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This Week
Now, I Wonder
L
ife is filled with many wonders. How did things get
that way? Why do things work they way they do?
Why are things that are happening, happening in
that manner? Imponderables? Hmmmm.
After consulting a Web site called Brain Candy, I have
decided to share with you some of the more delightful ques-
tions that could face us each day — or could face those of
us who don't have anything else to do.
www.JNOnlincus
I'm especially enamored of words and so I ponder things
like:
•Are part-time band leaders semi-conductors?
• Can you buy an entire chess set in a pawnshop?
• Could crop circles be the work of a cereal killer?
•What do people in China call their good dishes?
• Do cemetery workers prefer the graveyard shift?
• Do pilots ever take crash courses?
• Do stars ever clean themselves with meteor showers?
• Does killing time damage eternity?
• If bees live in an apiary, do apes live in a beeiary?
•Why call it quicksand when it sucks you down slowly?
y Manello
Customs and traditions raise whole sets of questions. For
Editorial
example:
ssistant
•After heating, do amphibians have to wait one hour
before getting out of the water?
Of course, there are some imponderables that are worth pondering
• Since Americans throw rice at weddings, do Asians throw ham-
for their own sakes:
burgers?
• What do chickens think we taste like?
• Before they invented drawing boards, what did they go back to?
• Do fish get thirsty?
• Daylight savings time: Why are they saving it and where do they
• Do hummingbirds hum because they do not know the words?
keep it?
•What happens when you swallow your pride?
• Do people in Australia call the rest of the world "up over"?
•What if the hokey pokey really is what it's all about?
Simple, everyday actions can cause us to think:
• Do witches run spell checkers?
•When I erase a word with a pencil eraser, where does it go?
• When cows laugh, does milk come out of their noses?
•Where are the germs that cause good breath?
• How can you tell when it's time to tune your bagpipes?
• How come wrong numbers are never busy?
• If athletes get athlete's foot, do astronauts get mistletoe?
•Which is the other side of the street?
•Why is a boxing ring a square?
• How does the guy who drives a snowplow get to work?
•Why is "abbreviated" such a long word?
•Why are there interstate highways in Hawaii?
And for those of you who, like I, happen to be fans of superheroes,
•Why are they called "stands" when they are made for sitting?
ask yourself
• If a jogger runs at the speed of sound, could he still hear his
• Why is it that bullets ricochet off Superman's chest, but he ducks
Walkman?
when the gun is thrown at him?
•Why do mattresses have springs if they aren't made for jumping
Now when you hear of someone being lost in thought, you will
on?
understand that it is because it is such unfamiliar territory.
• If Barbie is so popular, why do we have to buy all her friends?
Friendly Honors
The human energy cells behind the Detroit Jewish community's out-
reach for families with kids with special needs will receive a presti-
gious honor for their humanitarian efforts.
Bassie and Rabbi Levi Shemtov, the pillars of the West Bloomfield-
based Friendship Circle, will be honored by the Manhattan Institute
and receive its Social Entrepreneurship Award.
Formal presentation of the award, and the donation of $25,000 to
the Friendship Circle, will take place in the presence of the institute's
trustees and scholars at their annual dinner on Oct. 23 in New York.
Friendship Circle brings together teenage volunteers and kids with
special needs for hours of fun and friendship. These shared experi-
ences empower the kids with life experiences while enriching the lives
of the teen volunteers.
The nonprofit operates on a $1.2-million annual budget.
"We are truly humbled by this honor and will accept it on behalf
of all of the volunteers, families, children and donors that make our
circle so beautiful," said Rabbi Shemtov, who is executive director of
the Friendship Circle.
His wife, Bassie, heads LifeTown, formally the Weinberg Life Village,
which gives the kids and their friends the chance to learn and practice
activities such as banking, scheduling and keeping appointments with
the salon, dentist or doctor, navigating traffic signals and buying tick-
ets for the 22-seat movie theater. All that is to help integrate the kids
into society.
The Shemtovs, who have five children ages 2-12, were nominated
by Donn Weinberg of the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation of
8 August 9 • 2007
Celebrations!
Find weekly listings of births,
b'nai mitzvah, engagements,
weddings and anniversaries as
well as past simchahs all online.
They are all bundled under each
week's publication date.
Just visit JNonline.us and
click on Lifecycles on the left.
JBlog
Arnie Goldman shares his
thoughts about the Iraq war,
little mitzvahs and more.
Jeff Klein offers his Metro
Perspectives on everything from
dating to friendship.
Only at JNonline.us. Just click
on JBlog on the menu on the
left.
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from Israel? Check our stream-
ing news from Ynetnews.com
for continuous updates and lon-
ger news, opinion and feature
stories. And look at the center
of our Homepage for an Israel
story that changes twice daily.
Just visit JNonline.us and
click on a scrolling story on
the left.
Bassie and Rabbi Levi Shemtov
Baltimore, and, separately, by Detroiter Naomi Beck. The Manhattan
Institute Award for Social Entrepreneurship honors non-profit lead-
ers who have found innovative, private solutions for America's most
pressing social problems.
Friendship Circle is affiliated with the Worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch
Movement. It was founded in 1994 with the support of then-local
philanthropist Andy Jacob, now of Phoenix. It has 17 full- or part-time
employees and more than 700 volunteers.
- Robert A. Sklar, editor
Friendship Circle's Walk4Friendship is scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 9. For more
information: www.walk4friendship.corn.
This week's poll question:
In May, 55 percent of you said
the price of gasoline would
change your summer vacation
plans. Did it?
Visit the JNonline.us homep-
age, below the left menu, to
cast your vote.