Just before the battle, mother...

One of the greatest joys known to man is sitting late up into the night reading articles on Wikipedia, that great fount of knowledge and editable pages. Last night I spent, let's see, about four hours reading up on Vice-Presidents and Popes. They're really fascinating topics. The Popes especially are interesting, because each one gets to make up a whole new way of doing things when they're elected. It's a pity that they've gotten rid of most of the ceremonial shtuff. If I wanted to be austere and boring, I could just be a Protestant. The whole fun of being a Catholic is that you get to dress up in all sorts of cool costumes and have red hats hang over your coffin. The fisherman ring is also pretty snazzy. Maybe us Jews should get rings with circumcision type things going on. All right, that would be pretty weird, disgusting, and possibly illegal, though I notice that none of these three things have stopped too many people in the past. Perhaps a tie-in with the recent Kosher giraffe announcement is in order? Maybe every Rabbi should be presented with a ceremonial golden giraffe slaughtering device, inlaid with expensive rubies, diamonds, sapphires, and those cool-looking devices from Apple computer. Though this would preclude them being used on Shabbos, I think that this downside is well worth the potential upside. Unscrupulous people would no longer contemplate selling their Smicha certificates for obscene amounts of money; with the new personalized giraffe slaughtering devices indicative of Rabbinical achievement, if not scholarship, the age of phantom Rabbis would soon come to an end. Obviously, the better the Smicha, the better the slaughterer. People who get a Europass would only get iPod Shuffles, while LA graduates would receive iPod Nanos and Morristown Bochurim would get top of the line 3G iPhones. Just imagine yourself walking down Eastern Parkway with a large gold knife, headphones plugged into the top slot, listening to all your favorite Lipa Schmeltzer tunes. If you happen to be of black persuasion, we could even arrange for speakers to be included, for a slight extra fee of course. And if any Shmira or Shomrim people tried to wrest the device from your hands, why, it is a knife after all! One mighty swing and the scooter-riders will never bother you again! Oh, the joy!
Of course, I understand that the price of Smicha programs will need to rise a little to pay for the increased costs associated with my proposed idea. Maybe the Bochurim should start running car washes every weekend, to fundraise, instead of gallivanting off to Crown Heights, which is only a worthwhile endeavor in the spring when the trees conceal all the trash bags on the street and make it look nice.
Perhaps we should consider birds of a different feather flocking together? What do I mean by this? Have you ever noticed that when two Bochurim of different persuasion get on a plane together, they have no idea where the other is studying? If you're Lubavitch, it's either 770, or maybe Morristown. Snags are limited to the Mir and Lakewood. I think that now is the time for change. We should make a limited-edition of trading cards that feature the Yeshiva systems of four different groups with the King going to to the leader of that particular sect. I'm thinking that this should be customizable, but the basic set would feature Lubavitch, Chassidish Yeshivas, Snag-America, and Snag-Israel. The jokers could be the Hebrew Theological Seminary in Cincinnati and that liberal Chovevei Torah school in New York. Now when Bochurim are caught playing poker they can reasonably claim to be leaning the names and locations of other Yeshivas. A perfect Ahavas Yisrael project! Besides, the politics engendered would soon become legendary. Who should be King for Snag-Israelis, Lakewood East or Mir Yerushalayim? Would Ger or Bobov be on top of the Chassidishers? And of course with Lubavitch, who's the queen, Ohelei Torah or Lubavitch Yeshiva? Let the playing begin!