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. 30, 2009 Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America Oct. 29, 2009 Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity? JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes) Oct. 28, 2009 Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes) Oct. 27, 2009 Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes) Oct. 26, 2009 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes) Oct. 23, 2009 Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure? JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes) Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us Oct. 22, 2009 Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes) Oct. 21, 2009 Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies' JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes) Oct. 20, 2009 Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes) Oct. 19, 2009 The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Q. Is nepotism kosher? JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes) Oct. 16, 2009 Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes) Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost Oct. 15, 2009 Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process' JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes) Oct. 29, 2003 Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review April 17, 2009 23 Nisan 5769 Calling Shots Requires Precision By Suzanne Fields http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Language matters. President Barack Obama learned that in time to give the command to slay Somali pirates when they threatened imminent death for Capt. Richard Phillips, their American hostage. This was no time to go wobbly, indulge weakness in the knees, or stir a pot of mush. The highly trained Navy sharpshooters were told to shoot to kill. Mission accomplished. Soldiers and sailors understand the value of straightforward language. Adm. David Farragut captured heavily fortified Mobile Bay, ensuring Union control of the Gulf Coast late in the Civil War, when he signaled to his fleet: "Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead!" No nuance there. When Gen. Anthony McAuliffe answered the German demand to surrender his troops at Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge, there was no mistaking his meaning: "Nuts!" Most of us figured Mr. Obama would give in to his penchant for euphemism and his confidence in his tap-dancing, reducing a confrontation with piracy on the high seas to a "high-seas contingency operation." The result would be a "man-caused disaster," and what could the SEALs have done with that? Secretary of State Hillary Clinton compounded fears when she announced that the Obama administration sought "an appropriate 21st-century response." What in the world did she mean? Sending commands on Twitter via BlackBerry? Consulting Facebook profiles of the pirates? A call for Johnny Depp? (Errol Flynn and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and Sr. are still dead.) Surely, the creepiest words in the contemporary vernacular, whether describing the behavior of a country or the behavior of a common criminal, are "appropriate" and "inappropriate." A child who eats peas on a knife displays "inappropriate" behavior; a child who uses a knife to cut another child is also guilty of "inappropriate" behavior. Crime is thus reduced to bad manners. A tough military response to piracy is "appropriate," whether by Thomas Jefferson against the pirates of the Barbary Coast or Barack Obama against the pirates of the Somali coast. These were no rollicking band of brigands, no "Pirates of Penzance." Nevertheless, Barack Obama surely was tempted to delay, if not equivocate, whether by drawing up a list of talking points or suggesting an international forum of "partners" to debate solutions. We all can be glad he fought back like John Wayne and not Jimmy Carter, saving the life of a brave man. America didn't ask how the rescue operation would resonate among "moderate pirates" or how it would play "on the Arab street," noted William Kristol on "Fox News Sunday." Instead, the president did it the effective way — unilaterally. Now the big question is: Can we find the pirates' hiding places? That's difficult to do, but not impossible. There's no MapQuest to identify "pirate's lair." No GPS device will tell soldiers where to turn right or left. Like the Hamas terrorists who hide among innocents, pirates are difficult to eradicate inside their communities, particularly because many of them are teenagers protected by families and extended clan. Collateral damage would include the suffering of civilians. War, even when it's called "an overseas contingency operation," is hell. Words shape perception, and euphemistic language obscures reality. Barack Obama, being a master of rhetoric, is tempted to imagine that his words are the reality. His new strategy for dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat is to dispense with the reasonable precondition that Iran shut down its nuclear program while talking. This also dispenses with the common sense born of experience in the interest of "sensitivity" for "Iran's pride." The strategy includes allowing Iranian technicians to keep their centrifuges spinning but not allowing them to enrich uranium for a bomb. Both sides could claim "victory." But there's a problem. The inspectors not only don't know whether hidden enrichment sites are spinning but also don't know whether they're being stockpiled. We would have to take what the Iranians say on trust, which is like taking the word of pirates on trust. Former President Ronald Reagan, dealing with then-Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, agreed to trust, but only if it was "trust but verify." Barack Obama, who is certainly no Ronald Reagan, would count on the Iranians being as naive as he seems to be. Administration officials want "to dialogue" with Tehran (bad grammar and all, speaking of language). Honest dialogue requires language with specific meaning. A strategy of "sensitivity" when the stakes are so high, whether with pirates on land or pirates at sea, is, to say the least, "inappropriate." 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. Comment on JWR contributor Suzanne Fields' column by clicking here. Suzanne Fields Archives © 2006, Creators Syndicate, Suzanne Fields

Arnold Ahlert  Mitch Albom  Michael Barone   Dave Barry  Tony Blankley  Andy Borowitz  David Broder  Stratfor Briefing  Mona Charen  Linda Chavez  Ann Coulter  Greg Crosby  Larry Elder  Suzanne Fields  John Fund  Frank J. Gaffney  Lloyd Garver  Jonah Goldberg  Julia Gorin  Jonathan Gurwitz  Paul Greenberg  Lewis Grossberger  Victor Davis Hanson  Betsy Hart  Nat Hentoff  David Horowitz  Laura Ingraham  Cheri Jacobus Jeff Jacoby  Paul Johnson  Jack Kelly  Ed Koch  Ch. Krauthammer  Michael Ledeen  John Leo  David Limbaugh  Kathryn Lopez  Rich Lowry  Michelle Malkin  Jackie Mason  Dick Morris  Bill O'Reilly  Jim Mullen  Clarence Page  Kathleen Parker  Dennis Prager  Wesley Pruden  Tom Purcell  Jonathan Rauch  Celia Rivenbark  Robert Robb  Cokie & Steve Roberts  Pat Sajak  Debra J. Saunders  Culture Shlock  Roger Simon  Michael Smerconish  Thomas Sowell  Mark Steyn  John Stossel  Cal Thomas  Bob Tyrrell  Diana West  Dave Weinbaum  George Will  Walter Williams  Byron York  Mort Zuckerman  Robert Arial  Chuck Asay  Baloo  Chip Bok  Dry Bones   Lisa Benson  John Branch  Gary Brookins  John Cole  J. D. Crowe  John Deering  Brian Duffy  Everything's Relative  Mallard Fillmore  Jake Fuller  Bob Gorrel  Joe Heller  David Hitch  Jerry Holber  Steve Kelley  Jeff Koterba  Dick Locher  Chan Lowe  Ranan R. Lurie  Jimmy Margulies  Rick McKee  Michael Ramirez  Kevin Siers  Jeff Stahler  Ed Stein  Danna Summers  John Trever  Gary Varvel  Kirk Walters  How 2  Lori Borgman  The Savvy Consumer  Elder matters  Fixit  Dr. Peter Gott  GET A JOB! by Marty Nemko  Richard Lederer  Tech Maven  Every Monday Matters  Nutrition Myths  Bookmark These  Bruce Williams  How Stuff Works