A few outlets are covering a Gallup International survey about which professions are more trusted than others. Although most of the press has focused on the extreme distrust of politicians (duh), there are other less obvious revelations.

Now that it’s the month of Elul and we’re officially pre-Yamim Nora’im mode, you’re probably going to find many calls for increasing charity. As we say in the liturgy, along with repentance and prayer, charity can undo the negative decrees, and we get to help out those less fortunate in the process. It’s a win-win for everybody.
Fortunately (or unfortunately), there is no shortage of charitable organizations out there. The problem from the giving end is figuring out which charities are more deserving than others. Not only is there the near impossible question of what causes to support, but also which organizations best fulfill their stated mission.
While we can’t answer the first question for you, we can help out with the latter thanks to the good people at Charity Navigator.
Based on their detailed methodology, Charity Navigator uses tax returns to calculate the economic efficiency of a given organization. For example, they take into account how much money goes into fundraising vs. how much they receive, total expenditures towards programming, and administrative costs. Frankly I’m a little confused with the numbers myself, but the logic behind them seems to make sense.
As a public service and sheer curiosity, here is how some well known Jewish organizations rank in their system. Just remember that this only evaluate organizational efficiency and NOT the quality or merit of their mission.

In a recent year long Batman story arc, Batman’s Gotham City is virtually destroyed by a cataclysmic earthquake. Due to Gotham’s reputation as being a difficult and crime-ridden city the government deems the city not worth saving, and basically seals off Gotham from the rest of the United States declaring it a “No Man’s Land.” In the NML, the citizens lack basic resources and are terrorized by gangs while the power brokers consolidate and manipulate for their own personal or political gain.
Sounding familiar?
As the news comes in from New Orleans I am increasingly reminded of Batman’s frightening scenario. While there aren’t super-villains (in the literal sense at least), there is still the tragedy, despair, lawlessness, and political wrangling. “Chaos” and “anarchy” are the most common descriptions, and the comparisons to third world countries are not even hyperbole anymore.
The Independent writes:

Robberies, carjackings and even reports of rape and murder have all abounded in a city where the dead have been left lying where they fell or else float eerily down the rivers created by the water-filled streets.

Oh, and martial law is getting underway as well.
People are already questioning if New Orleans is worth rebuilding. Even the the Speaker of the House has already given up stating that part of New Orleans “could be bulldozed.”
Yet despite all the obvious problems, the media seems to focus more on placing the blame be it on the about blaming the President, FEMA, or even the residents themselves.
This entire tragedy has been mishandled from every angle imaginable. There is plenty of blame to go around, all of which can be sorted out later. But the first priority has to be making sure that people get the help they desperately need.
As today’s WSJ lead editorial reminds us, maintaining civil order isn’t easy in a crisis, especially when there is “complacency born of prosperity and the resilience of our legal and civic institutions.”
But unlike Gotham, we don’t have a bat signal to bail us out.

One of the Jewish rites of passage for moving into a new place is the trip to the Keilim Mikvah. For reasons we’re not getting into here, certain new vessels and utensils must be immersed in water to “purify and uplift the vessel” (B. Avoda Zara 75b). Even if someone went for their parents once or twice before, few things compare to schlepping multiple sets of brand new plates, silverware, and cookware to a polluted lake or glorified leak.

Ironically, the body of water used for “purifying” the vessels is usually more contaminated than the Hudson River. Sure there are some exceptions – the one by Breuer’s is relatively clean – most of the ones I’ve seen are in dire need of cleaning, or in some cases, sulphuric acid.

Case in point, I spent part of Sunday at the Springfield keilim mikvah helping out the folks with some of their dishes and without exaggeration, there was at least a full inch of black “stuff” lining the bottom of the basin. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t care – I’d just lower the objects in the laundry basket, move things around making sure they’re totally submerged with no hatzitzot, lift, dry, and repeat.

Today however, when going through the place settings, my mother noticed that a spoon was missing.
Now we know it wasn’ t on the outside of the mikvah, but even though I didn’t notice anything escape the firm clutches of the laundry basket, we’re still short one spoon. Were this a cleaner mikvah, I’d just be able to look in and see, “hey! there’s that spoon!”
Not this one.

The crud at the bottom of this thing swallowed up virtually everything that had the unfortunate fate of coming into contact with it. Think of the black goo from Creepshow 2 only without the whole jumping out of the water flesh eating part. That’s what I’m talking about.

Against all odds there were a few items which reflected the limited sunlight, so there was some hope. The good people of Springfield were kind enough to supply a pole with nothing attached to either end. This allows unfortunate klutzes to push around the gunk thinking they can get their plates back, but in reality they’re just making it harder to see through it.
When I thought I saw something resembling the wayward flatware, I reached in as far as I could, but was still a good 4 inches too short. Going Jacques Cousteau wasn’t really an option but we did try some other unconventional alternatives.¹

Skipping right to the good stuff, we had the best success using a combination of a snow shovel and a reaching/gripper thingie left over from when my mother was recovering from the hip surgery. While we did manage to fish out 2 plates (one of which was shaped like a fish) and 3 spoons and knives covered in at least 25 types of dirt, but sadly the lost spoon is still lost in the abyss that is the Springfield keilim mikvah.
I did get a few things out of the experience. First, shuls really ought to clean their kelim mikvahs. Second, thanks to lefum tzar’ah agra (M. Avot 5:23) on both tevillat kelim *and* kibbud eim, I’m set upstairs for a while.

Still, I am curious if anyone else out there has had their own bizarre experiences with a keilim mikvah and/or the absolute worst keilim mikvah you’ve ever seen.
In the meantime, I’ll be in quarantine until I stop glowing.

1. If you’re asking yourself why make a big deal over one spoon, the answer is: “because.”
2. And I just *know* I’m not the only one here

For all those interested, tonight is the End The Madness talent show featuring an extremely rare live performance by myself. If you’d like to know why the performances are rare, stop by KJ (125 East 85th St.) at 6:30 PM and hear for yourself.
In all seriousness, it should be a fun evening and I’m looking forward.
And yeah, I know I’m behind in regular blogging yet again. The past few weeks have been crazy with the niblings (who got back all right – pics forthcoming), school work, and currently a return to “real work.” Lots to write about, but sadly no time.

The good folks over a KesherTalk have done a blogburst collecting tidbits regarding Jerusalem and 9 Av. Very informative and well worth reading over the fast day.
(It was also nice of them to link back to my own take of the fast).