Tuesday, January 27, 2009

What Do You Think?

This is part of a conversation that I found to be most interesting:
How should we relate to our parents? Honor and respect aside. Do we owe them like my mother said; for raising us? The following may give some of you pause for thought.

'Not sure what you mean when you say 'the codes' but me and my mom are like a never ending story. A therapist friend once told me, as I was describing my relationship with my mom, that it was crazy-making because I was running on two separate realities: on the surface, mom was dedicated, and put us at the center of her life. But we had to walk a very fine line not to be in her shithouse. I knew how to walk that line and got a lot of surface approval, but felt a TON of internalized disapproval, because it was really negative conditioning ("don't do this or mom will..."). I got good grades in school and was self-sufficient as a kid (read constantly, didn't cause too much trouble) but as I became a teenager, attempts to express myself as I pleased did not go over so well. Imagine how little miss iconoclast Aquarius rising punk rock high schooler managed being raised Mormon! I actually left home for two months at age 15 due to a major dust-up with mom and refused to come back unless she'd let me stay home from church. She agreed, but watched me like a hawk til I went to college. We have since made peace -- I was always the family-appointed Sane Child-peacemaker -- and I owe her so much of my success now as a grown up writer chick in the big city. But it was a struggle, man.'


My reply: 'You owe her what?'

Alexandra replies:

"Haha! I was just rereading my reply and thought you might jump on that. Her example was a lot of it: she started what has turned out to be an oddly-recession-proof business out of good taste and thin air, and she showed me how to do that every day (she worked out of home so we witnessed her whole career as kids, and I used to come with her on appointments after school). She wears her expertise comfortably -- which was a good example to me, who makes a living by expressing expertise in a breezy enough manner to be palatable to magazine readers. She paid for my private high school education and college when she could not afford it. She really raised all of us to feed our brains. She's compassionate, articulate, has a ton of backbone (ha! irony!), integrity, etc. And was always very vocal about the importance of those things -- they became core values for me too. So in a lot of ways, she laid the groundwork for me to do what I do now by her example and just by being a hardworking mom. That said, when I first told her I wanted to be a writer, she said, "are you sure? That's a really hard career path." 'Oh well. I showed her'.


`Also, I'm feeling extra indebted to both my parents after my dad's death, and one of my reactions to it is, appreciate mom as much as you can while she's still alive to hear it.`


"Okay: appreciate, say thank you, give her a big hug, go forth and be happy, right? In my view, we don't owe our parents our success, or our lives. We're not their property, or their vassals, or their surrogates, nor is our destiny their business. They hopefully do their best as parents, and get out of the way -- or we learn to get out of their way and move on, as you seem to have done. But that Aquarius Moon rising is a kind of a warning that unless you take over the process of running your own life every day, mom's presence will loom large all the time".

"Rather than our owing our parents anything, I would propose that our parents have a responsibility to help us deal with the unprocessed material that they passed onto us; with their burdens that they passed onto us; and with their false beliefs that they passed along. They are the ones, if anything, who owe us OUR lives. And they need to pay up and be on their way. Few parents do; few cop to the damage they do; instead, many try to keep control, and engage their kids in neurotic relationships where nobody gets to be an adult; it's always parent-kid stuff, and we see this played out in the world all the time".

"The dynamics of control are particularly insidious between mothers as regards their daughters. Many never give up their grip, and many never stop living vicariously through their daughters. Men at least are rewarded for a measure of independence, professional, financial, sexual or otherwise".



This post was a little too long, I doubt many will take the time to read it.
I think it is a mistake and a sure ticket for guilt trips and power struggles if parents are convinced that their children owe, or that they should somehow pay us back for the upbringing we have given them. While I hope that if I have children they will want to stay connected with me and that we will always be a family who looks after and cares for each other. It would not be good for my kids if I were to lay this kind of a trip on them about how I expect them to pay me back. It is best that we not be remembered as a dictator, even though it can be tempting for us to expect our children to live their lives to pay us back in some way.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Something I just said, and I stand by it!

The evil that men do, seems inherent that they first turn to religion to justify their heinous deeds. By the norms of his many followers, Hitler was considered to be a very devout old fashioned Christian, a true defender of the faith. The simple lesson of Abraham has been lost upon all the generations! That one can walk and talk, sharing a covenant directly with the Creator. In a way that requires no heavy bondage of religion, or it's dogma, written by blind and worldly philosophers to hinder your path. No two walks are the same; we each have to establish our own personal relationship, an open heart is all you need.


"Ideas..." wrote John Maynard Keynes, "when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood.... Practical men, who believe themselves... exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist....The power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas."





All truly wise thoughts have been thoughts already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED

I got this in my e-mail, perhaps you did too, but I thought I would share it today with all my friends.

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED the 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!!


First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from t he garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.

We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank Kool-aid made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because,

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day.And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes After running into the bushes a few times, we le arned to solve the problem.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chat rooms........

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team.. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!

The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

If YOU are one of them CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good .



All truly wise thoughts have been thoughts already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Aerial Phenomena 1*

This opening page is old news, but it goes to show why our government no longer reports U.F.O's. They have no way of defending us against these illegal aliens.

I came to earth in the middle of one of the biggest UFO flaps in history.
I have seen so many myself, that I think nothing of it anymore. What you are about to read, are just a few of what our government is willing to officially admit are real unexplained events.

"Impossible is a word only to be found in the dictionary of fools." - Napoleon

The harbinger of the flap, the mysterious and still unexplained green fireballs appeared, primarily over New Mexico, observed by many scientists in November 1951, just before the colossal 1952 sighting wave began. Also notable in these events is the concentration over sensitive military and scientific installations in New Mexico. This fact was commented upon in at least two Air Force documents (Hall, 1988, p. 200). One, an OSI report from New Mexico in 1950, expressed concern about “the continued occurrence of unexplained phenomena of this nature in the vicinity of sensitive installations.” During the 1958–1960 trough (see Table 3), there were an unusual number of “blatant display” cases for this early period of UFO history. Though the displays were not unprecedented, they did not become more common until much later. They were unusual for that time:

July 21, 1952; San Marcos AFB, Texas. 10:40 p.m. Witnesses: one Lieutenant, two Staff Sergeants, three airmen. One blue circle with a blue trail was seen to hover and then accelerate to near-sonic speed (700+ m.p.h.) after 1 minute.


July 21, 1952; Converse, Texas. 4:30 p.m. Witness: wife of USAF Capt. J. B. Neal. One elongated, fuselage-shaped object flew straight and level, made a right-angle turn and went out of sight at more than 300 m.p.h., all in 3-5 seconds.


July 21, 1952; Rockville, Indiana. 8:10 p.m. Witnesses: one military officer, two enlisted men. One aluminum, delta-shaped object with a vertical fin, flew straight and level, and then hovered during a 3 minute sighting.


July 22, 1952; Los Alamos, New Mexico. 10:50 a.m. Witnesses: control tower operator Don Weins, and two pilots for Carco. Eight large, round, bright aluminum objects flew straight and level, then darted around erratically during 25 minutes.


July 22, 1952; Uvalde, Texas. 2:46 p.m. Witness: Don Epperly, Trans Texas Airlines station manager and weather observer. One large, round, silver object flew at more than 1,000 m.p.h. for 45 seconds, while gyrating.


July 22, 1952; between Boston and Provincetown, Massachusetts. 10:47 p.m. Witnesses: pilot and radar operator of USAF F-94 jet interceptor. One round blue light passed F-94, spinning.


July 22, 1952; Trenton, New Jersey. 10:50 p.m. t.o 12:45 a.m., July 23. Witnesses: crews of several USAF F-94 jet interceptors from Dover AFB, Del. Thirteen visual sightings and one radar tracking of blue-white lights during two hours.


July 23, 1952; Pottstown, Pennsylvania. 8:40 a.m. Witnesses: the two-man crews of three USAF F-94 jet interceptors. One large silver object, shaped like a long pear with two or three squares beneath it, flew at 150-180 kts. (170-210 m.p.h.), while a smaller object, delta-shaped or swept back, flew around it at 1,000-1,500 kts. (1,150-1,700 m.p.h.). Seen by crews for 1-4 minutes.


July 23, 1952; Altoona, Pennsylvania. 12:50 p.m. Witnesses: two-man crews of two USAF F-94 jet interceptors at 35-46,000' altitude. Three cylindrical objects in a vertical stack formation flew at an altitude of 50-80,000'. Seen for 20 minutes.


July 23, 1952; South Bend, Indiana. 11:35 p.m. Witness: USAF pilot Capt. H. W. Kloth. Two bright blue-white objects flew together, then the rear one veered off after about 9 minutes.


July 24, 1952; Carson Sink, Nevada. 3:40 p.m. Witnesses: two USAF Lt. Colonels McGinn and Barton in a B-25 bomber. Three silver, delta-shaped objects, each with a ridge along the top, crossed in front of and above the B-25 at high speed, in 3-4 seconds.


July 26, 1952; Washington, D.C. 8 p.m. until after midnight. Witnesses: radar operators at several airports, airline pilots. Many unidentified blips tracked by radar all over Washington area, at varying speeds. Pilots spotted unidentified lights.


July 26, 1952; Kansas City, Missouri. 12:15 a.m. Witnesses: USAF Capt. H. A. Stone, men in control towers at Fairfax Field and Municipal Airport. One greenish light with red-orange flashes was seen for 1 hour as it descended in the northwest from 40* elevation to 10* elevation.


July 26, 1952; Andrews AFB, Maryland. This was a continuation of the extensive sightings and radar tracking reports reported throughout the Washington, D.C. area, all night long.


July 26, 1952; Kirtland AFB, New Mexico. 12:05 a.m. Witness: Airman lst Class J.M. Donaldson. Eight to ten orange balls in a triangular or V-formation flew very fast for 3-4 seconds.


July 26, 1952; Williams, California. Case missing from official files.
Must have been a good one!


July 27, 1952; Selfridge AFB, Michigan. 10:05 a.m. Witnesses: three B-29 bomber crewmen on ground. Many round, white objects flew straight and level, very fast. Two at 10:05, one at 10:10, one at 10:15, one at 10:20. Each was seen for about 30 seconds.


July 28, 1952; Heidelberg, West Germany. 10:20 p.m. Witnesses: Sgt. B.C. Grassmoen, WAC Pfc. A.P. Turner. One saucer-shaped object having an appearance of light metal and giving off shafts of white light, flew slow, made a 90^ turn and climbed away fast after 4-5 minutes.


July 28, 1952; McGuire AFB, New Jersey. 6 a.m. Witness: Ground Control Approach radar operator M/Sgt. W.F. Dees, and persons in the base control tower. Radar tracked a large cluster of very distinct blips. Visual observation was of oblong objects having neither wings nor tail, which made a very fast turn and at one time were in echelon formation. Entire episode lasted 55 minutes.


July 28, 1952; McChord AFB, Washington. 2:15 a.m. Witnesses: T/Sgt. Walstead, S/Sgt. Calkins of the 635th AC&W Squadron. One dull, glowing, blue-green ball,.the size of a dime at arms' length, flew very fast, straight and level.


July 29, 1952; Osceola, Wisconsin. 1:30 a.m. Witnesses: radar operators on ground, pilot of F-5l Mustang in flight. Several clusters of up to 10 small radar targets and one large target. Small targets moved from southwest to east at 50-60 kts. (60-70 m.p.h.), following each other. The large one moved at 600 kts. (700 m.p.h.). One hour total time. Pilot confirmed one target.


July 29, 1952; Langley AFB, Virginia. 2:30 p.m. Witness: USAF Capt D.G. Moore, of military air traffic control system. One undescribed object flew at an estimated 2,600 m.p.h., below 5,000' altitude, toward the air base for about 2 minutes.


July 29, 1952; Langley AFB, Virginia. 2:50 p.m. Witnesses: Mr. Moore, Gilfillan electronics representative W. Yhope. One radar target tracked moving away, stopped for 2 minutes, again moved very, very fast. Four minutes.


July 29, 1952; Wichita, Kansas. 12:35 p.m. Witnesses: USAF shop employees Douglas and Hess at Municipal Airport. One bright white circular object with a flat bottom flew very fast, and then hovered 10-15 seconds over the Cessna Aircraft Co. plant, during the 5 minute sighting.


July 29, 1952; Ennis, Montana. 12:30 p.m. Witnesses: USAF persons, alerted that UFOs were coming from the direction of Seattle, Wash. Two to five flat disc-shaped objects: one hovered 3-4 minutes, while the others circled it. Sighting length of 30 minutes not explained further.

A large number of Air Force officers at Strategic Air Command headquarters at Offutt AFB, Nebraska, in 1958 observed a cigar-shaped UFO with satellite objects.

UFO Greatest Story Ever Denied - Opening

The National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena (NICAP)

Mass UFO Disclosure CNN - Finally - Part 1 This page is much too full for me to post my experience. I will have to continue on a new post.

Monday, January 12, 2009

THE SEEDS WE SOW ALONG THE WAY

Friends, the following is a modified letter I intended to write for Robin Easton: As I began it soon morphed into something more worthy of a post. Although much of it had to be changed, the facts about this wonderful lady are still the same.

As with many of you whom I hold in my highest esteem, our Robin is a very animated apostle of life; always sowing the good seeds of wisdom and love, wherever she goes. Often we never see the results of the good seeds we plant, here are but two of the thousands she has planted. The first was the seed of friendship, when she honored me with her friendship, I began to pay attention to everything she said: Like this little gift from the seed of wisdom -("I like this site because it raises some very important questions which make me think. It has a (Gooolge Translator) on it that translate the articles into many many languages"). Yes, without this precious little seed of knowledge, Goolge Translator was something that would have never entered my mind. I know this may not seem like much, but armed with this gift, I was able to aid a very compassionate lady trapped by a language barrier, Now everyone can understand the terrible plight she is so concerned with.
Thank you Robin; you are a real friend indeed!






All truly wise thoughts have been thoughts already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

We

I'm not an Opra person, but as your servant, I'm always seeking new ways to make life a little better, even if it is old news.

( Oprah.com) -- The demands of work, family, and daily life can leave your days feeling short and stressed. But what if you could find more hours in the day, and make yourself happier at the same time? The experts say it's not only possible, it's easier than you think!

Tell a joke

Seriously: Hearing someone else laugh triggers a response in areas of your brain related to smiling, according to research from University College, London.

Pull out a photo album

A survey conducted by a British psychologist queried subjects about their mood before and after they ate chocolate, drank wine, listened to music, and gazed at photos of loved ones. Only the photos gave a noticeable lift -- an 11 percent improvement.

Be affectionate with your partner

Don't Miss
How to be wildly successful
Jump off the fence
Time to pursue your passion
A study from the University of North Carolina found that women who got several hugs a day from their husbands had significantly lower blood pressure than those embraced less often. Another study using fMRIs showed women's brains to be far less reactive to the threat of mild electrical shock when holding a loved one's hand versus a stranger's.

Ask an office mate how she's doing

A recent study from Spain found that professional support -- including a good relationship with co-workers -- will help make your job far more satisfying and absorbing.

If you are overscheduled and underrested, here's how to get seven more hours in your day:

Handle things once -- (saves 15 to 20 minutes)

When it comes to e-mail, voice mail, or paperwork, take instant action -- i.e., read, answer, delete, file -- so you don't have to come back to it. The accumulated time saved can add up to ten hours a month, says Jana Kemp, a Boise, Idaho, "time architect" and the author of "No! How One Simple Word Can Transform Your Life."

Make good use of waiting time -- (30 minutes)

Don't go to the doctor without taking something to do --work papers to read, stamped notecards to catch up on correspondence -- advises Laura Stack, author of "Find More Time." Bring a book or magazine to the bank; pay bills while on hold with a credit card company.

Think "half-time" -- (30 minutes)

Arrange a carpool for your child's ballet class or soccer practice, Stack suggests (that way, you'll cut driving time by at least half). Wear a wireless headset so you can water plants or pick up toys as you talk on the phone. And, whether you're cooking chili or baking cookies, make a double batch, freezing what you don't use.

Be decisive and move on --(up to 60 minutes)

Every minute spent waffling can slow down your ability to take action, says Kemp. For example, rather than spending six hours researching the best round-trip airfare deal -- only to save $25 in the end -- give yourself 45 minutes to comparison price shop, then make a decision.

Lighten up on your cleaning standards (30 to 45 minutes).

Aiming for "dirt removal" versus "perfectly spotless" can free up a lot of time. "In my house, I wipe down the stall after showering instead of doing a big thorough scrub every week," says Stack. "Consider washable throw rugs rather than carpets that need constant steam-cleaning, and change the heating and cooling system filters quarterly to cut down on dust."

Write it down -- (60 minutes)

Constantly cycling through a to-do list in your mind hinders productivity and creativity, says Klein. Carry a pad or BlackBerry and jot down what's got to get done, clearing your mind so you can come up with work solutions and new ideas more quickly.

Turn off technology during your high-energy time -- (90 minutes)

Pinpoint the time of day when you are at your freshest, and remove all distractions, says Klein: For example, route all calls to voice mail and avoid your e-mail inbox. You'll be much more productive.

Monitor time-sapping addictions -- (60 minutes)

According to the latest American Time Use Survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2005 the average U.S. citizen watched 2.6 hours of television a day.

"Reducing your television-watching time by five hours a week adds up to 11 extra days a year," says Stack, who also suggests setting a timer (no more than 60 minutes) for Internet surfing.

Sunday, January 04, 2009

My Stand

I wrote this to a fellow blogger, it sums up much of how I feel about dogma and religion.

Once G-d and man walked together in perfect understanding and harmony. Alas until man invented and began to worship religion,
ever since G-d has had to take a back seat to man's dogma, as we murdered and made war over our idolatrous pagan differences. Deaths as a result of human ideologies have numbered in the hundreds of millions.

G-d does not endorse religion, He tolerates it for our sake. It is only the nature of what that is in your heart the very essence of your soul, that is of G-d's concern. G-d is in and all around us, if but only we could see. No matter in what tradition or religion you may find yourself; G-d knows all those who are His.

Love is all you need.

Some of you may wonder why I write God as G-d? It is out of respect for my friends who feel they must write it that way.

Judaism does not prohibit writing the Name of God per se; it prohibits only erasing or defacing a Name of God. However, observant Jews avoid writing any Name of God casually because of the risk that the written Name might later be defaced, obliterated or destroyed accidentally or by one who does not know better.

The commandment not to erase or deface the name of God comes from Deut. 12:3. In that passage, the people are commanded that when they take over the promised land, they should destroy all things related to the idolatrous religions of that region, and should utterly destroy the names of the local deities. Immediately afterwards, we are commanded not to do the same to our God. From this, the rabbis inferred that we are commanded not to destroy any holy thing, and not to erase or deface a Name of God.

It is worth noting that this prohibition against erasing or defacing Names of God applies only to Names that are written in some kind of permanent form, and recent rabbinical decisions have held that writing on a computer is not a permanent form, thus it is not a violation to type God's Name into a computer and then backspace over it or cut and paste it, or copy and delete files with God's Name in them. However, once you print the document out, it becomes a permanent form. That is why observant Jews avoid writing a Name of God on web sites like this one or in newsgroup messages: because there is a risk that someone else will print it out and deface it.

The earliest written form of the Germanic word god comes from the 6th century Christian Codex Argenteus. My question is; why do my brothers, take the word so seriously, or bother to use it, when they have so many other more proper names for God? The most important name of God in Judaism is the Tetragrammaton, the four-letter name of God. This name is first mentioned in the book of Genesis and is usually translated by the Christians as 'the Lord'. Because Jews have, for a long period of time, considered it blasphemy to pronounce, the correct pronunciation of this name has been forgotten. WHAT?? See what too much religion can do! How embarrassing it would be, if I forgot the name of my father, or mother.









All truly wise thoughts have been thoughts already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Friday, January 02, 2009

Going Nowhere

Lena Zavaroni sings Going Nowhere:

When a person sings from their soul, they become part of song. This is a rare talent that only a few singers ever achieve, it is said that Judy Garland had it, even Elvis could do it with some songs. Alas, these wonderful people seem to die young. I remember well I cried a bitter tear, when the enrapturing voice of Caren Carpenter was silenced by anorexia.

Lena Zavaroni (November 4, 1963 - October 1, 1999), was a Scottish child singer and a television show host. With her album Ma! He's Making Eyes At Me at ten years of age, she is the youngest person in history to have an album in UK album chart top ten. Later in life she hosted tv shows and appeared on stage. She died at the age of 35 from a botched operation, after a long battle with anorexia nervosa.

In memory of Lena Zavaroni

Thursday, January 01, 2009

Live Long and Prosper

Welcome to the New Year!

This will be a cheap, but cool post, (I need to go to bed), so I will let the good rabbi do all the work for me.

The Jewish Origin of the Vulcan Salute
by Rabbi Yonassan Gershom


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(This material is excerpted from Chapter Four of Jewish Themes in Star Trek by Yonassan Gershom. Copyright 2004 by Yonassan Gershom. All rights reserved.)

Leonard Nimoy felt that there should be some kind of distinctive greeting among Vulcans, analogous to a handshake or a bow. Alan Dean Foster's novelization, based on an early script, has Spock kneeling before the Vulcan matriarch, T'Pau, who places her hands on his shoulders, like royalty dubbing a knight. But Nimoy didn't care for this. Previous episodes had already established that Vulcans are touch telepaths. Therefore, a touch on the shoulders would be an invasion of privacy. Instead, Nimoy drew upon his own Jewish background to suggest the now-familiar salute. Back in the 1960s, hippies who watched "Amok Time" thought the salute was a variation of the two-fingered peace sign. But we Jews knew better. The Vulcan salute came not from protest marches, but from the pulpit of Nimoy's childhood synagogue.

The Vulcan greeting is based upon a blessing gesture used by the kohanim (koe-hah-NEEM) during the worship service. The kohanim are the genealogical descendants of the Jewish priests who served in the Jerusalem Temple. Modern Jews no longer have priests leading services as in ancient times, nor do we have animal sacrifices anymore. (Yes, people really do ask about that!) The sacrificial system ended with the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in the year 70. C.E. However, a remnant of the Temple service lives on in the "kohane blessing" ritual (duchenen in Yiddish) that is performed on certain holy days.