On occasion, I’ve been accused by friends of being a “Luddite.” What’s a Luddite? By definition, a Luddite is someone who is opposed to technological changes, a term dating back to early 19th-century England when textile artisans protested the Industrial Revolution. (The leader of these upstarts was reportedly someone who went by the sobriquet “King Ludd.”)

Of course, if I was indeed a Luddite, you wouldn’t be reading this since I wouldn’t be using a computer and writing a blog. Nor would I have a cell phone, TV, washing machine, electric shaver or telephone answering machine.

I’d actually make a lousy Luddite. My old Royal typewriter no longer works and is only for decoration, and there are no clotheslines flapping in the breeze in my backyard.

Technology often improves our lives greatly when used well, and one of the places I’ve seen that take place is in the synagogue. For instance, where I go to shul, there’s a TV monitor that greets visitors, informing us of the day’s scheduled activities (Torah study gatherings, service times, committee meetings, etc.). We also receive frequent helpful email blasts from synagogue and religious school staffers.

But on holidays and Shabbat—times when I believe all of the denominations agree that we need to escape the hustle and bustle of modern life (translation: all of those pesky cell phones, computers, voice-mails and TVs)—that Luddite component of my personality tends to surface.

During Rosh Hashanah this year, I occasionally noticed clusters of teenagers hanging in the synagogue hallways. I have no problem with it – been there, done that. I’ve heard some people call it “Hormone Alley.” Fine. At least they’re in shul.

But when I see some of these young people standing around and using their cell phones to call and text their pals, I know something’s broken here. And it’s not necessarily their fault. Who’s to blame? Perhaps their parents, rabbis and teachers who are simply not making it clear that using modern apparatus in shul on one of the holiest days of the year is just plain wrongheaded.

After all, they’re already with their friends, enjoying themselves and chatting up Katie Perry’s new CD or whatever. No one’s shoving their butts into services. Can’t they drop the cell phones and texting for just a day, or at least until they get home? Is national security really threatened if they leave their cell phones at home?

My wife reminded me of one time when we attended a friend’s adult bat mitzvah ceremony a few years ago. It was a very moving event, but one of the worshippers was talking on his cell phone during most of the service. Even when the times came in the service to stand up and recite the Amidah and other prayers, he simply stood up, with the phone seemingly congealed to his ear, and kept chatting away. Finally, at some point, a few congregants shushed him enough that he walked out of the sanctuary, to finish his phone conversation (which I’m willing to bet was pretty unnecessary and inane) in the hallway.

It all comes down to that one precious resource so woefully lacking in our world—sechel (common sense). But if you want to call me a Luddite, so be it.

“So you’re scared and you’re thinkin’ that maybe we ain’t that young anymore.”

You know these words. You’ve heard them more than a billion times. They’re seared into your brain at this point, like a mantra.

Today is Bruce Springsteen’s 60th birthday.

Yes, you read that right.

Sixty.

How can that be possible?

For nearly as long as I can remember, this man has provided so many of us with the guidelines and narratives of our lives – stories about those who get stepped on and beaten up by society (“Born In The USA,” “Atlantic City”), lessons about how to get through it all with grit and determination (“Badlands”), lamentations about life and loss (“The Rising”), the pain of love gone bad (“I’m Goin’ Down”), the perils of temptation (“I’m On Fire,” “Brilliant Disguise”), the price of familial dilemmas and moral responsibility (“Highway Patrolman,” The River,” “Independence Day”), the revelry of youth (“Spirit In The Night”) and the crippling fear of death (“Cadillac Ranch”), and the fading promise of America (“The Promised Land,” “City Of Ruins, “My Hometown”).

He might be just a rocker, a pop star, a media cultural image, but in so many ways, his ideas, thoughts, poetry and philosophies have impacted the way many of us look at life. For many, he’s been there every step of the way on our own journeys, as maudlin as that might sound, like a good rebbe. Even if we’re not all working-class kids from Jersey, he provided the soundtrack of our lives.

I remember years ago writing about my old high school classmate, Steven Oken, who was eventually executed by the State of Maryland for murdering three women. I must’ve played “Nebraska” a thousand times while putting that one together.

I doubt there’s any occasion for which a Springsteen song wouldn’t work. Even when you know someone on Death Row.

I also recall a friend who was going through some tough times with his marriage and his job. “You know,” he said, “sometimes when I get home from work, at 2 or 3 in the morning, feeling wiped out and lonely and really frustrated, I go over to the VCR and pop in Bruce’s `Live In New York’ video, and I always feel better.”

I knew exactly what he meant.

With all due respect to Mr. Dylan, Mr. Lennon and others, no one else has ever written songs like Springsteen with that kind of empathy and conscience, songs that touched people of my generation so profoundly and directly. And no one has ever performed with that kind of commitment, energy, intensity and dedication, before or since.

So I say to all of my fellow Springsteen fans out there, let’s raise a beer and say, “Happy birthday, Bruce, yom huledet samayach, and thanks for everything.”

Sixty. How did that happen?

Show a little faith.

A day or two before the general elections last November, my wife ran into what I’ll call a “quasi-relative” of mine and his son-in-law. They were all schmoozing harmlessly – the kids, the weather, the stock market, nuclear fission, world peace, etc. – when my quasi-relative, a rather crusty, self-assured fella in his early 70s who enjoys offering his opinions (solicited or not), asked my wife what she thought of this guy named Barack Obama. He said it with a certain amount of disgust dripping from his lips.

When my wife replied that she liked Obama, the guy went into full-attack mode and started kvetching up a storm, “joking” that they’d be “serving chitlins in the White House” if he won and warning of the Democratic candidate’s wicked, wicked “socialist” ways. (And this was well before all of the boisterous health care town hall meetings.)

My wife tends to be laid back and has a capacity to grin and bear these kinds of older guys (she’s from the Midwest, after all), but the man’s son-in-law was having none of it. “Oh, come on!” the son-in-law said, interrupting his father-in-law’s harangue. “You just don’t like him because he’s black, plain and simple.”

When my quasi-relative appeared stunned, protested vehemently and said he didn’t have a racist bone in his body – something quite hard to stomach for anyone who’s heard the man use the term “schvartze” on countless occasions and say other things that would fall under the category of bigoted “thought” – the son-in-law couldn’t stop himself from countering, “Oh, come on! Please!!”

Of course, at that moment, the son-in-law became my hero.

And that brings me to Jimmy Carter, who is definitely not my hero. But ol’ Jimmy says much of the criticism directed toward President Obama these days is based on – you’ve got it—race. (By the way, that’s an assessment that the White House says Obama does not agree with.)

“I think that an overwhelming proportion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, he’s African-American,” Carter told NBC television on Tuesday.

I hate to admit it, but Jimmy might be right.

I think we always have to be careful when using the race card when talking about, well, everything. It can be a very slippery slope. Not every time that President Obama is criticized is the result of racism, and there’s an inverted racism for liberals and others in coming to that conclusion automatically.

But I do think that Jimmy Carter – who has been so wrong in his analyses about the Middle East and other matters in recent years – is correct when he says that the specter of racism has permeated the recent overly harsh criticisms of Obama (i.e., Sen. Joe “You Lie” Wilson, the town hall meetings, the corporate bail-out condemnations, the controversy over merely telling students to work hard and stay in school).

How else do you explain this kind of rampant, white-hot vitriol and alarmism, the over-the-top hatred of this man (who by the way is a pretty likable guy) in such a short period of time? In only nine months, he’s been compared to Hitler, Che Guevera and Uncle Joe Stalin. We’re told he’s a commie, a liar, a dictator, a Nazi, an autocrat, a slick huckster – where does it end? Even presidents who got our boys and girls killed in wars that we still don’t comprehend never got treated with this kind of scorn and disrespect.

Maybe the other side of the political aisle just has a bad case of sour grapes, as has been suggested. No one likes to lose, and Sen. John McCain is undoubtedly an upstanding human being and a great patriot (but a lousy candidate). But sorry, there’s more going on here than simply sore losers or political differences.

Look at this country’s racial legacy. And then look at the overwhelming bulk of the people clamoring for Obama’s hide.

And then tell me Jimmy might not be right.

OK, now on a completely different note ...

Like many people weaned on the folk music of the ‘60s and ‘70s, I was greatly saddened to hear about Mary Travers’ passing this week, at age 72. Her group, Peter, Paul and Mary, were an inspiration to a lot of people for getting involved in social and political activism, and that will always be her legacy.

Mary’s death reminded me of two things. One of them had nothing to do with her, but I recalled once interviewing her Jewish bandmate, Peter Yarrow, as a cub reporter in the parking lot of the old Memorial Stadium.

Yarrow was one of the organizers of a “traveling rally” of activist tent-dwellers who were going from town to town for several months, to raise awareness and call on the powers of the world to ban nuclear weapons. In hindsight, the whole affair might sound a bit kooky, mawkish and crunchy-granola, but I was inspired by Yarrow and the hundreds of other activists there who were so committed to that cause (and to our children’s future) that they gave a chunk of their lives to it. That kind of activism, passion and selflessness just doesn’t seem to exist or resonate today.

The other thing I recall is how Mary Travers was so unceremoniously dumped from the performing lineup for the historic December 1987 rally in Washington for Soviet Jewry. The reason: organizers were warned that with Travers being a female, many traditional Jewish rally-goers wouldn’t show up because of restrictions against hearing women sing. The wind-up was the rally was a major success and helped usher in a new era, but Mary wasn’t there singing. (And I was there, looking for her.)

I understand the organizers’ sensitivities in this matter, but this was Mary Travers we’re talking about here, a person who among her many other human rights and social justice causes was a vocal and ardent supporter for the freedom of Soviet Jews. As I recall, Mary was reportedly pretty understanding about the whole thing, but it still bothers me to this day.

Mary Travers deserved better. May her memory (and legacy) always be a blessing.

So let me get this straight—the president of the United States wants to talk to the nation’s schoolchildren about the importance of education next Tuesday, Sept. 8, and the conservatives are riled up? When did we become an anti-education nation?

The speech, which is to be live-streamed from the White House Web site, is President Obama’s manipulative attempt to push his legislative agenda, according to conservative commentators and “thinkers.”

(Boy, they were right all along! This guy really is a commie! He wants kids to stay in school!!)

Some conservatives have even called for parents to keep their kids at home that day – a “national truancy day” of sorts—so they won’t be “indoctrinated” by Obama’s nefarious message. And some schools have announced that they will not show the speech at all.

Obama’s opponents – who obviously taste blood after those health care town hall meetings created such a buzz out there and sent his poll numbers nose-diving – say the president’s education message is all propaganda.

“It’s historic in the sense that it’s unprecedented. They do this type of thing in North Korea and the former Soviet Union,” said Republican strategist and commentator Andrea Tantaros.

(North Korea?! The former Soviet Union!! The man’s just saying, “Stay in school and work hard.” Does that sound like the gulag to you?)

Florida GOP chairman Jim Greer wrote a letter to the White House, saying that students are being forced to watch Obama’s speech, and that it’s an abuse of power. (Just how boring does he think the speech will be?)

I’m sorry but there’s only word for all of this: lame. I can’t imagine if former President Bush wanted to speak to students about the value of education that it would have generated this kind of outcry from liberals and moderate Democrats.

Politics is one thing, but this is entering the Theatre of the Absurd. Conservatives need a better hook to hang their hats on.