Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Bit at a time Hebrew -- Genesis 1:1 c

The end of Genesis 1:1.

א בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ:

Transliteration: B’reshit bara elohim et ha-shamayim v’et ha-arets.
Translation:     At the beginning Gd created the heaven and the earth
Letters in this lesson: בּ, ר, א, שׁ, י, ת, ל, וֹ, ה, ם, שּׁ, מ, ץ

Vocabulary in this lesson:

בְּ
on, in, at, by (swear by), with (by means of), against
בְּרֵאשִׁית
at the beginning
בָּרָא
created
אֱלֹהִים
Gd
אֵת
direct object particle
הַ, הָ
the
שָּׁמַיִם
heaven
וְ
and, or, continuation particle
אָרֶץ
earth, land, world

Now notice that the bet of the first two words has dagesh both times.  The first bet comes at the start of a sentence with nothing in front of it.  The second bet comes after a tav.  The first word of the Torah ends in what is called a “closed” sound, so the following bet has to take dagesh.

You’ll see these things over and over and get used to them. 

Verbs.  Semitic languages have a common feature about their verbs.  Verb roots have mostly three letters, although a few have two letters and some have four.

Verbs change for tense (past, aorist, present, future); for person (1st, 2nd, 3rd), for number (singular and plural), for gender (masculine and feminine), and also for something called binyan.  This word comes from a root meaning “build”.  You build verbs from roots by adding: prefixes; suffixes (usually person, number, and gender); and infixes.  “Infix” means, there is a binyan which adds letters in the middle of the root.

The binyan often controls shades of meaning based on the root but this isn’t always true.  Sometimes a verb will look like a particular binyan of a root but the real meaning is not a shade on the root, not even close.

Today’s verb, bara, has the root bet resh alef .  It is the past tense of the simplest binyan, the paal or, as it is sometimes called, the qal which means “simple”.  I know it is past tense because of the vowels.  This past tense can be used like a simple past tense, “created,” but it can also be used like a past perfect, “had created.”  Later – like about 31 lessons from now – I will show you in what sense this verse can be taken as past perfect.

A famous aggadah (story) about this verse is that before the world was created, all the letters came to Gd (that’s a Jewish way of spelling His Name) and wanted to be THE letter that Torah started with.  They all had pluses and minuses, but when it got to bet, the thing Gd focused on was that this was the first letter of barukh, “blessed be,” which is how all blessings start, and b’rakhah, blessing, and Gd meant the world to be for a blessing, as well as there being a custom of saying barukh-whatever all the time.  You say a blessing when you see the sun rise, you say one when it goes down, you say one for lightning, you say one when you hear bad news, and they all start with barukh.  During a performance of Fiddler on the Roof I embarrassed my sister by laughing much too loudly when Motl and Tzeitel asked the rabbi to bless their new sewing machine.  He said Barukh p’ri ha-sewing machine, Blessed be the fruit of the sewing machine.

No, no, one more thing.  I haven’t taught you about the vowels.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Fact-Checking -- Genesis 21:24-25

Now we know why there has to be something to relieve the anger or grief of the person injured.  So now we’re going to answer the other question in the last lesson, why can’t you apply some other form of retaliation?  And that will help us explain Exodus 21:24-25.
Imagine a society that doesn’t have Exodus 21:22.  Imagine some form of LT like this: A and B have a fight; B hits A’s wife, who is pregnant, and she has a miscarriage.  What if the law said A had to hit B’s wife so she has a miscarriage?

What if B isn’t married?  How do you appease A?  Do you have a quickie wedding ceremony for B and then when his wife gets pregnant, A hits her and she has a miscarriage?  What if B is sterile?  What if his new wife is sterile?  What if she is prone to miscarriages and nobody ever finds out she’s pregnant until she has the miscarriage?  What if destroying B’s unborn child still isn’t enough for A?  Society can’t afford letting B’s wife get pregnant over and over again just because A still doesn’t feel repaid.
What about B’s wife?  She didn’t do anything wrong.  She wasn’t even married to B at the time.  She is absolutely innocent of all wrong-doing.  How is it fair for her to undergo all that agony just because her husband hit somebody he wasn’t even fighting with?

Fairness.  It’s the cornerstone of every legal system.  That goes back not only through history, but into prehistory, and even into evolution.  I cite two papers by Brosnan in the bibliography.
Brosnan et al. set up nice clean warm cages for monkeys – not apes, monkeys – with food and water and all that, and they rewarded the monkeys for learning simple tasks.  The monkeys could see each other.  Once the tasks were learned, Brosnan et al. designated certain monkeys and when these monkeys did what they were supposed to, they got a grape.  The other monkeys got slices of cucumber.  They liked both rewards, but they liked the grapes more.  Who wouldn’t.

When the monkeys getting the cucumber realized that the monkeys they could see got grapes, they – er – went apeshit.  They raged around their cages, they vocalized, they even threw their own waste.  Monkeys don’t take it lying down when they are treated unfairly.
Fairness is built into humans.  It has to be built into human societies.  It isn’t fair to suffer harm from somebody else, but with some forms of harm, there is no possible way of retaliating equally against the person who harmed you.  Then you have to substitute another compensation for the harm.

That’s what damages are for.  But how much do you get in damages?  If it’s an eye, you get the damages for an eye; if it’s a burn, you get the damages for a burn.  How much is that?  The more severe the injury, the longer the injured will be out of work, and the bigger the doctor’s bills.
But we’re not done yet, there’s one more word we need to understand.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Monday, November 25, 2013

DIY -- Chicken soup

Actually, THE chicken soup, Mirepoix.

This recipe will see you through both soups and stews.

You need a medium size saucepan with a lid

This will take an hour for best results.  It should serve 4, especially if you add vegetables and starches.  It is cheaper and MUCH lower in sodium than canned.

2 chicken breasts, bone in
2 qts water
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped celery
1/4 cup sliced carrot
couple pinches pepper

Optional herb combo: piece of bay leaf, pinch thyme, spoonful parsley

Put the chicken, water, vegetables and pepper in the saucepan, put on the lid, put the saucepan on the burner, turn up to Hi until it comes to a boil -- 10 or 15 minutes -- then turn to 2 1/2 or it will boil over.  Simmer 30 minutes.  Take out the chicken breasts, shred the meat off the bone and gristle.  Put the meat back in the saucepan and throw out the bones and gristle.

The name for this is Mirepoix after the French chef who worked out the proportions of the vegetables.  Other options:
1.  Use any other meat.
2.  Substitute green pepper for the celery; this is a Cajun Mirepoix.
3.  Use a piece of ham, chicken skin, or fat bacon; this is a Mirepoix gras or "fat" Mirepoix.
4.  Put 1 tsp cornstarch and 1 TBSP COLD water in a cup.  Mix smooth and add to soup to thicken it.
5.  Cook rice or noodles separately and add in when you put the meat back in.
6.  Add a pinch cayenne and some sliced okra to a Cajun Mirepoix for gumbo.  Shrimp optional.
7.  Add yellow corn and diced potatoes for chicken corn chowder.
8.  Add half a bag of mixed vegetables, some crushed canned tomatoes, and the optional herbs.

DON'T give the cooked bones to your pet.  Cooked chicken bone shreds easily and is bad for the animal. 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Ahhhhhhhhh

Now that the Mendel Beilis translation is done, I'm still getting up about 5 in the morning. 

But now I get up and do Tai Ji, slowly, and I can concentrate fully, no thinking about all the pages of translation I have ahead of me.

I can take my time over making breakfast and lunch, no thinking about all the pages of translation left to do today.

I can snuggle my hands around a hot cup of tea or coffee and let them absorb the heat.

Tonight I plan to fire up my old old Yamaha electric keyboard and play Greensleeves and a bunch of other songs like that.  I promise I won't post any recordings. 

Friday I cut this year's pokeweed. 

Today it will be freezing cold and terribly windy so I'll clean house instead of yard work.  My co-op replaced my doors and windows as scheduled and put an exhaust fan in the bathroom.  The house was built in 1937 when they didn't have such things.  Up to now, most people open their bathroom windows a crack to let the damp out of the bathroom.  The fan will save heat.  Anyway, the workmen didn't leave much dirt but I've only been doing lick-and-promise cleaning while translating the transcript.

I bought some reproduction 1930s fabrics to make curtains for the windows on the doors.  I got nice big windows that will let the sun in during the winter on the south side and watch for squirrels stealing bird food on the north side.  Bought little tension rods to hang the curtains.  I have some old-fashioned door numbers on order to stick on the glass for the mail carrier. 

So little time, so much to do!

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Friday, November 22, 2013

Mendel Beilis -- Endgame

New here?  See Day 1, "Witnesses".

I thought I knew certain things about the trial when I started working on the translation.  One of them was that two charges were filed against Beilis.  Now, having translated the endgame, I've learned more about what actually happened.

Yes, the jury voted twice on 28 October, 1913 (Julian). 

But five months earlier, on May 23, 1913, when Beilis was arraigned the second time, the only charge in the indictment read like this:

"On the basis of what is laid out above, the resident of the city Vasilkov, in the Kiev gubernya, Menachem Mendel Tevyev Beilis, 39 years old, is accused that under a previous agreement with others, whom the investigation has not found, with previous planning and intent, out of the promptings of religious fanaticism, for ceremonial purposes of depriving the 12 year old boy Andrey Yushchinsky of life, on 12 March 1911 in the city of Kiev, in the property on Upper Yurkovsky Street of the Zaitsev brick factory, caught the above named Yuschinsky who was playing there with other children, attracted him onto the premises of the factory, where later the accomplices of Beilis with his knowledge and permission, having tied Yushchinsky’s hands and gagging his mouth, killed him, inflicting on him 17 [this is a typo for “47”] wounds on the head, neck and torso with a stabbing instrument, causing wounds to the cerebral vessels, the neck veins and arteries on the left temple, and also wounds of the dura mater, liver, right kidney, lungs and heart, such wounds being accompanied by heavy and prolonged suffering, caused almost complete exsanguination of the body of Yushchinsky, that is in a crime covered by sections 13 and 2 part 1453 of the criminal code.”

The emphasis is mine.  This is the ritual murder language.

On day 29, in his closing speech, Criminal Prosecutor Oskar Vipper stated that Russian law does not criminalize religious fanaticism.  The statute paragraphs cited in the indictment do not cover the underlined words.

Here is the whole sequence of events, as far as I can tell from the transcript.

On day 28 after four witnesses proved that Pranaitis didn't know what he was talking about, the judge called the bench, the attorneys, and the scriptural experts behind closed doors.  What happened is hinted at in Shmakov's closing argument on day 31, when he refers to blasphemy, and in Zarudny's when he refers to sacrilege and Jesus.  A charge of blasphemy led to the 1554 censorship of Talmud passages that were falsely supposed to refer to Jesus. 

The closed-door conference was threatened by the judge to stop Pranaitis from referring to Jesus on day 26.  From Zarudny's closing argument, I believe Pranaitis aired parts of his rejected thesis about "Jesus in Talmud" and was argued down by the others, particularly Troitsky.  A cranky comment by Shmakov on day 31 supports this supposition.

After the conference, the judge declared a recess.  The day 28 transcript shows him apologizing in open court for ending the recess late, saying that one of the prosecutors had a medical emergency.

Twenty-four hours later, Vipper made his admission about law and the ritual murder charge. 

Twenty-four hours after Vipper's admission, Shmakov said in his closing argument that it wasn't fair to charge somebody with one thing one day, another thing the next day, and still a third thing half an hour later.

On day 31, Shmakov finished his speech.  At one point, he told the jury they would probably get two charges to decide, one about the simple fact of the murder and another with different wording.  He said he believed they would vote "yes" on the first charge and their vote on the second would be up to their consciences.

The defense presented their closing arguments on days 31, 32 and 33.  Maklakov revealed the illogic in the government theory.  Gruzenberg ripped apart the Cheberyaks' testimony -- all three of them -- and also pointed out that the government had shifted ground on its theory, producing an even more ridiculous scenario than the original.  See The Wiffle Ball Theory.   Zarudny satirized the prosecution and rebutted Boldyrev's hypocritical (or stupid) claims that all Judaism wasn't on trial.  Karabchevsky, the "old lion" of Russian law, took on Zamyslovsky, whose Duma and Black Hundreds connections couldn't really harm a man that late in his career.  All of them brilliantly used testimony from the prosecution's favorite witnesses to prove their points.  They even took advantage of Golubev, whose May 1911 remarks to Lyadov and Chaplinsky put Beilis in the dock in the first place.

On day 34 the judge held a faux discussion of the charge from the indictment and Zamyslovsky spoke on the subject.  The bench retired and returned with -- guess what!  TWO CHARGES.

Mendel Beilis was going to be sentenced on charges he had not been tried on, because they were not in the original indictment, and they had not been subjected to due process, such as deposing witnesses, attaching documents to the case, or letting attorneys reject some witnesses.

The first one read as follows:
“Is it proven that on 12 March, 1911, in Kiev, in Lukyanovka, on Upper Yurkovskaya Street, in one of the buildings of the brick factory belonging to the Jewish surgical hospital, and being under the management of the merchant Mark Yonovich Zaitsev, on the 13-year-old boy Andrey Yushchinsky, when his mouth was blocked, were inflicted by a stabbing weapon on the parietal, occipital and temporal regions, and also on the neck, wounds accompanied by injuries to the cerebral veins, the artery of the left temple, the neck veins, giving as a consequence of this a large flow of blood, and next, when from Yushchinsky had flowed blood in the quantity of 5 glasses, again were caused in him with the same weapon wounds on the torso accompanied by injuries of the lungs, liver, right kidney and heart, in the region of which were directed the last blows, which wounds in the aggregate number of 47, caused painful suffering to Yushchinsky, caused almost complete exsanguination of the body and his death.” 
 
The ostensible reason for this charge is to help out the civil prosecutors by allowing the jury to vote on the event of the crime as opposed to designating somebody as guilty of the crime.  Zamyslovsky gives this reason and Boldyrev relays it to the jury -- who in any case were there while Zamyslovsky made the request.  I do not know why this would help the civil prosecutors.  I speculate in The Anvil.

Zarudny objected on two grounds.  He said that when a charge describes the event of a crime as opposed to assigning guilt for it, the charge is supposed to avoid all verbage that would identify the persons.  The charge as worded assigns responsibility to people on the factory grounds and more specifically to people in the pomeshchenie which was used at trial to mean rooms near the stables where several people lived at various times.  Mrs. Beilis and the children moved here, which was inside Plossky District where Jews were allowed to live, after Beilis' arrest.

But since the government theory of the murder required a morning murder, there was nobody living there at the time of the murder.  At 3 in the afternoon, Yov Zelensky arrived from Grebenki, and soon after the rest of the Grebenki workers arrived, according to testimony in the trial.  But at the supposed time of the murder, the rooms were empty and the government bases its claim that the charge doesn't identify anybody in particular on that timing.

But if the government was wrong and the murder occurred right before the Adamovich robbery, as Makhalin said Singaevsky claimed, or between the robbery and the time the gang caught the train for Moscow, as Karaev said Singaevsky claimed, then the Grebenki workers become supposedly responsible for the crime and they are Christians.

That can't be what the government meant by wording the charge this way.

Zarudny's second objection goes to the heart of what the government probably intended.  He said that it leaves people under suspicion.  There is one person this wording does NOT leave under suspicion, and that is Vera Cheberyak, who as everybody knows was living on the Zakharchenko property at the time.  And that is probably why the government insisted on specifying a location on the factory grounds as the site of the  murder.

From the fact that Zamyslovsky made the request for the first charge, I suspect that he was using what he learned as a legislator.  People who voted "yes" on one thing might vote "yes" on a related thing.  The jurors all knew about the death and the state of the body and it was easy to vote "yes" on this charge.  Zamyslovsky also could count to some extent on a unanimous "yes" vote putting pressure on the entire group to also vote "yes" on the second charge.  He could be even more confident of this since Dr. Pavlov got stampeded by the group into agreeing on medical questions.  Only later when he was alone did Dr. Pavlov see the problems with some of the answers he had agreed with while he was in the group conference.  The jury wouldn't have that opportunity.

Also, as Margolin wrote in his memoirs, the Black Hundreds were allowed in-person access to the supposedly sequestered jurors.  This would have increased the chances of getting a unanimous "yes" vote on both charges. 

And remember that the jury were almost hand-picked to be obedient muzhiks.

Notice the count of 47 injuries; it agrees with the first autopsy, the one that didn't support the ritual murder theory.  In fact, if you hold to Pranaitis' requirement that there be 13 wounds in the neck and no other wounds, this cannot be a ritual murder charge.  What's more, Shmakov used his closing speech to claim that 13 wounds in the right temple qualified as the sign of ritual murder, but you can't get 47 wounds unless there are 14 wounds in the temple (as the autopsy says) AND in the neck (as the autopsy says).  Whoever thinks that this paragraph represents a ritual murder charge is reading that INTO the text, which does not contain the code phrase "religious fanaticism."

The second one read:

“If the events described in the first question are proven, then is the the resident of the city Vasilkov, in the Kiev gubernya, Menachem Mendel Tevyev Beilis, 39 years old, accused that under a previous agreement with others, whom the investigation has not found, with previous planning and intent, out of the promptings of religious fanaticism, of depriving the 13 year old boy Andrey Yushchinsky of life, on 12 March 1911 in the city of Kiev, in Lukyanovka, on Upper Yurkovskaya Street, at the brick factory belonging to the Jewish surgical hospital, and being under the management of the merchant Mark Yonovich Zaitsev, he, the accused, for accomplishing this his intention, caught the above named Yuschinsky and took him into one of the buildings of the factory, where then having agreed earlier with them, the persons not observed by investigation, on depriving Yushchinsky of his life, with his, Beilis’ knowledege and permission, closed Yushchinsky’s mouth and inflicted on him with a stabbing weapon in the parietal, occipital and temporal regions [of the head], and also on the neck, wounds accompanied by injuries to the brain veins, the artery of the left temple, the neck veins, giving as a consequence of this a large flow of blood, and next, when from Yushchinsky had flowed blood in the quantity of 5 glasses, again were caused in him with the same weapon wounds on the torso accompanied by injuries of the lungs, liver, right kidney and heart, in the region of which were directed the last blows, which wounds in the aggregate number of 47, caused painful suffering to Yushchinsky, caused almost complete exsanguination of the body and his death.”

This does NOT cite a statute, which avoids calling Vipper a liar for saying that Russia has no statute prohibiting religious fanaticism.

This is the charge that literally represents ritual murder.

Once the jury obediently voted yes on the first charge, they turned to the second question.

Some of them voted no on the second charge, and it was just enough of them to acquit Beilis.  And that meant they also voted down the textual ritual murder accusation.

Jury deliberations lasted a total of one hour and twenty minutes, according to the transcript.

I believe that during the recess on day 28, after the closed door conference, the government admitted that even if it won the case on trial, it would lose on appeal.  That's because Oskar Gruzenberg had gotten a 1900 ritual murder conviction overturned on appeal, within one year of the verdict, four years before he was admitted to the bar.  With twelve years of experience under his belt, and the help of his extremely able colleagues, it was a slam dunk for him to get Beilis' conviction overturned on appeal.

While that was going through, demonstrations and strikes against the trial would continue and the spectre of another revolution raised its bloody head.  I believe everybody in that room was thinking of 1905, and it came out in Vipper's closing speech. 

I believe that a telegram to St. Petersburg was composed.  Chaplinsky might have decided then and there to rewrite the charges, but I believe he did not have the guts to do it without written permission from his mentor Shcheglovitov, the Minister of Justice.  I believe that Vipper's remarks about the non-existent statute amounted to a criticism of the government for filing them, and that he would not have made those remarks without written permission.  I think Boldyrev would have cut him short, as he did other similar remarks, if the judge didn't know that Vipper had written permission to make them.

Failing to get permission to change the charges or to refer to the non-existent statute would have been professional suicide for both Chaplinsky and Vipper.

I believe that the wording of the new charges was specifically approved in St. Petersburg.  Maybe Zamyslovsky wrote them in Kiev, but I cannot see Boldyrev presenting them in court unless Shcheglovitov sent Chaplinsky written permission for it.

It's not clear when this stratagem developed.  It might have happened earlier than day 28; it might have been developing since day 19 when Dyachenko, a subordinate of National Police Chief Beletsky, wired from Kiev to St. Petersburg saying that the results of the witness testimony were not encouraging. 

I have no proof for this scenario, beyond what is in the transcript.  Tager does not report on any telegrams related to such a concept.  Tager did not focus substantially on the transcript, and it's possible that he saw one of them in the archives but didn't know what he was looking at.  Or else he decided it wasn't relevant to his theme of Tsarist misdoings in a case that got worldwide attention.

I believe that it was because Zamyslovsky came up with the concept, that the judge gave him the credit in ruling to adopt the new charges.  The government also paid him to write a pamphlet that read as if the ritual murder charge had been won.  It came out in 1917.

It's possible that the majority of the Black Hundreds never knew they had been treated to a bait and switch.  The newspapers printing stenographic records (Vipper complained about them on day 3) probably were mostly center-to-left oriented, which the Black Hundreds would have ignored.  If they heard about the change, and it came from such organs, the Black Hundreds probably dismissed it as propaganda.  Zamyslovsky might have whipped up a pogrom, but he would have sacrificed the payment for the pamphlet, and the late date of its publication hardly qualified as "whipping up."

One hundred years after the Beilis trial, it's easy to dismiss the whole thing as an aberration of an autocracy used to having its every whim obeyed, and to point out that monarchies nowadays are not only not absolute, they pay taxes just like commoners.  But only 20 years after the Beilis trial, a commoner enforced his whims on almost 100 million people, beginning with destroying millions of Jews. 

Every situation ignoring basic fairness, on up to violating due process of law, has to be regarded with suspicion, even if it's dressed up as "the will of the people".  Vipper used that concept in his closing argument -- "the will of the Tsar is the voice of the people" -- and the defense asked to have it put on record for a possible appeal.  All the more so if it's bad for the Jews, because what's bad for the Jews always turns out to be bad for everybody.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Mendel Beilis -- THE VERDICTS

This is the summary of the 34th and last day of the Mendel Beilis trial, which occurred on 28 October, 1913 on the Julian calendar, 10 November, 1913 on the Gregorian calendar.

This day occupies pages 272 through 300 of Volume III of the transcript.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_OQDD0TF6sWTDd0UnNsbUpBOUk/edit?usp=sharing
See the translation of the transcript for day 34.
 
 
I have to say that I can hardly conceive of a more prejudicial summation by a judge.  All information that contradicts the government theory of the case is suppressed.  He makes several mistakes of fact which I have footnoted.  His verbage is often confusing in both its grammar and syntax.

He allows the jury the opportunity to render a verdict with a qualification, such as “guilty but not through religious fanaticism.”

The jury deliberated for one hour and twenty minutes.

The verdict: Yes, it is proven that the crime was committed at the factory.

The other verdict: NO, NOT GUILTY.

The juror tally is not given.  It could have been evenly split; it could have been a two-vote majority.  Different accounts differ.  The urban legend is that one juror, being pressured to vote guilty, turned to the corner of the conference room with the icons in it, crossed himself, and said “I can’t do it.”  And he voted to acquit Beilis.

Read the posting called “Endgame” for my analysis of events from day 28 through day 34.

Judge Fyodor Boldyrev

Prosecution:
            Criminal Prosecutor, Oscar Vipper
            Civil Prosecutor Georgy Zamyslovsky
            Private Civil Prosecutor Aleksey Shmakov 

Defense:
            Oscar Gruzenberg
Nikolay Karabchevsky
Dmitry Grigorevich-Barsky
Alexandr Zarudny
Vasily Maklakov
 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Outdoors -- Won't Do That Again

Went out in a tee-shirt yesterday with no sweater or jacket.

I had just posted day 33 of the Mendel Beilis trial transcript translation and I decided to take a holiday from translating.

Got out the rake and cleared the front lawn.

I never do this anyway until about this time because across the street from me are two enormous oak trees and it's just not worthwhile until they are done dropping leaves.

To say nothing of the sassafrass and oak on my neighbor's lawn on this side of the street, and all the other trees up and down the street.

Today it probably won't get out of the 40s which is normal for here and now and I'll be going out later to break the ice on the bird bath so the blue jay can play polar bear.

But it will be sunny and the sun comes in the south windows and streams across the room and that will be cozy

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Mendel Beilis -- Wiffle Ball Theory of Prosecuting a Case

This is the summary of the 33rd day of the Mendel Beilis trial, which occurred on 27 October, 1913 on the Julian calendar, 9 November, 1913 on the Gregorian calendar.

This day occupies pages 235 through 272 of Volume III of the transcript.

It continues with prosecution rebuttals and then the defense’s last word.

See the translation of the transcript for day 33.
 
Gruzenberg makes a wonderful point about the prosecution rebuttals, leading me to call their style “the wiffle ball school of prosecution”.  They have changed their position, mostly on whether the first blows were struck outside or not.  The idea that the first blows, in the head, were inflicted outside, comes from the fact that they went through the cap.  The prosecution theory is that Andrey would never have worn his cap in a house, it wouldn’t have been good manners, so he must have been outside when these blows were struck.

Gruzenberg points out that the supposed location, near the stables, was downhill from Beilis’ office and anybody who stopped in before noon could see it.  Even a fanatic doesn’t start a murder in broad daylight in a place that anybody could see.  The prosecution changed their argument to say that the murder did occur inside.  The defense pointed out that this means it could have happened in Cheberyak’s apartment.  A prosecution theory that changes with the wind is not a theory at all in the legal sense (or in the scientific sense either).  We’ll call it the wiffle ball theory.  If you fill a wiffle ball with water, and you try to keep the water inside by rolling the ball randomly on the ground, it not only doesn’t help, it makes things worse.  That’s what the prosecution has done.

Grigorevich-Barsky makes his only closing speech.  He claims that there were no obstacles to Mashkevich’s bringing in and processing Vera’s gang.  He might have guessed that the government told Mashkevich to leave the threesome alone, but he didn’t say it in court.  He didn’t have a basis, because the defense didn’t know how much information the government kept from them.

Maklakov makes a good point in his second closing argument:  How could the prosecution let Cheberyak be guilty of so many lies?  How is it that they, experienced jurists and legislators, were absolutely incapable of detecting her in a lie?  It’s not that hard.  A moment of hesitation in answering, a changing story, the idea that a newspaper writer could afford 200 rubles worth of wine within a month of paying 100 rubles for a trip, on a salary of 300 rubles – it didn’t add up and the prosecution ignored that and prosecuted Beilis anyway.  It’s the prosecution’s fault that Cheberyak pulled the wool over their eyes; they played deaf and dumb.  Why?  Readers know the answer.  Maklakov was no dummy, he probably knew it too.

Point of language: the word “phrase” at the times used to mean something said that was just to make a point, it wasn’t necessarily true.  It was a derivation from French where phraseur meant somebody who talked grandly, just to hear himself speak.  So if you wondered why “phrase” kept getting tossed around, that’s why.

Just a note: both times that the court has dealt with the murder in Singaevsky’s words, Zamyslovsky has become fixated on the idea of Latyshev throwing up.  Repeating the words, the synonyms over and over.  I don’t get it.  And today, while admitting Singaevsky told the truth when he confessed, Zamyslovsky nevertheless says he didn’t tell the truth about Latyshev’s reaction.  Zamyslovsky continues to argue all around a big hole leaving plenty of room for a solution that fits the facts but proves he’s wrong. Finally, Zamyslovsky engages in more of his Freudian projection.  Well, at least he’s consistent.

To "The Verdicts"
 
Judge:  Fyodor Boldyrev 

Prosecution:
            Criminal Prosecutor, Oscar Vipper
            Civil Prosecutor Georgy Zamyslovsky
            Private Civil Prosecutor Aleksey Shmakov 

Defense:
            Oscar Gruzenberg
Nikolay Karabchevsky
Dmitry Grigorevich-Barsky
Alexandr Zarudny
Vasily Maklakov
 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

 

Monday, November 18, 2013

Garden -- schedule

Yes, it's time to think about your schedule.

If you have bought your seeds, line them up and look at the packages.  They will say whether the seeds can be planted before the last frost.  Here's a hint.

The following can be planted before the last frost: kale, collards, spinach, mustard greens, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, green peas, snow peas, beets, turnips, parsnips, rutabagas, some onions. 

The following have to be planted after the last frost: corn, green and wax beans, squash, peppers, tomatoes, okra, black eye peas, herbs, most flowers.

I'm forgetting some things, I know; these are the ones I have planted.  Again, go by the seed packet.

If you plant hardy veg at the same time as the warm-weather veg, you won't get good results.  They will bolt, which means they'll shoot up and go to seed.  The only exception to this is peas and carrots.  I usually split my packs of peas in half and plant some early and some later. 

The only other exception is if you start warm-weather veg inside before the last frost and then transplant them to your compost.  Seed packages usually recommend this.  However, where I live the growing season is long enough that I can plant seeds for tomatoes and peppers in the compost outside and harvest on schedule, by Columbus day.  If you live north of me, you should start them inside.

This is my schedule in an ideal year.

1 March: plant hardy veg;
1 May: plant warm-weather veg;
1 June: finish harvesting peas;
1 July: finish harvesting roots and greens;
1 August: green and wax beans almost done, summer squash going strong;
1 September: plant hardy veg for autumn, take out beans and squash;
1 October: take out summer veg;
12 October: take out tomatoes and put peppers in pots to winter in the house;
Thanksgiving: finish harvesting hardy autumn planting.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Sunday, November 17, 2013

DIY Basic Cooking I Mac n Cheese

I made this last night so I know this recipe works.  This is one serving.

1/3 cup water
1/3 cup milk
1/3 cup macaroni
2 ounces American cheese
a little black pepper

Put the water in your saucepan that you used to boil the eggs last time.  Get it boiling.
Turn the heat down to 3
Put in your macaroni, cover, and cook 5 minutes.
Put in the milk.
Rip the cheese up, the size of the pieces is up to you but not larger than 1/4 a slice.
The milk should be hot.
Put the cheese in.
Sprinkle the pepper in.
Stir 3-4 times.
Put the lid back on.
Turn the heat to 2 1/2.
Let it cook 3 minutes.
Open the lid and see if the sauce is pale yellow and most of the cheese melted into it.
Stir half a dozen times, the sauce should start to thicken.
Put the lid on, turn the burner OFF and let sit 3 minutes.

TRICKS OF THE TRADE
1.  With all pasta and rice, turn off when it's just barely underdone and let sit covered 3 minutes.  The lid will keep it from getting cold and the warmth will finish the cooking, plus it will absorb the rest of the liquid and not stick to the bottom of the pan when you serve.
2.  The same thing is true for cheese and tomato sauces, which are next to impossible to get off the pan if they burn on.
3.  You can make this with just water if you don't have milk but the milk makes it creamier.

I almost always spice this up with onion powder and garlic powder and usually a tiny pinch of cayenne.  DON'T USE GARLIC SALT OR ONION SALT.  We get too much salt and there's salt in the cheese. 
I usually throw in some baby green peas, too. There are a lot of ways to sneak vegetables into your food and this is one of them.

With one pound (1 box) of macaroni, one pound of cheese, and 1 quart of milk, you can make 8 servings of mac n cheese.  It will cost you about $6. 

You will spend that much on one box of pre-made mac n cheese for 2 servings and get lots of chemicals, more salt, and more fat.  A famous maker of commercial mac n cheese had a scare this year about dye used in its food.  Take some control of what you put in your body!!!

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Friday, November 15, 2013

Mendel Beilis -- Vipper loses his mind

This is the summary of the 32nd day of the Mendel Beilis trial, which occurred on 26 October, 1913 on the Julian calendar, 8 November, 1913 on the Gregorian calendar.

This day occupies pages 177 through 234 of Volume III of the transcript.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_OQDD0TF6sWeHlCY1U4SUViX0k/edit?usp=sharing
See the translation of the transcript for day 32.

 
Gruzenberg finishes his closing arguments.  He becomes increasingly emotional at the end and moved me at least to tears with his recommendation to Beilis, if convicted, to say the prayer all Jews say at death.  Twenty years of hard labor would have been a death sentence, whether slowly from the work and climate, or quickly literally at the hands of the officials or the other prisoners.

Zarudny unleashes some classically scathing Irish-style satire, the kind that ought to kill.  He keeps calling Vipper “talented” while pointing out every mistake of fact or logic made in his closing speech.  He keeps calling Shmakov “scholarly” and taunts him for answering questions that Pranaitis refused to.  This was all the more embarrassing for Shmakov as in his closing argument, as you remember, he said an expert can’t be considered an expert if he doesn’t answer the questions put to him.

Karabchevsky takes up what the other attorneys mostly left alone: Zamyslovsky.  As the “old lion” of Russian jurisprudence, Karabchevsky hardly had to worry about what revenge Zamyslovsky might take against him in the Duma. 

Vipper makes a response after Karabchevsky’s speech.  It is a raving, ranting, foam-at-the-mouth performance, in places misrepresents facts and in others is incomprehensible.  I think he has totally lost it at this point, probably after watching the jury nod over and over as the defense made their shrewd and practical rebuttals.  He cannot be in his right mind at this point.  Why Boldyrev allowed it to continue, I cannot imagine.

Zarudny shows, by indirection, that Troitsky and Kokovtsov, both Christians, refuted what Pranaitis said in the closed-door conference on day 28.  Zarudny says “sacrilege” while Shmakov said the subject of “blasphemy” was addressed in the conference.  Because “blasphemy” was the charge leveled against Talmud in the 1554 Papal Bull that resulted in censoring Talmud, it becomes clear that Pranaitis was allowed to air the false claims in his thesis that Talmud refers to Jesus, and he got put down.  (I’ve done my homework and I know Pranaitis’ claims are false.)  Boldyrev can’t sleep through this in case he has to squelch any quoting by Zarudny.  Zarudny confirms that the jury was present during the conference. 

Once again Boldyrev makes the hypocritical or downright stupid claim that nobody is accusing the Jewish religion of anything.  Zarudny comes back with a comment that “these are not just books of fanatics that are being raked through, they are the books of the general Jewish religion.”

You may be taking it literally when the attorneys talk about “the bloody shirt” but this is not the only place and time when “the bloody shirt” was waved to engage people’s emotions.  For decades after the American Civil War “the bloody shirt” was a term for a political rallying cry in the North against easing restrictions on the South.

Judge:  Fyodor Boldyrev

Prosecution:
            Criminal Prosecutor, Oscar Vipper
            Civil Prosecutor Georgy Zamyslovsky
            Private Civil Prosecutor Aleksey Shmakov
 
Defense:
            Oscar Gruzenberg
Nikolay Karabchevsky
Dmitry Grigorevich-Barsky
Alexandr Zarudny
Vasily Maklakov

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Fact-Checking -- Exodus 21:22

Why?  Why do you have to appease the husband after his wife has the miscarriage?  Why can’t you apply some other form of retaliation?

What happens if you don’t appease the husband?  He goes around with a chip on his shoulder, right?  He’s likely to hit the man who hit his wife, right?  One good knock, right?  Well, what if he still isn’t satisfied after that?
There are some people who are never satisfied, no matter what you do.  Society doesn’t craft its laws to go to all lengths to satisfy them.  There comes a point when the cost to society is too high.  Cultures that do have LT have paid these prices over and over.  Did you ever see that old movie The Godfather?  Michael Corleone got involved in a vendetta and fled the U.S. for Sicily.  He went back to the town that his family left to go to America, and he asked his bodyguard, “Where are all the men?”  The bodyguard pointed to a plaque on the wall with an inscription to the memory of some man who had been the victim of a similar vendetta.  The men in the town were all dead from vendetta.  That’s LT in action in the 20th century.  (Yes, I know it’s a movie and takes things to extremes for entertainment value.)

Or if you read the Icelandic sagas, you may have read Eyrbiggja Saga.  You should.  Originally in Iceland they had a thing where B had the option of accepting damages or committing retaliation.  Those vendettas got handed down, too, until either the last man was dead or one of them bought a clue and decided money was better than seeing the blood of the other man spilled.  That’s LT in the time of Norwegian King Harald Fair-Hair.
Judaism got rid of LT at least 2500 years ago, probably more like 4000, and possibly, as I said, back before writing existed at all.  So Exodus 21:18-19 and 22 say pay the damages.  You have no other choice.  Society refuses to pay the costs of having all these people disabled, even temporarily, of having them thrown out of work and not bringing in any money, of having productivity drop while they’re off work, of having them possibly die, leaving widows and orphans.  We’re not going to stand for it.  Pay the money until the guy gets well.  If he doesn’t think you’re quits, so much the worse for him.

Legal systems are there to run the society, not fulfill every last wish of every individual’s heart.  A person who lives by the principle “my way or the highway,” may die by that principle if he carries it to extremes.  We’ll get to that some time later.  For now, there is no LT in Judaism.
But I still haven’t explained verses 24-25 yet, have I?


© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

 

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Bit at a time Hebrew -- Genesis 1:1 b

More about Genesis 1:1.

א בְּרֵאשִׁית בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֵת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְאֵת הָאָרֶץ:

Transliteration: B’reshit bara elohim et ha-shamayim v’et ha-arets.
Translation:    At the beginning Gd created the heaven and the earth
Letters in this lesson: בּ, ר, א, שׁ, י, ת, ל, וֹ, ה, ם, שּׁ, מ, ץ

Vocabulary in this lesson:
בְּ
on, in, at, by (swear by), with (by means of), against
בְּרֵאשִׁית
at the beginning
בָּרָא
created
אֱלֹהִים
Gd
אֵת
direct object particle
הַ, הָ
the
שָּׁמַיִם
heaven
וְ
and, or, continuation particle
אָרֶץ
earth, land, world

If you really want to hear this verse pronounced, use the link.  It takes about the first 17 seconds of the recording.  Play it over and over.

If you know French, you will hear this speaker pronouncing the letter resh somewhat like the French letter – which letter?  What sound does resh have? 

Now for the most important words in this lesson.

One is ha, and it means “the”.  One of these days you will hear it pronounced heh, and that will be because of the sound that follows it.  I’ll point it out when we get to one.

Notice that ha is spelled two different ways in this lesson.  The vowels in each version have the same sound.  But the marker used for the vowel depends on the rest of the word.  When it has the little “t” shaped thing, that’s because there’s an alef after it.  When it has the little dash, that’s because there’s a shin after it.  Also, the shin has to have dagesh in it because of the ha. 

The other is ve and it means “and”.  Today it is pronounced with a schwa e.  One of these days, it will be pronounce oo (usually transliterated u), and instead of a shva under it, it will have a dagesh next to it.  When there’s a dagesh next to the letter vav, sometimes it will be pronounced u and sometimes it will be pronounced ve or v’. 
 
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved
 

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Garden -- Veggies

Veggies were the real reason I started my garden.

When I was a teen we lived on a farm.  Dad leased out most of the land but we opened up a quarter acre near the house and raised veggies.

I never liked asparagus or beets until I got to taste them fresh from the ground with all the sugar still there.  As veggies age they dry and the sugar converts to starch.

I buy only self-pollinated vegetables.  Organic is a whole other thing and I don't got there but you can.  This avoids GMOs.  You have to re-buy those every year.

You also have to re-buy if you buy garden store hybrids.  They don't breed or else they don't breed true.

Meanwhile, I have a mustard green patch that has been going for 5 years because I let the mustard go to seed the first year.  I have celery root that went to seed and I expect to have new celery root in that spot.  I've had tomatoes drop fruit which puts up a new plant the next year, although I don't promote that because of the disease thing.

There is more than one reliable seedsman out there selling open-pollinated seeds.  My favorite is www.heirloomseeds.com.  Another is J.L.Hudson.   Another is Renee's Garden.

You can plant leafy greens, carrots, beets, turnips, cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli, green peas and snow peas early.  In a normal year I can do it 1 March.

You have to wait to plant tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, beans, corn, cucumbers and melon.  In a normal year I can do it 1 May.

You can also have an autumn garden by planting more early vegetables before 15 August.

Make sure to put down your two inches deep compost every time you plant and you won't have any fertility problems.  If you want to use manure, use it as a deep dressing and make sure it's fully composted when you buy it, but DON'T use it for tomatoes.

I'm totally spoiled now.  It's just not spring until I can go out and pull some greens for lunch, or a pan of pod peas.  Summer means pulling a cherry tomato at dawn while I fill the birdbath, or getting the latest zucchini.   And I won't make pesto unless I can pick the basil out of the yard and get it mixed up within 10 minutes.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Monday, November 11, 2013

DIY -- Hard Cider DONE

I now have two jugs of cider that are mature enough to drink and another brewing.

It's a pleasant buzzy drink at room temperature or chilled. 

Using bread yeast or lager yeast doesn't make much difference.

Apple juice from concentrate seems to come out about the same as not from concentrate.

Rack it carefully; most of the yeast will remain on the bottom of the jug each time you do it.  At about the one month point, the amount remaining in the brew will be negligible. 

Soak the jug in very hot to boiling water and agitate before you pour the water out, and the yeast on the bottom will come out when you pour the water out.  Then rinse once more with nearly boiling water.

So like bread, hard cider is fairly forgiving.  Just make sure and wait until it's mature (one month) before drinking.
 
© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Sunday, November 10, 2013

Outdoors -- Four and-twenty? Hah!

So I was going out to spray water on some squirrels to keep them away from the bird food and WOW!

The oak trees on the block north of my house, which tower over everything, were packed with blackbirds all chatting at the top of their lungs.  Dozens.  Scores.  Maybe hundreds.

I no sooner got outside than they launched in a mass, flying south, and perched in the oaks of my neighbor across the street to the south, still talking.  I came in to get my laptop, thinking I might catch an image and some audio on my webcam.  By the time I went back out, they were gone.

I know they weren't crows because crows just croak, and they were smaller, and besides most of the crows have migrated about 20 miles west to a city with lights that keep the owls off.  Not that we don't have streetlights here, but the thick trees house plenty of owls, also hawks.

But the blackbirds will be back in spring to eat bugs and raise their chicks -- and chase the crows which are three times larger but are ten times more cowardly.

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved

Friday, November 8, 2013

Mendel Beilis -- Not One Charge, Two!

This is the summary of the 31th day of the Mendel Beilis trial, which occurred on 25 October, 1913 on the Julian calendar, 7 November, 1913 on the Gregorian calendar.

This day occupies pages 111 through 177 of Volume III of the transcript.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_OQDD0TF6sWa1BONTlWN0F3aVE/edit?usp=sharing
See the translation of the transcript for day 31. 
 

Shmakov refers to the closed door conference on day 28 as something that the jury attended.  I believed when I translated that material, that the conference was a consequence of Pranaitis’ attempts to discuss his false claim that Talmud refers to Jesus, since the judge threatened to go behind closed doors if Pranaitis persisted.  Shmakov confirms this conjecture today when he refers to “blasphemy.”  This was the charge made by the 1554 bull which censored Talmud and resulted in using the term “Shas” to refer to it.

Shmakov claims that Kokovtsov and Troitsky could not deny the blasphemy charges, but the quality of his logic throughout this speech is not such as to support that claim.  They could not deny that this was charged in the 1554 papal bull, but they could argue correctly that since the citations don’t refer to Jesus, no blasphemy could have occurred. 

Shmakov proves today that he is incapable of understanding the arguments on scripture through a nonsense statement he makes.  Shortly thereafter Shmakov admits that Pranaitis performed badly in the conference.

So the events of day 28 probably included the government side of the case admitting in private, during the recess after the conference, that the scriptural part of the testimony was in a shambles.  To try to counter this,  Shmakov brought Pranaitis back and that is when he was laughed out of court. 

Within a day Vipper made his admission that Russian law does not criminalize religious fanaticism. 

Within a day of that, Shmakov made his telling remark that you don’t change the charges from one day to the next, still less within a period of half an hour. 
Today, near the end of the speech, Shmakov reveals that the jurors will receive two questions to answer. 
The whole thing has been cooked up in the last 60 hours, and the text of the new charges either telegraphed or sent in hardcopy by express train; the trip from St. Petersburg to Kiev takes 24 hours nowadays.  Unless it was in the files the whole time.

Maklakov makes an excellent speech about the government abuse of Andrey’s family and the witnesses, and the illogic in the prosecution claims.

Gruzenberg opens up like the shaliach tsibur, the emissary of the congregation, at the start of the Kol Nidre prayer on Yom Kippur, approaching the Heavenly Court worrying that it will not listen to him when he tries to get it to avert the severe decree, and goes on to a litany of why Beilis is suffering that reads like the Al Chet She Chatanu litany of sins also used on Yom Kippur.  Remember, the day that the trial started WAS right before Yom Kippur in 1913.  The day Gruzenberg is speaking is two weeks after the end of Sukkot, when the Heavenly Gates close and people have to live with the decree handed down.  Then he rips the Cheberyaks to shreds and points out that Zamyslovsky could not give a complete summation because if he had, he would have contradicted both Kosorotov and Vipper.

To "Vipper loses his mind"
 
Judge:  Fyodor Boldyrev                                                                                    

Prosecution:
            Criminal Prosecutor, Oscar Vipper
            Civil Prosecutor Georgy Zamyslovsky
            Private Civil Prosecutor Aleksey Shmakov 

Defense:
            Oscar Gruzenberg
Nikolay Karabchevsky
Dmitry Grigorevich-Barsky
Alexandr Zarudny
Vasily Maklakov
 

© Patricia Jo Heil, 2013-2018 All Rights Reserved