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Christmas is a federal

Verified Atheist — Wed, 23 May 2012 10:38:33 -0400

by Verified Atheist in The End of the Jewish Left

Christmas is a federal holiday, but Easter is not—no doubt because it always falls on a Sunday.

In this situation I am in, I

artappraiser — Wed, 23 May 2012 10:38:30 -0400

by artappraiser in Something Happened in Chicago I Hear

In this situation I am in, I ask myself: WWJD? I do strongly believe what he would do is say: true followers of my father should not rely upon on the nearly heretical Book of Revelation later addition to my New Testament, and should instead be relying on my word in the Gospels of my actual apostles. And I would add: beware of anyone constantly quoting the Book of Revelation; often they are not very "Christian," but more interested in things like magic and prophesy.

Thanks for the clarification.

Verified Atheist — Wed, 23 May 2012 10:33:42 -0400

by Verified Atheist in The End of the Jewish Left

Thanks for the clarification. Am I the only one that laughs at Bill Kristol/Billy Crystal?

True, but... It would appear

Peter Schwartz — Wed, 23 May 2012 10:23:53 -0400

by Peter Schwartz in The End of the Jewish Left

True, but...

It would appear your quoting Kristol was context-free and, in effect, seconded some factually incorrect assertions, e.g., the ethnic make up of the ACLU and its goals.

Moreover, his assertions about Jews pre-War and Jews post-War appear to be made up out of whole cloth. For example, we're asked to accept that "the Jews" at first didn't care about being asked to sing Christmas carols, but after the war mounted an aggressive campaign to efface the Christian nature of America.

(If this is true, one reason might be that before the war Jews were still poor and hadn't established a firm foothold in America. After the war, they felt the country was "theirs" just as much as it was Christians'. Isn't that what we want? Or do we want a permanent stratification in which everyone who arrived after the Mayflower somehow doesn't have the same rights as the folks who belong to DAR?)

(Interesting side bar here. In the section of the Talmud I'm reading, it says that it is forbidden to oppress people with your words. For example, in arguing with a convert to Judaism, it is forbidden to remind the person that he once ate pork--to say to him, in effect, that he isn't a "real" Jew because he wasn't born into the religion.)

Irving also asks us to accept or somehow ratify, despite the establishment clause in a Constitution written by non-Jews, America's informal "status" as a Christian nation.

But since this isn't a legal status as he admits, what kind of status could this be? The fact that more Christians have always lived in America than other religious groups? Well, okay.

But surely this "status" doesn't mean that Christians get to use the public space--and public resources--to express their faith as the dominant faith as Irving comes pretty close to saying. And surely there is no shortage of publicly viewable expressions of the Christian faith elsewhere--I note all the churches in plain view, the trees in Rockefeller Center, the Christmas music you can't escape on the radio (not that I want to), the blizzard of advertising with the trappings of Christmas.

I don't know when this was written, but Irving seems to be asserting that there's a war on Christianity in America. I don't see it. But if there is a war, the Christians are winning it hands-down. And Irving even admits as much when he says that the last 40 years have been pretty good for Christian dominance in America. Isn't 40 years something like two generations? That's a darn good run.

In fact, I believe, Christmas is a federal holiday and perhaps Easter as well. Passover isn't a federal holiday last I looked. Nor Hanukah. Nor Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah. So, despite the fact that we aren't supposed to establish a "religion of the land," Christianity DOES take precedence in these ways.

So what's the beef and where's the beef?

Well, as a non-Jew who has

Another Trope — Wed, 23 May 2012 10:20:18 -0400

by Another Trope in The End of the Jewish Left

Well, as a non-Jew who has grown up and lived in communities where there was little visible Jewish culture/religion, my understanding of Jews and the Left is mostly what I have gleaned consciously and subconsciously from the arts and academic studies, and lets face it, stand-up comedians. John Stewart (born John Stuart Leibowitz) is probably what most Americans think of today when they think of the Jewish Left.

The topic of Jews and the Left is interesting, if only from an academic kind of interest about perceptions within and across a community. The Tablet article mentions in the beginning:

For the first two-thirds of the 20th century, from the first immigrant generation through the baby boom, the radical and revolutionary left played a hugely important role in defining how the rest of America saw Jews and how Jews saw themselves. From Mike Gold’s proletarian novel Jews Without Money all the way down to Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, the literature and mythology of American Jewish radicalism has often appeared identical—to a certain audience—with Judaism itself.

There is this topic as it is discussed among Jews themselves. But then there is this topic as it is discussed between Jews and non-Jews. As the above thread indicates, it is one which can be easily derailed. We are dealing with self-identity and religion and politics and just about everything else that can get people talking past one another.

I saw Angels in America when it was first being performed outside of New York and it was a profoundly moving experience. I had gone thinking it was going to be a play about AIDS and politics, and it was so much more - starting with Rabbi Isidor Chemelwitz words to the mourners:

She was ... not a person but a whole kind of person, the ones who crossed the ocean, who brought with us to America the villages of Russia and Lithuania--and how we struggled, and how we fought, for the family, for the Jewish home, so that you would not grow up here, in this strange place, in the melting pot where nothing melted. Descendants of this immigrant woman, you do not grow up in America, you and your children and their children with the goyische names. You do not live in America. No such place exists. Your clay is the clay of some Litvak shtetl, your air the air of the steppes--because she carried the old world on her back across the ocean, in a boat, and she put it down on Grand Concourse Avenue, or in Flatbush, and she worked that earth into your bones, and you pass it to your children, this ancient, ancient culture and home.

Later Louis makes the comment:

Jews don't have any clear textual guide to the afterlife; even that it exists. I don't think much about it. I see it as a perpetual rainy Thursday afternoon in March. Dead leaves.

There is a whole facet of modernist and post-modernist thinking and sentiment in those lines, thinking and sentiment that has been a huge facet of the Left, at least from the artistic contingency.

Irving was the dad, and is

artappraiser — Wed, 23 May 2012 09:27:55 -0400

by artappraiser in The End of the Jewish Left

Irving was the dad, and is much more renowned in academic circles as sorta the dad of neoconservatism as well; Bill is the son and more well known in pop culture, for his teevee appearances and newspaper columns and yes, for his smirk. I always imagined a situation like this--at University of Chicago conferences, they make fun of Kristol fils but still respect Kristol père's work

If there is choice for each

Another Trope — Wed, 23 May 2012 09:19:08 -0400

by Another Trope in Something Happened in Chicago I Hear

If there is choice for each yet to be made, then it is unknown what that choice will be, and therefore the nature of future events are unknown, and therefore cannot be foretold.

Losing at the midterm was a

Peter Schwartz — Wed, 23 May 2012 09:15:18 -0400

by Peter Schwartz in Fair Weather Dems will be the Death of Us Yet

Losing at the midterm was a message.

Thing is, the Democratic party misread the message, to late, as they might find now.

What do you think the message was, Resistance?

Beautiful poem. The trinity?

Peter Schwartz — Wed, 23 May 2012 08:57:44 -0400

by Peter Schwartz in The End of the Jewish Left

Beautiful poem. The trinity?

Excellent perspective.

SleepinJeezus — Wed, 23 May 2012 08:40:39 -0400

by SleepinJeezus in Is the Occupy Movement Over?

Excellent perspective.

Here's the CNN link.

Verified Atheist — Wed, 23 May 2012 08:29:10 -0400

by Verified Atheist in Hatred in a Lovely Church

Here's the CNN link.

I finally steeled up my nerve

Verified Atheist — Wed, 23 May 2012 08:22:23 -0400

by Verified Atheist in Hatred in a Lovely Church

I finally steeled up my nerve to watch it, and looking behind him, I thought of this. I mean seriously, where's the choir? OK, I know sometimes choirs leave after singing, but that's usually the exception, especially for what would appear to be as large a choir as you'd expect a church of that size to have…

The only thing that remains

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 23 May 2012 08:18:16 -0400

by PeraclesPlease in Canada's Got Talent!

The only thing that remains is to break the glass ceiling in... curling.

I'm not sure if you're

Verified Atheist — Wed, 23 May 2012 08:16:42 -0400

by Verified Atheist in First cargo delivery to the space station by a private company

I'm not sure if you're referring to the Pony Express' "success" or its failure…

I'm not dissing real

Peter Schwartz — Wed, 23 May 2012 07:53:15 -0400

by Peter Schwartz in Fair Weather Dems will be the Death of Us Yet

I'm not dissing real estate.

Nor am I plugging for bonds and stocks.

But NO asset can increase in value, especially at that speed, forever.

That includes stocks and bonds and gold in particular.

The ultimate problem here is

bslev — Wed, 23 May 2012 07:29:57 -0400

by bslev in The End of the Jewish Left

The ultimate problem here is that despite the good faith efforts of so many of you to help the blogger understand the significance of what she wrote, the blogger just doesn't get it. She seems to believe that the only thing she did wrong--maybe--was to hurt my feelings or that perhaps she shouldn't have relied upon the writings of Irving Kristol.

The bottom-line is that the blogger went O'Reilly on this Hebe because she just presumed I was dissin' the Claus. And as others have more eloquently tried to explain, she responded with the kind of bile and cheese that we ordinarily expect to see from real bigots--which I assume the blogger is not. And I submit it's far more than stupid and so-so wrong with respect to making presumptions about me personally. More importantly, the blogger betrays the kind of stereotyping and presumptions about "others" that good people should strive to avoid. And, as here, it often begins with assuming facts that just ain't in the record, and building on 'em anyway.

So to sum this up as I see it, the real problem isn't even that the blogger did what she did--although I submit what she wrote is problematic and ugly. But the real problem is that she either doesn't understand what she did, or for whatever reason she purposely refuses to see the error in her ways. For the sake of community, I would prefer that it be the former, i.e. just a fundamental lack of understanding, or more succinctly, garden-variety ignorance filled with some kind of deep-seeded resentment about non-believers dissin' the Claus. That's putting the best light on it as far as I'm concerned. And it's sad, particularly when so many of you tried so hard to make this a real teachable moment.

FWIW, it was a teachable moment for me. And that's all I gotta say about that.

It's always a bad idea for a

Erica — Wed, 23 May 2012 07:21:53 -0400

by Erica in Police to SCOTUS: Need Blank Check to Tase Anyone

It's always a bad idea for a police officer to make a situation worse. The officer should have advised the woman that refusing to acknowledge the ticket was a crime and that he would testify in court that she did refuse to sign. (presumably he had it on car cam.) but arresting her on the spot, even if Abe was bei g difficult? Bad idea. He could have asked her if there was anyone she could call for legal advice.

Lotta ways to keep this one from going bad. Officers didn't use their brains, and instead provoked a fight instead of saying "I'm sorry to say we will see you in court, have a nice day."

and tasing???? No way. That this case is going to the supreme court should provoke the profoundest embarrassment in those officers and their superiors.

I think you should have

Erica — Wed, 23 May 2012 06:49:23 -0400

by Erica in Homes and Castles

I think you should have called the cops. It's an expression of concern. Granted, you don't know what the situation was, but that's what the police are supposed to figure out when they get there. In some cases you can even ask for a call back or info about how the situation resolved.

I've got no problem with

Verified Atheist — Wed, 23 May 2012 06:30:32 -0400

by Verified Atheist in The End of the Jewish Left

I've got no problem with celebrating Christmas. Heck, as I probably mentioned on that thread, I celebrate Christmas myself. (I imagine religious Jews would have a harder time celebrating it. However, none of them that I know of would have a problem with someone else celebrating it.)

However, as PP alluded to, how Christmas is celebrated in schools can vary from region to region, and even within a region from school to school or teacher to teacher. By all means, students should be allowed to dress up (assuming there's no uniform dress code), but when teachers and principals imbue Christmas with "the reason for the season", things get sticky.

I recently lost my job working at a company (of about 30 employees) where the owner would lead a prayer before meals. I never felt free at that company to mention my own religious views, even though (almost) everyone else mentioned theirs. I even wonder if that had something to do with me getting laid off. (Doesn't matter, I now have a better job with people of a like mind.) I imagine that's how atheist and Jewish students can feel in a school where it at least seems like 95% (or more) are Christians who think you're going to Hell. Christmas can be a reminder (especially when laced with reminders of the importance of remembering the "reason for the season", and I don't mean the axial tilt), but it's probably more of a side issue.

Cool factoid about Festivus.

To be honest, your excerpts

Verified Atheist — Wed, 23 May 2012 06:19:02 -0400

by Verified Atheist in The End of the Jewish Left

To be honest, your excerpts are my first introduction to the author (at least that I remember). Hopefully they'll be my last exposure to him as well. Others mentioned him being the son of the more famous Kristol (Billy, right?), but even in his case I'm not that familiar with his writing. So, my rejection had everything to do with the argument—both the axioms on which the argument was built as well as its logical consistency.

As for discussing what he wrote (or the Unabomber), that's fine. My concern, as I've stated elsewhere, is that you seemed to be sympathetic with both his axioms and his conclusion. I don't care about Irving Kristol. I do care about you.

Of course you have free will.

Resistance — Wed, 23 May 2012 02:37:09 -0400

by Resistance in Something Happened in Chicago I Hear

Of course you have free will. You get a choice, who you'll listen to.

You're free to choose. A wide and spacious road leading to death or the narrow one leading to Life.

Come into the light or stay in the darkness, it's your choice.

"Ghengis is one of those

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 23 May 2012 00:59:03 -0400

by PeraclesPlease in Fair Weather Dems will be the Death of Us Yet

"Ghengis is one of those holier-than-thou whiners on the left." - It's a shame John is an uncultured pig, but I'll try to be more gracious -

"John, I know you come from white trash beginnings, but around here, 'up yours' to the owner of the house is not considered a proper way of introducing yourself. So pull up a chair and enjoy the vittles - they ain't much in the way of taste, but they're at least filling".

See, we can all be accomodating.

I can't be sure, but I think

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 23 May 2012 00:55:09 -0400

by PeraclesPlease in The End of the Jewish Left

I can't be sure, but I think there's also a Northeast tilt towards the discussion.

If you were in NY, you have a support group for being Jewish.

If in Alabama, say, you're an outsider.

And yeah, 30 days starting at Thanksgiving focused on someone else's major holiday while yours is an asterisk or simply not mentioned can be hard on a kid.

Of course same applies for being Chinese or Asian Indian. And if you were descended from African slaves, your religions and spiritual beliefs just got whisked away, hardly a trace.

In some ways, that's always been the political point of religion - control the masses with a single point of view and prescribed behavior. Somewhere in there is still the human yearning to understand the cosmos. And then there's the little kid just wanting some excitement, presents and to belong.

Rabbits are not asking for

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 23 May 2012 00:46:18 -0400

by PeraclesPlease in Dr. Boyce Watkins on Gay Rights

Rabbits are not asking for additional rights, only EQUAL rights. Here I'm leading you down the rabbit hole - but don't worry, we're all virgins in some areas.

Marriage has been traditionally between man and women. Gays are asking to extend the definition to 2 men or 2 women. Polygamists/polyamorists would be asking to extend it to more than 2 partners - a right during many periods of human history, now frowned upon.

The restrictions on familial marriage are somewhat arbitrary. Are 2nd cousins okay? 1st cousins? Half-brothers? Was their something wrong with Woody Allen marrying his adopted daughter (no genetic relation). What makes the marriage age of 18 now proper, vs. 16 in years gone by or younger (15? 13? arranged marriages at 6 or 8?)

Miscegenation laws obviously restricted marriage and reproducing based on race - a right or redefinition of marriage? and it wasn't long ago that marrying a Catholic in the south meant to be outcast.

Nikola Tesla, a brilliant man, had a kind of fetish and love towards pigeons. Bestiality (sexual encounters with animals) is a common enough phenomenon. At least in this case, there's a clear distinction of species when restricting marriage or sexual relations between humans and other species.

You challenge their ability to think because you're either not very creative in applying logic, or it's a rhetorical tool where all your analogies are apples-to-apples and theirs are apples-to-oranges, and presto-magico, you can disappear their argument.

In either case, you do it in a frequently insulting manner. Including to Sitting Bull / all native Americans below.

Wow, take a heartless jab at

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 23 May 2012 00:39:49 -0400

by PeraclesPlease in Dr. Boyce Watkins on Gay Rights

Wow, take a heartless jab at Sitting Bull while you're at it. Yeah, he should have acquiesced, just let the government put his people on reservations, and put in some slot machines to draw tourists. Martin Luther King should have just accepted those shoe shining jobs - better some employment than none, no? With or without Little Big Horn the whites would have killed off the Indians, finished stealing their land breaking all agreements successively along the way, and made them irrelevant. But with Little Big Horn, they at least went out with a memorable fight for self-respect. Custer will forever be a symbol of cruel, foolish-head arrogance.

The taboos against gay marriage are similar to taboos against incest / marrying your sister. Much backed by biblical lore, etc. And Quinn explained the don't care part - both because the black community has bigger fish to fry, and perhaps as a heterosexual he doesn't actually care (which emotional reaction could run the gamut from disgust to enthusiasm I suppose)