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May 24, 2013

Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: When I didn't so 'humbly disagree'

Caroline B. Glick: Thank you, Hafez al-Assad

Diana West: From the Brooklyn Bridge to London
Morgan Housel: Why spotting bubbles is so much harder than you think

Environmental Nutrition editors: NuVal labeling to the rescue?

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Memorial Day: Jews Serving and KIA in War on Terror; Liberace Bio-Pic; Jew Wins "Survivor"; Shalom, Dr. Brothers; More

The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen: HIDE THESE FROZEN TREATS FROM THE KIDDIES!: Sangria pops; Irish cream pudding pops; mango Lassi pops

May 22, 2013

John Thorne: They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman

John Rosemond: 'Disciplinary math' adds up to parental successl

Warren Richey: Are prayers before public meetings OK? Supreme Court to decide
Rick Montgomery: Use of ADHD drugs as study aid raises concern on campuses

Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.: 6 convincing reasons you should keep carbs in your diet

Eoin O'Carroll: Scientists examine nothing, find something

The Kosher Gourmet by Carole Kotkin: This soup is made from one of the great pleasures of spring: A wonderful pairing of rosy color and earthy tang

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

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


Jewish World Review January 2, 2008 / 24 Teves, 5768

The world in which we live

By Paul Greenberg


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | This is the nature of the world in which we live. The phrase has been echoing in my mind since news came of Benazir Bhutto's assassination — news that shocked but did not surprise. It wasn't just that the news might have been expected, it was expected. All understood the danger. It was often cited. It just wasn't dealt with. The world just hoped for the best, and did not prepare for the worst. All acted as if nothing could be done, and sure enough nothing was.


This is the nature of the world in which we live: A country like Pakistan, which was once of little strategic consequence in the Great Game of Nations, has become a nuclear power — an increasingly unstable nuclear power. All recognize the gathering danger. It is regularly cited. But all act as if nothing can be done except hope for the best, and the worst awaits. As the fate of Benazir Bhutto so poignantly demonstrates.


This is the nature of the nuclearized world in which we live: It's not so much the number of countries who've managed to acquire their own Bomb that worries, but which ones. There are those leaders for whom a nuclear weapon is a deterrent, and others for whom it is something more, dangerously more.


Who's really worried about the British or French having the Bomb? Or the Chinese? Or even the Israelis? But a nuke in the hands of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, or one that falls into the hands of a terrorist gang like al-Qaida as Pakistan falls apart … that's worrisome.


For once fanatics get their hands on a nuclear weapon, they'll use it, else they wouldn't be fanatics. To some a nuclear Armageddon isn't a calamity to be avoided but a consummation devoutly to be wished — and brought about. That's the nature of the ideologized world in which we live in.


Just worrying about such a danger won't help. It won't do to just wring our hands. Or deliver solemn speeches. That's not a solution; it may be the biggest part of the problem. For that, too, is the nature of the world in which we live: Procrastination always beckons, action is so much easier to delegate than to take — which means no one may ever take it. And one day we wake up to see flaming skyscrapers. Or a political figure who was a key to her country's hopes of stability struck down, and not just Pakistan but the world shakes.


There may have been only one leader who could somehow have made Pakistan a democracy. And now she's gone. Her party, perhaps the one truly national civil institution in her country, is in shambles and may never recover. No Bhuttos, no real opposition party. (In Pakistan, opposition politics is largely a family affair.) Now her country — a nuclear power, lest we forget — teeters on the edge of becoming another failed state. With consequences far beyond Pakistan. And we Americans, like the rest of the world, will have to deal with it, holding the hand Death now has dealt.


Now and then, like every morning, an editor glances at a news wire full of violence, danger, chaos and crisis, and thinks: This is the nature of the world we live in, and it is futile to wish the cards we'd been dealt were different. Instead, those whose lot it is to conduct this country's foreign policy will have to choose the lesser of so many evils. Whether it is making an alliance with a Stalin — the United States has done that before — or propping up a minor dictator who holds a major weapon, this is the world we live in. We must accept it and at the same time strive to make it a better, safer one. Quite a trick. If economics is the dismal science, it's positively cheerful compared to statecraft.


Even a single assassination can lead to a worldwide conflagration. It's happened before. The name Gavril Princip may turn up now only on Jeopardy or in other games of trivial pursuit, but his assassination of an Austrian archduke in the summer of 1914 led to results anything but trivial. That's the nature of the world in which we still live.


It's a world in which a military dictator like Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf, who used to cozy up to al-Qaida and the Taliban for his own reasons, decides to change course when the same terrorists attack his American patron. Like politics, survival makes strange bedfellows. Now the Pakistani strongman, who may not be so strong, is an ally — an ally of convenience. But whether his notorious intelligence service has gotten the word is another question. That, too, is the nature of the world in which we live. It's divided not just into governments but within governments.


If there is a single qualification for leadership in such a world, if there is a single qualification for president of the United States, it's the willingness to recognize, and the determination to deal with, the nature of the world not as we might wish it but in which we must live.

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.

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.

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