[Vision2020] Auntie's Politics and Yiddish

[David M. Budge]

Joan,

I'm more pleased that you party affiliation is "largely vestigial" 
(something like how the English view their teeth) than I can possibly 
describe.  There's hope for you yet.  This is, however,  in the context 
of my underlying belief that the two party system manifestly 
marginalizes the rational evolution of law and produces an inefficient 
outcome which tends to satisfice, rather than optimize, due to its 
partisan oligarchic power struggle.  Well leave it at that for now.  So 
as is germane to topical relevance, we'll tackle our inconsistencies and 
leaps of faith taken on little evidence.  The pleasure will surely be mine.

Now for the yiddish.  Both you and Melynda Husky came damn close. 

"Bubby kvetched that the moyle was shikker while the mishpucha noodged 
to get at the nosheri" (as corrected by Melynda).

Melynda said:

"Grandma complained that the religious practitioner who performs 
circumcisions was slow while the assembled folks waited impatiently 
(with some murmuring and nagging) to get at the snacks."

Joan said:

"Grandma bitched that the man who performs the circumcisions was drunk 
while the folks jostled one another to get at the buffet."

So here's the literal translation:

"Grandma incessantly complained that the rabbi performing the 
circumcision was drunk while the entire extended family repeatedly and 
annoyingly asked when they could get at the table of snacks."

I've been to scores of brises... this generally sums-up a typical one.

Bubby = Grandmother
kvetch = continuous or incessant complaining
moyle = rabbi who's job it is to specifically perform circumcisions (at 
a bris)
shikker = drunk
noodged = verb form of noodge; one who is always asking for things in an 
annoying way
meshpucha or meshpuchah = the extended family or sometimes used for a 
very dear group of friends.

    (the "ch" sound is an uvular fricative - the sound made while
    clearing last night's raucous tequila drinking binge out of the back
    of your throat or when yelling "Allah Achbar" to a group of crazed
    fanatics all strapped with a couple of pounds of C4)

nosheri = a table of snacks - a nosh is larger than a schnitzel  (a 
"little bit") and smaller than a meal

Some of my other favorites:

puetz = foreskin (worthless) - "Im such a puetz"
schmuck = male organ - so don't take this lightly if it's used against 
you personally.
schmeckle = a little schmuck - a particularly derogatory remark to those 
insecure in their manhood.
gonnif = a crook
nebbish = a nothing (ala "he's such a nebbish")
meshuggi = a crazy act
meshugginah = a crazy person
shickzah = a non-Jewish female
goy = a non-jew
goyum = many non-jews
verclempt = flustered, upset, choaked-up
drek = crap "it was a pile of dreck."
schmattah = a rag as in "that dress is a schmattah."
schmutz = grime or dirt as in "wash that schmutz off of you face."
yidkopf = a good head, a smart person

There we have it (well, some of it.)  So now when your fixated on old 
Jackie Mason reruns you'll understand what the hell he's sayng.  Welcome 
to the meshpuchah! Mazzletov! What a glorius mitzvah!

Dave "Puetz" Budge -  (That's Mr. Puetz to you)

ps.  BTW,  I'm not jewish, but after 15 years in Chicago's financial 
district some friends made me an honorable member of the tribe - "MOT" 
as they would say.


Joan Opyr wrote:

> Dave asks, quite rightly, why (oh why) am I a Democrat?  It's 
> certainly not because I love the current incarnation of my party, AKA 
> Republican Lite.  (No taste; unfulfilling.)  In short, my party 
> affiliation is like my appendix -- largely vestigial.  Still, I remain 
> a Democrat, for the time being, because . . .
>  
> 1. I believe in organized labor.  And, yes, I am well aware of how 
> corrupt the Teamsters have been/are; so, too, the AFL-CIO, the UAW, 
> the Garment Workers Union, and so on, and so on, and so on.  
> Nevertheless, I have lived in union states and I have lived in 
> so-called right-to-work states, and I know that there is power in a 
> union.  There is no power in a state employees' association.
>  
> 2. I believe in the ongoing need for affirmative action.  I laugh in 
> people's faces when they speculate that Colin Powell could win the GOP 
> Presidential nomination in the South.  As a native Southerner, I know 
> what people tell pollsters, and I know what they say when they're with 
> an all-white crowd; never the twain shall meet.  Not long ago, a small 
> delegation of white women in my mother's office (a state office) took 
> it upon themselves to call a meeting with her supervisor regarding an 
> upcoming job opening.  "Let's hire someone white this time," they 
> said.  "We've already got enough of them."  As much as I wish there 
> were such a thing as color-blind hiring, or gender-blind hiring, there 
> isn't.  A quick flick through the Fortune 500 CEOs tells me all I need 
> to know on that score.
>  
> 3. I believe in a basic, fundamental, social safety net.  I believe in 
> universal access to healthcare, and that that access is a right and 
> not a privilege.  I do support means-testing for Social Security; 
> the program was created to provide a basic standard of living for 
> those who had spent their lives working like Georgia mules; it was not 
> to supplement the retirement incomes of (sorry) stockbrokers.  I do 
> not support raising the retirement age or cutting basic benefits.  
> Why?  Because, once again, minority workers lose out.  
> Black and Latino people in this country have an average life 
> expectancy nearly a decade lower than their white counterparts; they 
> also experience higher infant mortality rates.
>  
> 4. I'm a New Deal, Great Society, social, racial, and economic justice 
> and broad support for public education type.  The Democratic Party of 
> my long ago youth used to support these things without apology.  
> Education used to be more important than educational testing.  We 
> didn't succeed in eradicating poverty, but once upon a time 
> we proclaimed that as one of our fundamental goals.
>  
> I am, by and large, a Howard Dean Democrat.  I'm a social liberal and 
> a fiscal conservative.  I identify with the term "progressive" though 
> I recognize that I don't fit the classic definition of that word.  
> That, in short, is my answer.  But let me just throw out a few other 
> positions I hold: I don't think the Pentagon needs a 4.8% increase 
> this year, independent of the costs of the Iraq War (which Mr. Bush 
> has conveniently segregated into a separate spending bill).  I don't 
> tend to support unfunded federal mandates, which Republicans and 
> Democrats alike have sadly embraced.  I think that unchecked, enormous 
> inherited wealth is a danger to a healthy democracy; it creates a 
> defacto ruling class, an American aristocracy, as worthless and 
> self-absorbed as the European aristocracies our political ancestors 
> abandoned and rejected  I like target shooting and deer and elk 
> hunting, but I don't like the NRA.  I'm a fan of wild wolves but 
> I'm friends with many ranchers.  I don't support large farm subsidies, 
> but I like small farmers.
>  
> I freely admit to many logical inconsistencies in my thinking, 
> to taking large leaps of faith on very little evidence, and to 
> preferring to select my friends from the variety mix.  Gay, straight, 
> Republican, Democrat, Jewish, Christian, Evangelical, Hindu, Jain, 
> Muslim, atheist, agnostic . . . and stockbroker.  I enjoy nothing more 
> than a good, well-reasoned argument, clever wordplay, and a fair fight.
>  
> Now, about your Yiddish -- I'm Jewish by choice and by patriarchal 
> descent.  My father's family is Ukrainian/Jewish; my mother is a 
> lapsed Southern Baptist WASP.  So, I shall give this translation my 
> best shot -- sticking with your cruel anti-Googling rules -- and we 
> shall see what we shall see.           
>
> "Bubby kvetched that the moyle was shikker while the mishpucha noodged 
> to get at the nasherie." 
>  
> Grandma bitched that the man who performs the circumcisions was drunk 
> while the folks jostled one another to get at the buffet.
>  
> How's that?  Perhaps I should confess that I have a Jewish literary 
> agent.  Who lives in New York.  In Lower Manhattan.
>  
> Oy,
> Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
>
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