If you're Jewish, you might be twiddling your thumbs this morning, waiting for the movie theatre and or Chinese restaurant to open. While you wait, you'll want to read Ruthie Blum's Christmas under siege. She has a quirky way of thinking slightly outside the box, which I have long admired.
.... My delight at living in a Jewish state, where my roots, religion, and nationality are all at peace with one another, put me in a kind of bubble. Yes, we are surrounded by Arabs bent on our destruction. But for this we have an army.
Ironically, it is now the Christians who have to defend their existence. Persecuted viciously in the Middle East, they are also called to task in the West for the practices that I took for granted as a child....
There is nothing like a new set of circumstances to cause one's perceptions to change. After so many decades of satisfaction that I don't have to know when it's Christmas, today I feel like celebrating it as an act of Jewish-Israeli solidarity.
Next, since the absence of Obama from the public stage only adds to the emptiness of the day, you can either read about his vacay at the White House Dossier blog, or wander through The White House's photostream at flickr. I got up early, so I've had time to do both.
Check out this official White House photo of The Won at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia:
P111912PS-0827 President Barack Obama rings a large bell during a tour of the Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon, Burma, Nov. 19, 2012. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Oops. Wrong bell. Let me try that again.
That's the right bell, but the wrong visitor!
Oy gevalt, I give up. If you find a photo of Obama at the Liberty Bell, send me the link. Meanwhile, I've got some thumb-twiddling to do.
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