National Brotherhood Week.

Lehrer sings "National Brotherhood Week."

Tom Lehrer started out as a mathematics student at Harvard, [1] only to discover that he could have more fun, and make more money, singing satirical songs on the night club circuit. He was (still is, I suppose) a very talented musician whose oeuvres include "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park" (composed before tree huggers became a threat to humanity) and "National Brotherhood Week," the third verse of which brings us to today's post. (Listen now.)

Yup. "Everybody hates the Jews." Well, not quite everybody. Conservative Christians regularly speak out for God's People. There's also a fair sized cadre of mostly conservative Jewish columnists who stand up for for their own. And there's the Big Guy upstairs who, rumor has it, is inclined to help those who help themselves.

Yesterday, this correspondent did some "sloggin' through the bloggin'." Oink! [2] Even when the article was reasonable, a goodly fraction of the comments were not. The Jews this; the Jews that. Never has so much harm been done to so many by so few — to coin a not so original phrase. Then there was the "we stand with Israel" site that links to another featuring the anti-Semitic bilge of the intellectual class, tucked out, of course, as humanitarian concern — wonder what those clowns will say when an Iranian nuke goes off in Tel Aviv — "Tisk, tisk," I imagine.

Rounding things out were the effluvia of self-loathing Jews like Daniel Luban, who wrote a "thoughtful" piece on his transition from "liberal Zionist" to just plain "liberal." Thoughtful, my tush. Hey Danny boy! What you think them Islamists have in mind for you? A medal for being so stupid you don't know which side of your bread's buttered? Or maybe you figure it's just them Israeli Jews that's in their cross hairs?

Gentle Reader — when your faithful correspondent sat down to write this piece, he imagined something more erudite — about mankind's innate tribalism; how it's been selected for since before we were human; maybe an uplifting observation about our ability to do the right thing nonetheless. Appologies. What needs saying is this:

"If the Rachel Corrie sails south, put a torpedo in her belly. If the Turks send a naval escort, sink their bones to Davy Jones. If "Hopey Changey" menaces, ignore him. If go down you must, go down fighting, and if you fight, you mayn't go down after all."

Notes.

1. Lehrer taught mathematics as graduate student at Harvard and later as an instructor elsewhere. This author's "Lehrer Number" (inside joke) is 2 — I studied analytic geometry with a Prof. whose college classes included at least one in which Lehrer had been a teaching assistant.

2. There are good things out there, of course. I especially recommend Luboš Motl's remarks and Sarah Palin's — God bless her! Him too!