Have you ever wondered what Akiva of Mystical Paths sounds like? Well, now you can find out!

Hear Akiva talk about The Jibs on Israel National Radio (Arutz Sheva).

I think he did a terrific job. It’s just over 20 minutes long, if you click here it will load your media player. Thanks Akiva for doing this, I’m glad the right guy ended up doing it. It’s a really great conversation that touches on a lot of interesting issues. Again, very well done Akiva.

Shout outs went to A Simple Jew, Lazer Brody, Gil, Daf Notes, DovBear got a friendly shout out, Jewschool, Jewlicious, Kumah, Israelly Cool and others.

Don’t forget to vote for your favorite posts now.

I just wanted to welcome and thank Psycho Toddler for joining The Shtus Blog.

What is the Shtus Blog? Well, it’s a blog about a shtus. It’s for silly, pointless, shtus like things.

Basically it’s a place to post Famly Guy clips without people telling me I should post that type of …. wait for it …. SHTUS here.

Here was the welcome post from last summer. But seriously, check it out and if you want to join and also be able to post “shtus” type posts, clips etc, let me know. The more the merrier.

Wow. I had heard it was an interesting interview, but I just started listening now and it’s brutal. I am halfway through but Nachum really sticks it to them. Listen here, I’m gonna try to pull some quotes from it later today if I have some time. I’ve been skipping through these songs though, it makes no sense to listen to this if you don’t listen to music during sefirah. (HT JMB)

Click here to vote for your favorite posts.

Get some tips from Ezzie and David.

So these Shabbos afternoons are getting really long huh? I think if your single they must be amazing. I think if your kids are older and you can sleep in or not have to supervise the kids, they must be very relaxing. But when you still have small children they can get very long, very quick. I’m just trying to figure out if Shabbos will end later this summer because of the daylight savings time adjustment, or will we just start having earlier shabbosim, earlier in the summer.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea Shabbos afternoon of going to the park with the kids. playing some board games, visiting some friends too. I like that my cell isn’t ringing every 4 minutes. I like that I don’t check my email or have to worry about some work crisis. I think that part of it is real nice. But the truth is, as much as I despise being digitally connected. For some reason I start getting serious withdrawal about 4PM on Shabbos afternoon. It’s like an addiction to electronics. It’s not easy. /Shabbos rambling over.

Just a couple things to link to:

Jewish Blogmeister has an update of some stuff coming up for Lag Ba’omer. (Complete wih obligatory clouds cover)

Shlager has some more info on the Shabbos album.

The first round of voting ends TODAY so this is your last chance to vote.

Gruntig has a video clip of Helfgot and Stark singing.

I missed this earlier, but YK has a good review of AKAPELLA’s 2nd album.

Sorry for the light blogging lately, things have been so nuts in my life right now. I’m trying to do way too many things at once. I’m taking onto too many jobs at the same time and I hope it doesn’t bite me in the end.

I want to thank Sarah for giving me the code for the random header images. I love it, it’s something I wanted to do for ages, but could never find a simple code. These are all from photos I took in and around Crown Heights. Refresh the page a few times and check them out. Let me know what you think, which is your favorite.

Don’t forget to go over to the Jibs site and vote if you havent yet, times a ticking.

This sounds great, I really like it.

In an interesting reproduction of his famous song “Siman Tov U’Mazal Tov” Avi Piamenta created a unique and interesting A cappella song, in which all sounds recorded are done by mouth, with no instrument accompanying, thereby making this music allowed in the Sefirah.

Download it here.

Be there or be square. Shlomo Katz, Piamenta, Shloime Dachs, Yood, Except Saturday, Chaim Kiss, Gershon Veroba & Remedy.

Now that the weather has gotten warm again crime has begun to rise again sharply on the streets of Crown Heights. This happens every Spring. Last week a man mugged two Lubavitch girls coming home from the library of their iPod.

Yesterday 3 men robbed one bochurm of his cell phone. Here is the story.

Crown Heights, Brooklyn — Tuesday, Shortly before 9:00pm a Yungerman on his way home was accosted on Crown St between Kingston and Albany aves by three young teens. They snatched his cell phone from his hand while he was talking on the phone, then the Yungerman without hesitation screamed “Chaptzem” and began perusing the robbers.

When they reached the intersection of Crown and Albany a large crowd of Yidden had joined in the pursuit and surrounded two of the three perpetrators, one of which was a Black male and the other an Asian male. The third one, a Black male, managed to slip away and flee into 742 Montgomery St, a predominantly Jewish building located on the corner of Albany Ave.

They eventually caught him after an almost near riot broke out. But they got all three of the men. This is the part where some people will start warning on political correctness and roll their eyes. Let me just say that I try very hard to be very open and fair about who commits 99.9 percent of these crimes. I hate to stereotype of classify. Why on earth did they need 3 guys to tackle one bochor and steal his cell phone. Really? 3 guys were needed for one cell phone?

I really wish that the African American community here would take some responsibility and work on correcting the problem. It gets worse and worse every year. Last year there were way too many violent assaults. The kids committing these crimes are getting younger every year (15,16 yrs old) and the crimes are getting more brazen.

I’m afraid to say it, but something is gonna give soon. If you live in Crown Heights, pleas take extra precaution of your valuables, don’t walk alone at night and keep Shomrim’s number handy. Oh, and it’s good to know the old fashion CHAPTZEM! still works.

I’ve just been informed that the court ruled that Bitton can keep blogging but that on the merits if the case was to go forward he would probably lose. Let me just quickly add my two cents on what I think about the overall issue.

I’ve been reading the comments on his last post and there seems to be a general feeling that if OU/LeMarais hired this man then they have to trust his judgment. End of story. It doesn’t make sense to hire someone, believe in his abilities to the point of making sure a restaurant is kosher, and then when he says something is not kosher, call him crazy and disagree.

Even if he really is wrong, there is an inherent problem here that the OU or restaurants like Le Marais don’t do a better job checking into mashgichim (and maybe non jewish chefs too).

Lets say that the OU is 100 percent right and Bitton is exaggerating or making things up. Then this is still a “shame on you!” to both The OU and LeMarais for hiring someone who isn’t competent to do his job. A very important job might I add. Ensuring a restaurant, a popular one no less, is kosher is not some small thing.

To me, the issue is no longer if THIS case is true or not. It’s a much bigger problem. How does someone like this get hired in the first place. What steps are kosher certification companies like the OU taking to make sure someone like Bitton isn’t hired again. Of course, that’s assuming they are right. I’m still not sure this is a black and white case. I still think we may have a situatuon where there is a little truth to what all parties are saying.

Aside from one big baby, everything is going very nicely over at The Jibs. I’m happy that I was nominated, I’m not gonna lie it’s nice to know people thought of you. I was nominated for Best Designed, Best JM Blog and The Shtus Blog was nominated for Best Humor. (Jack, that’s the one and only time I’ll mention that, promise!)

Every time we go through this I find it amazing just how many blogs I had never ever seen before. It’s wonderful that there are so many blogs. The way I see it blogs fall into a few categories.

1) Blog I visit every day and I consider my favorites.

2) Blogs I know about, but either don’t ever read or read very rarely.

3) Blogs I have never heard of.

I’ve been blogging and/or reading blogs for well over 3 years now. So it’s great that not only am I finding newish blogs that I’ve never seen before. I’m finding blogs that have been around for a long time which I’ve never seen.

That to me says it works. Sure there is that aspect that it’s partly a popularity contest and egos looking to get a boost, but overall it’s about opening up your experience and hopefully new people reading Jewish blogs for the first time.

So go to The Jibs and just go through the blogs, go through them by category and see what’s out there that you might have not known about. You’d be surprised.

When the Jibs are over I will be posting about all the new blogs I’ve found and will be happy to hear and post which new blogs other people found.

Just a couple weeks after the Imus firing, we have another suspension and possible firing. This time it’s NY’s (only) Rock Station 92.3 Free FM, (formerly 92 K-Rock) The Doghouse with JV and Elvis.

To be honest, the show stinks and the station isn’t that great either. Any show called “The Doghouse” should have be the first tip that it’s going to be a show that will offend some.

This was my problem with Imus, it’s the beginning of the end for all talk radio. Yes, it’s insulting, but hello, listen to any of these shock jock, morning FM zoo style shows and they are always offensive. They are not family friendly and often make fun of stereotypes of every race, creed and gender.

If you don’t like it, don’t listen. In both cases the stink was/is being raised by people who don’t even listen to the show in the first place. If they hadn’t read about in an email or an article somewhere they wouldn’t have even known it was said. Even worse is that in this case, the offended party wasn’t even offended until it was played a second time a couple weeks later.

In an interview today before the suspensions were announced, Vicki Shu Smolin, president of the organization’s New York City chapter, said she was mystified that CBS would allow the call to be broadcast in the first place and then would permit it to be replayed in the aftermath of the Imus incident. (“The Dog House” has been waging a broad campaign in support of Mr. Imus both on the show and on its Web site.)

“I just see plain ignorance in the CBS management — of the community, of who we are, of what we’re all about,” Ms. Shu Smolin said. “If they don’t fire the D.J.’s, it will be a double standard.”

She promised to rip a page from the playbook of the Rev. Al Sharpton, who led the charge for Mr. Imus’s dismissal, by staging protests of CBS Radio and boycotting advertisers on WFNY.

“They don’t think they’re going to get any backlash from the Asian-American community,” she said. “They’re definitely wrong.”

We are going down a very dangerous path people. We are shutting up people we don’t agree with. being offensive isn’t against the law. It may be wrong and in bad taste, but it’s not a crime.

Free speech is under attack in this country.

Light blogging today, but just wanted to point out some stuff.

Voting is open for the JIBS. So please, go vote and even more importantly, take the time to enjoy some blogs that you may have never seen before or visited in the past.

The black Cadillac that the Lubavitcher Rebbe used to drive in was in an accident yesterday. There are pictures here. It’s a very cool looking car. There is a funny story in the comments.

“Gruntig wrote:
Wow! Amazing to still see the rebbes car.
One Gimmel Tammuze a few years back i got a ride with Rabbi Kline from the Ohel in the rebbe’s car. I told Rabbi Kline “coming back from the Ohel, in a black Cadillac, with Rabbi Kline being the driver, quite scary!” to which he lightheartedly responded “why I’m not such a bad driver!”

This whole Sheryl Crow thing is just so funny. I heard about it on the news this morning and I thought it was a joke. But no, it’s true. You’ve heard of the 2 flush rule? Well Ms. Crow wants to institute the 1 square (of toilet paper) rule.

Speaking of Crow. You always hear about demands stars make when they’re booked for shows. Hers are pretty interesting.

The rock star’s performance contract includes specific day-to-day instructions on what kind of booze Sheryl needs in her dressing room (TSG has never seen such attention to detail in any other concert rider we’ve posted). For each show, Crow requires 12 bottles of Grolsch beer, 6 bottles of “local” beer, and a bottle each of “good Australian Cabernet” and “good Merlot.”

As for the harder stuff, promoters are directed to purchase specific booze depending on what day of the week the concert falls, as the below rider excerpt reveals. Additionally, when the global warming warrior hits the road, her touring entourage (and equipment) travels in three tractor trailers, four buses, and six cars. Now that’s a carbon footprint! (4 pages)

Here is a funny “President Bush Comes to Jewish Brooklyn” joke. via Apple 770.

President Bush calls in the Head of the CIA and asks, How come the Jews know everything before we do?”

The CIA chief says, “The Jews have this expression :’Vus titzuch?’
The President says, “Hell, what’s that mean?”

Well, Mr. President”, replies the CIA chief, “It’s a Yiddish expression which roughly translates to “what’s happening”. They just ask each other and they know everything.”

The President decides to personally go undercover to determine if this is true. He gets dressed up as an Orthodox Jew (black hat, beard, long black coat) and is secretly flown in an unmarked plane to New York, picked up in an unmarked car, and dropped off in Brooklyn’s most Jewish neighborhood.

Soon a little old man comes shuffling along. The President stops him and whispers, “Vus titzuch?”

The old guy whispers back: “Bush is in Brooklyn.”

Last but not least. Bagel Blogger’s J-Pix Carnival (#6) is about to go live, so if you have some great photo posts, email it to him.

The newest Havel Haveilim (#113) is up, check it out here.

The newest Kosher Cooking Carnival (#17) is also up, check that out here.

The Yeshiva Boys Choir will be performing in concert in Brooklyn for Lag Ba’omer.

I’m having some spyware issues, if anyone has a good solution let me know. It’s the type that makes you have a million popups and slows down your computer. I think someone who was babysitting for us must have downloaded something, because it was working fine before they were here. So other then the typical CCleaner.com, windows defender, spyhunter type stuff, I could use a good solution.

I want to make a new header image for spring, but I’m not liking anything I’ve tried so far. Any suggestions? It has to be dark but spring like.