The acting bugged me

 I have been watching some really not-so-good movies recently. LOTS of them. I have noticed gradations of crap that I had not heretofore appreciated. Now, I'm no expert on words 'n stuff but I have been known to string a cogent an coherent sentence together once or twice. So when I watch these movies, I look out for lots of things (acting, set design, effects, edits, storyline etc.) but one really central one is "did the words uttered by the actors make sense?" In a whole lotta these movies, characters utter collections of words that are simply nonsense. Figures of speech mangled, basic grammar avoided. Sometimes the words do form a sentence but it then fails to be a logical response to anything depicted.

Do the actors who recite these things think that the lines make sense? Are they aware that they are speaking nothingness? Are they so dumb as to not realize that the dialogue is as bad as it is? Do they know and not care? Is it base stupidity or chaotic greed?

And when they act so, so poorly, are they self aware enough to realize, or do they think they are doing something properly? How can they possibly not understand that the "acting" bears zero resemblance to actual human behavior?

But if, let's just say, the sentences made sense on their own and the plot developed despite the chewing of scenery, if the story simply doesn't make sense, or events take place that have no connection, or you know what? forget that -- let's forget the guys in the editing suite who pieced together this monstrosity, or anyone working on set who saw this fiasco live and in person, but let's let the buck stop somewhere. At some point, someone must have seen this film in its entirety. Did he think that it was reasonable? Did he really believe that everything made sense and was professionally presented? Are most people just a whole lot dumber than I was led to believe?

Tech-Tock

 Stories to get paranoid by, preposition:

I spend enough time on Facebook to get a sense of the ads it throws my way. I can recognize when my browsing or my purchases trigger a shift in ads that appear and I'm ok with it. I also know what shouldn't show up. Today, something showed up.

I was sitting on the couch, expertly procrastinating, when my phone rang. I didn't recognize the number, so I answered it. The caller identified herself as an employee of CVS and she mumbled some question. I wasn't 100% sure that the call was spam so I asked her to repeat herself and eventually, I could hear that she asking about my pain conditions in various joints and limbs. Weird, but who knows. So I said, "you are asking me if I have any pain? You are calling from CVS so you know what medicines I take." She said something to the effect of "yes" but still wanted to know about my pains. I told her I had none currently (and resisted all snarky remarks that could have followed, so I deserve some credit for that) and she said "thank you" and hung up.

Nothing any more weird about that than any other daily weirdness. But then, a couple of hours later, there I am, scrolling through Facebook and I see an ad for CVS! I didn't go to the website or search online for their stores or products. And yet somehow, the ear in the machine has detected the presence of CVS in my life.

"Well," you say, "one of your devices must have an assistant who is listening." I have no siri or alexa or echo this or ring doorbell that. I do have a phone. Does this mean that my own phone is listening in on my calls and communicating my keywords to my web-identity which is used to create targeted ads? Does that mean that any private phone call is automatically audited by my phone and immediately part of the data mine that fuels industry?

I think that the sacred relationship I assumed I had with my phone is now void.

How do I turn that off? If I want something to listen when I talk, I will ask for its attention. I don't want to have to worry about spies in the house of me.

continuation rule

Just more from a brain dump. These posts are like the grab bag at the end of a party -- you might end up with a clunker, but there is also a chance that, if you go through them all, you might find a gem!

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Musical comparison/mashups for someone with time on his or her hands: 

Alanis Morrissette's "One Hand in my Pocket" and Pearl Jam's "Jeremy"

Lenny Kravitz's "Mama Said" and ZZ Top's "Cheap Sunglasses"

"Girls with Guns" by Tommy Shaw into "Machine Gun Smith" by Katrina and the Waves 

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I'm not sure if I posted this one already. If so, sorry. If not, sorry:

They say that compromise means that everyone is equally unhappy but it isn't that simple. If I'm allergic to x food and you love x food the compromise is not to have less x food. Maybe it is to unite and champion a law requiring an X free option.

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Getting back to my NFL conspiracy, it is clear that Taylor Swift is good for the NFL. Her presence at games draws in viewers who would otherwise not watch football. Therefore, it is in the league's best interest to keep the team she roots for in the hunt for as long as possible. Therefore the story arc that the refs are encouraging has KC winning still.

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Can someone make a TV show which combines "America's Got Talent" and "America's Most Wanted"? Maybe "America's Got the Most Wanted Talent" or something. Thanks.

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I have been reading up on the etymology of "cider" -- the word supposedly comes from the biblical Hebrew sheichar but I'm not convinced.

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Beatles fans and drummers, please listen carefully to "No Reply" and explain to me what Ringo is doing during the verse (it seems like 1 on the 3 and then 4 on the 2?)

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I wrote a line about George Benson's song in the last brain dump but I don't know if I got the wording right -- it is a great choice when you want to have something on while listening to music.

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It is impossible to stay still while listening to Love Sculpture's rendition of the Sabre Dance. Impossible. And the drummer on that, Rob "Congo" Jones, has my admiration.

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Yeah, I might be "just" an armchair quarterback, but think about that -- I've never lost a game and I had the best seat in the house.

Random Ideas, Sunday edition

 I have an idea for a product so indulge me my pitch:

Did you ever wonder why people watch game shows? Sure there is the schadenfreude we get when people on TV fail, but that's secondary (supposedly, we watch racing for the good driving, not the crashes). We aren't watching for characters or story lines but because we want to judge ourselves and our intelligence against the sea of humanity we are surrounded by, as represented by the people on game shows. We just want validation for our superiority. We want to brag that we are smarter than those people and success is a matter of luck and not knowledge. If only we were lucky, then the world would see that we could beat any of those supposed geniuses. But to have to watch through the rest of the shows and the inane chatter and special effects just to get to this place of smugness is inefficient. Therefore, I propose that, for a fee, you can buy access to a set of Q/A cards with the trivia from a particular show/date. You can then play that game with the TV off and see how well you would do and you can honestly say that you know more facts than the people on the show as you amass your own pretend fortune.

So you send in your money and the date and show and you can challenge your friends to see who is really the champion, short only the good fortune to be chosen.

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I believe that, soon, all sports names will be created through a combination of the following first names:

Anthony, Aaron, Andrew, Andre, Jared, Roger

and the following last names:

Rodgers, Jones, Johnson, Andrews

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Are "franks in blankets" considered sandwiches? I haven't looked it up and I know that the standard question has to do with a regular hot dog in a bun, but I want to go to the next step and consider frank-in-blankets. Man do I like franks-in-blankets. Except that ones I have are made with a phyllo dough which is too flakey for my sensory preferences. So I'll have to eat them with my eyes closed.

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I would like to propose a new endorsement deal. I have been named the "Official friend" of the NFL! As the current holder of this title for the 3 year term of contract, I am now allowed, up to 20 times each month, to say, while watching or discussing a pro-football player, "Hey, I know that guy -- he's a friend of mine! Really!" And I will be allowed to show an authenticated photo of me with the player doing something indicating a real friendship. Three times a month I can make an unscheduled call to an NFL player and he will hold a (minimum) two minute conversation with me, on speakerphone if I request.

In return, the NFL and its players are allowed to use my likeness in their advertising and tell everyone they know me. Seems fair.

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Bumper sticker statement of the day, "If you thought that's what I wanted to hear, you'd be wrong."

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So last night, or thereabouts, I heard a song I won't name by an artist I won't name, but whom I have met and am somehow connected to on Facebook. I was touched and creatively inspired (that wasn't the normal way to inspire, but a creative way...no, j/k) by the song, so I wanted to tell the writer and performer, "thanks!" and "you are real and definitely exist and I met you."

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They say he was listening to music on his ear buds right when the piano landed on him -- the Beatles, "A Day in the Life." I like to think that his afternoon stroll developed with that song as its accompanying soundtrack and he was crushed right at the crescendo at the end of the song.

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Why am I just now realizing that the REM song "Everybody Hurts" is using a line that has, inherently, a bi-directionality in its meaning. Each of us, at some point, is the aggressor and at another time, the victim. We hurt others and feel hurt ourselves (the verb "hurt" is then used transitively in one case and as a reflexive state-of-being verb in the other). This means we all are capable of empathy no matter the situation and leaving that ability is to choose to be insensitive.

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Once a music critic asserts that a piece of art (of various sorts) is "derivative"  or that it leans heavily on either:

central but esoteric works by well-known artists

or

commonly used elements (cliches) that any idiot would recognize

then everyone must agree without question or admit to ignorance. The critic creates authority through his confidence and I question my confidence because I cede to him authority.

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Each of us, at birth, is assigned two "ages." The first is the date of our death (our maximum age) and the other is our emotional age -- the number at which a person's sense of self will feel most in stasis with its world. So some people seem like little grown ups, being most comfortable with a level of maturity which seems out of place in a 5 year old or a 15 year old, or having adult personality traits even when a child. Some adults remain childish, goofy, or somehow less mature regardless of their chronological age. I must have subconsciously decided that in my late teens, I found the most emotional resonance so I have chosen a career which allows me to be surrounded by people who play in to creating that emotional setting for me every day.

And that, by the way, is a fish I landed while bobbing for eels. If you know, you know.

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I was listening to (and enjoying) George Benson's "Six to Four" and I thought to myself, this would be a great song to choose if I'm looking for something to have on while I listen to music!

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I saw on a commercial that there was a testimonial by an actual customer. At the bottom of the screen were the words "John was compensated for his time." Isn't that just double speak for "John was paid"?

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The two iconic pieces of music related to football -- the first was composed by John Williams! Really!

https://www.whosampled.com/John-Williams/NBC-Sunday-Night-Football-Theme/

the second has been around for a long, long time but here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIxeOvClzR4

Imposter Syndrome

I know I have it -- I feel like a fake and not even a real fake, but a fake fake. I don't know what I'm doing and that's because I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing.

Here's the thing: I'm a high school English teacher, but no one ever really says "this is the stuff in American Lit that needs to be covered." I left grad school knowing the texts I know and knowing how to discuss certain ideas, as a shadow of what I learned in grad school from a teacher who, I assumed, knew what was Important for me to know and communicate. But nothing more than that. But does that make for the high school curriculum. Sure, I learned all about Romantic poetry and can talk about that with students, but does that make any discussion I have the backbone of essential facts about literature that any and every student has to know?

Do I just not know the most basic and essential of the theses, tenets and themes of literature? Or is it that each teacher takes a limited and local lesson which resonated with him or her when he or she learned it and presented it as a gospel concept, a standard that we can expect that everyone else must automatically become aware of and agree with?

A teacher here spoke often of the American Voice, that expression of "America" in writing which wasn't just a transplanted European voice, but was the result of something unique and purely American, quantifiable and reflective of that distinct identity that developed outside of as a reaction to Europe but as an outporuring of what can only be extant in this country? Is that concept idea just what he learned and so he asserts it as a given, the organic and innate understanding which all who call themselves "English teachers" have either formally learned or intuited through their exposure to literature through a "proper education"? Is there a canon of mainstream sine qua nons and I just never got the memo?

Is "American Voice" some sort of canonical conceit endemic to the study of American Literature (when taught by a "real" teacher) or was it just the lens that a teacher imported from his or her own English classes in college or grad school or professor/book of choice? Could I talk about "Otherization, Assimilation and Alienation" as if it is the essential lens through which everyone should naturally be looking at the representation of the American experience and sneer (and/or condescend) at everyone who doesn't automatically accept and adopt it as a driving schema? Would that make it central simply because I act as if it is? Is authority reflexively conferred by simple assertion of authority? Or is "American Voice" a well-known and scholarly accepted aspect of the study of American Lit and it represents yet another loop out of which I am?

Either I'm a fraud because I don't know the answer, or a fraud because the answer is obvious and I'm still asking the question.

Alternate title was "What's up, Doctrine"

Prayer

Prayer is not easy. Sure, some times it is more natural, or environment is more conducive to the kind of focus that makes prayer efficacious and affecting, but it is never easy. I know this and I don't expect ease of others because it is is easy for me. It isn't. So I don't.

In Judaism, there is a built in tension. Tefillah, prayer, is designed as a communal exercise of individual devotion. Even for those sections that are sung with a group, ultimately, prayer is a private and lonely. It is scary to have to isolate the self and look inward, find your own identity and meaning in the words. It certainly it easier to be subsumed by the group, joining in song and tapping into the shared feeling. But that, then, loses the true power of prayer.

Prayer is about joining in the group but about assuming singular responsibility for your own thoughts and actions and that's frightening. We stand in front of the king of kings on our own, not as one of a choir, hiding behind the power of the masses. We are seen for who we, individually, are and that requires that we come to terms with who we are first. We have to wrestle with the language and the pronunciation. We are responsible to understand meaning and make the connections to our own thoughts. We have to muster our own strength and infuse our ritual with significance, day in and day out. And we run the risk not just of losing that self and only reciting words by rote, but of finding that link and then losing it by repetition.

To say the same thing on most every day and still be able to rally the strength to find difference and relevance is a further obstacle. How can we pray for mercy, peace, intelligence and happiness yet again when we sense no difference between yesterday, today and probably tomorrow?

Now we are adding in prayers asking God to help release the hostages. One hundred and one days and it is becoming the new normal. How can we get ourselves to feel each day as day one and not day 101? How can we tap into the fright, sadness and bleak reality others deal with as new each and every waking moment? How can we stop ourselves from adding prayers for hostages to the pile of things we say while we are waiting for a response to our last text to anyone else? We are so connected externally when it comes to day-to-day things that we let prayer be ONLY internal and we set a low standard for ourselves so the internal can pass without notice because we demand less of our own performance. We save our empathy and comments for a video or a meme avoiding the pressure to look inward and find a bridge between ourselves and those who are truly suffering. Prayer is doubly scary -- we are afraid to put ourselves in a position to be truly introspective and painfully honest with ourselves and we are also afraid to acknowledge that we have become blase about our personal expressions of prayer.

So we talk to others. We stand in awkward silence. We mumble words and avoid thinking about their meaning or consequence. We sing songs lost in the tune and unaware of the words. We think of everything but ourselves and our relationship to others. And we call it prayer, watching the clock annoyed that we will have to do it all again really soon.

Extensions

I have a paper due tomorrow. I'm not writing it, but expecting a bunch of tenthy graders to write it. I assigned it a while ago and designed an assignment that would be interesting, engaging, challenging and, most importantly, doable in the time allotted.

I also stressed to my class that i wanted the paper printed up and ready on the due date. Tomorrow is the last day before winter break and I need the papers so I can have something to torture myself with and put off grading! Is it really a midterm break if I can't look at a pile of papers scornfully? If I can't procrastinate and feel a bit guiltier every day.

By Friday, I started getting emails from students asking for extensions. They had had left the work until now and weren't planning on having time over the weekened so could they have an extra week and a half and hand the paper in after vacation? I asked for a reason and was told that the students were open and honest about the fact that they simply didn't do the work yet. There is another paper due and life is tough -- nothing that doesn't apply to a slew of other students so I can't set the precedent.

I said "no."

Asking for an extension seems to me to be an emergency and last resort. Despite the best laid plans, life happens and occasionally, only rarely, we need a tiny bit of extra time to put the finishing touches on the work. Unfortunately, we have institutionalized the extension and have made it acceptable and even expected to ask for extra time. And I hate it.

A student emailed to explain that his flight, scheduled for Wednesday was moved up to the earlier Sunday so he wouldn't be in school this week and needed an extension. I'm not believing that. Regardless of the potential weather concerns for Wednesday, I can't imagine an airline insisting that its customers fly 3 days early (unless that airline is in the pockets of my 10th graders...). Another student reassured me that he had actually started the paper (it is a mark of pride that he didn't wait until tonight) but might not get it done and if it snows three inches tonight, all bets are off. We have set our students up to make the "night before" the proper time to start work instead of planning and pacing themselves over an extended period of time. We reward irresponsibility and punish those who stick to agreed upon dates.

And I'm getting emails from students who seem just now to have found out that their itineraries require that they pack and spend the day at CVS so they aren't planning on coming in today or tomorrow and this horrible surprise demands that they get extensions for the extra week and a half. One student, who emailed for an extension and received a "no" and now he has followed up with an email saying he wouldn't be in school this week so he HAS to hand it in after vacation. I told him to email it to me this week. I don't hold out much hope in that regard.

I resent this. In fact, I dare say I'm offended by it. I created the due date, publicized it, explained the expectations, warned them against last minute excuses and laid down the law regarding my not giving extensions. I gave them time in class to work, to ask questions, to ask for help. This seems not have dissuaded the students and the calls for an extension are flowing in. 

Are we setting them up for failure by not holding their feet to the fire nor punishing them for their lateness, or are we teaching them important life-coping skills, making them advocate and work to resolve difficulties?

Has this ever happened to you?

Let's talk bells and whistles. My oven has them and I was wondering if they were all they were cracked up to be.

You see, I have in mind what I believe to be the best innovation in oven technology. Hear me out, because this one is brilliant. Tell your friends, especially if they work for companies like General Electric and especially if they want to give me a lot of money for this one.

Ovens have the timers and count-down features. You put your food in and set how long you want it to cook and the machine counts down to that point and they reminds you. Adorable, but highly useless.

I need a "countUP" device. A timer begins as soon as you close the oven door, ticking UPWARDS to keep track of how long it has been since you put the food INTO the oven. Here's the scenario -- you finish assembling the cookies or pizza or whatever and you put the food into the oven and close the door. Immediately, you start cleaning and preparing yourself for fresh hot cookie pizzas or whatever. A few minutes later, you realize that you forgot to set a timer and don't know how long the food has to remain in the oven. You didn't write down when you put it in so you don't know how long to wait to take it out. You try to work backwards by figuring how long it has been since you put the food in (you count commercials, or songs or approximate...all good in theory and horrible in practice). Sure, you can keep opening the door and reducing the temperature, or you can guess and end up with undercooked or overly burnt food.

But if the countUP timer started when you put the food in, you could just look at the display and know when you put the food in. Then you can subtract from the time that, um, you need, um

what was the question again? Damn I'm hungry.

An I

 

People fear artificial intelligence. Some people reason that the computer, more expert at sifting facts, balancing options and establishing a defensible position citing relevant evidence blah blah blah, will be more reliable, trustworthy and (in my case) better looking. So I have spent my time trying to quantify what makes someone human so I can pick what the AI lacks and use it as a partciular kind of baseline for evaluation. This way, I can quantify AI as lesser.

I often think of the cable special from years ago "Invisible Thread." The bottom line is that the humans turned deception into entertainment which other species haven't. Yay humans.

But the fact is that a similar truth is apparent if one really looked at what humanity's claim to fame should be. I put on the music from my uploaded songs yesterday and then I instructed my television to shuffle my songs and start playing. I was expecting a truly random selection of songs culled from a randomly shuffled selection of over a thousand pieces of music. Somehow, I heard a couple of the same songs which I had heard when playing music over the previous couple of days. It appears that even after "shuffling," the AI went back to currating and organizing, anticipating that, though I asked for a random shuffle, once I liked or disliked a certain song, it was the computer's mandate to keep feeding me similar music.

A computer can't accept that sometimes we want to lose control and engage the random. Sometimes we'll choose to lose (as a long term strategy, a short term solution, an experiment, or a whim for example), or do something spontaneous which defies every fiber of who we are, just because. Maybe we don't have or need a reason. This irrationality, or even a-rationality can never be anticipated or replicated.

If I ask for a true and honest shuffle of my library, I want to be surprised, confused, angry, and disappointed. Without that potential for disappointment, I cannot truly enjoy the happiness that comes from being fully and pleasantly shocked by a music selection. Sometimes people want to be hypocrites or want to choose nothing over something. We can demand to be wrong and still insist we are right because humans ARE capable of cognitive dissonance.

So am I afraid of our new AI overlords? No because they can never truly predict or impersonate a real person. They aren't capable of being truly random and irrational. The truly irrational sometimes acts apparently rational.

Be the change

 I watched a bunch of TV this weekend. A nasty head cold and a wilfull decision not to have a social life will do that. I took a lot of notes which I have been posting on various corners of the internet, Easter Eggs that will come back to life 3 days after they die. I'm not theologically clear on this but that's my best guest.

One thing to note is that on the football coverage, one of the guys made a reference on the Giants game to "elephants on parade." He gets points for that.

There was a commercial for some tech and the ad guy mentioned how small it is. On the right there was the product and on the left, a penny, copper and all lincoln-y and what not. But when the objects were rotated it was revealed that the product is actually as thick as 2 pennies. Not horrible. But the edges of the coins on the screen were ridged, like dimes. Pennies are NOT ridged! This is an outrage!

Now, here is an idea for a TV show. For free. Make this happen and then someone send me money. TIA

I am sick of seeing TV shows in which celebrities play music with musicians. Great, Jimmy Fallon or the guys from South park, or some baseball player is getting to live the rock and roll dream. Dude, you already have more money than God...why am I impressed that you get to rub musical elbows with the elite of the rockers? I'd like to see a show in which famous musicians find regular people who happen to play musical instruments, and the celebs sit down with the common person, discuss music (influences, growth etc) and then maybe they even perform a little together. It shouldn't be that on his deathbed, celebrity X can recount all the great things he accomplished and gets to include "and I played music with______." It would be more satusfying if some nobody on his death bed can say "I didn't do much but I played music with ________________"

Could someone make that happen? And I don't mean a "make-a-wish" kind of situation. I mean just a regular person who isn't going to die but who gets a surprise chance to interact with a musical idol.

And then send me money.

"Any" thoughts

So here I go not being political.

One of those chants that I hear at protests regarding the conflict in the middle east (and this was something chanted, repeated and championed at a protest in the town where I live -- I can actually find the video if you don't believe me, but I'm requesting that you believe me so that I don't have to produce anything which will give oxygen to that hateful rhetoric) is the phrase "Freedom/resistance (or some other thing) by any means necessary."

I don't think people spend enought ime really thinking about that statement. In fact, I had someone challenge me online when I labeled a protest that used that language as "pro-Hamas." He insisted that the protest was "pro-Palestine" and not pro-Hamas and if it had been pro-Hamas, it would have been shut down and gotten much media coverage. I explained that the phrase "any means necessary" is implicitly (if not explicitly) pro-Hamas and gave the evidence. Unsurprisingly, the other person never responded to my show of facts.

Here's how I see it -- if you support the use of ANY means to achieve the end you desire, then you must condone the things that fall under the banner of "any." This would include (but is not limited to) murder, sexual violence, terrorism, invasion and then also a whole buch of really bad things. If you endorse those methods then you are endorsing the organization/movement that uses those "any means" to achieve your desired end. Thus, you are in favor of the groups that use those "any" means otherwise you would draw a line separting yourself from them.

"Any" is a troubling word here. Does the average protester really believe that using rape as a tool for liberation is a reasonable approach? Is using using human shields, or cynically operating out schools, mosques and hospitals an acceptable wartime strategy? Does that marcher think that it is reasonable to kill babies, kidnap the elderly and burn people in their houses in order to resist? Let's assume for just a moment that the opposition were actual combatants. The Geneva Convention still has rules about how to treat the enemy (and everyone loves to throw the Geneva Convention in Israel's face when trying to explain how it is guilty of one crime or another) so if a resistance force is practicing 'any menas necessary" even in the course of fighting an opposition's army, it is already running afoul of international war. But no one seems to mind, or remind them that resistance can't be by any means, if one wishes to remain remotely moral.

Then there's the other problem. This is the goose/gander angle. If Isael were to turn around and say, "ok, if we are playing by any-means-necessary rules then the gloves are off and we say 'Security by any means necessary." Or maybe it would be "freeing the hostages by any means necessary." Or maybe something else, but would anyone have a problem if protesters were to march through the streets, block traffic or disrupt airports during a busy holiday season championing Israel's right to use carpet bombing in Gaza to achieve its desired end? Already, Israel has been taken to task for not using the right kinds of bombs, or for using too many bombs, or for exploiting its technological advantages. Israel, who calls ahead and drops leaflets. Israel, which protects refugees in safe corridors against the any means of their own leadership. Israel which uses pinpoint, targeted weaponry and calls off strikes if it sees civilians in the area. All of this has been lambasted -- but isn't included in "any means"? In fact, wouldn't a refusal to warn, or a plowing through human shields to get to the embedded enemy combatants simply be another iteration of "any means"? Why would that be acceptable for one side and not another. Gee, that would be the bases hypocrisy. 

According to the discussion of the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, the following is included:

"Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation."

The leadership in Gaza was duly elected all those years ago. Note what this means -- if one is to support the use of "any means necessary" for Israel's enemies that it is (by definition) anti-Semitic not to allow Israel the same lattitude in its military strategy. So no one should blink when Israel's supporters walk around screaming for blood, and murder and mayhem. People should then be ok shouting for joy when civilian clusters are attacked in Gaza, as this is one of those "any means" now considered in-bounds and fair game.

The next time you hear someone shouting for liberation by any means necessary, use those words right back and make sure that the protester knows that he is either suborning the violation of the accepted rules of humanity, or is shouting an anti-Semitic slogan. You can also remind that petrson that "genocide" of the Jewish people is included in "any means necessary" so touting that bumper sticker slogan is tantamount to endorsing the genocide of Jews as an acceptable path towards the desired resolution.

Let's just label people what their words allow us to -- supporters of murder, rape, genocide and terrorism. These are the "any means" that those chanters desire and they should man up enough to admit it, and then lose any moral high ground when they object to any other government's use of the same methods.