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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

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

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

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

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: 'Noodles,' Asian style is a carb sub, sure. But they are also amazingly delicious and colorful

April 19, 2013

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: When violence seems the only answer

Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama's visit to Israel had no impact on public opinion or government policy

Morgan Housel: Gold collapse: The start of something big?
Harvard Health Letters: Can you die of a broken heart?

Pete Spotts: Livable super-Earths? Two candidates among Kepler's latest finds

Nora Schultz: Oxytocin helps beat booze cravings

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: Middle Eastern cuisine meets Italian delicious with this lentil and eggplant pastitsio

April 17, 2013

Shira Rubin: Too much of a good thing? 'Palestinians' realize downside of foreign aid boom

Geoffrey Mohan: Can computers decode dreams? Researchers take a first step

Morgan Housel: BAD NEWS: EVERYONE IS RIGHT!
Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 heart-healthy eating tips help cut saturated fat but not taste

Michael Craig Miller, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Told your child has sensory processing disorder? Seek a second opinion

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Corn and Curry Add Zing to Chilled Soup

April 15, 2013

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Death of Education?

Kristen Chick: Egyptian Christians respond with harsh words to attack -- rocks, Molotov cocktails, and gunfire -- against main cathedral

Marcy Darnovsky and Karuna Jaggar: High Court to decide if you should own your DNA
Howard LaFranchi: US bracing for more Russian blowback after taking action against 18 more human rights violators

Kristin Ohlson : The loneliest fight

The Kosher Gourmet by Dana Velden: A tasty, rich dish that hints at spring's arrival while still anchored in a favorite winter staple


Jewish World Review Oct. 5, 2012/ 19 Tishrei, 5773

The inexhaustible vice president, or: Of hogs, acorns and Joe Biden

By Paul Greenberg




http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | The worst gaffe a politician can make, it's been said, is not the mistakes he makes on the campaign trail but when he tells the truth. The vice president of the United States, who's a kind of genius at embarrassing himself, did it again the other day when, almost in passing, he mentioned the hallmark of this president's stewardship of the American economy, "the middle class that has been buried these past four years."

Oops. Even a blind hog will stumble across an acorn now and then, but this time the vice president had hit on an essential truth, one that can be verified by just a glance at the country's unemployment rate, which still hovers around 8 percent after almost four years of another kind of Obamacare.

Then there is the growing number of Americans who are slipping into poverty under this administration -- 15.1 percent or 46.2 million as of 2011, or about one in six. That's up from 14.3 percent in 2009, when Barack Obama took the presidential oath of office.

The official poverty level is an annual income of $23,050 for a family of four, and the 46 million Americans that now have slipped below it is the largest total since the Census began reporting that number in 1959. How's that for hope and change? Change, maybe. Hope, not so much.

A record number of American households are now on food stamps: 22.4 million, or 15 percent of the population. That's a telling statistic. Perhaps even more revealing than the unemployment rate.

To quote one economist, Peter Cardillo at Rockwell Global Capital, "the unemployment data is not really telling us the true story of how many people are underemployed." But the growth in food stamps is "a good indication of how the income of the work force has stagnated and more and more people are applying for food stamps."

So when Joe Biden says the middle class has been buried the last four years, he may be understating the case for once. The working poor are getting poorer, too. Having committed the cardinal political error of telling the truth, our vice president immediately began backpedaling, retracting, explaining what he really meant to say, and in general trying to hide behind Campaign Obama's usual talking points, which grow more and more unconvincing.

The Great Recession of 2008-09 was bad enough; the Obama "recovery" could be even worse because its ever more disappointing performance threatens to become permanent -- especially if this president is re-elected and gets to continue his misguided policies. Or, frightening thought, gets to introduce even more of them. Joe Biden will doubtless be able to explain how successful they are, too, except on those recurrent occasions when he collides with the truth.

Whenever the vice president of the United States flies into one of his tirades, some of us feel like sinking to our knees and uttering a fervent prayer for the health of the president of the United States. For his No. 2 man is not just a loose cannon but a whole battery of them.

That this president should have chosen a character like Joe Biden as his running mate was only a foretaste of the kind of judgment Mr. Obama would show in managing the economy. (Foreign policy is a whole other disaster zone these days.)

Barack Obama may be the joker in this pack, but our vice president is the joke. He has proven an inexhaustible treasure of bloopers, but only the rare ones are as revealing as his latest. Unless that buried middle class is revived, and Americans put to work again, far worse is to come.

On that cheery note, let me end with a thank-you to the vice president. Sometimes he pulls back the curtain on this wizard's act, and gives the country a glimpse of what's really happening to it. It ain't pretty, but at least it's the truth -- which is no small service in the hurly-burly of an election year.

"In our time," George Orwell complained in a classic essay about politics and the English language, "political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible." Like this administration's abominable record on the economy, a natural enough consequence of its misconceived remedies, reforms and panaceas galore.

But now and then, good ol' Joe Biden comes along like a clown wandering into the center ring of this circus, and, without meaning to, falls into honesty. As he did on this occasion. Such excursions are all too rare in our telepromptered times. Which makes them all the more welcome.

The Hon. Joseph R. Biden is a kind of relief in the overscripted world of dead political language -- a walking treasure of insights by accident.

Paul Greenberg Archives

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