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Jonathan Cohen

Jonathan Cohen

@jkcohen.com

540 followers 860 following 800 posts

Word-wrangler. U.S. history and philosophy teacher. Literacy tutor with delusions of efficacy. Friend.

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Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 11h

Did either consider this? Did they work out the implications? It doesn't sound like that, and it may require some visits to the ranking therapist at Bethesda. Otherwise, this will get worse for both of them. I hope that this resolves in a fair and principled way.

Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 11h

You truly do not want that fate for someone you love. If you write her off, what's the point of being married? Intermarriage is difficult precisely because religion can be an impediment that can come back to bite you. (Can you be interred in the same cemetery? How do you raise your kids?)

Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 11h

This is yet another bit of inconsistent "theology" from the Über-Christian. Vance believes in eternal life and other Christian goods, and he believes that all others are damned and will face hellfire. If Usha doesn't convert, too bad for her. She has free will and will regret her decision.

Reposted by Jonathan Cohen

Rebecca Spang @rlspang.bsky.social · 21h

Best version to cross my feed so far…

Rose Ruane @regretteruane.bsky.social · 23h

Philip Larkin’s this be the verse mangled into Ozymandias, the text reads

They Oz you up, your mandyias.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They give you vast and trunkless legs
A sunken shattered visage too.
But they were Ozzed up in their turn
By Mandyias upon the sand
Who half the time had wrinkled lips And half in sneering cold command.
Oz hands on mandyias to man.
Like mighty works atop a shelf Look on them early as you can
Ye mighty and despair yourself

Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 21h

The U.S. government (under Bill Clinton) declined to sign the 1998 Rome Statute establishing ICC jurisdiction in the United States. The only way in which the ICC might intervene is if the U.S. tanks and loses sovereignty (like postwar Japan/Germany, Rwanda, or Yugoslavia ).

Reposted by Jonathan Cohen

City Limits News @citylimitsnews.bsky.social · 1d

After a luxury building in East New York flopped, the city is taking advantage of a new program to fill it with formerly homeless families who have hard-to-use housing vouchers. via @patrickspauster.com: citylimits.org/this-buildin...

This Building Was Supposed to be Luxury Apartments. Now It Will House 183 Families From Homeless Shelters - City Limits

After a luxury building in East New York flopped, the city is taking advantage of a new program to fill it with families who have hard-to-use city housing vouchers.

Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 1d

Jean Valjean, you're wanted in the bread aisle!

Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 1d

This point was made about George H. W. Bush's "Thousand Points of Light" initiative, which funneled Federal money to churches to "help out with"/supplant Federal antipoverty mandates. 10% from religious and civil charities still was nothing compared to the Feds' 90%.

Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 1d

I think she has no clue about the pushback. This is exactly the kind of train wreck you cause when you are rich and detached from the world everyone else shares. There is no dearth of other examples, especially when the rich deviate so far from everyday morality.

Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 1d

It's basically as frustrating as your old life, except that the bills are greater. And this is exactly what has caused the J.K. Rowling mess. Rowling is trying to make her mark in the world with a heinous POV, is not getting away with it, but doubles down every times she's questioned.

Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 1d

When you get serious money, your ties to your existing world are stressed and broken. You lose a sense of scale. You can change a lot with money, but you can't solve your family problems and you become vulnerable to weird ideas from your new rich peers -- keeping up with the Joneses.

Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 1d

Our immediate neighbors speak, at least, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, and some English. We smile, wave to each other, admire their cute dogs, and get along. When our house flooded, one of them lent us a camp bed. Why would I move?

Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 1d

Make sure you have a sufficient muffled kettledrum budget!

Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 3d

Hashem yikkom dama. That's all I can say.

Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 3d

Not to mention Necker's "Ferme générale," a/k/a "tax farming."

Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 3d

I am not sure who would have vetting power over "losers" or who defines the term to begin with. Would there be some kind of psychological standardized test to weed "losers" out at a certain age? You would create an underclass that would come back to bite you: losers who have nothing left to lose.

Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 3d

Waiting impatiently for Hackett's Complete Works of Aristotle to resume sales. (They ran out of inventory, and claim there will be more today.) I hope that a Joe Sachs Aristotle omnibus is on the horizon.

Reposted by Jonathan Cohen

Charlotte Clymer @charlotteclymer.bsky.social · 3d

Let me get this straight: Trump found tens of billions of dollars to give to Argentina for a bailout during our government shutdown, but he couldn't find funding to keep SNAP program benefits going for 42 million hungry Americans past this Friday?

Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 4d

The church is one of G-d's vacation properties. He drops in every so often.

Reposted by Jonathan Cohen

Dee Lomas @deelomas.bsky.social · 4d

The reform party nativity scene.

No unmarried mothers. No Middle Eastern people. No refugees. No people seeking emergency accommodation.

And not a wise fvcking man in sight…

Reposted by Jonathan Cohen

Shepherd @neolithicsheep.bsky.social · 5d

If Emily sells prints and I don't get one for Hanukkah I will be extremely sad.

Art by Emily K @museum.of.emilyk.art · 5d

"Tzefardea Tzedek" (Frog of Righteousness)

As soon as the Portland Frog became a meme, Jewish social media blew up with jokes about the 2nd Passover plague - tzefarde'a (frogs) - and the Rabbinical commentary around it. I knew I had to make a calligraphy piece encompassing all of it. (more in alt.)

Hebrew calligraphy in dark green stretches in lines across the image. Negative space makes room for a simple representation of an inflatable frog costume with a blue bandana. That shape consists of the English translation of the Hebrew, in a lighter green, and in much smaller text.
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Famously, the Egyptian tyrant causes Egypt to be overrun with frogs because he refuses to free the Hebrew people, but there are additional details that make this a fun one to ponder. For one, the Hebrew says "the frog came up" - ONE frog - even though the rest of the time it says "frogs." So there are a few explanations rabbis have come up with to explain this. One is that a single frog multiplied to create swarms. A more creative explanation is that there was a singular giant frog who traveled and brought destruction. Jewish social media was sharing videos of the Portland Frog protester with the caption, "One Big Frog! One Big Frog!" Of course the frog protesters did multiply, and many were seen in crowds all over the world on "No Kings" Day. This calligraphic work takes the verses addressing the frog plague and combines them to form a simple rendering of the Portland Frog protester. The frog figure itself is made up of the English translations of the Hebrew around it. At the bottom left my signature is in the shape of a lily pad.

Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 4d

I call this the "macher problem." Every shul needs machers to make their yearly numbers. When machers donate, their beliefs dominate. A shul can't make up the money through dues and diffuse the power. Non-machers are having a hard time paying their current dues. It's a paradox that needs a solution.

Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 4d

If you want the bottom half of the receipt email, just ask!

Receipt showing a donation of $21.15 to Capital Area Food Bank. (Chosen for laid-off Federal workers.)

Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 5d

All the niceties are gone. The players are not even pretending at governance. All is done by fiat and force. Why not occupy the House, gather the Democratic Representatives, declare a quorum, and start passing laws? Of course, this escalates into chaos, but is there more chaos than there was before?

Jonathan Cohen @jkcohen.com · 5d

Yeah. I had coke-bottle glasses and no physical coordination. The team put me in deep right field, where nothing would ever happen.