Carnival of All Sustances: Revived

The thing on the left is a cookie, and the thing below it to your right is a gragger, a noise-maker. We eat the three-cornered cookie, a symbol of the hat of an enemy, Haman, who tried to influence a king to wipe out a nation (the Jews, who else). We make noise with the gragger when we read Haman's name when we read the story of Esther (the real heroine in the story) on the Jewish holiday coming right up. Purim

It's a holiday with permission to drink, ironically. Some feel we're commanded to drink, which is so strange, since as people of The Book, we tend not to get into that very much. The website Judaism 101 tells the story much better than I ever could. There you'll learn that on this holiday, we read the Book of Esther and are commanded to eat, drink and be merry. J-101 writes

According to the Talmud, a person is required to drink until he cannot tell the difference between "cursed be Haman" and "blessed be Mordecai," though opinions differ as to exactly how drunk that is. A person certainly should not become so drunk that he might violate other commandments or get seriously ill. In addition, recovering alcoholics or others who might suffer serious harm from alcohol are exempt from this obligation.

Thanks for the pics, 101.

I think you should know that FD uses chocolate, raspberry, and peanutbutter fillings in his hamentashen. And that I don't bake them. Too hard.

But.

I do eat them.

Also, it's my responsibility to tell you that although this is a holiday, Jewish or not, you have no excuse for getting into a car and driving while drunk, for saying things that are harmful while drunk, for messing anything up for that matter, while drunk, even in the name of Mordechai, a heroic Yid. Maybe getting drunk doesn't have to mean being drunk on alcohol or other substances.

Be creative. Drunk with happiness?

Well, no more lectures. We have until Friday for the get drunk loophole to kick in. Once again, many submissions, most just not on topic, sorry, so you won't read them here. But there were a few posts that I liked, so let's take a look.

Let's start by plugging this blog, Great New Books that are a Must Read. Great New Books discusses The Sky Has Fallen, and it sounds pretty great. Maybe I'll check it out.

Carol Gold McKay at Gold Post It, rips into our feel-no-pain culture and why pain medications seem so easy to access, and the potential damage, ala Keith Ledger. I have a feeling it's all much more complicated, CGM.

Stanimir writes about hangovers. I'm not giving any commentary here. Don't drink. Don't get hungover. How's that for an idea?

Celebrity News and Gossip is about Celeb Rehab. is exactly that.

Best yet, someone's quit smoking!

A surgeon lends his personal take on smoking, too, fantastic.

And as long as we're talking tobacco, Charles Philips wrote this poem:
Daddy

Back from sixty I'm nine

Daddy's at the back door coughing that cough,

you know,

stopped short by wince of stretched stitches on a scar
from recent repair

with my nine eyes I look up at him and ask my whys

tap tap tap on the pack face of a salty sailor

he answers while
stained thumb and finger lifts to light a smoke muffling reply

wisping
words spell 'I can't quit'

he spits untipped bits and takes another
drag.

Not so cheery, I feel.

Maybe the carnival of obsessions will be more fun.

Happy Purim, btw

therapydoc