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Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
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Nov. 18, 2009
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JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review Sept. 12, 2006 / 19 Elul, 5766

Uniforms: Soul-sucking sameness

By Celia Rivenbark

Celia Rivenbark
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | My daughter's public school is requiring uniforms this year for the very first time so I've spent the past two weeks dutifully buying a mind-numbingly dull assortment of navy shorts, khaki pants and white Polo shirts, forking over the money with a heavy heart.


While other moms, the normal ones, I suppose, gush that this is going to make everything so much easier in the morning, I am just puzzled.


Is that the goal? To make everything easier? Why don't we just make them sleep in their clothes the night before? That would be real easy.


When the vote came last spring, I sloppily voiced my opposition to uniforms based on a lightweight but passionate argument that "Well, duh, they're ugly."


It was a strangely Valley Girl-sounding argument, I'll admit, but it was the best I could come up with on short notice. I was hoping for more of an "Ask not what you can do for your school" effect, but alas, the words didn't come. And it turned out just sounding, well, whiny. I wanted to talk about the snuffing out of creativity and individuality, and how this soul-sucking sameness will just destroy their little spirits, but I couldn't get it right and concluded with, "and like I said, they're ugly."


The ballots were counted quickly, and despite, or perhaps because of, my dough-headed protest that was only slightly more articulate than that of, say, Scooby Doo, the parents voted in favor of school uniforms 2-to-1. For a time, I became a pariah at my daughter's school, the poo in the punchbowl, the Mel Gibson at the bar mitzvah.


After the vote was announced, I felt a lot like I did back in 1972, when my naive teen self was actually shocked that George McGovern lost. This should give you some idea of why I have never been successful at anything political. Unless you count my win as senior class president, but I really think that's just because I promised to give everybody a KitKat bar.


Maybe I should've used the same strategy on the pro-uniform parents.


"You'll love them, eventually," a wise mom told me last week, as we pored over the sea of 100 percent polyester vestments that my pod daughter would wear. "You could drop nuclear waste on this stuff and it would just bounce right off!


The other argument seems to be that uniforms make kids behave better and get better grades.


This, it turns out, has never been proved.


It's like an urban legend, so if you believe it, you probably also believe that a tooth will dissolve overnight in a glass of Coca-Cola.


I'm just saying.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Celia Rivenbark is an award-winning news reporter and freelance columnist for The Sun News in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Comment by clicking here.


Girls' pajama parties a little different now
Welcome back for guilt-free manly man
A big boo-hoo for disgraced celebs
Girls' pajama parties a little different now
When Bubbas and hoes are extra welcome
Ageless icons can't escape their ages
Gifts to kids' teachers make competitive moms antsy

Kid bumper stickers sure not ‘terrific’

© 2006, The Sun News (Myrtle Beach, S.C.) Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services

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