Joshua Cypess Profile picture
Feb 20, 2022 66 tweets 29 min read Read on X
84.01/ Week eighty-four, February 19-25, 2022 thread begins here.

Week 83 below.
84.02/ #MotzeiShabbatMovieNight put off a night because of social obligations. Monday is a legal holiday so we will hopefully have movie night tomorrow night.
84.03/ Couldn't be happier, or prouder, as a #Steelers fan to see they hired Brian Flores to be a senior coach. The team gets top notch talent and they take an anti-racist stand. And, as seen below, it earns respect from players:

84.04/ The way we can end the pandemic in this country is by vaccinating everyone eligible. Many will need to be coerced, which is why I'm hoping this is a sign airlines are contributing.

&
84.05/ #MotzeiShabbatMovieNight (Observed) tonight. Because of scheduling, my older two have other plans, so I get to choose especially for my youngest from my Special Vintage Films: "Army of Darkness (1992)" I do love it so.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_D…
84.06/ This thread is pretty amazing. My favorite may be Van Gogh.

I was going to say we could test the accuracy by looking at the real model for the Statue.

See here for who it may have been:
theworld.org/stories/2017-0…
84.07/ At 2:22pm and 22 seconds on Twos-Day Feb 22, 2022 I have a feeling that the fabled Universe Man's watch "happy land" effect from the song "Particle Man" will happen. Just speculatin'
84.08/ I've thought about this and the answer for me is a resounding yes. Moreover, I'm so glad when someone takes an idea in my head and develops & publishes it. It's happened. My attitude is "Great, someone took care of it (for me), now onwards."
84.09/ My "deodorant" litmus test: I have travelled extensively, in the USA & the world, and I know that wearing a yamulka on the street in Europe is very dangerous. Not so in America (even now, years into the #TrumpCrisis).
84.10/ Can we call them Soviets now? Because I really want to call them Soviets.
84.11/ Hey @acypess, this sounds like a made-up journal. There's a "New" England now? What's next, some random city named after York? I mean, I liked the old Hampshire, why make another one? Sigh.

nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…
84.12/ I'm a sports fan yet I don't watch the Olympics. Why?
(1) The incompetent production & presentation of the events (how bad do you have to be to ruin sports?)
(2) International competition is so rife with corruption that I don't trust the outcomes.
nytimes.com/2022/02/21/bus…
84.13/ A resume is not a biography. The map is not the territory.
84.14/ The reason I describe the current GOP as fascist is because fascism is an ideology of pure power. Think of it as a secular religion worshiping abuse, because abuse MEANS power for its own sake. This is what @david_j_roth is describing.
84.14b/ A thoughtful thread by @craigaroo responding to/based on my above post.

The Orwell quotes bring up @AdamSerwer's now classic point of this era: "The cruelty is the point."
84.15/ Those who like this tweet are in a very small sliver of a Venn diagram I've lived in for decades; the circles of Knowing Halakic Terms & Online & Pun Appreciator.
84.16/ Yes. And punching a piece of paper when he needs answers.
84.17/ There's an awful beauty in this, that these goofy trolls are such marks that they swallow the FoxNews rhetoric to this level.
84.18/ Yes. A core idea of the bad guys is biological determinism. That behavior reflects physical-corporeal essence. Racism, bigotry, collective punishment etc. are at their core the belief that a person can be reduced to an object.
84.19/ This makes sense to me.

[This is in response to why do NFTs look so ugly. It's a principle I learned from @AlexandraErin about how Trump (ym'sh) works his scams.]
84.20/ I made a claim to my family that given how a leap year will have nearly no double parshiyot that we should look at a leap year as the standard/default, despite it's relative infrequency.

[This message brought to you by the Leap Year Fan Club, president: me]
84.21/ It is indeed a day to celebrate. In fact there's a parenting sweet spot when the kids are self-sufficient enough to do almost any standard action but are still young enough to want to learn from you (and not assume everything you say is wrong, heh)
84.22/ This thread is great. I love this genre (a parade of hot-taker petard hoisting)
84.23/ This is the kind of case that we philosopher-halakhists invent in the classroom - and/or in the Talmud - so it's bonkers to see it in the wild. (h.t. @dzkalman). Print this out and use for Masekhet Yevamot.
today.com/parents/babies…
84.24/ A yes, the old "take the first half of the first sentence of a whole paragraph that leads to a diametrically opposed misrepresentation" trick. From a bank, yet.
84.26/ [From yesterday]:

Telling an "anxious pickle" that it's wrong to celebrate anxiety reducing pickles seems like a mean thing to do.

I vote "wet-blanket."
84.27/ Good catch! That was indeed a missed opportunity.

84.29/ Rabbi Weisinger summarizes the basic position well. And I agree. When it comes to a life and death question, choose life.
84.29b/ Related (to help support the oppressed in Texas)
84.31/ Just how low, how poisoned by the "both-sides" mentality, so committed to "racially tinged", does the NYT need to be to not call N*zis, N*zis?!
84.33/ So good

(As a kid I felt there was something really wrong with the premise)

84.34/ For every bad person in the entertainment business, it's good to know that there's an occasional good guy. Colm Meaney and Dylan Moran. "What’s wrong with being decent to people?” indeed
84.35/ Starkly stated, but hard to dispute, given the political platform of the GOP
84.36/ This too is sharp but hard to dispute (I know too may RedHats)
84.37/ Great metaphor: "You cannot wake someone who is only pretending to be asleep."
84.40/ I swear, the GOP looks at Faust like it's a how-to manual and not a cautionary tale
84.41/ This is really correct, for the Ukraine crisis, the #TrumpCrisis and beyond. We're seeing the horseshoe in action, the Far Left and Far Right de facto supporting RUS's imperialism because those ends worship power.
84.42/ Supporting Ukraine when its fighting for its life against imperialist Russia is as easy a moral question you will ever get. It's Ethics 101. Failing this question by saying "I'm against war" is denying self-defense & favoring abuse. #SupportUkraine.
84.43/ Amen.

[As a kid, I knew America had no real church-state separation when the libraries/Post Office were closed on Sundays and every single event was on Saturday.]

84.44/ 100%! The yetzer-hara (evil inclination) in educated people who self-identify as moral will rationalize being callous. "UKR was bad in the past so they deserve it now" is collective punishment, a thoroughly evil mentality.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectiv…
84.45/ It does seem like a pattern.

&


(Real talk: It was nice living for a while in the shadow of the New Deal and Great Society when people remembered & reacted to historical depravity with an attempted Golden Age)
84.47/ My brother @acypess' latest publication on Brown Adipose Tissue (Brown Fat, BAT) is well timed to coincide with the release of the major motion picture #Batman

I don't know how he makes fat so exciting, but good for him.
84.49/ Great! We have a nominee. Let's get her on the court!

washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/…
84.50/ This is totally correct! If you think telling oppressed people to move is a solution, then it's just as "easy" for you to move to their state and help them out.

(Note, neither are real solutions. That's the point)
84.51/ @gwensnyderPHL is as bona-fide Far Left I can image (IIRC she's an anarcho-syndicalist) & she easily passes the Ethics 101 test. Putin is an indefensible abuser & must be resisted. I learn that the horseshoe isn't inevitable; it's usu. bad faith.
84.53/ This is the distilled Millennial narrative, right?

We GenXers are banding together with our parents, The Forgotten Generation, to try to fix things even while the Boomers are actively trying to uproot the saplings. [Gen Z are Gleek, I guess]
84.54/ Some more things I identify with:
My mentality during the past years of crisis:

Oh man, this has happened way too often:

BTW, this is why the horsemen always come together. They're linked
84.55/ Just in case it was hitherto unclear why the GOP - and Tucker is head of the party even more than Trump (ym'sh) right now - supports Putin. And why what's happening in TX is part of the same global war against diversity & freedom:
84.55b/ Follow up about Tucker. Wow.


My guess? "Fishsticks"
84.58/ Just as I've described the #TrumpCrisis as a "Cold Civil War" I think it's accurate to say that the #UkraineCrisis is the latest front in a Global Civil War (hot & cold). The fight is b/w forces of authoritarianism vs. freedom inside many nations.
84.59/ I make this point to my kids every time the Robin Hood story comes up. There's a whole canon of stories made up of "oppressor tales" where their hero is an utter villain to my people, and others
84.60/ #ChochmatNashim for #Vayakhel (Parsha shiurim from Orthodox Women)
5782 Ilana Sober Elzufon blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-womens-pre…
5781 Chana Tannenbaum blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-parable-of…
5780 nil
5779 Aliza Lipkin blogs.timesofisrael.com/betzalel-grand…
& Hamizrachi pgs. 5 7 8 17 21 25
drive.google.com/file/d/1WGONTl…
84.61/ #NachasAlert: My son has a long piece in this week's #parsha sheet from his high school. Pages 2&3, re: the mirrors. #Vayakhel

parshasheets.com/newsletter/bko…
84.62/ I think I will end now for Shabbos. It's been a bad week for humanity - Ukraine & TX - and I'm praying for peace, safety and justice. #ShabbatShalom everyone. Stay safe.

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More from @JoshuaCypess

Nov 23
228.01/ Week two-hundred and twenty-eight, November 23-29, 2024, thread begins here.

Week 227 below.
228.02/ Fundamentally, a plurality want a minority to do all the work but get no reward while they do very little work & get all the reward. The only system that will get close to that - liberal Democracy - gives too much to people the plurality hates, so they vote for fantasies.
228.03/ #ChochmatNashim for #Toldot #Toledot 5784 2023 (LAST YEAR). @ChochmatNashim.
Downloadable PDF with working links to Divrei Torah by Orthodox women scholars on the parsha and other topics of the week. 20 Pages.
drive.google.com/file/d/1dpJe7R…
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Nov 16
227.01/ Week two-hundred and twenty-seven, November 16-22, 2024, thread begins here.

Week 226 below.
227.02/ #ChochmatNashim for #ChayeiSara 5784 2023 (LAST YEAR) @ChochmatNashim.
Downloadable PDF with working links to Divrei Torah by Orthodox women scholars. 19 pages. #ChayaSara #ChayeiSarah

drive.google.com/file/d/1FKX-z_…
227.03/ The first time through the cruel & stupid Trump (ym'sh) circus I read the news with trepidation because I didn't know what terrible thing he'd do next. This time, I read the news with contempt & anger because the MSM helped elect him and wants him to succeed.
Read 9 tweets
Nov 9
226.01/ Week two-hundred and twenty-six, November 9-15, 2024, thread begins here.

Week 225 below.
226.02/ Yup. Still here on Twitter. Gonna keep the fight and keep the faith. And also... no regrets. #HarrisWalz2024 Picture of 2 items: on the right is the volunteer badge my family wore when canvassing in PA. On the left is the door-knob flier we would put on unresponsive houses.
226.03/ #MotzeiShabbatMovieNight continues. What movie? What else to start a new season, and in such a shockingly bad time? #Casablanca.
Read 22 tweets
Nov 3
225.01/ Week two-hundred and twenty-five, November 2-8, 2024, thread begins here.

Week 224 below.
225.02/ Finally dropped off our ballots this morning & took a selfie. A fun thing then happened: a young dad carrying a baby arrived after us & he said that it was his first time voting after becoming a citizen! So I insisted on taking a photo of him (with his camera). USA! USA!
225.03/ Yes, I'm the one who waited all Shabbas for the poll, taught my kids how polls work (social science PhD, baby) & what I hoped would happen (GOP leading by only 5). And they got to see my stunned elation in real time when I read the news.
Read 44 tweets
Oct 27
224.01/ Week two-hundred and twenty-four, October 26-November 1, 2024, thread begins here.

Week 223 below.
224.02/ There's sticker shock and then there's "standing on the bathroom scale after 3 three-day yuntifs and 2 major fasts over 3 weeks" sticker shock.
224.03/ BTW, Trump (ym"sh) abd the MAGA-GOP going completely mask-off with racist nativism was very much on my BINGO card.

Read 29 tweets
Oct 20
223.01/ Week two-hundred and twenty-three, October 19-23, 2024, thread begins here.

Week 222 below.
223.02/ Downside of "October is the Best Sports Month" - mixed blessing really - is that at 8pm tonight 3 of my teams will be on at the same time. NYMets facing elimination, #LIGHTITUPNYL in the last game of the finals, and the Steelers on SNF.
223.03/ #ChochmatNashim for #Vezot #SimchatTorah #SheminiAtzeret 2023-5784 (LAST YEAR). @ChochmatNashim
Downloadable PDF with working links with Divrei Torah by Orthodox women scholars on the topics of the week. 23 Pages
drive.google.com/file/d/1pQso-a…
Read 6 tweets

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