A good friend of mine used to tell me stories about her mom being a maid in the 1950’s and 60’s south and how her mother and her escaped to the north for fear of their lives. I have head that the migration of black Americans from the south to the north was a huge one, (over a million someone told me last night) and it’s easy to see why, not that there wasn’t prejudice in the north too, of course, but not like this!

I remember as a child traveling with my family from Jersey to Florida and sometimes across from Florida to California. In the deep south in the 70’s, it was best not to let anyone know we were Jewish. I recall a gas station that had signs above one of its restrooms with one word “colored.” Oh the sign had been removed of course but the fact that the wall had been painted with the sign on, left the non-painted imprint of the word. The message was, its illegal not to have this sign up,but we want to make damn sure you all see the imprint anyway. It imprinted on me all right. I was just relieved not to see another imprint that read “JEWS.”

I am thrilled that the HELP and its brilliant actresses, Viola Davis who is something of a goddess and the amazing Octavia Spencer. have been raking in the awards. These are two women Hollywood would not normally see fit to give starring roles too, because they don’t fit the normal Hollywood leading lady look or age or color, (some prejudices are still alive and well hmmm).

In a sea of big stars who are great but really honey don’t need any more recognition, it was wonderful to see two not-so-known actresses get up there on the podium and keep it real for all of us.

I think their SAG award acceptance speeches last night, humbled everyone in the audience, especially that of Viola Davis.

I hope Hollywood, doesn’t forget that audiences like to see real women, not just young women or pretty women or white women.

Fighting racism is an un-going battle and The Help Helps.

Hearing she wants to retire or at least take a nice long break, is a bit sad cause I like her being part of the action, but if ever there was cause to be pooped she’s earned her rest.

I still had a moment watching Obama give his State of the Union address when I wished it was Hillary standing up there. She would have made a great president.

But Obama, I have to say, is pretty darn good. He left me feeling hopeful and uplifted and charmed. I mostly appreciated his call to stop partisan bull-shit (not his words of course) and join together to get the job done.

I would like to stop hearing about the party of NO, republicans and the loosey goosey democrats and just start hear about what the hell they are doing to fix our economy.

Get rid of loopholes for the uber rich and give a break to the middle-class.
Who on earth could really argue with that and look the un-employed in the face?!

It’s going to take that and a lot more to really fix things.

I’d like to see clean energy be on the top of the list. Really in the end, if we destroy our planet it’s not going to really matter how much money anyone has. We’ll all be home less or floating around mars.

I don’t want to go to Mars. No two-play toilet paper there!

I was on the elliptical machine at the gym and got so entrenched in the Betty salute that I wound up staying on the machine for an hour and a half. My calves were burning by the time the credits rolled, so I guess I have to thank Betty for the great work out.

The reason I was so entrenched was because of the pure joy of watching this show.

One by, one, the great legendary faces of television comedy appeared; Carol Burnett, Carl Reiner, Mary Tyler Moore and the newer faces of comedy too Valerie Bertinelli and Tina Fey for example. Even Barack Obama made a tribute, but the stars tributes paled to the snippets of Betty’s illustrious career flashing on the screen.

This woman seems to be everything missing in today’s showbiz. She is classy, kind, elegant, lovely, appreciative and charming, yet not the least bit afraid to play the slut, or make fun of herself at every turn.

I do hope she lives to celebrate her hundredth and more as the world needs a Betty White.

I need a Betty White.

Perhaps the lesson from Betty is to simply follow her own example. Find something you love doing, with people you love doing it with and do it to the best of your ability with pride, joy and confidence.

If work is such a large part of our lives, let’s make it wonderland!

Happy birthday Betty and thank you.

“I support an amendment to the constitution defining marriage as between a man and a woman!” they proudly declared one after the other.

Decades ago these men would have probably just as proudly declared they supported a ban on interracial marriage.

Both are equally wrong!

I realize that readers of this site are gay, straight, democrat, republican, independent and don’t give a rat’s ass, but I think most folks who read rossi rant care at least a little about human rights.

To amend our constitution should only be done in great matters supporting human rights and the good of Americans, to make America even more for the people, for freedom for justice. Wouldn’t this amendment be about as far the opposite as opposite can be?

Yes I wanted Hillary not Obama and I don’t think the guy is perfect, nor have I thought any president was perfect except for Gwbush junya who was a perfect moron!!!

but at least I know Obama would not support such a travesty as banning the rights of 10% of the country to marry!

When I go to the polls I am going to vote for the person who does not want to vote away my rights as an American.

New York finally got its act together and passed gay marriage and the joy and the wonder and celebration took to the streets and still continues. Marriage equality should be federal. It’s time for America to be the land of the people.

Let freedom ring with rings!

After all, Jesus was Jewish.

Chanukah or shall I say Hanukkah, (both correct I believe) is the festival of lights, the eight-day holiday commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem,
is a time of celebration. It is a time of family and gift giving, good-deed giving, love and kindness and a good excuse to eat lots and lots of Latkes. Delicious although I have come to understand slightly constipating. Do chase with a lot of applesauce and a prune.

Christmas, the holiday celebrating the birth of Christ is also a time of celebration of family, of love, of kind-ness, of gift-giving of good-deed giving and really honeys Christmas in New York City is the only time of year when New Yorkers really will slow down long enough to smell the roses, well hmmm at least the pine-needles of all those Christmas trees for sale on every other block!

And yes, it would be nice if the Christmas season could be a tad less commercial and a whole lot more about good-ness but ya know at least most folks get the holiday spirit.

Growing up I always felt left out of Christmas. Most of the folks in my home towns (we moved a lot) were having grand Christmas eve parties and waking up to a bounty of gifts on Christmas day, then celebrating all day long. All the movies and the Charlie Brown cartoons were dedicated to Christmas too.

There we were, eights days of sitting around the dinette set while my mother handed us gifts, 3 out of five were socks,generic shampoo and school note-pads, really my dears the kinds of things parents are supposed to give their kids anyway, not make gifts out of. Then owing to the Grants-going-out-of-business sale, we’d get the dolls. Oh they might have a broken arm or an ink mark on their cheek, but they’d been purchased for pennies on the dollar.

“They’re almost as good as new as you get three dolls instead of one for the same price!” Mom would shriek delighted.

I would think of my school pals opening up packages including brand-new, full priced top-of-the-line dolls, everything on their Santa wish list, while they drank hot apple cider or egg nog and ate warm cinnamon buns. We were drinking diet-right cola in paper cups and eating stale matzo with peanut butter on it. NOT FAIR, NOT FAIR!

One year I wrote a Santa Wish list too. I only put one thing on it. GET ME OUT OF HERE!

After I moved out (escaped) I had Christian girlfriends and room-mates and sometimes Christmas trees in the apartments I lived in. One year, in my 6th-floor-walk-up pre-war apartment in the west village, my roommate Terry spun gold tinsel around the small Christmas tree in the living room. When we shut out the lights, it twinkled and blinked in glory and was a beauty to behold! But it didn’t feel right to me. I kept thinking a bolt of lighting would come thru the window and strike me down, not from g-d, no g-d is a loving merciful being who loves people of all religions equally, I hope. No the bolt of lighting would come from a far more frightening being…..my mother.

The next morning the gold tinsel was gone! We looked everywhere and it was nowhere to be found. Terry was bewildered. I was terrified! Had Harriet (my mom) broken in and stolen the tinsel? Would I find tiny star-of-David’s sprinkled on the linoleum?!

A few hours later the mystery was solved. JD, the black longhaired cat I’d rescued from the ASPCA a year earlier, let out a cry as he came darting away from the litter box. As he ran across the living room, I noticed a foot of gold tinsel trailing out of his ass.

I called the vet. “Don’t pull it whatever you do! Just keep snipping it off with scissors. It will work it’s way out!” the vet replied. “Whatever you do, just don’t pull!”

Many cuttings, and one horrified cat later, the tinsel was fully pooped. JD avoided the tree ever after and I never looked at tinsel quite the same way again.

These days I am tree-less and cat-less, JD and my tabby Lu Lu are in kitty heaven, where they can eat all the tuna coated tinsel they want poop free.

This Christmas I am sitting in front of the fire with my sweetie, an Italian Catholic beauty from Bensonhurst. We are listening to Christmas music on the classical station and eating oatmeal. I am willing to get her a tree if she so chooses especially now, that they will probably be half-off or perhaps even free. I am my mother’s daughter after all. But mostly, I think right here and now, looking at the menorah on the fireplace mantel, listening to the violins of the gorgeous Christmas classics on the radio and watching this kind lovely woman stare at the fire in delight that the holiday season whatever you believe in, is really just about love. However you slice it, dice it or splice it. I’m fairly sure Harriet who is now in Jewish mama heaven where you can buy anything, anytime, 50% off, doesn’t care whether or not I have a tree anymore, only that I’m happy.

Mom, I’m working on it, but I’m Jewish after all and we have to have something to complain about. Kvetching is how we breathe, but yeah aside from a strained back, a slight sore-throat, a mild head-ache, a few friends who don’t appreciate me and a fear of Al Pacino’s hair, I’m happy mom, I really am.

Here’s hoping, you all find joy on this day, Merry Cranukah to all and to all a good night.

How did they feel that morning, putting on their uniforms, getting in their vehicles, going through one last march, the last march before leaving the war zone that had been home?

800 plus billion dollars spent, 4,487 American lives lost, over a hundred thousand Iraqi lives lost, years and years of war.

All those families knowing that finally their son, husband, brother, father, mother, daughter, wife, friend is coming home.

All those families who found out quite the opposite, or who opened their arms to their loved one and found a person very different then the one who had left, crippled in the body, in the heart, in the mind or all of the above.

The only rejoice war ever really offers is it’s ending.

Did we win?
Well certainly we took out Saddam Hussein, a terrible monster and dictator if ever there was one, but the reason Cheney and Bush led us to war, the weapons of mass destruction were a lie and neither man (monster) was ever brought to justice on this lie. Thousands of lives were lost on this lie.

But America is the good guy. We are supposed to stick up for the little guy and take out the bullies.

But we were shoved into a war with no exit.

If you ask the Iraqis you will get mixed answers about their feelings about our leaving. Many felt we were bullies and occupiers and are rejoicing at our exit, many are frightened about the future and are angry that we left them with a broken country filled with widows and orphans. Many are grateful to us for taking out Saddam but felt the war simply went on too long.

Oh how grand we were in 2003 “Shock and Awe” was the avalanche of thunder and missiles George Bush Junior sent to Iraq and we watched it live from our televisions. The first real fully covered live war in Technicolor! How brave we were, how strong, how masterful.

But then what…the war dragged on, the weapons never appeared, the baby bush and his war monster Cheney blamed everyone but themselves and quickly switched the PR machine away form weapons of mass destruction to saving this country, protecting the innocent, making Iraq a safer place for democracy.

This was the largest troop withdrawal since Vietnam. I wonder how different and how similar it felt, these two wars to the people leaving them.. On their way home were they wondering if we won, wondering exactly why we were there?

Do they wonder just what they are leaving behind?

What will happen to Iraq now?

Obama kept his promise and took us out of the war Bush Junior dragged us into.

Did we stay too long, did we not stay long enough? That’s an argument that the politicians will make for years to come.

Was it worth it? Iraq certainly does not seem ready to stand on its own two feet. With political infighting galore. After the dust settles will a democracy stand?

1.5 million Americans served their nation in this war. I am quite sure none of them wounded, killed or not is the same person they were when they left America.

I don’t know if years from now we will say it was worth it or if that it was a tragic waste of human life.

What I do know is this.

Regardless of whether or not we should have been in Iraq, or how long, every one of those 1.5 million men and women we sent there is a hero.

They did not ask why, but rushed to defend our country when asked.

I can only say this to those men and women today

thank you for your courage and your loss
I hope you find peace from this point on
I hope we all do

Happy, happy holidays to you all

I think it was “Born this Way” her tribute to the gay community and a torch song for gay teens to NOT give up, NOT kill themselves and know that they are great and gorgeous just as they are, that really made me start to dig her.

She’s a singer and a dancer but more of a New York performance artist who proudly gives homage to all those she has learned from, clearly ( I MEAN CLEARLY) Madonna being one of them.

She’s a freak and I love a freak, but it’s her constant stand against bullying that has really won my heart.

And now she’s offered her help with the Obama administration’s anti-bullying campaign.

The lady is becoming a role model. She openly admits to being bullied as a kid and now burns to help others. Her message is simple. You can be different and you can be glorious! LOOK AT ME!

Oh my darlings it is time. I have often said, that even though I have lived in neighborhoods so dangerous that you could be killed in broad daylight quite easily, experienced many crimes, by many people, some of the cruelest acts I have ever experienced were done by kids in the 7th and 8th grade.

I don’t think very many teens read my blog, but their parents, sisters, aunts, uncles, neighbors and teachers might.

So it is to you that I ask, I beg and I demand “do what you can to put a stop to bullying!” SAVE OUR KIDS!

As a teen punk-rocker in a super uptight, super white, right wing, little town, where you could be run out of town, for having pink hair or being gay, or dating someone black if you were white, and honey I was all of the above and more, I know all about fighting back.

I’m still fighting.
Sometimes I feel like I’m winning, but every time I see another headline of a teen suicide due to bullying it’s a black stamp on my heart and on all our hearts.

teach the kids around you to not bully others and if they are being bullied teach them just how special and wonderful they really are.

and to the lady gaga
well honey all i can say is ROCK ON!

Growing up Jewish, we always felt a bit shut out of Christmas. The Jewish holidays, while sacred to us, were un-known or ignored by most of the non-Jews I met and quite a few of the Jews too.

The only holiday that really allowed us to not go to school, not go to work and not to be productive in any major way except of course for cooking, was thanksgiving, not just that day but the whole weekend.

I’ve dragged myself to work in snow storms, on president’s birthdays, on holidays galore from Easter to Passover, in sick-ness and in health, but ah, that wonderful Wednesday, day before Thanksgiving when I know that after a half day of paper-work and email, I can blaze out of the office and not feel even remotely obligated to check in till Monday, knowing that anyone who calls, emails or snail-mails really knows that only a dolt would expect a response over Thanks-giving weekend…now that’s bliss.

This little break from reality opens up a window of freedom that allows other things to happen; calling friends I’ve been too busy to chat with for months and not just a quick how-are-ya, but a real long soulful chat.

Thanksgiving is also my annual “OKAY LAY IT ON ME” time when I just sit back, take a deep breath and let my family members vent about their long, long, long, list of gripes. It’s called “KVETCHING.” The listening part is called “ A REALLY GOOD DEED.”

The driving beat of New York City is dulled just enough to bring out the kid in all of us; watching the floats at the Macy’s parade, (from TV my dears, I don’t know any actual New Yorkers who go in person, kinda like going inside the Statue of Liberty), catching up on great old classics like “Gone with the Wind.” I totally forgot that little Bonny dies and got heart-broken all over again. “The God-Father Two” (why a movie about the Mafia feels like a Thanks-giving treat I don’t know, but it does) and sleeping blissfully, magically late.

Then of course there’s the food, too much of it but so what?!

I’ve been on a health kick all year; so chowing down on some good sinful eats really feels like throwing caution to the wind! The best part of course is sharing the meal with people you love. If it can’t be family by blood then do as I have done most of my life and share with family by love, sometimes a stronger bond my dears.

Thanksgiving weekend also brings up other things my dears; a time to think and discover what’s really on our minds; good and bad, to take inventory of what we have and what’s missing and yes, dears of course, it is a time to give thanks to the people who have been kind to us, the good things in life, the great moments.

In this economy, with so much strife and struggle, fear and pain all around us, it’s all the more important to try and find moments of joy and give them back twice fold.

I gave a home-less junkie a pint of sweet potato soup on Thursday and he answered, “Thanks now how bout a dollar!” Hey home-less junkies have their priorities after all.

And now we go into Sunday, the last day of this wondrous break. The sun is out and the park is calling. I have a kind wonderful person to spend this day with and I am thankful for this day and this person and this moment.

Monday is a lifetime away.

Happy t-day to you all my dears…
Share your joy.

“It’s a lot like that honey, but they were more organized in the 60’s. They had leaders and an agenda. They got it done.”

When I heard a little while back that OCCUPY WALL STREET was going to Union Square park, I went for a few hours. I’m not much of a rough and tumble type, so went on a not so chilly afternoon for a few hours. All of the speakers that day were talking about police brutality and at first I began to wonder if that’s what the movement had become. But then a speaker explained that this was the October 22nd anti-police brutality rally and OCCUPY WALL STREET had joined them in solidarity. While I was there someone held up a sign about the 99%, someone invited me to become a communist and several people invited me to become a socialist.

One of the speakers instructed the crowd as to the difference between a frisk and a search.

“A search is a light pat down. They cannot go into your pockets, look under your hoody, ask you to remove your hat. That is a search. If they do this, you must say the following loudly and for witnesses to hear.”

“I DO NOT CONSENT TO THIS SEARCH!”

The crowd shouted loudly back, “I DO NOT CONSENT TO THIS SEARCH!”

I did not join the parade that marched down the street but instead took a moment to survey the booths and crowd left behind. So many causes, so many agendas, it was like a festival of human rights issues.

From the beginning I have had a mixed feeling about OCCUPY WALL STREET. How can a movement with no leaders and no particular agenda really work? But the other part of me loves the revolutionary passion that screams out against this often very very wrong world.

After- all, it really did take the stonewall riots to launch the gay rights movement.

So maybe it really will take OCCUPY WALL STREET to even out the playing field a little bit more between the 1% and the 99% between the big banks and the small businesses.

I am a small business owner and one that has certainly felt the pressure of trying to survive in one of the most expensive cities in the world, with a local government that speaks publicly about supporting the small business but privately sends in every imaginable task master to charge, penalize, tax and fine us. We will never know how many small businesses close due to this un-ending harassment and this means loss of jobs, loss of income, loss of what makes NY great. It’s called short sighted!!

I know that the small business must be one of the causes OCCUPY WALL STREET fights for and so it is extra sad when local joints in the area of Zuccotti park are hurt, like the Panini Café which had been overwhelmed with protestors using the bathroom and not buying anything and ultimately breaking the sink causing loads of money in damages and the business to have to install a lock.

I’d like to think that the money brought in by the hoards of tourists coming to see the protests might soften the blow. I hope so, but for many local businesses it’s been a hard haul that’s not ending anytime soon enough.

Alas all revolutions do have casualties even if they are friendly fire.

I’d like to see OCCUPY WALL STREET make a mission to support the local businesses, after-all they are some of the very people they are protesting to protect.

I like it best when the protests take on specific causes and fight for them, like getting the big banks to stop with the @&&@**@( ATM charges. I heard a cry one day about letting the un-employed ride the subway for free. I think that’s a great idea. If going on un-employment would produce a free ride card for public transportation, maybe folks would have an easier time searching for jobs and surviving until they get one.

The over-all message of OCCUPY WALL STREET, to stop corporate greed and corruption, to make the big banks be held accountable, to stop this country from being one of such extremes that if can often feel hope-less and fruit-less is a good one. It is a timely and just message. The very fact that it’s still going on and hasn’t lost steam and has spread around the country means regardless of its confusing state, it really is working.

It’s a mixed bag, with a lot wrong and a lot messy but over-all, to me, OCCUPY WALL STREET, still the good guys.

when i looked out my window yesterday am and saw giant snow flakes i thought i was hallucinating..okay yes, they did mention snow on the news, but that was just too odd to even listen to..

then trecking cross town we are only talking about 7 avenues hear my dear i felt like i was a pioneer making my way to the north pole, getting whipped by nastry, wet, rainy snow…

good lord if it’s gonna snow, let it be fluffy and fun, not wet and goopy..it felt like i was stuck in a perpetual episode of GLEE and getting slusshies whipped at me constantly..NOT FUN

and how weird is it to see Halloween decorations covered in wet snow?!

thankfully we didn’t lose power in the city but i did hear about 1 million folks in the surrounding areas did…

mother nature dears, not to be ignored…

the news said this was the biggest snow storm in october ever
governor quomo said biggest since
the civil war..and i sure do believe it

but today aside from a whole lot of branches and trees and power lines down it seems to be all clear
so i shall venture out my dears

if you are without power sending you some cheer, light those candles, read those books and find warmth as you can good luck darlings

now can we get back to fall already for crying out loud!

this is just NUTS