Rant #634: Culture Vulture

I guess I am a culture vulture, looking for scenarios of interest that are interesting to me.

With the holiday season in full swing, there are usually lots of things to talk about around this time of year.

Here are a few of them.

The 31st Anniversary of the Death of John Lennon: This one kind of came and went. It happened yesterday, when I was talking about the new Three Stooges movie. I could have written about Lennon, but so much has been said about him, why add to it?

But it was 31 years ago that he was so senselessly murdered. I remember the night vividly; it is something I will never forget.

But 31 years--incredible! The time goes so, so fast.

Lindsay Lohan Poses For Playboy; Issue Cover Leaked: We move from a cultural icon of my youth to a cultural icon of today, the very pretty but completely vapid Lindsay Lohan.

If anyone needs to put a finger on how society has fallen since Lennon died, just look at jailbird Lohan, now posing in the bunny book.

If I have said it once, I will say it again: if she looked like Rosie O'Donnell, nobody would care about the nonsense surrounding this idiot. But she is gorgeous with a great body, the media loves her, and she poses in her nothings and gets $1 million for it. What do the Occupy Wall Street protesters have to say about this?

NBA Star Amare Stoudemire Teaches Kids Hebrew: New York Knicks basketball star Amare Stoudemire appeared on Shalom Sesame, Israel's equivalent of our Sesame Street, in a short segment teaching kids the meaning of the Hebrew word "tov," as in "mazel tov," a word which means "good" in English.

And it's good--of tov--for Stoudemire. He is black, and I only say that because it belies his origins. Since coming to the Knicks, in a town with a large Jewish population, he has been very proud to say that he has Jewish roots on his mother's side.

He didn't play this up when he played elsewhere, but, of course, he is going to play that up here.

Heck, I like him as a Knicks fan, and it really isn't important to me that he considers himself at least partially Jewish. But it is interesting, isn't it? Judaism takes on all different types of people, and I am happy to have Stoudemire as part of the flock.

Albert Pujols Signs With the Angels: I tried, I really tried, to make my son into a baseball player. He played Little League from ages 5-12, but that was it.

I am sure that Albert Pujols' parents are very proud that they put him in the direction of baseball, because this former St. Louis Cardinal is going to get a payday from the Los Angeles Angels that is mind boggling, to say the least. In the biggest surprise of Major League Baseball's winter meetings, the Angels signed free agent Pujols for something like $25 million a year, snaring him away from the World Series winning St. Louis Cardinals.

Well, my dad tried to make me into a baseball player too, but it just wasn't in the cards. Neither was it for Pujols with his former team.

I Get Attacked For My Letter to the Editor: What else is new? I write a Letter to the Editor of Newsday about the lack of Jewish representation on prime time network TV shows and the lack of Hanukkah programming on television, and both Jews and non-Jews attack me online and in the newspaper.

One person, in the newspaper, even called my letter "anti-Catholic," which was clearly not my intention. My letter was edited by the newspaper to make it more of a holiday letter, but people sure take things the wrong way, and they sure did it here.

If you want to read the letter they printed and all the backlash, go here: http://www.newsday.com/opinion/letters/letter-why-so-little-hanukkah-1.3362914.

I am done for the day. Speak to you next week ... if a pox has not been put on me by one of the responders who must think I am the anti-Christ. Do I look like the Anti-Christ in my Yankees regalia?

That's right. The Red Sox call the Yankees "The Evil Empire," so maybe there is something to this anti-Christ thing.

Maybe ... maybe not.