Yiddish with George

I get these promos from Amazon.

However, I probably won't buy the book because; 1. I don't live in New York or even read the Times, 2. I'm not Jewish, 3. I can't speak Yiddish (because of 1.)

Yet, it probably is very funny with us WASP's being the butt. I've always had a problem with the term WASP because all Anglo-Saxons are white and most are protestant - seems there is a certain redundancy there. Fortunately, the term only applies to people who live on the East Coast - I heard it all of the time when I used to live there... Out west, we're ‘Gringos' because our critics are a different people.

I did find one statement in the description of the book below which I found to express very nicely one of my pet peeves about people - especially the young and inexperienced:

"... both exhibit a natural resistance to moral complexity (i.e., reality)"

I believe that just the other day I mentioned to Dennis that very few things, especially moral and political issues are ‘black and white' - that most of life is a mottled grey. We do tend as a people to get ourselves in serious trouble because we create simplistic views of life (like God).

I wonder if part of that mental laziness is our early training and hyperfocus on team sports. Such participation encourages such concepts as "us and them", "good guys vs bad guys", "you're either for us or against us" because sports creates well-defined adversaries.

The reality is that not all Jews, Arabs, Muslims, Mexicans, Italians, Germans, French, Chinese, Indians, Christians, or even children are bad!

It makes me wonder too whether the social ‘smushing' effect of estrogen provides girls with more mental balance (despite their typical ‘giddyness') than the alienation and aggression imparted by testosterone on boys who, perhaps for that reason, should not be leaders in our relatively new and complex society....? Any other opinions out there?

Yiddish with George and Laura (Hardcover)
by Ellis Weiner (Author), Barbara Davilman (Author)

"Book Description (Amazon)
In this inspired follow-up to the bestselling Yiddish with Dick and Jane, Yiddish--the mother tongue of irony--invades the ultimate bastion of American WASP culture: Kennebunkport, home of the Bush clan. What do George and Laura Bush have in common with Dick and Jane? Well, both hail from prototypical WASP families. And, perhaps more to the point,. That's the premise of this hilarious new primer-style book in which George, Laura, and the entire Bush family communicate with uncharacteristic expressiveness, conveying shades of feeling and nuances of meaning that plain old English can't deliver--by peppering their conversation with Yiddishisms. See George's mother. Her name is Bar. She wears alot of pearls and is a farbisseneh. "You are late, George," Bar says. "Of course I am late," George says. "I am the President of the United States. I am a big macher." Like all good primers, YIDDISH WITH GEORGE AND LAURA tells a simple story--and, in the end, important life lessons are imparted."