Trying to stay apolitical

This Sunday was the annual New York City Five Boro Bike Tour, so about the last thing we wanted to do was drive anywhere in those five boroughs! Barry spent the morning and early afternoon working on upcoming lectures, and when he finished we headed to a small theater in White Plains to see “Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer.” 

Norman Oppenheimer, played by Richard Gere, is a New Yorker who dreams up financial schemes and maneuvers himself into the lives of the rich and famous, an example of networking run amok. Along the way, he meets Micha Eshel (Lior Ashkenazi), a charismatic Israeli politician to whom he gives an expensive pair of shoes that ensure Eshel’s lifelong devotion to him. Three years later, Eshel is elected Prime Minister of Israel. Oppenheimer’s attempt to use his friend’s name to enhance his own deals does not go quite as planned, so the intricate web of connections and lies begins to unravel around him.

Definitely worth seeing if you have a chance.

A bit of levity (thanks to my friend Orah for posting this on Facebook) seems appropriate as good has prevailed over evil in France:

After careful planning, a thief in Paris entered the Louvre, got past security, stole some paintings, and made it safely to his van.

However, he was captured only two blocks away when his van ran out of gas.

When asked how he could mastermind such a crime and then make such an obvious error, he replied, 'Monsieur, that is the reason I stole the paintings.'
'I had no Monet to buy Degas to make the Van Gogh.'

Do you have De Gaulle to send this on to someone else?
I posted it here because I figured I had nothing Toulouse.

Finally, I try very hard to stay away from politics on this blog, but over the past few days I have been repeatedly reminded of two things our beloved Rabbi Avi Weiss often says:

1.    There are only two categories of people, the sick, and the not yet sick

2.   The best measure of a society is how it treats its weakest members (variations on this have been penned by politicians, clergy, and others)

Love,

Rebecca