Darwin Fish

Why do I drive myself to a frenzy, reading articles that I know will make me crazy irritated?  Pieces full of lazy thinking, facile arguments, and just plain wrongness.  I guess it's like people who enjoy horror movies, some kind of emotional rush.

Anyway, a friend of mine writes for a Jewish newspaper, and so I pop over to see her on-line column, along with the associated links, which are religiously very liberal (meaning they are liberal on points of religion, not just that they are "religiously = always" liberal, which is also true).  Most of the people who regularly read the column, or at least the people who post comments, are in such agreement with the views expressed, that their instant reaction to any critique is to call it the opinion of a hateful ignoramus.

With the christmas season upon us, there has, of course, been lots and lots, and lots, and lots of posting about how Jews should [can't, do, won't and are abused for the way they] celebrate christmas. Apparently, at least a couple vocal people feel that other vocal people have been especially vocal in expressing the belief that Jews should not entertain the trappings of the christmas season.  The (first) vocal people have responded, in the main, "Shut up, it's a free country, don't tell me what I can or can't do, you hateful ignoramus."

Are you still with me?  If so, you are probably already of my same opinion, and thus, again, any arguments I make are a big waste of time, just to please myself.  But anyway, here's my thought:  I hate those darwin symbols on the back of cars.  You know the ones, they look like a jesus fish, but with feet.  I hate them because this kind of blurring of importance of different priciples brings so much trouble.  Now understand, I DO NOT want to see creationism taught in schools, I think it is foolishness to teach about supernatural occurrence in a class that should be about natural law.  Why would I interupt a class in car mechanics to teach about music composition?  Even more, since this is not science in any form, there is no excuse for the direct integration of church and state. But the "darwin fish" only spurs on this demand to teach creationism in schools by 1) equating a scientific theory which (true, untrue, I don't care) is just a SCIENTIFIC THEORY with a TOTAL LIFE AND SOUL BELIEF SYSTEM,  and 2) taunting a TOTAL LIFE AND SOUL BELIEF SYSTEM as if to say "ha, my theory system beat your belief".  Very, very few people hold a scientific theory as their life's highest belief.  So don't pretend this theory is analogous to their belief, if you don't want them to fight back by saying "teach my belief system as if it is analogous to your scientific theory."

My take on the people who want to be respected for celebrating both christmas and hanukkah is that they are just not taking the belief system of either religion very seriously.  If you need to light you menorah and eat your fruitcake and plum pudding too, well then you have made a decision about how much value you give to either system.  To you they are just symbols, like the jesus/darwin fish that have only as much importance as you, as a person, decide to imbue.  And you are right to say this is a free country, thank goodness, and I cannot dictate how you practice.  But when people insist that this is practice is representative of normative Judaism, this is an invitation for correction.  Meshing hannukah and christmas is the antithesis of hannukah.  Many people don't want hear that, may even believe it is incorrect (although I haven't heard any arguments better than "but everyone's doin' it, plus it makes everyone happy which is what is most important").  But to insist that your human devised plan for a nice holiday custom is on par with someone else's LIFE AND SOUL BELIEF SYSTEM is a foolish and flawed comparison.

That said, I truly do wish everyone a good, happy and productive holiday season and a great year ahead!

Russians, former Russians, Balkans

I have to ask :  I'm getting a lot of hits from these places, who are you?  Is anyone reading more than one post, or is my blog just popping up there randomly?  Or is this all people from work? I'm so curious.

I would be happier than you could imagine to find out who is reading - even if you are from someplace boring like the U.S. 
It never occurred to me that some people would dislike blog "stalkers."  For goodness sake - you have chosen to publish on a PUBLIC FORUM.  That is as much as asking people "please, please, please, please read this."

Beading

Here is one of the things I'm feeling good about - beading jewelry to sell at the Chanukkah Bazaars.

Most of these were photographed with my phone.  I still can't figure out how to upload from my camera.
Wish me luck at the bazaar.

By the way: someone said she hated seeing girls wearing these, unaware that they are "slave bracelets, " that it is an ugly message.  The response I didn't think of until too late:  it gives me the "willies" watching kids play on a see-saw, but I don't think it would be a good thing to do away with them just because they originated with a public homicide instrument; let it be used for something positive today.  I don't mean to degrade the original complaint about the bracelets, just that I think it is fine here to take something that has origins in the negative to use today for the positive.  There is nothing inherently offensive or immodest about the bracelet, and I don't think it is dishonoring women from the past or harming women today to claim this design for ourselves. 

Just an update on my state of mind

For those of you concerned on how I am holding up - I am doing so well that I'm sure many would say I am in denial.  I think I am just a naturally happy person who has been trapped inside and unhappy situation for 32 years.  Or maybe I am on the fringe of bi-polar and now on a long good spell.  Anyway, I wanted to share something I just wrote to a friend:

[I am]happy a surprising amount - I was thinking about this a lot, how my default voice in my head has changed from "I'm tired and sad, please help me" to "I'm happy, I'm so nervous, but happy". Really, I think that much of the time. I usually "talk to myself" like that when I am in the bathroom or just collapsing on the couch after work, or after I turn out the lights in bed. 

Good summary.

Oh, before computers took over...

...the Hallmark store used to be one of my favorite places to window shop as a teenager.  They were full of cute stickers and stationery and funky pens.  Now they seem to have nothing but dumb greeting cards, candles and plush toys.  I still occasionally write actual letters, mostly to my aunts, although I wish I wrote more.   My in-laws give great gifts, and they twice gave me boxes of personalized notecards.  But most of the second box has been used, and the remaining pieces are in a desk at the wasband's house, I don't feel like requesting that stuff right now (even though it also holds all my origami paper).  So I have been looking for some nice stationery.  There is a bit of expensive not-so-useful stuff at Barnes and Nobel.  The drug store has almost nothing.  None of the places I "happen to be" had anything I wanted, so I decided to make a special trip to the Hallmark store, I was so excited.  And I found...nothing.  Okay, that is a bit of an exaggeration, but I think they had about 20 choices of mostly odd sized, all ugly, overpriced boxes of stationery that I never would have bought if I wasn't getting desperate to thank my aunt for a recent gift.  When I was young, I bought stationery just to have it, we traded it at school, you could often even buy it by the sheet or the pound.  Now the girls trade and collect napkins???!!!!??

And we all know why: the evil computer.

I may blog, but I hate the computer.  Like the way I would guess most people hate fast food restaurants - I use the computer, it's fun and easy, and it is no good for almost anyone and it certainly made my life much worse and I wish most of them were never built.  An especially evil computer used to live with me and the wasband.  Several years ago wasband said he was planning to request, as an anniversary gift from his parents, a new scanner for the computer (remember, at that time, a scanner was more expensive than it is now).  I was furious, "We are not using our anniversary, to get a new mink coat for your mistress!"  (Aside: the wasband also thinks fast food tastes GREAT.)

I'm not sure what I think about my blogging.  I have several drafts unpublished because I don't think they are appropriate for general distribution, but I like them too much to get rid of them.  Yesterday I wrote a mild indictment of a local educational institution, and a harsher criticism of current educational philosophy in general, but I don't think this is the place to air that grievance, since this blog is not really anonymous and many people would know who I was talking about.  So I think often of creating a new blog, to be totally anonymous, and all just to vent all my hostile feelings about how stupid and selfish are all these idiots in my life.  You see how evil computers are?!


By the way, I believe Miss Manners says ladies' personal correspondence is supposed to be on double sheet white, ecru or light pastel paper (don't quote me about the colors).  I looked for some of that at the Hallmark store - zilch.

So here are some things people did with their free time before computers, but that I probably would not be aware of without the computer:

Why they decided to spend their time this way is beyond me, but apparently poodle bottle toppers are appealing to at least a handful of people.

This one does show a weird creativity that I would appreciate at someone else's home, not so much my own.  I don't think it was made with a computer though.