Merry Christmas Jimmy!

Dear Jimmy,
This year I decided to make you your own Blog.  This is a page dedicated to You and to Christmas! You are really special to me, and I hope this page fills you with laughter, smiles, thoughts of wisdom, inspiration, and joy! It's a Christmas Blog just for you. Merry Christmas, J.B.

Yours in Jingle Lights,
J.R.

It Looks Like Your Chapter is Back!

 

ΘΧ - Theta Chi, 2010

Council

Theta Chi is a Fraternity in the Interfraternity Council

Standing

Good

Status as a University Recognized Student Organization

Recognized
This Chapter on Maize Pages

Address

1351 Washtenaw

National Website

http://www.thetachi.org/

Contact

Ethan Goldsmith
goethan@umich.edu
Last Updated: 12/17/2010

Famous Jewish Catholics (or Catholic Jews)

Some Jewish Catholic Comic Book Characters - Iceman - The Sandman - Robin - Green Lantern II (Hal Jordan) - The Phantom Stranger

Below is a list of famous Jewish Catholics (or Catholic Jews, or Hebrew Catholics).

"Jewish Catholics" are simply people that are both Catholic and Jewish. Many of these individuals had one Catholic parent and one Jewish parent. (It does not matter whether it was the mother or father that was Catholic or Jewish.) Other individuals on this list had two Jewish parents (or only one), but they converted to Catholicism during their life.

There are exceptions, of course, but for the most part, Jewish Catholics do not practice the religion of Judaism in any meaningful way. Their "Jewishness" is merely an ethnicity, a fact of birth. These individuals may or may not have any meaningful self-identity as Jews. Generally speaking, if Jewish Catholics practice any religion, that religion is Catholicism.

The list of Jewish Catholics may also include people who were fully Catholic, but who converted religiously to Judaism.

• Sean Penn - actor, movie star (devout Catholic mother; non-observant Jewish father)
• Fritz Lang - famous German film director (Catholic father; mother was Jewish convert to devout Catholicism; Fritz raised as a devout Catholic)
• Roger Corman - famously successful and prolific independent/low-budget feature filmmaker (half Jewish; raised Catholic)
• Erich von Stroheim - famous Austrian-born actor-director (both parents Jewish; convert to Catholicism while young; lifelong active Catholic)
• Roman Polanski - film director (both parents agnostic Jews; Roman converted to Catholicism at age 10, active until age 15; has some Jewish ethnic identity)
• Oliver Stone - film director (lapsed Catholic mother; non-observant Jewish father; raised Episcopalian; converted to Buddhism as adult)
• Adam Goldberg - actor; Saving Private Ryan, etc. (lapsed Jewish father, lapsed Catholic mother)
• Barry Gifford - poet, novelist, playwright, screenwriter (Jewish father; Irish Catholic mother; anti-Catholic as an adult)
• Fiorello LaGuardia - progressive, liberal, powerful Republical mayor of New York City (served 1934-1945) (son of Jewish and Italian immigrants)
• Douglas Fairbanks - actor, silent screen legend (Jewish father, Catholic mother - both lapsed; Fairbanks was never active in either faith)
• Helena Bonham Carter - actress; Planet of the Apes (2001); Fight Club (1999); Howards End (1992); other Merchant Ivory films; etc. (mother was a Jewish convert to Catholicism)
• Robert Novak - conservative columnist and TV commentator (Jewish convert to Catholicism)
• Harrison Ford - actor; "Han Solo" in Star Wars; Indiana Jones, Witness, Air Force One, etc. (Jewish mother)
• Courtney Love - grunge rock singer (one grandparent was Jewish)
  
• Bill Maher - comedian, commentator, previously hosted TV talk show Politically Incorrect (Jewish mother, Catholic father, he is a Vegan)
• Marcel Proust - influential novelist
• Billy Joel - singer, songwriter (both parents are Jewish; raised Catholic and identified himself as Catholic; now atheist)
• John von Neumann - mathematician and physicist whose work led to development of modern computers
• Gabriela Mistral - Chilean poet, educator, diplomat; first Latin American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature
• J.D. Salinger - popular, acclaimed novelist for his novel The Catcher in the Rye (Jewish/Catholic family background; adopted Hinduism as an adult, also Scientology and Christian Science)
• Neve Campbell - actress (Jewish ancestry on mother's side; identifies both as Jewish and Catholic)
• John Kerry - Senator from Massachusets; 2004 Democratic nominee for U.S. President (Catholic. Paternal Jewish grandparents converted to Catholicism)
• Nostradamus - French philosopher, prognosticator, (raised Catholic)
• Wesley Clark - Wesley Kane Clark was the NATO Allied Commander in Europe; unsuccessfully ran to be Democratic nominee for U.S. President (Jewish father, raised Baptist, converted to Catholicism)
• Max Jacob - French artist (Jewish-born; converted to Catholicism)
• Frida Kahlo - influential Mexican painter, friend of Leon Trotsky (Jewish father, Catholic mother)
• Diego Rivera - influential Mexican painter (he was a "Converso", a descendant of Jews forced into Catholicism; atheist)
• Edgardo Mortara - Jewish Italian seized by Papal authority as a child; became a Catholic priest; famous as catalyst for Jewish-Catholic relations, dialogue
• Susan Jacoby - author, (father half-Jewish, converted to Catholicism)
• Gustav Mahler - Austro-Hungarian Viennese composer (converted to Catholicism)
• Jean-Marie Lustiger - Cardinal and Archbishop of Paris (ethnic Jew, born to a Polish Jewish family living in France; raised Catholic)
• Edith Stein - Catholic nun, Holocaust victim
• Uriel Acosta - Potuguese philosopher (raised Catholic)
• Theodor Adorno - German philosopher, composer, (ethnic Jewish father became Protestant; Catholic mother)
• Simone Weil - French philosopher (converted to Catholicism)
• Ludwig Wittgenstein - Austrian philosopher (father's parents became Protestants, mother was Catholic)
• Lindsey Vuolo - Playboy Playmate (Jewish mother, father converted from Catholicism)
• Bernard Nathanson - former abortionist (doctor who performed abortions) turned pro-life activist; rejected abortion on scientific grounds (Jewish convert to Catholicism)
• Karl Stern (1906-1975) - neuropsychiatrist and author; author of Pillar of Fire, etc. (Jewish convert to Catholicism)
• Israel Zolli - Chief Rabbi of Rome (converted to Catholicism)
• Jim Croce - rock musician whose hits include "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" (raised in devout Catholic family; converted to Judaism when he married Ingrid Jacobson)
  
• Amanda Bynes - teen actress, Nickelodeon TV show host; All That; The Amanda Show; Big Fat Liar; What a Girl Wants; etc. (Catholic father, Jewish mother)
• Anne Meara - actress, comedian; married to actor Jerry Stiller, father of actor Ben Stiller (Irish Catholic convert to Judaism)
• Arlo Guthrie - folk singer; composer of "Alice's Restaurant" (Jewish mother; convert to Catholicism)
• Dick Morris - former advisor for Pres. Bill Clinton; political author
• Don Adams - actor best known as the fumbling spy "Maxwell Smart" on the TV series Get Smart (Irish Catholic mother, Hungarian Jewish father, raised Catholic)
• Dutch Schultz - prohibition era mobster; real name: Arthur Fleggenheimer (Jewish convert to Catholicism)
• Franz Schreker - Austrian-German composer (Jewish father)
• Harry Connick Jr. - singer, actor (ethnically part Jewish; raised Catholic, practicing Catholic)
• Hedy Lamarr - actress, inventor of the first form of spread spectrum, a key to modern wireless communication
• Hermann Broch - German novelist; The Death of Virgil
• Hugo von Hofmannsthal - Austrian German-language poet and dramatist
• Jacques Offenbach - French composer
• Jerry Orbach - actor; Law and Order (Jewish father)
• Johann Strauss - composer known as "The Waltz King"; Blue Danube, Acceleration Waltz, Emperor Waltz, etc
• Jorge Sampaio - president of Portugal (Catholic, but son of a Sefaradi Jewish mother)
• Julianna Margulies - actress on TV drama ER (Jewish father, raised Catholic by mother)
• Kevin Kline - Oscar-winning actor; Sophie's Choice, A Fish Called Wanda, Dave, French Kiss, etc. (Jewish father)
• Marianne Faithfull - British singer, actress (Jewish convert to Catholicism at her school's request)
• Michael Bennett - choreographer (Jewish mother)
• Michael Landon - actor best known as "Pa" on Little House on the Prairie TV series; real name: Eugene Maurice Orowitz (Jewish father, Catholic mother, baptized Catholic)
• Paulo Costanzo - actor; sitcom Joey; films Road Trip, 40 Days and 40 Nights, etc. (Jewish mother)
• Phoebe Cates - actress; Fast Times at Ridgemont High, etc. (real name: Phoebe Katz)
• Pierre Salinger - white house press secretary, 1961-64 (Jewish father)


• Tom Baker - actor; played the Doctor on BBC series Doctor Who from 1974 to 1981


• Wolfgang Pauli - discoverer of the Exclusion Principle and the neutrino (Jewish father, half-Jewish mother, converted from Judaism to Catholic, but later left Catholic Church)


• Yves Montand - famous French actor/singer


• Robert De Niro - actor (lapsed Catholic father and an atheist Presbyterian-raised mother; possible Jewish ancestry)


• Christopher Columbus - explorer who led Europians to American continent (possibly part-Jewish)

Famous Jewish/Catholic Couples:

• George Burns and Gracie Allen: George Burns (a non-observant Jew) and Gracie (a devout Catholic) were regarded as having one of the great marriages of Hollywood history
  
• Alan Alda and Arlene Weiss: Alda (actor best known as "Hawkeye Pierce" on TV's M*A*S*H), was a devout Catholic when he married Weiss, who was an observant Jew. At the time their first child was born, Alda ceased Catholic Church activity and his wife mostly lapsed from Judaism. They raised their children in "a loosely associated 'free thought' style of religion, the family nevertheless celebrates religious holidays--both Catholic and Jewish"
  
• Fred Zinnemann and Renee Bartlett: film director Zinnemann was essentially a non-observant Jew. Probably partially because of the influence of being married to a Catholic, he made some profoundly Catholic films, including The Nun's Story (1959) and A Man for All Seasons (1966). His films The Seventh Cross (1944) and Julia (1977) are considered great Jewish films.
  
• Francois Truffaut and Madeleine Morgenstern: film critic/director Truffaut was a non-practicing Catholic. His wife was a Hungarian Jew.
  
• Martin Scorsese and Laraine Marie Brennan: Before studying film at New York University, film director Scorsese had dropped out of Seminary where he had intended to become a Catholic priest. His first wife (Brennan) was Irish-Jewish. They were married on 15 May 1965 in a traditional Catholic ceremony at St. Patrick's Cathedral soon after Scorsese's graduation from NYU. They had 1 child before they divorced. Scorsese has said his marriage had a lot to do with his rejection of his parents' values and his turning away from formal activity in Catholicism.
  

Santa Baby - my new lingere

Jim's Auto Repair

Here is a list of only some of the auto repair/supply businesses in the United States owned by people named Jim.  This list is by no means all-inclusive. The number of such shops owned by persons named Jim are quite numerable. Time to add yours!

http://jims-auto.com/

http://www.jimsauto.net/index.htm

http://www.jimsauto.biz/

http://jimsautoyork.com/

http://jimsautocare.com/

Dream Garage

My DREAM GARAGE

Start planning your own. Create your dream garage now.

Email:

Cancel

PHOTOS

 

How to keep a healthy level of Insanity while you are in your current job . . .

How to keep an healthy level of insanity

• At lunch time, sit in your parked car with sunglasses on and point a hair dryer at passing cars. See if they slow down.
• Page yourself over the intercom. Don't disguise your voice.
• Every time someone asks you to do something, ask if they want fries with that.
• Put your garbage can on your desk and label it "in"
• Put decaf in the coffee maker for 3 weeks. Once everyone has Gotten over their caffeine addictions, switch to espresso.
• Finish all your sentences with "in accordance with the prophecy."
• Don't use any punctuation marks
• As often as possible, skip rather than walk.
• Ask people what sex they are. Laugh hysterically after they answer.
• Specify that your drive-through order is "to go".
• Sing along at the opera.
• Go to a poetry recital and ask why the poems don't rhyme.
• Put mosquito netting around your work area. Play a tape of jungle sounds all day.
• Five days in advance, tell your friends you can't attend their party because you're not in the mood.
• Have your coworkers address you by your wrestling name, Rock Hard Kim.
• When leaving the zoo, start running towards the parking lot, yelling "run for your lives, they're loose!!"
• Tell your children over dinner. "due to the economy, we are going to have to let one of you go."

Santa has some Christmas Songs Just For You. Click Here!

http://www.the-north-pole.com/carols/index.htm

Ho Ho Ho!

A Polly Pocket Christmas

Christmas just wouldn't be the same without Polly!

Christmas Tree Game

 http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=36061

Peaceful Circles

Christmas Lights

Image Twist Puzzle

Appealing things that make back exercise machines attractive

A back exercise machine is a kind of exercise machine that trains muscles in the back. Many of these types of exercise machines train specific muscle groups in the back such as the shoulders or the lower back. There are other types of machines that can be converted so that they can target various back muscles by allowing users to perform a number of different exercises. These sorts of machines are often designed for use within the home, are collapsible, and use resistance instead of weights to train the muscles.

It is common for a gym(jim) to have more than one kind of back exercise machine. Some gyms may include three or more back exercise machines. Some of these machines may also help to train muscles in other areas of the body. A back exercise machine that trains the upper back and shoulders, for example, might also train the upper arms and biceps. A back exercise machine that trains the lower back might also help to improve the strength in the abdominal region.

Most types of back exercise machines that are found in gyms use weights in order to train the muscles in the back. Users can adjust the amount of weight that is lifted or moved in each repetition. There are also machines that include no weights and no resistance bands. These machines, which are sometimes referred to as "back benches" allow users to keep their legs steady as they lean down towards the ground and then raise their upper bodies back up, using the muscles in their lower backs.

When using a back exercise machine, it is important to start with a very manageable amount of weight. Injuries to the back that are the result of attempting to lift too much weight can be quite painful and persistent. The same is true for injuries that are the result of overuse. Be sure to be gentle when first using a back exercise machine. Also, don't be shy about asking gym staff members for tutorials on how to best use these kinds of machines.

Automotive Engineer vs. Vanilla Ice Cream

A complaint was received by the Pontiac Division of General Motors: "This is the second time I have written you, and I don't blame you for not answering me, because I kind of sounded crazy, but it is a fact that we have a tradition in our family of ice cream for dessert after dinner each night. But the kind of ice cream varies so, every night, after we've eaten, the whole family votes on which kind of ice cream we should have and I drive down to the store to get it. It's also a fact that I recently purchased a new Pontiac and since then my trips to the store have created a problem. You see, every time I buy vanilla ice cream, when I start back from the store my car won't start. If I get any other kind of ice cream, the car starts just fine. I want you to know I'm serious about this question, no matter how silly it sounds: 'What is there about a Pontiac that makes it not start when I get vanilla ice cream, and easy to start whenever I get any other kind?'"
The Pontiac President was understandably skeptical about the letter, but sent an engineer to check it out anyway. The latter was surprised to be greeted by a successful, obviously well educated man in a fine neighborhood. He had arranged to meet the man just after dinner time, so the two hopped into the car and drove to the ice cream store. It was vanilla ice cream that night and, sure enough, after they came back to the car, it wouldn't start.
The engineer returned for three more nights. The first night, the man got chocolate. The car started. The second night, he got strawberry. The car started. The third night he ordered vanilla. The car failed to start.
Now the engineer, being a logical man, refused to believe that this man's car was allergic to vanilla ice cream. He arranged, therefore, to continue his visits for as long as it took to solve the problem. And toward this end he began to take notes: he jotted down all sorts of data, time of day, type of gas used, time to drive back and forth, etc.
In a short time, he had a clue: the man took less time to buy vanilla than any other flavor. Why? The answer was in the layout of the store. Vanilla, being the most popular flavor, was in a separate case at the front of the store for quick pickup. All the other flavors were kept in the back of the store at a different counter where it took considerably longer to find the flavor and get checked out.
Now the question for the engineer was why the car wouldn't start when it took less time. Once time became the problem -- not the vanilla ice cream -- the engineer quickly came up with the answer: vapor lock. It was happening every night, but the extra time taken to get the other flavors allowed the engine to cool down sufficiently to start. When the man got vanilla, the engine was still too hot for the vapor lock to dissipate.
Moral of the story: Even insane looking problems are sometimes real.

Here's an ideal gift for an engineer

... Watch with Slide Ruler

This is Squall from Final Fantasy VIII.  If you were a video game charactar, this is what I think you'd look like. That is, when you were 23.

Who Am I?
You've seen me before, but it's probably been a while.
If it weren't for me, you might have had a different kind of past in some ways.
I am not telling who I am, but I help build character.