May 20, 2013 Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man? Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting May 13, 2013 Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer? Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche May 10, 2013 Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon May 8, 2013 Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges 'Garbage man' in cells could extend life Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility May 6, 2013 Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal May 3, 2013 Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert May 1, 2013 Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be April 29, 2013 Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots? Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie April 26, 2013 Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen? Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver) The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead April 24, 2013 Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret Top Muslim cleric boycotts inter-faith dialogue conference attended by 'Jews' Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication? Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot April 22, 2013 Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear Hagel, on maiden Middle East visit, arrives in Israel bearing gifts and promises US man departing country arrested on terror charges Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel

Jewish World Review March 21, 2013/ 10 Nissan, 5773 Mencken and me By Paul Greenberg http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | A friend and critic here in Little Rock -- well, definitely a critic and I hope he's still a friend -- submitted a guest column not long ago reciting my many sins. (Whose sins are few?) And we were happy to run it on the op-ed page of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which we like to think of Arkansas' Newspaper. It says so right on the front page. To cap off his encyclopedic review of my faults as an editor, columnist, gadfly and sorry excuse for a human being in general, our guest writer ended his philippic by comparing me to . . . H. L Mencken. For that alone I am much indebted to my friend/critic, The Hon. Robert L. Brown, a now-retired justice of the state's Supreme Court. Modesty should forbid, but I can't help quoting from his climactic peroration: "It will come as no surprise to anyone that Greenberg wants to stir the pot and sell newspapers. But in this fashion, he becomes a major purveyor of the rancor that afflicts this country, from Washington, D.C., to Little Rock. . . . In short, it is Paul Greenberg who is a major part of the problem, just as his mentor, H.L. Mencken, was when he reveled in describing Arkansas as a hillbilly backwater and did what he could to make Arkansas a laughingstock. He, too, sold newspapers." My first impulse on reading that comparison was to clip it out, have it framed, and hang it on my office wall next to my Mencken Award from the Baltimore Sun back in the long-ago year 1987. Imagine the likelihood of any contemporary columnist being ranked with the Sage of Baltimore himself. Henry Louis Mencken was a legend in his own time, even if he could no longer live up to it in his stroke-ridden old age. But in his time, when he was writing about the Scopes Trial or Warren G. Harding's (awful) way with words, or almost anything else, Editor Mencken was the very personification of curmudgeonly journalism -- a national version of Arkansas' own still-lamented John Robert Starr. Even today, Mencken's best work, and so much of it was his best, never fails to inform, delight, provoke and cut to the quick. His prose might wound, but justifiably so. What a contrast with today's limited choice of journalistic styles -- bland or hysterical, with precious little in between. It's enough to make you fear for the language, specifically The American Language, a subject to which Herr Dr. Mencken dedicated three volumes of his fascinated scrutiny. That brooding set of black-bound books now sits quiet as a coffin on my shelf, as if in mourning for the dismal state of the once-vibrant American lingo. Since the death of Murray Kempton, and the premature loss of Christopher Hitchens, it's hard to think of an opinionator who so consistently offered the intricate satisfactions that Mencken did in the '20s and '30s. That was before his apoplectic self got the better of him and, stricken, he entered his long, dark Westbrook Pegler period. Even then, the light would break through on isolated occasions, as when he covered the Progressive Party's national convention in 1948, which would nominate Henry Wallace, that poor dupe, for president. That convention would run the narrow gamut from mild pink to flaming Red. Any year that had a Mencken, and any state that had him to dissect it, as Arkansas did in 1931, would seem fortunate indeed, however poor its people. By using Arkansas as the very symbol of miasmic backwardness, Baltimore's sage did us more than a literary service; he sought to awaken this state from its customary slumber. Unfortunately, he succeeded only in arousing our inferiority complex, which is still around, though in much vitiated form nowadays, thank goodness. Back in 1931, our state legislature responded to H.L. Mencken's stringencies much as one would expect -- by passing an official resolution denouncing him. Instead of learning from his diagnosis, it condemned the diagnostician. It's called shooting the messenger. The result was that here in darkest Arkansas, the Baltimore Sun's resident genius was generally dismissed as a damnyankee know-it-all. Even if, at the end of his most vitriolic attack on what remained of Southern culture in his time, "The Sahara of the Bozart," Mencken had to concede that the "Southerner at his worst is never quite the surly cad the Yankee is." Yet he was still labeled a South-hater by his critics below Mason-Dixon's Line. Never mind that Herr Mencken was a Confederate from Maryland, My Maryland, and about as yankee as any other beer-drinking, cigar-loving, gemütlich Wagnerian -- and someone who was a lot closer to Jefferson Davis in his political sympathies than to Mr. Lincoln, a much too democratic figure for his Teutonic taste. Or as he himself put it, "For all I care the United States may be jolly well damned: I am its subject by historical necessity, not its citizen by choice." Could any unreconstructed Reb have put it more forcefully? A similar anti-American jaundice runs through much of the world today, but, alas, without Brother Mencken's wit. Yes, an occasional Hollywood star may threaten to move out of the country after some presidential election turns out not to his taste, but that sort never does, more's the pity. Ever since I learned that our legislators here in Arkansas had once passed a formal resolution denouncing H.L. Mencken, my not-so-secret ambition has been to win an official, certified, duly passed and recorded resolution of censure from the legislature. Instead, I get only a denunciation from a former justice of the state Supreme Court. Ah, well, a man has to settle for what he can get in this life. Paul Greenberg Archives Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here. JWR contributor Paul Greenberg, editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, has won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Send your comments by clicking here. © 2010 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

Arnold Ahlert  Mitch Albom  Jay Ambrose  Michael Barone  Barrywood  Lori Borgman  Stratfor Briefing  Mona Charen  Linda Chavez  Richard Z. Chesnoff  Ann Coulter  Greg Crosby  Larry Elder  Suzanne Fields  Christine Flowers  Frank J. Gaffney  Bernie Goldberg  Jonah Goldberg  Julia Gorin  Jonathan Gurwitz  Paul Greenberg  Argus Hamilton  Victor Davis Hanson  Betsy Hart  Ron Hart  Nat Hentoff  A. Barton Hinkle  Jeff Jacoby  Paul Johnson  Jack Kelly  Ch. Krauthammer  David Limbaugh  Kathryn Lopez  Rich Lowry  Michelle Malkin  Jackie Mason  Ann McFeatters  Dale McFeatters  Dana Milbank  Jeanne Moos  Dick Morris  Jim Mullen  Deroy Murdock  Judge A. Napolitano  Bill O'Reilly  Clarence Page  Kathleen Parker  Star Parker  Dennis Prager  Wesley Pruden  Tom Purcell  Sharon Randall  Robert Robb  Cokie & Steve Roberts  Heather Robinson  Debra J. Saunders  Martin Schram  Greg Schwem  Culture Shlock  David Shribman  Roger Simon  Lenore Skenazy  Michael Smerconish  Thomas Sowell  Ben Stein  Mark Steyn  John Stossel  Cal Thomas  Dan Thomasson  Bob Tyrrell  Diana West  Dave Weinbaum  George Will  Walter Williams  Byron York  ZeitGeist  Mort Zuckerman  Robert Arial  Chuck Asay  Baloo   Lisa Benson  Chip Bok  Dry Bones  John Branch  John Cole  J. D. Crowe  Matt Davies  John Deering  Brian Duffy  Everything's Relative  Mallard Fillmore  Glenn Foden  Jake Fuller  Bob Gorrel  Walt Handelsman  Joe Heller  David Hitch  Jerry Holbert  David Horsey  Lee Judge  Steve Kelley  Jeff Koterba  Dick Locher  Chan Lowe  Jimmy Margulies  Jack Ohman  Michael Ramirez  Rob Rogers  Drew Sheneman  Kevin Siers  Jeff Stahler  Scott Stantis  Danna Summers  Gary Varvel  Kirk Walters   Dan Wasserman  Tech Q&A  Mr. Know-It-All  Ask Doctor K  Richard Lederer  Frugal Living  On Nutrition  Bookmark These  Bruce Williams