Hurray for America, Mankind, and Satire April 26, 2013April 25, 2013 If all went as planned, I hurtled through the sky last night and am now ensconced in a foreign land trying to figure out how the electrical outlets work. Not entirely clear whether there will be posts next week or — if there are — how timely they may be. If you see a post about kittens even as the world appears to be ending (say), it’s not that I’ve lost my mind — just my Internet connection. Meanwhile, four videos: RABBI FELDMAN’S BAR MITZVAH SPEECH Here. An uplifting tribute to America. (And yes, not all rabbis have been bar mitzvahed — unless this guy was the last one left to be and now they all are.) And by the way? Just as he wondered throughout his boyhood why he was being punished simply for having been born Jewish, so must countless millions of kids wonder even to this day why they are being punished simply for having been born black or poor or gay or in any number of other ways “less than.” Of course, to Americans — when we don’t lose sight of our founding principles — we hold it to be a self-evident truth that they were born equal. GOOD NEWS! You are 35 times less likely to be murdered than you were in Medieval times. And the fun doesn’t stop there. Here. (This is a year and a half old, but that may be because it was based on an 800-page book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, it may have taken my pal Matt Ball, who just sent me this, a while to finish.) MORE GOOD NEWS! Matt also sent THIS — centuries of snappy, upbeat global perspective in just four minutes. ALPHA HOUSE As noted Wednesday, but you might not have had time to watch . . . Amazon has started producing TV shows (minus the TV). For example, watch the pilot for Garry Trudeau’s new series, Alpha House. With John Goodman, no less. By Doonesbury’s Garry Trudeau, no less. Free! Funny! No commercials! Have a great weekend.