Guest blogger.

My Uncle, Morris "Slappy" Tannenbaum was, until recently a Rabbi at a small synagogue in New York City, a tiny east side shul call Beth Youiz Miwo Mannow. What follows are Morris' thoughts. Ad Aged abjures all responsibility.

Morris' post:

When I hear about the all the tsuris in the world--all the news from far-flung capitals I always wonder, what would it be like if I lived there? Could a get a nice bagel in the morning?

I hear about the horrible earthquake and after shocks in Haiti. A car-bombing in Kabul. Genocide in the Congo and then I ask myself, "Are there any bagel shops in Port au Prince? Could I get a schmear near here?"

Such musings have led me to formulate a theory. The further you live from a nice bagel, the less happy you are. Y=you. DfB=distance from bagel. H(Happiness)=y/DfB. Or, to put it pragmatically, I live about .25 miles from Holey Moley, the bagel shop in my neighborhood. So 1/.25=4. So for me, H=4.

Now if you live in Khandahar, I figure you live a good 2,000 miles from a decent bagel. So your Happiness quotient would be 1/2000=H or a happiness quotient of .00005.

I'm not saying bagels lead to happiness, but as my theorem above illustrates, they don't exactly hurt.