Texas Meryl, an old blog-pal of mine, asked me to let you know about her daughters Bat Mitzvah project. (I knew I forgot do to something!)
Better late than never.
(Geez, TX Meryl, she really grew up! What a beauty!)
The Catmage Chronicles
Andy thought he was going crazy when a talking cat showed up at his front door. He couldn’t have been more wrong.Goldeneyes is a Catmage – a cat with human intelligence and magical abilities. Andy is an eighth grader who is smart, impulsive, and trying to avoid the school bully at all costs. A prophecy threw them together. There’s just one problem: Goldeneyes can’t stand humans.The Catmage world is heading toward war. Goldeneyes and Andy must try to stop the enemy from getting stronger. And they must save a powerful Catmage who’s been kidnapped. For Goldeneyes, it’s personal. That Catmage is her grandmother.Andy and Goldeneyes must try to put aside their differences. If they can’t, the enemy will soon be too powerful to defeat…
If my son goes to Rice or Austin, I’ll give you his phone number to pass along to TX Meryl (relax, it’s not for five years).
However, I also have a cousin in Plano who TX Meryl might know, and her blond, good looking (and J) son will be out of college in five years.
Anyway, after the mandatory shadchanning, now to the Darfur disaster.
I do not know why Darfur has become a cause celebre among American Jews. Darfur is one group of Arab and black Muslims killing another group of primarily black Muslims. The Muslim world is doing nothing about this at all except to ask Americans and Europeans for money. Much if not most of that money will never buy relief supplies for these refugees, but only line thieves’ pockets.
I have not seen as much activity in the black community as in the Jewish community over Darfur. Perhaps they know that it is not a genocide. Perhaps they realize how profoundly dysfunctional that part of Africa is and they shrug it off.
If you ask me whether sending aid to Darfur is a good thing to do, then yes it is. However, lets be realistic about the situation and lets keep in mind that there are other problems in the world which need to be addressed.
chsw