Joshua Bernstein

[Joshua Bernstein]

The Basics

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Name: Joshua Oren Bernstein
Nicknames: Josh
Age:51
Orientation: About a five on the Kinsey scale.
Desired Rank/Job: Civil Rights Lawyer
Powers: None!
Play By: Jamie Lidell

The Details

Hair Color:Dark brown
Eye Color:Blue
Any Piercings?Nope
Any Tattoos?Yes, he has the phrase "אין סומכין על הנס" (don't rely on miracles) tattooed on his left bicep. This is fortunately easy to cover up.
Any Scars?Just the usual scrapes that come from life
General Appearance: In many ways Josh is very...average. At 5'11" he's neither particularly tall nor could he be considered short. His weight is average, although average is heavier than he would like. His hair is short and a very generic dark brown. He rarely shaves, but as genetics have apparently conspired against him having a full beard or mustache this just makes him look slightly scruffy. The neck hair and pale imitations of sideburns don't help there, either.


Genetics have also conspired against him looking his age, which bothered him when he was in his twenties and people assumed he was still a teenager but is much less vexing now that he's fifty and people assume he's forty. Of course, round features and hair that is neither balding nor going gray may help with this; this is one area where he's actually thankful he resembles his father.


His biggest concession to aging are the thick rimmed glasses he's had to succumb to wearing after several years of trying to pretend he could read the menus at restaurants.


His attire is largely business casual. He only rarely wears jeans and he hasn't owned a pair of sneakers since college.
Personality: Josh is very attached to ideas of fairness and equality and is willing to go to great lengths to insure that his ideals are made reality. No matter how frequently reality thwarts him he retains an optimistic outlook on life. The great strides made in civil rights during his life time are proof enough for him that his efforts will pay off in the long run.



His ideals occasionally cause him to come off as meddlesome, as he doesn't necessarily trust other people to know what's good for them. This also means that he sometimes has difficulty accepting that people may in good faith disagree with him. He acknowledges this possibility in the abstract, but when it comes to actually dealing with a disagreement he finds it easier to dismiss the other person's point of view rather than take it into consideration. And the less education the other person has the more likely he is to ignore their point of view, regarding them as too ignorant to hold a valid opinion. (Although he would deny believing this if asked.)



Another problem is that his tendency toward idealism over rationalism makes it easy for others to emotionally manipulate him. He wants very much to be a nice person, and as he frequently conflates 'being a nice person' with 'other people thinking he's a nice person' any argument that hinges on painting an action or belief as being inherently mean will be particularly effective against him.



He's fairly responsible, the sort of person who will put work before play almost every time. When he's not working (and not mixing work and pleasure by attending rallies and protests -- although he finds these less appealing the older he gets) then he's probably involved in something much more low key: Reading, bicycling, watching the news, sailing and other activities that don't really require other people are the ones that interest him the most. With fellow activists he'll be energetic and intense and with friends perhaps a bit silly, but as soon as he's alone he has to recharge.

Your Vices

Likes:
-Sailing
-C-Span
-NPR
-Rabbits
-The ocean (preferably without oil spills and two headed fish)
-The Koren Sacks Siddur (it's much better than the Artscroll)
-Human Rights
-Pimento cheese sandwiches
-Feeling productive (this may or may not include actually -being- productive)
-Roman history
-Country and alt-folk music
-The idea of the government
-Youtube
-His new house (and how spacious it is compared to the apartment he'd been living in)
-Reading
-Yuengling
Dislikes:
-Inequality
-Soda
-Watching movies
-Losing buttons, especially when he's riding his bicycle
-Lint on dark clothing
-The difficulty of enforcing fairness
-Misplacing his glasses
-Not having cigarettes (or a light) when he needs them
-Being informed that cigarettes are bad for him as if he had no idea
-The idea of driving
-Having a mortgage to go along with that new house
-Watching his parents grow older
-Having little sibling support when dealing with his parents
-When his mother informs him that "gays and their weird clothes" are what's wrong with America
-The fact that he for all his talk of equality and pride in who you are he still hasn't told his parents he's gay and just let's them talk like that
Strengths:
-Responsible
-Hard-working
-Optimistic
-Well versed in civil law
-Knows his way around current events
-Bicycles regularly
Weaknesses:
-Sometimes condescending to people he considers of lesser intelligence
-Bi-phobic (in the sense that he tends to assume bisexuals would rather go out with a woman just because that would be the easy thing to do.)
-Susceptible to peer pressure if the results will be people saying he's "nice", even if the actual actions aren't nice at all
-He doesn't know how to drive
-He smokes
-Sometimes see's discrimination where there isn't any
Fears: His greatest fear currently is that he'll get Alzheimer's like his father. As someone who places a premium on mental capability he looks at Alzheimer's not as a sad disease but as a thief that will take from him the things most important to him: His intelligence and his memories. Add to that the fact that he himself has no offspring to care for him in his old age, so unless someone in his extended family takes pity on him he's fairly sure he'll end up in a home with nobody to visit.

He's also afraid that he's not really as nice as he strives to be and that his motivations for ensuring fairness are less than pure. Is he trying to prove to himself he's not prejudiced? Sometimes he thinks that might be the case and that's an idea that he doesn't care for.

Then there's driving. He's never owned a car or had a driver's license, having relied upon his feet and the subway (and occasionally his bicycle or taxis) his entire life. Pilot Ridge is a bit too remote to have subways or reliable taxi service, and he's not entirely sure how well he'll be able to get around with just his bike and his feet once the snow begins. The idea of learning to drive fills him with more dread than he would like to admit.
Secret:
-He would rather die of Emphysema than get Alzheimer's
-When he's feeling particularly annoyed at the partisan politics of the day he breaks out Tacitus. All the suicides and assassinations make him feel better about his own country
-He's not comfortable when he's the only white person around. He hates that about himself.

Family Ties

Father:Robert "Bobby" Bernstein (age 81) -- Suffering from Alzheimer's
Mother:Charlotte "Charlie" Bernstein (age 83)
Siblings:Matthew "Matt" Bernstein (age 53) and Talia Berelowitz nee Bernstein (age 45)
Any Other Important People:
In-laws: Michelle Bernstein (47), David Berelowitz (47)

Nieces and Nephews: Noah Bernstein (16), Jeremiah Bernstein (14)

Abigail Berelowitz (13), Tomer Berelowitz (11), Rivka Berelowitz(10)

Pet rabbit: Mopsy

Ex/Best Friend: Sean Neville

History

Josh was born April 12th, 1960, the second child of Bobby and Charlie Bernstein, a moderately wealthy couple living in New York City's Upper East Side. The Bernstein's adhered to Conservative Judaism in theory, though in practice their devotion in attending Synagogue and following Halakha was perhaps a bit suspect. They were, however, devoted to racial and gender equality and on occasion he would accompany his mother to rallies and protests.



Civilian unrest lead to more than just protests, however, as riots marred the city and the rest of the country. Racial discord was whipped into a frenzy as progressives clashed with those in favor of preserving the status quo, and the Vietnam war saw numerous violent encounters between supporters and detractors. Such incidents as the hard hat riots cause unease amongst a fiercely divided populace, everyone convinced the other ideology was to blame for the chaos and tension. Josh attached himself firmly with the Left and the counter culture, following in the footsteps of his parents and then passing them by.



In 1978 he graduated from high school and ended up at New York University. His parents' political activism had inspired in him an interest in law, as he saw there an opportunity to fight for the greater good without resorting to violence. He declared a Major in Pre-Law (this mostly meant taking whatever classes he found interesting) and a Minor in Law and Society.



While attending NYU he met fellow undergraduate Sean Neville, who was interesting and entertaining and shared a number of Josh's most dearly held beliefs. His intelligence and conscience were attractive traits, and Josh began to seek out his company as much as possible. They were soon fast friends, fast friends attempting to ignore the growing sexual tension between them. While Josh didn't take his religion's sexual prohibitions seriously, he did take seriously his mother and for all the interest she displayed in equality for women and nonwhites she was very firmly opposed to homosexuality. In the end, he decided that what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her.



The two bought an apartment together while attending graduate school, though this may not have been the wisest decision as their relationship proved to be a distraction, albeit a welcome one for the most part. Josh's grades suffered as he chose to ignore school work in favor of Sean. Breaking up with him was painful, but in the end single life was more conducive to passing grades. They also managed to remain friends, which made him feel slightly less guilty for ending things because if Sean was able to spend time with him after the relationship was over that meant he wasn't suffering. At least, that was the rational.



In 1985, the year Josh graduated with his J.D. and entered NYU School of Law's L.L.M. program, Civil Rights attorney Charles Goldmark and his wife and children were murdered for allegedly being Communists and Jewish. He had never before considered that his desired profession, coupled with his religion and liberal politics, could jeopardize not only his own life but those of his loved ones as well. This case only fueled his desire to become a Civil Rights attorney, however, as he determined that civil rights and awareness of diversity were more important than ever.



At the age of 30 he finally graduated, having obtained his J.S.D. He moved back to the Upper East Side after passing the bar and began work as an associate at a law firm specializing in discrimination, injuries and medical malpractice cases.



While the city gradually became safer discrimination and inequality remained serious issues; these problems hadn't gone away, they'd merely taken on more subtle tones. Josh refused to allow this new, peaceful face of unfairness to lull him into complacency.



9/11 proved to him that his vigilance was just as necessary as he'd believed, as people wholly blameless were persecuted for superficial resemblances to those responsible. He certainly couldn't condone an act that resulted in so many deaths, but to cast blame for another person's crimes on someone who simply shared a religion or country of origin seemed insensible to him. On a more personal level, 9/11 resulted in anxious phone calls from people he hadn't spoken from in years as out of state acquaintances sought to reassure themselves that those they knew in New York were safe.



Recently he's moved from NYC, New York to Pilot Ridge, Vermont. His father's Alzheimer's had steadily been growing worse and as the only child without a family to care for Josh felt obligated to step up and care for his parents. Retirement communities in the city were a bit on the prohibitively expensive side and a little research showed that there was an excellent place in Burlington. He may have selfishly used his aging parents as an excuse to move closer to Sean, of course, but if he had to move out of the city anyway he might as well go ahead and be close to his friend.

After about a year of living in Pilot Ridge he's made quite a number of friends; he doesn't even have to rely on Sean for a social life anymore.

Roleplay Example

The floor of the Wozniak living room was currently strewn with legos, jigsaw pieces, and tiny plastic high heels that belonged to Tea's Barbies. The young girl may not have actually belonged to them, but she was over enough that a number of her toys had somehow migrated, and Sylvia Wozniak (though she did love her son) happily took advantage of this excuse to purchase girl things. The two children were nearly always seen together, best friends since preschool for reasons that remained utterly mystifying to most all the adults around them -- after all, Harrison was fascinated by the typical action-adventure shows aimed at his gender, and Tea preferred the sparkly and adorable series meant for hers. Still, they were close and whenever Sylvia and Joel went out it was expected that anyone willing to babysit Harrison would watch after Tea as well. And the Wozniaks paid generously for these services, aware that compensation was needed to keep the young girls from synagogue interested in looking after their son.

Currently the pair were occupied with the construction of seperate buildings -- Harrison was constructing a fortified castle, while Tea crafted a neat little building meant to be a shoe store, lining up her dolls' shoes into rows. A handful of Barbies rested nearby, prepared to man the store for its grand opening. Further afield a few My Little Ponies grazed, forgotten by the girl but not by the boy, who had finished his castle (complete with the heads of ruined toys previous enemies ringing the walls as a warning.) He crept closer, closer, closer...and swiped the group of ponies. "Ha! Gotcha!" He crowed, lining them up and attempting to place his masked turtles and their allies on their backs. "Barbie'll never beat me now! I gots a

[/i]cav'ry[/i]!" He announced proudly while attempting to keep his action figures propped upright on their mounts. "Splinter's the gen'ral, so he gets the unicorn. Then he can impale his enemies." He added, attempting to shove the rat onto the yellow, horned pony. If Splinter lead his troops into battle there was no way Barbie and her ilk would win, even if Barbie was bigger.

He sprawled out on his stomach, marching his cavalry across the living room floor (which meant a great deal of constantly pushing them back up, as they insisted on falling over), ready to take over the shoe store and co-opt it for his army. Maybe a hospital for wounded soldiers, but only on his side -- enemies couldn't be allowed to survive. "Oh, Tea, Tea look!" He demanded, turning on his side to struggle with his pocket, pulling out a box of matches he'd confiscated from the bathroom, where it was meant to light candles but had not been placed out of his reach. "I learned your horses to breathe fire." He informed her, lighting a match and trying to stick it in the unicorn's mouth while keeping Splinter mounted at the same time.

"Rar! They gots mutated into dragon ponies." He explained seriously, then, "Ow!" As the match burned down to his fingertips. He dropped it quickly, sticking his burned fingers in his mouth and glaring at the now burned out match reproachfully and muttering what was supposed to be "Stupid ponies can't breathe fire right." but mostly sounded like mush due to the obstruction his fingers were causing.[/size]
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What About You?

Name: Dryope
Age: 26
Experience: Somewhere around ten years or so
How Did You Find Us? RPG-D. The character request section, to be precise.
Ready To Play? Woah, hold on there? Play?! I filled out the application for fun and have no intention of actually playing. Why yes, yes I am!

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[Admin!]

ACCEPTED!
Congratulations, you have been accepted to the Hammel Institute. There are some CLAIMS you should look at, and then you have fun. If you need anything, let Mads or myself know. Nice to have you aboard.