“We will avoid any reference to any ethnic, religious or social group that may be deemed offensive so that we won’t get blown up.”

Well, at least that’s my theory. Or at least I suspect that that’s my theory. It’s either that or they’re actually members of the Muslim Brotherhood in disguise. I suspect the latter.

So far Silverman has earned the right to use her Don Rickles Exemption. But she should know I’ve got my eye on her. Like most guys I know.

Wow. Now, who would want to make fun of someone who says stuff like that? For someone so concerned with anti-semites, Gawkersucks, you’re right up there with the most formidable contenders for head of the Department of Assinine Conspiracy Theories.

When ck brought up Tisha B’av the first thing that came to mind was Lev Raphael’s collection of short stories “Dancing on Tisha B’av”. (Which I found in a bookstore in the train station in Amsterdam while searching for English-language reading material to get through some long European travels.) To me those stories help sum up our internal conflicts. And remind me that we are a beautifully wacky people. And sometimes obnoxious and vulgar. For example, Jewish guys have a universal crush on Sarah Silverman. They jealously chide her for being in love with a frumpy non-Jewish guy. And some of them are gay.

We’re wacky! We like it that way. We wouldn’t do it any differently. Our strangeness has kept us apart and cohesive for millennia. Who cares what Gawker thinks? If they thought we were like them then there’d be something wrong.

The argument is about that age-old question of who can make fun of whom, for humor or otherwise. I’m sure many of us would like to have the permanent Don Rickles Exemption but we’re not Don Rickles. Same argument going on in the African-American community re: using the N word.

Are we being overly-sensitive to Gawker’s not-so-funny stab at irony? Does this make them automatically self-hating Jews? I don’t think so, but like I alluded to up there, the rules have changed. It’s no longer think before you write. As some may accuse me of doing with my last two comments.

This sentence may offend you: “but isn’t this exactly how some of us feel about, you know, the Bible and its subculture of weird, tallis-wearing followers?” but I’ll bet you’d nod in agreement if it were about the “odd” practices of fundamentalist Muslims or Christians.

But, in Israel, the saying is ‘more saintly than the pope’ and the non-religious try to break the ‘religious’ laws davka cuz it’s their right. And if anyone tries to protect the Jewish day of rest, he’s villified by Jews and ridiculed as primitive.

Rabbi, it reveals everything about the blogosphere. When I worked in print media, when we used word processors with the green blocky typeface, we had these folks lording over us we called “Editors”. One for each department, one the other editors answered to. The rest of us were “Writers”. Staff writers or contributing writers. After I left the mastheads of the rags I worked on started listing the writers as contributing editors. There were, like two writers and twenty-five contributing editors.

Which is the model for blogs. As entertaining as it is (and Deadspin rocks), Gawker Media isn’t journalism and it isn’t commentary in the traditional sense. No ethical or journalistic creed runs the show. And since all writers are editors, no one has to answer to anyone.

I’m not complaining. In fact the opposite. While during the day I was writing safe little fluffy reviews of bad French movies and nice multi-culturally oversensitive essays about urban life for the nice middle-class liberals, at nights I was in the underground rags and fanzines where it was a free-for-all, a bunch of ranters and self-professed humorists tossing off whatever comes into our heads. We were lunatics and we were running the asylum.

Which describes what Denton has done. Put together an asylum run by lunatics. Button pushing has replaced commentary and discourse. It’s kind of what ck put together here except there’s more of a premium on intellect here and he’s the one who does most of the swearing.

I was also intrigued by this line “. We’re kinda of the opinion that the idea of ethnicity and its accompanying stereotypes are inherently hilarious.”

Idea of ethnicity? Is the realm of human experience, most identify in one sense or a another with ethnicity. It is a defining element of identity. Whether the solipsist Gawker editor finds the “idea” hilarious or not, ethnicity is important to humans.

The vulgarity of the post and resulting comments reveal the dirty underbelly of racism.

It is fair to take issue with the Rabbis’ desire to protect the sanctity of the Sabbath. It is entirely disgusting to issue wholesale insults, contempt, and perpetuate vulgar and harmful anti-Jewish racism.