As some people know, I’m traveling in Israel right now. At this moment, I’m in Safed (alternatively Tsefat and Zefat), the home of the Kaballah and Jewish mysticism. To be ultra simplistic — a very cool place.
Forget that for the moment. I travel and have traveled a lot, ever since I was sixteen and took off for England and France with my friend Ed. That was more years ago than I will admit on a public website, but ever since then I’ve been fortunate enough to bebop around the world on a regular basis. Some like pot, others like whiskey, some like to dance the hully-gully. Travel is my drug of choice.
Being a news junkie, however, in all those travels I stayed close to home by incessant reading of English-language newspapers — the Rome Daily American and, of course, the Paris Herald Tribune (“Just tell your cab driver “sank too denoo”), now the International Herald Tribune. In more romantic days, it was the very symbol of Americans abroad. Remember Jean Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg in Breathless, the Godard flic with Seberg hawking the Trib on the Left Bank? That was, for years, the hip image of Americans abroad.
Them days are over. Way over.
The wise American abroad now stays tuned to what’s happening with the man himself — Matt Drudge.
Forget Travels with My Aunt or Travels with Charley. I travel with Matt.
By reading Drudge any time I want (virtually) I can stay almost as tuned in as I am in New York or L.A. — and without the absurd NYTimes filter placed on the International Herald Tribune.
And it is clear from afar that Matt Drudge is the most important person in America today. He is the key man holding our society up. I know some sing the praises of their talk radio and/or print pundit favorite, but I’ve got news for you — get out of the country for a few days and Drudge leaves them in the dust.
He is the man holding things together, the bastion against the absolute Orwellian madness that is the Obama administration. You know Drudge will be there with the latest on the IRS, Benghazi, the Associated Press, James Rosen, and now the downloads of all our personal data (are we faintly surprised?) by the most proto-fascistic group of so-called progressives ever assembled.
Sitting here in a courtyard not far from where medieval rabbis devised the Kabbalistic concept of “Tikkun Olam“ — the idea that God contracted in order to create the physical world and that it is humanity’s duty to do good healing works, literally “heal the world,” to bring (whatever name you wish, okay, Hashem) back — I can say something outrageous: more than anyone I can think of right now, Matt Drudge is doing his share of healing.
And, man, do we need it. Much as it can be tempting, I’m not planning on making aliyah, as did the manager of the hotel in which I am staying only a few months ago and who just kindly placed a glass of Scotch in my hand and has kindly invited our family to shabbat this evening. No, reading Drudge, I know that I must return home to do battle with those reactionary punks.
Eretz Israel can take of herself. They know what they’re doing. The big “Tikkun Olam” must be done in the USA now. Time has come to stand and fight.
Meanwhile, Shabbat Shalom.
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