Who should the GOP draft to take down Trump? This brave five year-old girl

There’s been a lot of finger-pointing about just who is most responsible for the rise of Trump, but there is at least one point of broad consensus: for too long, the GOP was afraid of attacking him, and his adversaries spent far too long tearing down one another instead.

On some level, their strategy was understandable: Trump was a punchline until he wasn’t, and so his rivals devoted most of their energy to jockeying for second place. Moreover, it’s unclear that any of their attacks would even stick. When Marco Rubio tried his hand at insult comedy, the results fell far short of spectacular.

But those considerations did not deter all his adversaries. Back in 2010, one five year-old girl issued a challenge to Donald Trump, nearly six years before any Republican candidate managed to accomplish the same feat:

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A piece of Purim poetry, inspired by #ManInTree

Last Tuesday, while much of the world stood transfixed by the tragic bombings in Brussels, Seattle could not take its eyes off #ManInTree — a man (surprise!) who defied police orders to descend from an 80-foot sequoia tree in downtown Seattle for a full Shabbat (25 hours).

At the height (pun intended) of his popularity, KOMO News’ livestream of #ManInTree’s treetop standoff attracted 420,000 viewers (the perfect number of Seattleites to demonstrate interest in someone really, really high). By comparison, a nearby Hillary rally attracted fewer than 3,000.

As #ManInTree’s ordeal stretched into Wednesday, I could not help but notice certain parallels between his story and that of the impending holiday of Purim (which began that night). And so I was inspired to pen a piece of poetry,* which I now publish publicly for the first time. I hope you enjoy:

Where exactly have you heard Uptown Funk before?

Like “Let It Go” last Passover, the Parody of Purim 2015 was Uptown Funk — in a runaway. I’ve come across four renditions of “Shushan Funk”, and there are almost certainly more out there:

Facebook could really use some Hebrew schooling

Back when I spent several months in Nepal with a bunch of Israelis, I wrote a post poking fun at said Israelis for not knowing the difference between Halloween and Christmas. I now understand that this was wrong. It is unreasonable to expect people to accurately tell holidays apart when they are celebrated primarily on the other side of the world. I know this because, well, check out the latest example of poor translation, courtesy of Facebook (but really Bing; click to embiggen):

What are Alison Brie’s favorite hamentaschen?

Right now might seem like a bizarre time to ask about hamentaschen, which are traditionally consumed on Purim, a Jewish holiday that will be celebrated precisely five (solar) months hence.

Until, that is, you consider the fact that Jews around the world just finished celebrating (word?) Yom Kippurim, “A Day Like Purim”, and what better way to do that than by talking about food?

And now that you’ve had your fill of Yom Kippurim Torah, let’s get back to the question you didn’t know you wanted the answer to until you saw this headline. The question first occurred to me when I spotted Ms. Brie tweet the following to her followers (of whom, for the record, I am not yet one):

Xbox: Just insensitive advertising or is it grave-dancing?

Because it somewhat reminded me of a previously-published post (It seems everybody’s rooting for San Francisco — could this help explain why?), I was originally planning to let this screenshot of a popular Seahawks blog speak for itself:

J Street might have carved the worst pumpkin of all time. All time.

A much-appreciated anonymous tip this afternoon (through the Paper Treiger Feedback Form) alerted me to the existence of an article that appeared today in the Washington Free Beacon, J Street Loses Pumpkin Carving Contest. Here’s the gist:

First name Russell, last name Potter, so sayeth the Lord

[Editor’s pre-prescript: Earlier today, my dear Aunt who shall not be named asked me to give a Dvar Torah two months from now. So I thought it was as good a time as any to show her what she’s getting herself into.]

[Editor’s prescript: RW3 and JK Rowling both drew inspiration from a single Rashi. That’s basically the punchline — the rest of this post serves as an elaboration and explanation of that idea (with the exception of a very short list of parallels all the way at the bottom — feel free to skip ahead). If you choose to read all the way through, don’t say I didn’t warn you what was about to happen.]

What I worry about the King

I’m like the anti-Ahasuerus, losing sleep over the King — literally: I should be sleeping right now, but instead I’m writing about Felix Hernandez. The King and I go way back (to even before that time he got me into an article on MLB.com), so I’m happy to give up a single REM cycle to fully express my concern.

This has nothing to do with the fact that Felix just gave up 7 runs in a start, and allowed the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim to come back from a 7-1 deficit and win 10-9 (here’s the obligatory crazy win-probability graph). Felix will be fine. He’s Felix. The last time he gave up a big lead, he went out his next start and threw a perfect game (oh hey — you again). Seriously, check out August 10 and then August 15.

No, I’m worried about Felix’s decision to wear a Lewis Yocum memorial patch on his uniform for tonight’s start in Anaheim:

McDonald’s Bacon, Ranch, and Sweet Chili chicken wraps for Passover

“Passover?” you’re probably asking yourself. “Wasn’t that like a month ago?”

Indeed, it was exactly one month and one day ago, and it is thus no accident that I chose to write this post on Shushan Pesach Sheni.* [To those who don’t get this joke immediately: don’t even bother trying to figure it out. Of course, feel free to ask, and if you manage on your own, mad props, but seriously — don’t waste your time.]

The inspiration for this piece comes by way of a Sponsored Ad Suggested Post that appeared in the middle of my Facebook newsfeed in the middle of Passover, and it took me a month to convert that inspiration into actual written material because this isn’t my full-time (or even part-time) job. Without further ado, here’s the ad: