FOR MOST OF THIS YEAR, and health permitting, I have been co-hosting a weekly radio show every Thursday afternoon with my rabbi (and showhost), Steve Finley. It’s billed as the Sonoma Valley Interfaith Ministerial Association Radio Hour, and is an…
Author: Neal Ross Attinson
Neal Ross Attinson is one of those text-compulsives who feels naked without a keyboard, or at least a a pad and pen. He is unafraid of adverbs, loves astronomy and gastronomy with equally unabashed passion, and lives with/in an eclectic library in Sonoma, California.
Fie on Death, and the Pale Horse He Rode In On
He was a man. Take him for all in all. I shall not look upon his like again. — William Shakespeare, Hamlet WHEN I FIRST MOVED INTO an Oakland apartment in 1986 with John Woods “Wheels” “Spoonhead” “Calvin Biggins” Wheeler,…
“When young people ask me about death, I tell them: ‘We die a little every day. When you get to be my age, you get used to it.'”
— Near-centenarian Richard Meyers
Not Like It Used To Was
Mom in the drug store Called out to her son: “Brooklyn!” Am I getting old?
Overheard in Sonoma
(For Leah Garchik’s back-page-of-the-San Francisco Chronicle feature.) Ms. Garchik, I was walking on the west side of Sonoma Plaza this morning when I passed a middle-aged touristy couple, just as the man was saying to his female companion, “Someday, she’ll…
History Lesson: Chain
“Everything you do, here and at home, is part of Sonoma Valley Jewish history.” That’s what I used to tell the students in our synagogue’s Hebrew school, and it’s also one of the lessons from this week’s Torah portion, Ki…
Pithyism #65+
ONCE YOU TURN 30 (OR thereabouts), no one calls you an “old soul.”
#oldpunksneverdie
Never thought I’d hear Safeway’s in-house music channel play “London Calling” this morning. But I sang along with it anyway.
Vive La Difference
From Josee Wolff, The Torah: A Women’s Commentary: “…The pessimist observes a situation, generalizes about the bad aspects, and interprets them as a permanent and constant feature. In contrast, the optimist observes the same situation and sees the bad aspects,…
Lamed-Vavniks, Unite!
Are you a Lamed-Vavnik? According to Jewish tradition, there are 36 exceptionally righteous (read: supermensch-like) people in the world in each generation, and without whom the world would cease to exist. (In Hebrew counting, 36 is “lamed vav” (lamed =…
My Letter to the Mayor of London
Here is what I said to Mayor Sadiq Khan via his website. You may want to write your own. Dear Sir, Please accept my humble condolences and healing prayers for those injured and killed in the recent terror attack; I…
Confronting Evil
(From a friend, for Yom Hashoah/Holocaust Remembrance Day.) April 15, 1965 יוסף דוב סולוביצ’יק JOSEPH SOLOVEITCHIK Dear Dr. Vogel: I received your letter. Of course, you may quote me. The gist of my discourse was that Judaism did not approach…