BRIEF BIO: A LYRICAL SYNOPSIS
Richard Moss, MD - a Brief Lyrical Synopsis
Bio
In describing oneself and one’s achievements, great or small, one should devote at least some wordage to important influences that may have determined one’s course and character before reciting the litany of deeds and dates. I would be remiss not to mention the following important influences that have made me, more or less, what I am today.
First and foremost is Momma Moss, my wondrous mother who struggled mightily to raise her brood of five sons under less than auspicious circumstances.The setting for those childhood adventures and escapades is not irrelevant: it was the great borough of the Bronx, a force in itself with all its clamor, uproar, and boisterous ethnicity.
It only follows when the Bronx is invoked, that red hot tamale of a locale, that another great and powerful force in its own right, part and parcel of the Bronx, the two, in fact, irrevocably intertwined, is adduced, one that burned itself deeply into my young, impressionable soul - that being the Bronx Bombers themselves, the great NY Yankees.
Then there is that ineffable, ancient well spring of mystery and wisdom and hope upon which so much of world civilization finds itself balanced, the old Hebrew faith with which my mother so tenderly adorned herself and reveled within, working its magic upon her as it has uncounted generations through the millennia. We were not an observant home but observant enough, and the great heroes and warriors and founders of Judaism were as close to me as members of my family, and so the ancient desert religion had worked its magic upon me as well.
There was an early courtship with the Left, coming of age as I did in the seventies and able to remember the excitement, the excesses, and indulgences of that most rotten of decades, the sixties, that epochal time that launched an infinity of confusions and perversions with legions of foot soldiers that have carried its bootless and noxious messages, marching and trampling through our American institutions since, corrupting and sundering them with their strident, tiresome, and barren chants. Yes, for a brief spell, I reckoned myself among their number, but it quickly self-corrected as I introduced myself to other beliefs and doctrines in my gradual ascent to the lofty spires of conservative thought and reflection.
Yoga and the general world of Eastern thought and practice rescued me and my brother (who had fallen victim to the seductions of mind altering substances), tended by the careful and colorful tutelage of Swami Rudrananda (Rudi), a Brooklyn Jew, himself a convert to the illuminations of the Indian subcontinent.
I lived in a Yoga ashram for seven years until unceremoniously tossed out (another story), but its effect has been everlasting and continues to guide and influence me. Later, I would spend time in a Buddhist Monastery in Thailand and have also been moved by the Buddha’s benign and enlightening message, counting myself a courier and bearer of his wise ministrations whose teaching is civilizing and uplifting.
I loved writing and wanted very much a career as a scribe in some scribbling discipline, but this instinct for imaginative exposition fell victim to a more powerful (at the time) impulse to heal and so I followed my medical muse into the regal and grand temples of medicine.
I completed my major in Biology in 1977 at Indiana University in Bloomington (a liberal refuge in an otherwise decidedly“red” state). This was followed by my medical degree (“MD”) in 1981 also from Indiana University, an internship in General Surgery at 2State University of New York in Stonybrook, and a residency in Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery completed in 1986at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary. I was board certified also in 1986 and then performed a fellowship in Facial Plastics at the University of California in San Francisco in 1987 (the monotonous listing of dates and deeds now complete).
From here, began my years of awe, in which my itchy feet (wanderlust) carried me lightly as if by wing to the beguiling source of so much I had come to admire and assume, in the Far East. As wandering surgeon wanting to cut and cure,I set upon hungrily and with fiendish appetite to satisfy my longing to be amongst the great souls who lived closely to nature and their traditions in developing nations not yet beset upon by the cultural depredations of the West, to attack and reverse their afflictions in such far flung corners asThailand, Nepal, India, and Bangladesh where I lived and breathed and labored happily for the next three years, penniless but giddy, only ending my joyous sojourn quite reluctantly and lamentably. The cause of the collapse of my nomadic enterprise (and lasting despair)was the very essence of profanity –a lack of funds.
Although rewarded spiritually,I received little or no compensation for my efforts, and this bit of wretchedness finally succeeded in squelching my pilgrimage in 1990, a bitter pill that remains lodged in my throat, for I was ready to continue my sublime flight into eternity.
I spent, by the way, six months in Bangladesh, a Jew in a Muslim nation operating on Muslim patients, with Muslim colleagues, and was treated quite graciously by my hosts, this despite the first Intifada occurring in Israel at the time, which played large upon the local media; the friendships made then, I will add, endure to this day.
I returned to the states broke (but with wife), put up by my mother for six months and then returning to my beloved Indiana in 1991where I have been in private practice since in the little burg of Jasper with wife and now four children.
Along the way I opened a bagel shop (Bronx Bagel) and an Italian restaurant (Simply Pasta) both of which met untimely fates. I had a Yoga for Health TV program for 13 episodes on a local channel. I also became a bonafide conservative (reading National Review, Commentary, and the Jerusalem Post will have that effect).
Then, I returned to Judaism (this never fully absent only dormant) and I began writing again (this also only dormant). Two books, two screenplays and a medley of travel and mostly political pieces have come, in op-ed pages of small papers in Indiana, and the love of writing survives despite the quirks and vagaries and plot twists that have occurred.So within the routines and labors of standard work a day life in private practice in the Midwest and fatherhood, there remains the still small voice that beckons.
Well, then, you may ask, isn’t it superfluous to add yet another conservative voice (or blog) to the burgeoning multitude that already man the barricades in defense of its splendid precepts–the one governing philosophy that assures freedom, prosperity, and success for those submitting to its edicts?
My justification of the project is as follows:
There is always room for another conservative Jew.
And I anxiously await the day when that phrase -conservative Jew -is not an oxymoron.
Yes, there are many established conservative Jewish voices well known to followers of the cause, but far more otherwise noteworthy and intelligent Jews still cleave to the pernicious faith of secular liberalism. On top of which, there are very few conservative Jewish physicians in private practice, amidst real people with real (and imagined) agonies, which alone may make it worth the price of admission.
Perhaps, then, it might be useful hearing from a conservative Jewish surgeon (and former leftie), of humble origins, born and raised in the Bronx but now living in rural Indiana (flyover country, the heartland, “Red State” America), doing “real world” things (self-employed in private practice, raising kids), who worked overseas as a volunteer physician including in Muslim nations, has a Thai wife, loves the Yankees, eats vegetarian, does yoga, reads novels, writes poetry, watches foreign flicks, likes sushi, red wine, communing with nature, not to mention bagels, Buddhism, backpacking, and all sorts of other multicultural, lefty-like pastimes, yet views with disdain multiculturalism, moral relativism, the liberal media, mealy mouthed Europe, the UN, and left wing, anti-Semitic professors; who sees liberal secular progressivism as a corrosive, debilitating dogma eating away at the heart of Western Civilization (Europe is already on its deathbed), who views it as a creed that weakens our resolve and impairs our will, that is uncomfortable with American power, hostile towards our military, guilt ridden over past American “sins,”perceives the US as a sinister, racist, imperialistic force and is philosophically and morally incapable of responding to threats or defending the nation: a political and cultural ideology, in other words, that would assure our decline and, perhaps, actively seek it.
So, I will toss my two cents in with the growing chorus that argues on behalf of Western Civilization, Capitalism, the Judeo-Christian tradition, the Enlightenment, of faith and reason, the US and Israel, conservative principles, and waging an aggressive war against Islamic Jihadism -while keeping a watchful eye on Russia, China, North Korea and other threats as they emerge.
Another point: a private practice filled with people of all ages including lots of kids and their parent/caregivers, is a marvelous window on the status of American society and the American family –the picture, I’m afraid, is not pretty –in fact, quite saddening.
From time to time, I may write something relevant to medicine or malpractice or pharmaceutical companies -or perhaps a slice of poetry, a chapter from a book, a travel piece or something on religion, particularly Judaism–not to mention observations from the frontlines of private practice. For the most part, though, it will be the red meat of national and international politics and culture.