What Happens When You Cross the Muppets with Pat Metheny?

While searching Youtube for the Pat Metheny (one of my favorite musicians and composers; his place in the pantheon of great guitarists is assured, not that he needs my haskamah...) piece "45/8", I came across this bizarre video assemblage using music performed by the Israeli almost a capella group, Coral Vocal Ensemble. (According to their Myspace page, "Coral is the representative vocal ensemble of Tel Aviv Municipality".) This is a strange juxtaposition of Doom (video game) and Muppet characters with (mostly) clever synchronization with the music.



Here's another one of zzaltz's video mixes, which is also quite fun to watch and even more random.

More Moronic Ravings from Avi

I really don't like ragging on people (and it most certainly isn't a frequent topic on my occasional blog post), but "Rabbi" Avi Shafran is one individual that really gets to me. Not only is he is a knee-jerk apologist for the chareidi lifestyle, but he does not hesitate to trash those who don't live up to his own religious standards. His response to a very workable remedy to prevent future agunot:

Rabbi Avi Shafran, Director of Public Affairs for the Agudath Israel of America, agreed that pre-nuptial agreements are not common in the charedi world. None of his six married children has one, he said. “My understanding of the reason is that detailing what will happen in the event, G-d forbid, of a divorce would start a marriage off on a negative, dangerous note,” Rabbi Shafran explained. “The message a newlywed may take from it, especially in our times, sadly, is that marriage is like any business agreement. Clauses in a contract establishing a legal partnership would understandably deal with the event of the partnership’s dissolution. But a joining of two people into one is qualitatively different, and incomparably important. So, to begin the challenging but holy enterprise of married life amid thoughts of what will transpire at a divorce is neither prudent nor proper.”

Ah yes, the holy enterprise of matrimony cannot at all be sullied by the thought that the woman needs to be protected just in case of divorce. A pre-nup makes a marriage too much like a business transaction.

IDIOT! Isn't a marriage sealed with a business-like transaction (kesef or shtar)?? IDIOT! Isn't a ketubah already a pre-nuptial agreement of sorts, as it stipulates the monetary obligations of the husband in case of divorce??

Shafran's rationalization is BULLSHIT, plain and simple.