer hidden, but exposed for everyone to see.
We cannot pretend to be good when we were not.
The veil and pretense of righteousness disintegrates.
We are exposed for who we really are.
Our true selves and our sins are there in full sight and for which we must bear out our ultimate shame. ;-)
(Source Graphic: Andy Blumenthal)
April 29, 2016
Losing Our Tech-osterone
But this technology vendor, a Fortune 100 company, couldn't figure out how to plug in their laptop for the demonstration.
The presenter is holding his plug from the computer and comparing it to the ports on the monitor and going, "Is it a male or is it a female?"
It's almost like he's going innie or outtie...
And he's repeating this over and over again as he keeps trying to plug in his cord to the various openings.
Everyone is sitting sort of uncomfortably at this point, and so I try to break the tension and say, "I didn't know we were going to be getting an anatomy lesson today."
Well, we got the guy some technical help--the government to the rescue--and before long, he figured out the males and the females and the presentation was on the screen.
The only problem, the title slide for his presentation had a misspelling for the product they were selling.
At this point, all I can say is, this is why American business is getting soft! ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
March 9, 2016
Who Sells The Cookies
My daughter says to me, "Why is it that only the Girl Scouts sell the cookies, while the boys learn outdoor and survival skills?"
Good observation and I didn't have a good answer, except thinking to myself that sexism is unfortunately still alive, well, and institutionalized in America.
I'd be interested in hearing a comment from a representative of these organizations as why this biased, sexist nonsense continues, especially at a time when we have a viable women candidate for President of the United States (2016)--what gives here? ;-)
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
January 13, 2016
Rose-Colored Glasses Make Everything...More Rosey
And 10 of our brave military men and wome (from the world's superpower) are literally on their knees held captive and broadcast for all the world to see.
Yet the truly unbeleivable response is "We don't see this as hostile intent."
However, Iran's most unfriendly overtures to the U.S. also include:
- Taking 60+ Americans taken hostage for 444 long days.
- Bombing Marine barracks, through Hezbollah proxy, killing 241 American servicemen and women in Beirut.
- Shooting live missiles within just 1,500 yards of our aircraft carriers
- Blowing up a replica of a U.S. warship
- Testing multiple ballistic missiles capable of carrying nukes
- Continuing to hold 4 Americans hostage
- Threatening genocide against the Holy Land
- Regularly chanting "Death to America" and burning our flag
What do we do?
A deal to release $100+ billion dollar to the world's #1 sponsor of terrorism and remove sanctions.
Funny thing is we've seen this story before...
- ISIS attacking and threatening American cities with a new 9/11 attack and seeking to build a dangerous Caliphate
- North Korea testing an H-bomb and ballistic missiles with nukes to hit the U.S.
- Russia annexing Crimea and settling into Syria to bolster Assad
- Syria continuing to use chemical weapons, laying seige and starving tens of thousands of their own people, and killing, wounding, and displacing millions to be absorbed by the West.
But we open our hearts and borders and seek to take in more refugees with a questionabe vetting process, not even use the term "radical Islamist," and to whiteout any red lines that we've drawn to protect our national security.
Surely, our sworn enemies of the Axis of Evil don't want to hurt us...perhaps, kill and destroy are more accurate terms. ;-)
(Source Photo: here with attribution to Jim Simonson)
October 29, 2015
A Blooper With Our Blimps
The multi-billion dollar Raytheon-built military JLENS surveillance blimps are pictured above.
They are supposed to sense and alert us to a possible devastating surprise cruise missile attack on the U.S. eastern seaboard.
However, one of them lost its tethering and went sailing into the skies and had to itself be tracked by NORAD and two scrambled F-16 fighter jets.
What was designed to surveil instead needed surveillance.
The JLENS crashed landed in Amish country, Pennsylvania and took out the power to 20,000 people.
We need a strong, capable, and ready military!
If we are trying to improve our posturing with the Russians, Chinese, and Iranians--this is not the way to put our best blimp forward. ;-)
(Source photo: here with attribution to Bill Dickinson)
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