ABSILVER's World

Random Thoughts: My lack of admiration for Gwinneth Paltro grows daily!   Her belief that we all want to follow her sense of style.  That her life is so much more difficult than most women trying to raise her kids while on a movie set makes me think how out of touch can one person be?  She ranks up there with people I care about almost as much as the Kardashians. These stars who complain about the paparazzi and their lack of privacy, but then create a web site of "their style" and use it to announce their relationship status need to realize we of the "average" lifestyle learn to care a little less every day.  At least I do, and frankly makes all her pretentious acting look less like real acting doesn't it? I think the her need for admiration and attention is actually a little sad.  Honest, I am glad for their success and worry just about as much about them on a daily basis as the billionaire's who worry about their safety due to income equalit...

Harry was telling me he is getting ready for Luci and a spring snow storm in New Jersey.  Luci is coming home from her winter wonderlands of Florida and North Carolina and Harry is creating a warm home for them to return to in New Jersey. Snow is an interesting thing in my life.  Growing up in Savannah it was a very rare occurrence.  Snow on occasion would bring my home town to a halt.  We had a fireplace in the living room, and we tried as hard as we could to enjoy being in the house for a few days as a family together.  Truth be told, we Silvermans are quite the independent lot and as soon as it was safe to exit the house we scattered.  There was no internet, no VCR, and I don't remember thinking to read a book.  I can also remember one snowstorm actually building a snowman in the morning and being in shorts by the afternoon. Next snow memory was at UGA.  The first snow storm every one assumed classes would be cancelled.  They got cance...

It is a rainy day in Fort Lauderdale.  Which means for me no walk on the beach.  Which means time for laundry.  Which means time for contemplation. I sit here on the verge of spring.  My springs are not noted as many of yours by the change in weather as much as a change of people, although our springs and summers are generally wetter than falls and winters.  It isn't noted by melting snow, green leaves showing up on branches or that pesky yellow flower that will rise above the chill in the air to remind everyone that mother nature is calling for the wakening of spring in the northern hemisphere. No, my spring is first noted by a migration similar to that of birds.  As the weather warms those birds start to migrate north.  My birds are snowbirds.  Some are only here sporadically through the winter.  Some are here for the duration focused on their lives here away from their normal day to day habitat of work and life. I must confess as ...

It was 2am... and my life was changing. I have written some about being in the AEPi Fraternity at GA.  My catalyst to join was being hated, and also being bullied in my first year at Mercer University and then at GA because I was Jewish.  I only start to think what my life would have been like at GA that first year if I had been out as well in 1983.  I remember clearly the day of walking into the dorm with my brother.  I don't think Mom and Dad took me, and I had had a rough few days which will be another post some day. I remember meeting friends from high school, one in particular Sangeeta Chandra.  There was a place across from the dorm that served chicken fingers, spuds and they came with a pickle.  They must have been ok, but the pickle rings true.  She said to me, you don't have to introduce yourself to everyone as a Jewish person.  That doesn't define who you are, but damn if it didn't define me to those on the 10th floor.  They wer...

I must weigh in more on the Arizona and now GA bills that will allow, based on religion, people to discriminate against others.  From what I have seen this bill does doesn't limit this to the LGBT community (not that would make it right!).  I read the bill (three times) and (  link is here)    basically it says if you can prove that it is against your religion to do something and are sincere you don't have to follow governmental regulations. This is being publicized as an anti-gay measure, but it truly allows any business or person to not serve a customer based on their religious beliefs.  So, a Christian store owner could deny a Jewish or Muslim customer entry to their store or visa verse. People decide who to be around.  Businesses decide who to target for their marketing and sales activities.  The issue here is not what they personally believe, either the business or the customer, but should a government in this country pass a law that san...

Random thoughts on a Saturday If Woody Allen is guilty, and I am leaning to believe his daughter.  Then there is no separating the art from the artist.  That would be like separating out the value of medical experiments in concentration camps from the perpetrators.  Frankly, his staunch denial in a letter to the NY Times with what seems little concern for his daughter as compared to his reputation seems telling to me.  I do not watch anything that has Charlie Sheen in it, because he beat his wife.  I don't see any reason to move beyond that and don't care he may have been the 1/2 of a man on Two and Half Men but I don't have to watch him.   Bernie Madoff was a nice Jewish boy except for stealing billions and trust of thousands?  What would this discussion be like if Woody Allen was a basketball player?  Rock star? Yes, I cannot see the opening, closing, or ice skating of the Olympics without streaming them to my TV.  I believe I can, but ...

OK.. I am going to weigh in on the winter disaster of Atlanta, and ask your northern weather channel people to stop looking askance at the south in snowstorms just as we in Florida should not laugh at responses to hurricanes up north. I have lived in Atlanta three times although many years ago.  But, I survived a few snow storms and cold weather.  I have also lived in New York, New Jersey and Provincetown and experienced some of the northern variety of ice. It is not ... just that Atlanta and the south is not used to ice storms.  It is not just that people don't know how to drive, or that they lack sensibility for how to drive in snow.  It can't be, because many of those stranded on the roadways and with kids stuck on a bus or in school are not originally from Atlanta and many are from the north.  So, you may feel quite righteous at the moment but many of your kinfolk I bet are part of the problem. Snow in Atlanta, feels colder than what is in the north. ...