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Dec. 2, 2008
Melanie Phillips: The Mumbai atrocity is a wake-up call for a frighteningly unprepared world
Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Strategic Motivations for the Mumbai Attack
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Max Freidlander, as told to Jacklyn C. Wadler: India Inkings
Mark Steyn: Whodunit!?
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Rabbi Ahron Rapps: An evil seed that didn't have to be
Melanie Phillips: Carpe diem --- or can we all relax now?
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Michael Feldberg: Meet the Orthodox Jew who laid groundwork for scientific development of ordnance that undergirds America's current world leadership
Andrea Simantov:
Shades of life
Nov. 25, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Getting Emotional For Influence
The Kosher Gourmet
by Ethel G. Hofman : Thanksiving feast!
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Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: 'I just Became a grandchild!'
Barry Rubin: Don't flatter your enemies, protect your friends
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Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Money matters?
Caroline B. Glick:
Civilization walks the plank
Nov. 20, 2008
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bronfman's blindness
The Kosher Gourmet
By Linda Gassenheimer: Portobellos add a hearty flavor to pasta with pesto
Nov, 19, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Spread the wealth? Jewish tradition and income equality
Elliot B. Gertel:
'Mad Men': Tackling prejudices or reinforcing them?
Nov, 18, 2008
Dr. Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn: The End of the Age of Reason
Jonathan Tobin: Does Barack + Bibi = Disaster?
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Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The End of the Age of Reason
Diana West: Gulling Americans into making terror legit?
Nov, 14, 2008
Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The Power of Spiritual Inertia
Caroline B. Glick: The perils ahead
Nov, 13, 2008
Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: How Bush and Obama together could change the Middle East dynamic
The Kosher Gourmet
by JeanMarie Brownson: Sweet and savory, crispy and meltingly tender bestilla
Nov, 12, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Tyrannical Co-Workers
Michael Doyle: High Court to consider today donated monuments that may have religious messages in public parks
Nov, 11, 2008
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Will Obama stop government officials considering institutionalizing financial jihad?
Jonathan Tobin: They Will Decide Their Own Fate
Nov, 10, 2008
Rabbi Avi Shafran: $8 billion, modern-day Tower of Babel being built?
Barry Rubin: A letter to the president-elect from a Middle East realist
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Rabbi Francis Nataf: Of Children and Immortality
Caroline B. Glick: Livni's Obama strategy
Nov, 6, 2008
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: How I tricked a classroom of apathetic students into grasping the fallacy of moral relativism
The Kosher Gourmet
By Gina Kim: Tips for making the perfect soup --- includes recipes
Nov, 5, 2008
The Jewish Ethicist
By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Destitute Debtors
Bruce Weinstein: 'Religulos': Bad title,even worse movie
Nov, 4, 2008
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Treasury Dept. submits to Shariah law
Frida Ghitis: A surprise for Obama in the Middle East
Nov, 3, 2008
Jonathan Rosenblum: Who says Jews are Smart?
Jonathan Tobin:
Was He Wrong About Everything?
March 22, 2007
J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)
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Jewish World Review
Sept. 11, 2006
/ 18 Elul, 5766
The frog plague: The inside story
By
Dave Barry
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
I'm wondering if any of you readers out there have noticed any suspicious behavior on the part of frogs. I ask because the ones at my house are definitely up to something.
I live in South Florida, which has a hot, moist, armpit-like climate that is very favorable for life in general. Everything down here is either already alive or about to be. You could leave your toaster out on your lawn overnight, and by morning it would have developed legs, a tail, a mouth, tentacles, etc., and it would be prowling around looking for slower, weaker appliances to prey on.
So I am used to wildlife. I am used to the fact that, as I walk from my car to the front door striding briskly to prevent fungus from growing on my body I will routinely pass lizards, snakes, spiders, snails and mutant prehistoric grasshoppers large enough for the Lone Ranger to saddle up and ride into the sunset on ("Hi-ho, Silver, AWAYYYEEEEEIIIKES!").
My yard has also always had plenty of frogs. Until recently, these were plump, non-aggressive frogs who just sat there, looking pensively off into the distance, thinking frog thoughts ("How am I supposed to reproduce? I appear to lack organs!")
But lately my yard has become infested with a whole new brand of frogs smaller, quicker, junior-welterweight frogs that are extremely jittery, as though they spent their tadpole phase swimming around in really strong espresso. And for some reason these frogs desperately want to GET INSIDE MY HOUSE. They hide in crannies on my front stoop, waiting, and when I open the front door they suddenly HOP HOP HOP HOP HOP, and the stoop turns into the Oklahoma Land Rush, except that instead of hardy pioneers racing to claim homesteads, there are hordes of small, caffeine-crazed frogs bounding into my living room, moving far too fast for the human foot to stomp on.
The eerie thing is, within seconds, the invading frogs have ALL DISAPPEARED. Some go under the sofa, but many seem simply to vanish. I think maybe they've developed some kind of camouflage, so they can blend into the living-room environment by taking on the appearance of a carpet stain or (if they are really organized) a piano.
All I know is, the frogs go into my house, and they do not come out, which means that there are now, by conservative estimate, thousands of frogs hiding somewhere in my living room. This makes me nervous. I'm wondering if maybe it could be a plague.
I say this because my wife is Jewish, and each year her family comes to our house to celebrate Passover with a traditional Seder feast. I am not Jewish, but I always join in, on the theory that you should embrace as many religions as possible, because you never know. You could die and find yourself in an afterlife facing the eternal judgment of, for example, L. Ron Hubbard. So I participate in the Seder; in fact, at our house I always make the traditional matzo balls, using an ancient Presbyterian recipe. (The matzo balls symbolize the Torah story about how the Israelites, after following Moses all over the desert, finally came to a place where there was chicken soup.)
Anyway, there's this one point in the Seder ceremony when we all dip our fingers into our glasses of ancient traditional Manischewitz wine, and then we drop 10 wine droplets onto our plates while we say, out loud, the names of the 10 Plagues of Egypt, which are: blood, darkness, blight, slaying of the first born, wild beasts, lice, boils, locusts, hail and you guessed it Leonardo DiCaprio.
No, seriously, one of the plagues is frogs. So I'm thinking that maybe, during the most recent Seder, when we were saying the plague names, we failed to make adequate wine droplets for the frogs. My concern is that this might have violated some clause in the Torah, such as the Book of Effusions, Chapter 4, Verse 7, Line 6, which states: "And yea thou shalt BE sureth to maketh a GOOD frog droplet, for if thou shalt NOT, forsooth thou SHALT getteth a BIG plague of frogs, and they SHALT be of the JUNIOR-welterweight division, and they WILL hideth UNDER thine sofa." Or maybe there's some other cause. Maybe it's a Y2K issue, and these are non-compliant frogs. Whatever it is, I don't like it. I don't like sitting in my living room at night, watching the TV, knowing that all around me, hidden in the dark, thousands of beady little eyes are also watching the TV . . . and maybe waiting for some secret signal. Perhaps you think I am crazy. Fine. Then perhaps you can explain to me why, when the frogs croak in the Budweiser commercial, my piano croaks back.
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.
Comment by clicking here.
Previously:
If she had a hammer….
Keeping an eye on crime
Camping and Lewis and Clark
When in Iowa, don't forget to duck
Junior takes the wheel
Growing old with Dave
Sites for sore eyes
Beware of sheep droppings
Ireland, land of bad Elvis
Mr. Peabrain's misadventures
When they're out to get you, keep cool
Mothers of invention
Kill 'em with kindness
© 2006, The Miami Herald Distributed by Tribune Media Services, Inc.
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