Born Sunday, February 20, 2005: Asher Miles Josephson



From the Bris speech:

Asher is mentioned twice in Tanach, both places lifecycle events. First, his own birth, and second, the blessing bestowed upon him by his father Jacob preceeding the patriarch’s death. At first glance, it’s an odd little blessing:

“From Asher will come rich food, and he will yield regal delicacies.”

Now, that in it of itself is appropriate, given the Kaufman family’s love of great feasts. But Rashi elaborates, quoting a story in Gemorrah to illustrate that Asher – or a man from the tribe of Asher - not only has great wealth (in this case, of food, olives), but he tempers that wealth with great modesty in his life. And with this wealth, this abundant sustenance he is also very generous, very giving – to Jew and to Gentile alike. Modesty, generosity and acceptance of other cultures are traits we all aspire to and traits that we hope our son Asher will carry with him.

As for Asher’s middle name – Miles, or Moshe, we have three things we’d like to say:

First and foremost, Asher Moshe is named for Sarah’s Zaidie [Grandfather] – Moshe or Morris - whom she loved very much. I never had the privilege of meeting Zaidie, but Sarah often speaks of how full of vigor, love and generosity he was – especially when it came to his grandchildren. Zaidie and his wife Bella, Sarah’s Bobbie [Grandmother] played a very important role in her childhood, and now we would like to honor him with the most important role in our child’s life – his name.

Second, Asher’s English middle name is Miles, for the jazz great Miles Davis whose music was forever innovative and emotionally evocative. Like Miles Davis, we hope that Asher Miles will be able to connect with people at both the intellectual and the gut level.

And finally, with the name Asher Moshe Josephson, there will always be a little MoJo tucked away for him to work.

Why is John Negroponte still a free man, much less allowed to ascend to the Director of National Intelligence position? This is the man directly responsible for illegally coordinating the Contra operations while he was the ambassador to Honduras in the Eightes. This is the man directly responsible for some of the worst known human rights violations perpetrated by an American in modern history - including the infamous Batallion 3-16 - the CIA-trained Honduran roving death squad.

My childhood hometown paper eschews lesser issues like judicial confirmations, foreign policy, and even baseball and steroids to address this topic of paramount importance on its Opinion page:

Find alternate route for hog trucks

ABRAHAM LINCOLN is most often associated with the Civil War, the Emancipation Proclamation or possibly even his dramatic assassination. Few people associate the nation's 16th president with hogs.

[snip]

The link between Lincoln and hogs is not just historic. Unfortunately, there could be hogs in Lincoln's future.


ANYONE WHO FREQUENTLY travels west on Jefferson Street past the new Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum complex knows that this road will carry more than just commuters and tourists. Jefferson also is Illinois 97, which is a state route that ferries, among other things, hog trucks west to a slaughter plant in Beardstown.

[snip]

Imagine a nice warm summer morning. A family stands on the corner of Sixth and Jefferson, eager to enter the new museum. They're munching on warm cinnamon rolls they just purchased at Pease's Candy Shop. Up pulls the hog truck. So much for that last bite of cinnamon roll.

It's priceless.

Another thrilling pre-baby weekend on the horizon:

Friday night - Infant care class from 6-9pm.

Saturday - Wrestle with crib drawer. Lug home whatever furniture Sarah acquires through Craig's List. Another infant care class from 6-9.


Glory days.

It's actually not that bad. I think we're meeting Josh and Lisa for a late dinner in the Village on Friday night, and catching up with some folks on Saturday night for one of the Luna Lounge's last shows. Sunday, I've got my third and final Butch Morris show after which I'll bang out an article for Down Beat.

Only two months into the year, and already, we've uncovered three syndicated journalists on the payroll of the Bush administration and one White House correspondent who turned out to be a GOP plant - and a purveyor of gay porn. Whoops!

What would Congress and the media have done if this happened under Clinton's watch? Really. No, really!

Mercury Rev released a new CD last week - their first since 2001's All is Dream.

There aren't many bands left that will generate that giddy anticipation for me when I hear about a new record in the works. Since their achingly beautiful and cathartic Deserter's Songs (1998), Mercury Rev has been one of those bands.

And they don't disappoint live either. I caught them opening for Wilco a few years back at the Fillmore in San Francisco. It was grand and affected and slightly goth and everything else abhorred by all of my Bay Area indie friends. It was fucking great.

I'm checking out the new one on Rhapsody right now. So far, so good:
Whiny vocals - check
Pregnant vocal pauses - yep
Build into crashing cymbals that gives way to a naked piano - there she blows
Murky guitar solo that slowly makes its way to the top of the guitar neck - here it comes

Ah. Another Mercury Rev record.

My take on the Bush adminstration's proposed budget cuts to education, health care, farm subsidies, and environmental programs? It's actually bad for the Democrats. That's right - bad.

Administration officials acknowledge that there's little chance of even half these proposed cuts making it into the final deal, and many Republican congressmen have already stated that the proposal is DOA. So what does this mean? The administration doesn't have anything to lose by going for broke (har har) with this budget - Bush is out after this term, and Cheney will not run. Republican congressmen get to stand up to the administration and fight for their constituents - which puts them in a positively splendid position for the 2006 elections.

By the end of 2008:

Social Security will be on its way out.

We will have attacked at least one more Muslim country.

There will have been at least one more major terrorist attack on U.S. soil, possibly on a soft target like a mall, a fun park or a casino.

We will close our Canadian border after that country's repeated refusal to allow U.S. law enforcement to "root out" terrorist cells there.

Oil prices will be taken off the U.S. dollar scale and begin to use Euros.

The U.S. dollar's value will sink below the Canadian dollar.

Roe v. Wade will be reversed and 30 percent of the states will move to criminalize abortion.

"Intelligent Design" will find its way into public school curriculum as a theory on par with evolution through the federal mandates of No Child Left Behind.

We will have rounded up thousands more Americans who are Muslims. They will be "non-tortured" (waterboarded, shocked, sodomized, etc...) by the government.

The Democrats will lose filibuster power in the Senate - either through Frist's so-called "nuclear" option where he changes the rules, or because the 2006 elections will bring the Democrats down to 40, and folks like Lieberman and Landrieu will never vote with the block.

Alberto Gonzales will be appointed to the Supreme Court. Scalia will be confirmed as Chief Justice.

The Supreme Court will rule that the Texas redistricting was legal, paving the way for at least 6 more states to follow suit, thus assuring at least 50 extra seats for the Republicans in 2010.

Foreign press will report that several major U.S. media companies are directly on the payroll of the Bush administration.

Foreign press will report that Halliburton benefitted from the Iraq oil-for-food scandal while Cheney was CEO.

Foreign press will report that U.S. black ops are being in part financed by heroin production in Afghanistan under the watchful eye of Karzai.

Republicans will talk of pulling out of NATO.

Abbas will be assassinated. Hamas will take control of Gaza.

Listening to Quincy Jones' 1969 release Walking in Space.

Dear God Where Has it Been All My Life?!

Only Q could corral the likes of Ray Brown, Freddie Hubbard, (pre-Rahsaan) Roland Kirk, J.J. Johnson and other greats onto one, funky album that conveys all that is transcendent about that period of low-fi, sleazy, hipster jazz. The cheeseball flute breaks and the girlie chorus only excite me more. Walking in Space falls into the same category as that crazy Quincy record with Bill Cosby, Less McCann and Milt Jackson (The Original Jam Sessions) and maybe Herbie Hancock's Blow-Up Soundtrack he did with the Yardbirds.

As further evidence that I work in an office park on Long Island, I submit a chokingly ridiculous voice mail that I got this morning chastising me for yet another failure in my attempts to maneuver through our Kafkaesque billable hours system:

"I wanted to talk to you about the JJ7s you submitted. You know, the work you were doing with the JJ71011 and the JJ76654. The way you submitted them, they were accompanied by a general 66 account code, which should really be strictly relegated to non-billable. I've allowed them this time, but going forward, you'll have to submit the JJ7 series with the AD accompaniment rather than the 66. Okay?"

Can you say Office Space?