Second day of Shvuos, and I'm down for the count. Got a lot of sleep.
Tomorrow, life begins again, and I am yet again wrestling with the financial aid people at my graduate program. This has been an ongoing disaster, and every time we do a new bit, I get hysterical all over again.
Bleah.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Throwing Stuff Out
I've got a bag of things that I'm planning to take tomorrow to the Gaia box.
One of them is a sweatshirt from a school I taught at many years ago when I was a very new teacher.
I kept it all this time, because even though the design was stupid, and I hated the school, it was a perfectly good sweatshirt, and also very roomy and comfortable.
But I resented it. It was a gift from the principal, who I disliked. She came around to my room, delivering them to everyone, and dropped mine off. I thanked her, and put it on the desk.
Some of the kids asked why I got a sweatshirt, so I explained all of the teachers got them.
And a little schmuck used his limited new English to ask, "Is it an EXTRA large?"
I've remembered that for six years, and have determined that now would be a good time to ditch the damn sweatshirt.
One of them is a sweatshirt from a school I taught at many years ago when I was a very new teacher.
I kept it all this time, because even though the design was stupid, and I hated the school, it was a perfectly good sweatshirt, and also very roomy and comfortable.
But I resented it. It was a gift from the principal, who I disliked. She came around to my room, delivering them to everyone, and dropped mine off. I thanked her, and put it on the desk.
Some of the kids asked why I got a sweatshirt, so I explained all of the teachers got them.
And a little schmuck used his limited new English to ask, "Is it an EXTRA large?"
I've remembered that for six years, and have determined that now would be a good time to ditch the damn sweatshirt.
Monday, May 21, 2012
Jewish Women's Lit Review--The Dovekeepers
This week I read The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman.
First things first, and since I'm going to get somewhat critical and nitpicky soon enough, and then start talking my own emotional response, I should first offer much-deserved praise: I read this book with enormous pleasure. The writing is lush and dreamlike, and the evocation of the Judean desert and Herod's palace fortress is amazing. I was delighted by the sense of visceral connection to the land that was communicated through the characters' eyes. The Dovekeepers traces the experience of four women following the destruction of Jerusalem, and throughout the siege of Masada, Yael, the daughter of an assassin from Jerusalem, Revka, a grandmother from a smaller community, Shirah, a midwife and witch with a complicated past, and her daughter Aziza, raised as a boy in Moab, and now struggling to find a place for herself on Masada. For all of my criticism, I would absolutely recommend this book.
Reading (and writing) historical fiction about Jewish communities is always odd for me. The people, the names, the language and the cycle of life is always at once utterly familiar, and (sometimes wildly) exotic. Some details of Jewish life portrayed in The Dovekeepers I find odd and unexpected, and I'm not sure if they are actually errors, or if I simply don't know enough about the period to know what I am reading. (I chalked up the presence of a northern European legionary, taken prisoner and sent as a slave to work in the dovecotes, as a somewhat silly plotline, and too reminiscent of The Bronze Bow, however apparently one of the artifacts discovered at Masada is a scrap of plaid fabric, apparently originating in Wales. So see what I don't know?)
Unmarried girls go the mikvah following menstruation, which seems odd to me, but may well have been the custom of the day. (More that I don't know.) At one point, bafflingly, a single, pregnant girl is subjected to the Sotah trial. There is a passage in which it's stated that women are not allowed to touch weapons, and those they handle will have to be purified before men can use them again. This is, in fact, a custom in a lot of places. Polynesia, say, or among Jean Auel's Neanderthals. But where in Torah does it say any such thing? The closest I've been able to find to this is an argument in the Talmud that a woman carrying weapons is beged ish, it is a man's 'clothing', and therefore assur. (I'm not sure that this would rule out one of those cute little 'Hello Kitty' assault rifles you see online occasionally.) However, a woman is allowed to pick up, wash, carry around, etc., a man's clothing. This prohibition has the feel of something randomly made up. Once again: I'm not sure. But it makes me wish that Hoffman's world-building felt more stable, as I attempt to sort out the ways of people who are as familiar as cousins and yet impossibly distant in terms of time, way of life, and religious practice.
There is a complex interweaving of women's magic and religion, which I am not totally comfortable with as an historically and critically minded reader. Shirah, 'the Witch of Moab', is described in lavish detail as having been raised and taught magic in Alexandria, by her mother, a kadesha, a biblical term defined by Shirah as a holy woman who is 'available' to priests. Shirah describes these women as, in her lifetime, being outlawed by the religious authorities, and going from being considered sacred to being considered ordinary prostitutes. Shirah's mother also teaches her daughter the worship of the goddess Ashtaroth, whose cult is presented through the novel in a jumbled way, sometimes forbidden by the priests of the Temple, sometimes accepted as an ordinary although private form of worship by the other women.
Remember, this is supposed to be happening in the first century CE. I'm not an expert on that era, but given how much earlier the emphasis on pure monotheism began, I am having a really hard time imagining that these specific (and highly appealing to a sizeable modern audience) religious practices survived to just about, but not quite the end of the Second Temple Era. It's not quite as insanely anachronistic as Clysta Kinstler's The Moon Under Her Feet, (little is), but it is unconvincing in this era. I bought it, (the concept, not always the portrayal) in The Red Tent. In a novel set during the early days of the First Temple, I wouldn't blink. In the life of a woman living through the siege of Masada, no. And there is something truly miraculous about the way the reverential worship of the divine feminine always seems to last just up to the period of any given novel that wants to include such elements.
Beyond my kicking of the tires of realistic portrayal of time and place, I found myself immediately sucked into the premise, and protective of the characters, and to some extent, the novel itself. Despite my own gripes, I found myself decidedly angry with the author of a dismissive review in the New York Times. I knew what was coming at the novel's end, and it gave the struggles and conflicts of the characters an added intensity for me. All of the characters are suffering recent trauma, in their own lives, and collectively, in the loss of Jerusalem. Hoffman refers to the fall of the city and the destruction of the Temple only glancingly, as in one reference when a character comments that this is the first Pesach when they cannot bring offerings to the Temple. For me, the single passing reference was gut-wrenching. I don't know if it would have had the same effect on a reader further removed from the material.
The fall of Masada was difficult for me, both in terms of reading, and in terms of how Hoffman handles it. Given the determination to survive of some of her characters, it doesn't seem unrealistic that they would disagree with the communal choice of mass suicide, but it troubled me in particular that one young man, chosen by lot to kill others, is treated by the narrator of this section almost as though he were committing a crime for personal satisfaction.
I suppose I wasn't going to react in any sort of a neutral way to a novel about Masada, but I was fascinated both by the novel, and the intensity of my reactions to authorial decsions. The story, realized, belonged to me in my mind, and I was both thrilled that someone was writing, and publishing, a novel about it, and deeply picky about how it should be done. A good read. Recommended.
First things first, and since I'm going to get somewhat critical and nitpicky soon enough, and then start talking my own emotional response, I should first offer much-deserved praise: I read this book with enormous pleasure. The writing is lush and dreamlike, and the evocation of the Judean desert and Herod's palace fortress is amazing. I was delighted by the sense of visceral connection to the land that was communicated through the characters' eyes. The Dovekeepers traces the experience of four women following the destruction of Jerusalem, and throughout the siege of Masada, Yael, the daughter of an assassin from Jerusalem, Revka, a grandmother from a smaller community, Shirah, a midwife and witch with a complicated past, and her daughter Aziza, raised as a boy in Moab, and now struggling to find a place for herself on Masada. For all of my criticism, I would absolutely recommend this book.
Reading (and writing) historical fiction about Jewish communities is always odd for me. The people, the names, the language and the cycle of life is always at once utterly familiar, and (sometimes wildly) exotic. Some details of Jewish life portrayed in The Dovekeepers I find odd and unexpected, and I'm not sure if they are actually errors, or if I simply don't know enough about the period to know what I am reading. (I chalked up the presence of a northern European legionary, taken prisoner and sent as a slave to work in the dovecotes, as a somewhat silly plotline, and too reminiscent of The Bronze Bow, however apparently one of the artifacts discovered at Masada is a scrap of plaid fabric, apparently originating in Wales. So see what I don't know?)
Unmarried girls go the mikvah following menstruation, which seems odd to me, but may well have been the custom of the day. (More that I don't know.) At one point, bafflingly, a single, pregnant girl is subjected to the Sotah trial. There is a passage in which it's stated that women are not allowed to touch weapons, and those they handle will have to be purified before men can use them again. This is, in fact, a custom in a lot of places. Polynesia, say, or among Jean Auel's Neanderthals. But where in Torah does it say any such thing? The closest I've been able to find to this is an argument in the Talmud that a woman carrying weapons is beged ish, it is a man's 'clothing', and therefore assur. (I'm not sure that this would rule out one of those cute little 'Hello Kitty' assault rifles you see online occasionally.) However, a woman is allowed to pick up, wash, carry around, etc., a man's clothing. This prohibition has the feel of something randomly made up. Once again: I'm not sure. But it makes me wish that Hoffman's world-building felt more stable, as I attempt to sort out the ways of people who are as familiar as cousins and yet impossibly distant in terms of time, way of life, and religious practice.
There is a complex interweaving of women's magic and religion, which I am not totally comfortable with as an historically and critically minded reader. Shirah, 'the Witch of Moab', is described in lavish detail as having been raised and taught magic in Alexandria, by her mother, a kadesha, a biblical term defined by Shirah as a holy woman who is 'available' to priests. Shirah describes these women as, in her lifetime, being outlawed by the religious authorities, and going from being considered sacred to being considered ordinary prostitutes. Shirah's mother also teaches her daughter the worship of the goddess Ashtaroth, whose cult is presented through the novel in a jumbled way, sometimes forbidden by the priests of the Temple, sometimes accepted as an ordinary although private form of worship by the other women.
Remember, this is supposed to be happening in the first century CE. I'm not an expert on that era, but given how much earlier the emphasis on pure monotheism began, I am having a really hard time imagining that these specific (and highly appealing to a sizeable modern audience) religious practices survived to just about, but not quite the end of the Second Temple Era. It's not quite as insanely anachronistic as Clysta Kinstler's The Moon Under Her Feet, (little is), but it is unconvincing in this era. I bought it, (the concept, not always the portrayal) in The Red Tent. In a novel set during the early days of the First Temple, I wouldn't blink. In the life of a woman living through the siege of Masada, no. And there is something truly miraculous about the way the reverential worship of the divine feminine always seems to last just up to the period of any given novel that wants to include such elements.
Beyond my kicking of the tires of realistic portrayal of time and place, I found myself immediately sucked into the premise, and protective of the characters, and to some extent, the novel itself. Despite my own gripes, I found myself decidedly angry with the author of a dismissive review in the New York Times. I knew what was coming at the novel's end, and it gave the struggles and conflicts of the characters an added intensity for me. All of the characters are suffering recent trauma, in their own lives, and collectively, in the loss of Jerusalem. Hoffman refers to the fall of the city and the destruction of the Temple only glancingly, as in one reference when a character comments that this is the first Pesach when they cannot bring offerings to the Temple. For me, the single passing reference was gut-wrenching. I don't know if it would have had the same effect on a reader further removed from the material.
The fall of Masada was difficult for me, both in terms of reading, and in terms of how Hoffman handles it. Given the determination to survive of some of her characters, it doesn't seem unrealistic that they would disagree with the communal choice of mass suicide, but it troubled me in particular that one young man, chosen by lot to kill others, is treated by the narrator of this section almost as though he were committing a crime for personal satisfaction.
I suppose I wasn't going to react in any sort of a neutral way to a novel about Masada, but I was fascinated both by the novel, and the intensity of my reactions to authorial decsions. The story, realized, belonged to me in my mind, and I was both thrilled that someone was writing, and publishing, a novel about it, and deeply picky about how it should be done. A good read. Recommended.
So, I Did It
I actually departed the house, wrangled the buses, and made it to Netivot Shalom's twice-monthly Kabbalat Shabbat/Friday evening maariv.
It was nice.
We shall see.
The Husband is pleased that I am 'being a good Jew'.
It was nice.
We shall see.
The Husband is pleased that I am 'being a good Jew'.
Friday, May 11, 2012
Full Circle
So, I've decided that I need to make it back to shul.
I haven't been in a long time, except for the chagim and such. And it's time.
It will have to be Friday night services, since I'm working Saturday mornings, and will be for the foreseeable future. And doing this, still carless, and dependent on AC transit, is going to require a little bit of thinking and planning, and most of all, the willingness to stand on a street corner for far too long, but I think it needs to happen.
I haven't been in a long time, except for the chagim and such. And it's time.
It will have to be Friday night services, since I'm working Saturday mornings, and will be for the foreseeable future. And doing this, still carless, and dependent on AC transit, is going to require a little bit of thinking and planning, and most of all, the willingness to stand on a street corner for far too long, but I think it needs to happen.
Friday, February 17, 2012
Fat Shaming, Health, and the Atlanta Ad Campaign
So there's a little scuffle going on at the moment, because Children's Healthcare of Atlanta has been running the ads above, ostensibly as part of the fight against childhood obesity.
Fat activists are upset, but they don't seem to be the only ones distancing themselves from this. As the just-linked article comments, Dairy Queen approves this ad campaign, while Kaiser Permanente disclaims it, an odd pair of reactions if there ever was one. I can see why, though.
The Balabusta, having successfully lost ten pounds since the beginning of 2012, would like to report that she is still bothered by the degree of fat-shaming and blaming, and the ham-handed crappiness of these ads.
Caperton, over at Feministe, has a very good analysis of the ads, and I think it is well worth a read. My key problem with this, aside from the fact that I sincerely doubt it was a good use of funds, is that that, as always, people who like the 'fat will kill you, fatties' approach seem to have no clue or care what an already desperately negative environment for fat children they are projecting their additional, hopeless crap into. The idea seems to be that if you can make life bleak enough, with constant mockery, chiding, reminders that you're ugly, and reminders that this is all your fault, people will change.
How's that working out so far, Georgia?
"Fat children turn into fat adults" Fat adults get the same blaming directed at them. My interactions with doctors as an overweight adult have ranged from the mildly annoying to the horrifying.
(I especially cherish the woman who, along with a variety of other bizarre behaviors, many of them directed at my size, told me, when I called her office to ask if I should be concerned that my upper arm was double its normal size following a tetanus shot, that it was probably because of 'the fat on your arm preventing the vaccine from being absorbed'. Since you're supposed to shoot the stuff into muscle, I always kind of wondered about that. Luckily, I haven't gotten tetanus.)
I've been nearly yelled at, and told that I couldn't be helped when I expressed a distaste for Weight Watchers' program. I've suggested exercise ideas and been told they were 'too dangerous', and that I should take 'short, gentle walks'. (This to a twenty-something with the health of a horse.)
I've been dismissed for picking target weights for weight loss the doctor felt were too high, apparently on the theory that someone who decides to diet down to 120 pounds is more likely to do so that someone who targets 180. I've been shamed, insulted...and offered help exactly once. When I was in a graduate program at USF, I mentioned wanting to lose weight to the doctor there, who nodded agreeably and offered at once to set an appointment up with a nutritionist who could discuss my goals and help me put together a good food plan. The memory of that kindness still seems utterly startling.
In general, much of the 'healthcare community' seems to think that offering any kindness or hope to fat people will only encourage them to continue being fat. You know what kids do, Healthcare Atlanta, when their pediatrician tells them they're going to die, the TV tells them no one will ever love them, and the kids at school call them whales?
They go home and eat all the Hostess cupcakes they can get their hands on.
Think carefully before perpetrating this cruelty that pretends to be helpful into another generation. The obesity situation in the US is real. We no longer have the leisure of trying to fight it by attacking people.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Physical Therapy
As a Christmas present this year, my mother sent me to a physical therapist. All I can say is "Wow."
Briefly, my right lower back has been acting out like crazy for something over six months. Somewhere in the middle of that, my right ankle decided that now was an excellent time to develop tendonitis.
The tendonitis started when I was in college, and got very, very bad in my early twenties. I blame the tendonitis for a number of things, not least of which being that I gained a lot of weight gradually after college because moving was damn near impossible for several years on end. We tried a lot of stuff with the tendonitis, and eventually it receded, possibly due to a course of what I like to think of as electroshock therapy for my ankles--a process involving a TENS unit, little electrodes taped to me, and a cheerful lab tech who hooked me up and left me to be zapped while I read the paper.
Anyway, it was back, albeit only in one ankle, plus my back hurt. I was hobbling around like I was eighty, and not one of those spry eighty-year-olds who take tennis lessons either.
I went to a doctor in November, who barely glanced at the back. She bent me in a couple of directions, didn't know what it was, and shrugged. She was, however, worried about the ankle, which was, at that point, at its absolute tendonitisy best, so freaked out that I could hardly put weight on it, let alone use it to lift. She recommended the physical therapist. (She also wanted to discuss my weight, or rather, pass comments on it, and the screaming fury this sent me in to may well have been one of the culminating events leading up to my current diet.)
The physical therapist though...wow. I was almost in tears during the exam. He took the pain seriously. He asked a lot of questions. He gave me exercises, and they are actually working. For the first time in months, I'm waking up without intense pain in my hip.
I'm sold.
(Also, eight, possibly nine pounds lighter since the beginning of the year. I am mighty.)
Briefly, my right lower back has been acting out like crazy for something over six months. Somewhere in the middle of that, my right ankle decided that now was an excellent time to develop tendonitis.
The tendonitis started when I was in college, and got very, very bad in my early twenties. I blame the tendonitis for a number of things, not least of which being that I gained a lot of weight gradually after college because moving was damn near impossible for several years on end. We tried a lot of stuff with the tendonitis, and eventually it receded, possibly due to a course of what I like to think of as electroshock therapy for my ankles--a process involving a TENS unit, little electrodes taped to me, and a cheerful lab tech who hooked me up and left me to be zapped while I read the paper.
Anyway, it was back, albeit only in one ankle, plus my back hurt. I was hobbling around like I was eighty, and not one of those spry eighty-year-olds who take tennis lessons either.
I went to a doctor in November, who barely glanced at the back. She bent me in a couple of directions, didn't know what it was, and shrugged. She was, however, worried about the ankle, which was, at that point, at its absolute tendonitisy best, so freaked out that I could hardly put weight on it, let alone use it to lift. She recommended the physical therapist. (She also wanted to discuss my weight, or rather, pass comments on it, and the screaming fury this sent me in to may well have been one of the culminating events leading up to my current diet.)
The physical therapist though...wow. I was almost in tears during the exam. He took the pain seriously. He asked a lot of questions. He gave me exercises, and they are actually working. For the first time in months, I'm waking up without intense pain in my hip.
I'm sold.
(Also, eight, possibly nine pounds lighter since the beginning of the year. I am mighty.)
Monday, January 23, 2012
Teaching--It's Not A 'Privilege'
When I send my children off to school in the morning I expect a few things to happen:
1) They should have fun at school
2) They should feel inspired and challenged
3) They should be allowed to explore their passions
Is that too much to ask! I don’t want to hear why my second grader needs to take benchmark exams (which are more like midterm exams you take in college), simply because you want your school scores to test high so that you can receive more state funding. This is not why I send them to school and this is not the definition of teaching. If you have teachers who love to teach and do their job well… then get the hell out of their way and let them teach. If you have lousy teachers who do the bare minimum then fire them before they taint the minds of our children. An education is the right of every child, but teaching those children is a privilege.
My Question: If a doctor doesn’t do her job well and harms her patients she loses her license. So, why don’t the teachers who harm the education of our children lose their licenses?
First, this person seems to have her blame leveled at several different people in this short piece. A classroom teacher does not decide if a second grader needs to take benchmark exams, or whether it would be better to have them learn with all their senses by doing a great unit on butterflies. So the 'why does my kids have to take the exam, just so you dumbos can get EVEN MORE state funding for your free public school' whine really has nothing whatsoever to do with the teachers. Or the administrators, in most cases. This is a state- and federal-level fight here.
However, Mrs. High Expectations also seems to have absorbed the popular fantasy that the real problem in schools is bad teachers who somehow cannot be removed from the classroom. Hence the coy little whine about how doctors who are bad doctors lose THEIR jobs. (No, chica, that's not actually true. Even doctors who kill their patients usually settle through their malpractice insurance. You have to screw up more than a second-grade teacher generally does to lose a medical license.)
But never mind. This is someone who wants her kids to have a great school experience, and she wants everyone who's not contributing to to that out of the way, and as someone who hopes for her own future kids to have a good school experience, I can relate, and I'll keep my own thoughts about 'bad teachers', and what that really means for another day.
What I'm looking at is the 'privilege' statement.
Look, as someone who just spent eight years in education, and is now bailing, it's hard in some ways to say that teaching is not a privilege, if by 'privilege' we mean something special and wonderful that not everyone gets a chance to do. By that standard, many professions are privileges, as are many life experiences.
However, it is relatively rare for someone to write a blog post telling their doctor that practicing medicine is a privilege. They may tell their doctors that they are crappy doctors, or that they're getting sued, or that they're miserable excuses for human beings, but even pediatricians don't get the 'but taking care of my children is a privilege' nonsense nearly as much as teachers. (I am reminded of Brendan Behan, commenting on how people always remind you that 'a priest is a worker too'. He points out that people rarely feel the need to remind you that a ditch-digger is a worker too.)
This is because 'privilege' when we talk about teachers usually has other subtexts. It means "You're getting paid too much." It means "I blame you for my child's problems." It means "I blame you for our school district's decisions." It means "You're a Madonna or a dirtbag, depending on how I feel about my child's educational experience this week." It means, "I read online somewhere that teachers are getting paid $50,000.00 to sit in offices in New York because there's something wrong with the union there."
Teaching is not a privilege. It is a job. It is a moderately paid, highly responsible, extremely difficult job. If you do not like the job your child's teacher is doing, do something about it. Do what my friend Drora recently did, and get you kid transferred to someone else's classroom. Talk to the teacher. Engage politically, and find out WHY the second-grade teacher has to teach to the test, and what would happen to her in your district if she declined. But do not stand there and simper about how privileged teachers are, and how grateful they should be for the opportunity to do the job they were trained for.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Batoks and Stuffed Calimari
I watch a lot of cooking reality shows. Love 'em. "Hell's Kitchen, "Master Chef", "Top Chef", and "America's Worst Cooks" are all regulars on my Hulu list. But I'm often pulled up short by issues that come up on the show with contestants whose religious backgrounds conflict with the foods expected to be eaten on the show.
One of the contestants on a past season of "Master Chef" was Hindu, and had never eaten, much less cooked with, the incessant meats that feature on the show. Sheetal finally had to kill a Dungeness crab on the show, describing her decision to do so (and forgoing Chef Ramsay's offer to do it for her) as 'growing up a little'. Joe Bastianich even reassured her that the crab was happy to give up its life for her dish. I was, to be honest, a little aghast at everyone except Ramsay, who offered what he, at least, thought was a good solution. Killing the Buddha has a good commentary on the episode here, by Jessica Miller.
This season, "Worst Cooks In America" has Joshy, a young Jewish guy who was raised frum, and appears to have gone off the derech. His confusion about different cuts of pork seems to baffle his fellow contestants (how can you not recognize bacon instantly?), and his disgust over trayf seafood is apparent. He eats it, but he grabs a bite and swallows as quickly as possible. On the most recent episode, he has to stuff calimari.
I suppose that everyone who signs up for one of these things knows what they are in for, and the subsequent bafflement about people who don't know from bacon and have qualms about killing animals is par for the course, but it does rather annoy me. "No food is off limits to a CHEF!" Chef Ann announced in a recent episode of "America's Worst Cooks", and in the calimari episode, people were pushed to cook with foods they don't care for, or find challenging. Here's the thing though: the food on these shows never challenges the cultural assumptions of the assumed 'mainstream' participants. I have yet to see a show in which these aspiring chefs are encouraged to create or eat a batok, to do anything with insects, to cook with dog (for which I am, personally, profoundly grateful), or horse (ditto) That would be gross, disturbing, and (since mainstream food taboos are upheld by law as well as custom, making them even more invisible), probably illegal. (Mind you, I'm not complaining about this.) Food like this is saved for others shows, "Man Eats World", or "Fear Factor".
I don't know why they don't do a vegetarian version of one of these shows. In the meantime, at least a little awareness would be charming. Chef Ann comments several times that Joshy is agitated during the calimari episode. Well, honey, it's pretty obvious why. Would it kill you to say, at least, "Joshy is working with food he has strong religious/cultural taboos against, and he's doing pretty good?"
One of the contestants on a past season of "Master Chef" was Hindu, and had never eaten, much less cooked with, the incessant meats that feature on the show. Sheetal finally had to kill a Dungeness crab on the show, describing her decision to do so (and forgoing Chef Ramsay's offer to do it for her) as 'growing up a little'. Joe Bastianich even reassured her that the crab was happy to give up its life for her dish. I was, to be honest, a little aghast at everyone except Ramsay, who offered what he, at least, thought was a good solution. Killing the Buddha has a good commentary on the episode here, by Jessica Miller.
This season, "Worst Cooks In America" has Joshy, a young Jewish guy who was raised frum, and appears to have gone off the derech. His confusion about different cuts of pork seems to baffle his fellow contestants (how can you not recognize bacon instantly?), and his disgust over trayf seafood is apparent. He eats it, but he grabs a bite and swallows as quickly as possible. On the most recent episode, he has to stuff calimari.
I suppose that everyone who signs up for one of these things knows what they are in for, and the subsequent bafflement about people who don't know from bacon and have qualms about killing animals is par for the course, but it does rather annoy me. "No food is off limits to a CHEF!" Chef Ann announced in a recent episode of "America's Worst Cooks", and in the calimari episode, people were pushed to cook with foods they don't care for, or find challenging. Here's the thing though: the food on these shows never challenges the cultural assumptions of the assumed 'mainstream' participants. I have yet to see a show in which these aspiring chefs are encouraged to create or eat a batok, to do anything with insects, to cook with dog (for which I am, personally, profoundly grateful), or horse (ditto) That would be gross, disturbing, and (since mainstream food taboos are upheld by law as well as custom, making them even more invisible), probably illegal. (Mind you, I'm not complaining about this.) Food like this is saved for others shows, "Man Eats World", or "Fear Factor".
I don't know why they don't do a vegetarian version of one of these shows. In the meantime, at least a little awareness would be charming. Chef Ann comments several times that Joshy is agitated during the calimari episode. Well, honey, it's pretty obvious why. Would it kill you to say, at least, "Joshy is working with food he has strong religious/cultural taboos against, and he's doing pretty good?"
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Resoluting
Well, it's that time of year, and I am embarking on a diet.
It has to happen. For a number of reasons it has to happen. But I am not happy about it. Back pain and recurrent tendonitis is going to make it hard to make exercise a part of this. It ain't gonna be fun.
I'll keep you all informed.
In more cheerful resolutions, I plan to make this the year that I learn Hebrew as a speaking language, rather than a reading-Tanach language.
I'll also keep you all informed about that.
And writing. Lots and lots of writing.
It has to happen. For a number of reasons it has to happen. But I am not happy about it. Back pain and recurrent tendonitis is going to make it hard to make exercise a part of this. It ain't gonna be fun.
I'll keep you all informed.
In more cheerful resolutions, I plan to make this the year that I learn Hebrew as a speaking language, rather than a reading-Tanach language.
I'll also keep you all informed about that.
And writing. Lots and lots of writing.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Chanukah: Not a Commodity
My own personal war on Christmas was posted to Facebook by a friend of mine who seems to find it funny. I tried, and failed, and I don't think it's entirely due to my general hostility toward the Daily Kos.
No. It just falls flat. What's more, it feels like appropriation of the most unconscious sort--using Chanukah as some sort of shorthand for "Oh, wow, I know that not everyone is a Christian, I'm kind of amazing. Many Gentiles are not as hip and cool as me. I live on the West Coast."
I wanted to like this, if only for the sake this snippet: But what really concerns me? In a couple of nights, that strange candelabra is going to be completely full. I have no idea what's going to happen the night after that. It's almost like a countdown of sorts. I think the storm is coming. And I'm afraid.
That actually made me laugh out loud. But the jab about 'our special relationship with Israel' spoiled it.
No. It just falls flat. What's more, it feels like appropriation of the most unconscious sort--using Chanukah as some sort of shorthand for "Oh, wow, I know that not everyone is a Christian, I'm kind of amazing. Many Gentiles are not as hip and cool as me. I live on the West Coast."
I wanted to like this, if only for the sake this snippet: But what really concerns me? In a couple of nights, that strange candelabra is going to be completely full. I have no idea what's going to happen the night after that. It's almost like a countdown of sorts. I think the storm is coming. And I'm afraid.
That actually made me laugh out loud. But the jab about 'our special relationship with Israel' spoiled it.
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Sunday, September 11, 2011
The Houses of Hogwarts
 |
| This child is being steretyped before school even begins. |
A remarkable number of people in the world today can readily tell you what house they would belong to at Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft. One of the core organizing principles of Harry Potter's alma mater is the 'sorting' of students into four houses, generally distinguished by the characteristics the students in each are supposed to exemplify.*
Identifying oneself as a Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff may be highly amusing for an adult who wishes to knit a Quidditch scarf, but it's one of the worst pedagogical ideas I've ever heard. In the highly unlikely event that I am ever tapped to fill the shoes of such luminaries as Phyllida Spore, Newton Scamander and Albus Dumbledore--should I ever, in short, become Headmistress of Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, I plan to dismantle the entire system.** The Sorting Hat will be going to a museum. Students will be assigned to their house by a random system modified to avoid any child attending the house his parents were in.
First off, there is this business of entrusting the placement of these ickle Firsties to the Sorting Hat. Exactly what the Sorting Hat's degree of sentience is isn't clear. It was supposedly enchanted by Godric Gryffindor, the founder of Gryffindor House, and may be the rough magical equivalent of the sorting quizzes now found online, where a handful of leading questions about your personality and preferences will place you in one group or another. Worse, I suspect from its conversation with Harry that it is essentially placing children where they think they belong, in the house their parents were in, or the one that appeals to them most.
However, even if the hat is gifted with more insight than I give it credit for, as an educator, I find the system problematic the extreme. The houses live together, eat together, play only with one another on sports teams, and attend classes in groups. They are able to speak to people in other houses, and make friends across house lines, but their grouping controls a great deal of who they will spend time with during their formative years at Hogwarts. And they're being put with people who are just like them.
Think about this. There is no roommate from whom a Ravenclaw can learn that a B on a test does not mean the world is ending. There is no one to suggest to a Hufflepuff that a leadership position might suit them after all. There's certainly no one to say 'perhaps you're going to develop into a different sort of person than you thought'. Everyone has been typecast at the door by the Sorting Hat, and they're going to STAY typecast, because at Hogwarts, who you are in the sixth grade is who you're going to be for the rest of your life.
The problem with the house system at Hogwarts becomes clearest, though, looking at the situation in Slytherin. Slytherin's defining characteristic is supposedly ambition ("by that sin fell the angels", ya know), but students from all the houses demonstrate ambition, and aiming high is considered a fairly ordinary thing at a school which educates the elite of the wizarding world. I'd add, as well, that the Slytherins we see generally don't appear to be particularly cunning or 'ambitious'. Mostly, with the exception of the unfortunate Draco Malfoy, who does his best to imitate his father's style, they seem be dimwitted bullies, or sullen spiteful types. They may be suck-ups, but they're not very charming suck-ups.
I don't know how Salazar Slytherin's early plan of teaching only ambitious pure-bloods used to work out, but by the time of the Harry Potter books, the house has become a dumping ground for children already at risk of going rotten. They are evidently mostly students who are from homes where their parents also went through Hogwarts in Slytherin, and they are disproportionately the children of Death Eaters, and those who sympathize with them. They are also likely to be from families preoccupied with the purity of their wizarding blood, and bigoted against mixed-blood and Muggle-born wizards and witches.
Socially speaking, taking all of these children and concentrating them in a single house together is a recipe for disaster. Students at Hogwarts are encouraged to take their identity from their house, and show loyalty to it. This is problematic in the other houses, for all the reasons identified above, but in Slytherin it it is simply tragic. Rather than seeing that there is a broader world, in which blood is unimportant, and Voldemort, far from being a hero, is a murderer of other people's parents, in which people cooperate as well as compete, the Slytherins are put in a setting where everything they have been taught at home is reinforced.
It's not surprising that 'there isn't a witch or wizard that went bad that wasn't in Slytherin', and a fair amount of the blame for that needs to go to Hogwarts' ridiculous system of sorting into houses. Given how long this has been going on for, the reign of the Sorting Hat could, in fact, be considered a significant factor in the rise of Voldemort and the continued loyalty of the Death Eaters over a generation.
It is an AWFUL idea, and in the final pages of the series, you see the process beginning all over again. Oh, sure, Harry assures his son that Slytherin isn't so bad as all that, invoking poor old Snape's name (Snape, another victim of Slytherin BTW), but you know the damn sorting hat is going to read little Albie's deepest wishes and yell "GRYFFINDOR", while little Scorpius goes to Slytherin, and it will all start all over again.
NOTES:
*For those of you who live under rocks, I shall quickly sum up: Gryffindor, associated with courage and 'best foot forward' heroics, house attended by Harry and his closest friends; Ravenclaw, associated with brainyness and intellectual focus; Slytherin, officially associated with 'cunning' and 'ambition', and unofficially with magical facism; and Hufflepuff...God knows. OK, Hufflepuffs are supposed to be diligent, fair and loyal, but despite her best efforts, Rowling manages to make this sound like something of a curse. The Hufflepuffs are described in one poem about the houses as 'all the rest', which pretty much says it all.
**Those of you who are appalled by this should not worry too much. I've applied for the Defense Against The Dark Arts position for three years running and have never gotten so much as a 'we will keep your resume for future reference' e-mail back.***
***Since Defense Against The Dark Arts appears to be offered in every year, why is there only one teacher covering it in any given year at Hogwarts? Prepping seven classes is cruel and inhuman. I'm not sure they'd keep anyone longer than a year even if circumstances didn't keep intervening.
Tuesday, September 06, 2011
Romeo AND Juliet
When I was teaching Shakespeare to ninth graders I always wanted to show them this song.
The problem is that if they'd seen this, they might have wanted to see the REST of "Reefer Madness: The Musical". Which would not have been good for parent-teacher relations.
The problem is that if they'd seen this, they might have wanted to see the REST of "Reefer Madness: The Musical". Which would not have been good for parent-teacher relations.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Welcome to the Food Desert--Do You Know Where You Are?
OK, so, you say, "Balabusta, you're being ridiculous. El Cerrito is not a food desert."
This is true. We are not, by any stretch, 'a poor urban area where residents cannot access nourishing food', or whatever the formal definition is. We're not even a mile from the nearest giant supermarket. I know all of this. But I'm still in kind of a bind, because the Safeway closed.
The Safeway was two blocks from our house, and it was extremely convenient, and then they closed it. Our current sources of food are:
1. The new Safeway, which is gigantic and beautiful, and only three-quarters of a mile north of us.
2. The Lucky's and Trader Joe's at the Plaza, once again, a little less than a mile to the south of us.
3. Giovanni's, the adorable little family-owned place, about half a mile from the house.
No problem, except that we still have no working vehicle. So, taking the bus to the store, or walking, taking the bus back, or lugging, or going to Giovanni's which has cheap, gorgeous local produce, but prices everything else through the roof. Perfection.
We're going to order delivery from Safeway, and just do the best we can...but this is reminding me once again that I'm going on a decade of being determined to get a car and learn to drive, or maybe vice versa.
I feel a fool for not having done this, but there were...er...other things going on, and also financial problems all along. But something's got to give. I cannot live carless in the burbs, and I can't afford to move back into San Francisco. So there it is.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Getting ready for Monday
On Monday, my new pair of classes start. I'm taking Psychopathology and Counseling Children. I'm hoping for an interesting session.
I'm still waiting on a financial aid check, eight months after enrolling in this program. I think we're almost there, which is good, because, ladies and gentlemen, I am beyond flat broke. I though, I swear, that it was a good idea to enroll in school when I escaped from the soul-killing job from hell because I figured a little financial aid would see us through.
That was eight months ago, so far not a penny.
Perfect.
I like being in school, but I still need a job, and I'm having trouble finding one. I've passed up a couple of possibilities--not job offers, but things I could have pursued further--simply because I could tell that it was not going to be a good situation. I am still emotionally raw and bleeding from the fall, and I am NOT going to put myself back in a situation like that again.
I'm trying to take this slow.
I'm still waiting on a financial aid check, eight months after enrolling in this program. I think we're almost there, which is good, because, ladies and gentlemen, I am beyond flat broke. I though, I swear, that it was a good idea to enroll in school when I escaped from the soul-killing job from hell because I figured a little financial aid would see us through.
That was eight months ago, so far not a penny.
Perfect.
I like being in school, but I still need a job, and I'm having trouble finding one. I've passed up a couple of possibilities--not job offers, but things I could have pursued further--simply because I could tell that it was not going to be a good situation. I am still emotionally raw and bleeding from the fall, and I am NOT going to put myself back in a situation like that again.
I'm trying to take this slow.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Retrieving the Madonna
I got Basya to go and get the statue of the Virgin back out of my old classroom for me. Yes, this was nutty as hell, but it had to happen.
Brief explanation: last year, a friend was kind enough to make me a long-term loan of a statue of Mary from his late mother's collection of such things, to put into my classroom. I installed her lovingly, imagining all kinds of things that did not happen, because as you may recall, this past fall was a nightmare from hell.
When I bailed, I left her there, mostly because it felt weird to take her out of the classroom in the middle of the year. But as this summer wore to an end, I knew I had to get the statue back.
Why? Well, I've been freaking out again about that last job, and how it ended. I am dreaming about it, and thinking about it, and generally not in such a good place, emotionally. I felt that I'd already given that school plenty, and this particular beautiful thing wasn't going to be a part of it.
Problem was, in my present mental state, I didn't dare set foot inside the damn building. So I called on Basya, my bridesmaid and general mainstay of existence, and because she is awesome, she came over and collected Mary from the office at St. Attracta's.
Basya ended up spending the night, due to the 580 being closed, and today we went to Target to get her some camping gear. We're walking along, me and Basya and the Husband, and lo and behold, who do I see coming but the Mom From Hell, my worst parent from this fall, and her darling boy.
There was a long sort of pass by when I couldn't figure out if they were going to recognize me at all, and then we spotted each other, and I smiled, and was gracious. She smiled, but when I said, "Well, fancy meeting you here?" she kept going, and then said, "What?"
And then I had to steer the whole party around to avoid running into them again, in school supplies.
I want St. Attracta's out of my life and out of my system, and it's not easy. I feel wrong in my skin these days, too apologetic, and too tentative for a woman in her late thirties. I feel as though I've failed, and should apologize for everything, all the time, at least until I have a job where I'm succeeding at such a high level that even I can't find fault with myself--a situation which is probably impossible, so maybe I should find an alternate route right now.
This last fall messed me up. This coming fall had better be better.
Brief explanation: last year, a friend was kind enough to make me a long-term loan of a statue of Mary from his late mother's collection of such things, to put into my classroom. I installed her lovingly, imagining all kinds of things that did not happen, because as you may recall, this past fall was a nightmare from hell.
When I bailed, I left her there, mostly because it felt weird to take her out of the classroom in the middle of the year. But as this summer wore to an end, I knew I had to get the statue back.
Why? Well, I've been freaking out again about that last job, and how it ended. I am dreaming about it, and thinking about it, and generally not in such a good place, emotionally. I felt that I'd already given that school plenty, and this particular beautiful thing wasn't going to be a part of it.
Problem was, in my present mental state, I didn't dare set foot inside the damn building. So I called on Basya, my bridesmaid and general mainstay of existence, and because she is awesome, she came over and collected Mary from the office at St. Attracta's.
Basya ended up spending the night, due to the 580 being closed, and today we went to Target to get her some camping gear. We're walking along, me and Basya and the Husband, and lo and behold, who do I see coming but the Mom From Hell, my worst parent from this fall, and her darling boy.
There was a long sort of pass by when I couldn't figure out if they were going to recognize me at all, and then we spotted each other, and I smiled, and was gracious. She smiled, but when I said, "Well, fancy meeting you here?" she kept going, and then said, "What?"
And then I had to steer the whole party around to avoid running into them again, in school supplies.
I want St. Attracta's out of my life and out of my system, and it's not easy. I feel wrong in my skin these days, too apologetic, and too tentative for a woman in her late thirties. I feel as though I've failed, and should apologize for everything, all the time, at least until I have a job where I'm succeeding at such a high level that even I can't find fault with myself--a situation which is probably impossible, so maybe I should find an alternate route right now.
This last fall messed me up. This coming fall had better be better.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Harriet Sherwood and the Russians
Remember Harriet Sherwood? The one with the felafel issues? She's back, and over at CIF, they're commenting on a piece she wrote for the Guardian about how the Russians are ruining Israel.
CIF points out, correctly, that Sherwood and her readers would probably be infuriated (and rightly so, in my eyes) at a journalist who broadly slurred a group of immigrants to Britain as damaging the country. Indeed, I've spent some time online myself, since the London riots, dealing with people who blame the whole thing on the West Indians, or the Muslims, or...well, mostly one of those two.
Luckily, we get a rejoinder, from Anastasia Couzminski, one of those unintegrated Russians, who has this to say:
Hello CiF watch,
As a regular reader of your blog and one of those annoying Russians that “integrated little” in Israel, I couldn’t let this article pass. This is personal.
I am beyond furious at [Harriet Sherwood's] article!
[What she says about Russians] couldn’t be any farther from the truth.
As an immigrant who’s been living here most of my life, I consider myself to be 110% ISRAELI and not Russian or Kazakh (I was born in the republic of Kazakhstan).
My mother is Jewish but I have many friends whose mother are in fact non-Jewish but are similarly supremely dedicated to this country.
It is absolute rubbish that immigrants integrated little and live mostly in “Russian enclaves”.
Many such “unintegrated Russians” are married to “Sabras” (Israelis who were born in Israel), give their kids Israeli names and many even refuse to speak Russian anymore.
This LIE [regarding the] lack of integration is evident everywhere.
I, as with most of the “unintegrated Russians”, have served in the army and, in fact, many of these “unintegrated Russian” young men go to become fighters and officers in the army and fight and DIE side by side with Israel-born soldiers!
We study all together in schools and universities and despite there being “Russian” hang-out places, it is SIMPLY NOT TRUE that [non-Russian] Israelis are NOT wanted there. The FIB that Russians created a housing problem is [also simply not true]. Russians did not come to parasite on this country. They finished “Ulpan” (Hebrew classes for immigrants) and right away began searching for jobs. They can now be found in every single workplace including hospitals, courts, and the media (NOT ONLY Russian media).
The fact that Harriet Sherwood makes a point of singling out Russians is a total double standard. And the following quote by the Russian-hating Israeli journalist, whom [Sherwood] must have had to dig out from some very dark place, which claims “…alienation between Russian immigrants and native-born Israelis [exist because] there is not much social interaction” is also simply not true.
Most of my friends are Israelis, many of my friends are married to Israelis, we party, travel and do everything together! And the older generation is the same.
In short, [Sherwood] evidently didn’t have anything to report about and found, in the much maligned Russian community, a convenient target and scapegoat.
Sincerely,
Anastasia
Watching anti-Israel writers deal with the phenomenon of immigration to Israel from the FSU has been rather interesting. They see them as a single group, of course, and the information that not all of the Russians are Ashkenazi, or from Russia, often appears to baffle them. (Jews from Kazhakstan? Huh?) Mostly, though, they appreciate the Russians, even as they bash them, because the Russian olim reinforce what the anti-Israel crowd wants to see, in their own minds, that is. They see the Russians as 'white', and 'intolerant' because of their Soviet background. (Odd, from people who insisted, while it was still standing, that the USSR was a bastion of tolerance.) This saves them, once again, from having to examine the multicultural nature of Israeli society, or from examining other groups in the country too closely. The Mizrahim and Sephardim from Arab countries are a particular problem for the anti-Israel pundit, one they generally solve by being terribly concerned about racism within Israeli society, but not actually giving a damn about the opinions or political leanings of these poor, poor props of theirs.
CIF points out, correctly, that Sherwood and her readers would probably be infuriated (and rightly so, in my eyes) at a journalist who broadly slurred a group of immigrants to Britain as damaging the country. Indeed, I've spent some time online myself, since the London riots, dealing with people who blame the whole thing on the West Indians, or the Muslims, or...well, mostly one of those two.
Yet, Harriet Sherwood – the Guardian’s Jerusalem correspondent, who, no doubt, fancies herself a multiculturalist who is free of such narrow-minded anti-immigrant bias – saw fit in her most recent post, “Israel’s former Soviet immigrants transform adopted country“, Aug. 17, to blame Israeli immigrants from the former Soviet Union (FSU) for moving the country in a dangerous direction.
Sherwood’s piece blames “The million-plus citizens of the former Soviet Union who immigrated to Israel in the past 20 years” for causing a housing crisis, being resistant to integrating into Israeli society, and bringing with them Russian political values inconsistent with democracy, tolerance and compromise.
Now, just imagine if something similar was written about the injurious effects of immigration to the UK on traditional British culture, and substitute the word “Muslims” for “Russians” to get a sense of the supreme moral hypocrisy at play here.
Luckily, we get a rejoinder, from Anastasia Couzminski, one of those unintegrated Russians, who has this to say:
Hello CiF watch,
As a regular reader of your blog and one of those annoying Russians that “integrated little” in Israel, I couldn’t let this article pass. This is personal.
I am beyond furious at [Harriet Sherwood's] article!
[What she says about Russians] couldn’t be any farther from the truth.
As an immigrant who’s been living here most of my life, I consider myself to be 110% ISRAELI and not Russian or Kazakh (I was born in the republic of Kazakhstan).
My mother is Jewish but I have many friends whose mother are in fact non-Jewish but are similarly supremely dedicated to this country.
It is absolute rubbish that immigrants integrated little and live mostly in “Russian enclaves”.
Many such “unintegrated Russians” are married to “Sabras” (Israelis who were born in Israel), give their kids Israeli names and many even refuse to speak Russian anymore.
This LIE [regarding the] lack of integration is evident everywhere.
I, as with most of the “unintegrated Russians”, have served in the army and, in fact, many of these “unintegrated Russian” young men go to become fighters and officers in the army and fight and DIE side by side with Israel-born soldiers!
We study all together in schools and universities and despite there being “Russian” hang-out places, it is SIMPLY NOT TRUE that [non-Russian] Israelis are NOT wanted there. The FIB that Russians created a housing problem is [also simply not true]. Russians did not come to parasite on this country. They finished “Ulpan” (Hebrew classes for immigrants) and right away began searching for jobs. They can now be found in every single workplace including hospitals, courts, and the media (NOT ONLY Russian media).
The fact that Harriet Sherwood makes a point of singling out Russians is a total double standard. And the following quote by the Russian-hating Israeli journalist, whom [Sherwood] must have had to dig out from some very dark place, which claims “…alienation between Russian immigrants and native-born Israelis [exist because] there is not much social interaction” is also simply not true.
Most of my friends are Israelis, many of my friends are married to Israelis, we party, travel and do everything together! And the older generation is the same.
In short, [Sherwood] evidently didn’t have anything to report about and found, in the much maligned Russian community, a convenient target and scapegoat.
Sincerely,
Anastasia
Watching anti-Israel writers deal with the phenomenon of immigration to Israel from the FSU has been rather interesting. They see them as a single group, of course, and the information that not all of the Russians are Ashkenazi, or from Russia, often appears to baffle them. (Jews from Kazhakstan? Huh?) Mostly, though, they appreciate the Russians, even as they bash them, because the Russian olim reinforce what the anti-Israel crowd wants to see, in their own minds, that is. They see the Russians as 'white', and 'intolerant' because of their Soviet background. (Odd, from people who insisted, while it was still standing, that the USSR was a bastion of tolerance.) This saves them, once again, from having to examine the multicultural nature of Israeli society, or from examining other groups in the country too closely. The Mizrahim and Sephardim from Arab countries are a particular problem for the anti-Israel pundit, one they generally solve by being terribly concerned about racism within Israeli society, but not actually giving a damn about the opinions or political leanings of these poor, poor props of theirs.
Monday, August 01, 2011
Hours of Entertainment
The husband and I are petsitting for some friends (yes, this is the pair with the whippets that almost derailed our wedding four years ago. Since then they have acquired a cat as well.)
On the way back from lunch today, we stopped at a supermarket on the way to get cold drinks. Said supermarket turned out to be a delightful mix of Asian and Latino goods, to suit the neighborhood, which allowed us to wander through examining the wonderful things with wonderful packaging that you find on the shelves of a big Asian grocery store.
The coconut cubes, we learned, were 'fibrous', and promised 'hours of entertainment' as you ate them. There were TWO flavors of Hello Kitty soda. I bought some chestnuts that were 'roast with sugar and skin peeling off', and we bought some Sriracha sauce cheap.
The holy candles section, however, was a bit unnerving--there were some few standards, like San Jose and San Martin...also a giant selection dedicated to Santisima Muerte, and a section devoted to Jesus Malverde. And a lot of 'Law Stay Away', and 'Control' candles. Not my idea of a nice neighborhood's candle selection.
The food choices, though...awesome. Plus, they had the McCormick White Chicken Chili spice mix, which I have been trying to find for ages. Bought five packs.
On the way back from lunch today, we stopped at a supermarket on the way to get cold drinks. Said supermarket turned out to be a delightful mix of Asian and Latino goods, to suit the neighborhood, which allowed us to wander through examining the wonderful things with wonderful packaging that you find on the shelves of a big Asian grocery store.
The coconut cubes, we learned, were 'fibrous', and promised 'hours of entertainment' as you ate them. There were TWO flavors of Hello Kitty soda. I bought some chestnuts that were 'roast with sugar and skin peeling off', and we bought some Sriracha sauce cheap.
The holy candles section, however, was a bit unnerving--there were some few standards, like San Jose and San Martin...also a giant selection dedicated to Santisima Muerte, and a section devoted to Jesus Malverde. And a lot of 'Law Stay Away', and 'Control' candles. Not my idea of a nice neighborhood's candle selection.
The food choices, though...awesome. Plus, they had the McCormick White Chicken Chili spice mix, which I have been trying to find for ages. Bought five packs.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
The Right To Make And Eat Felafel
Over at Anne's Opinions, she's tearing up Guardian Israel correspondent Harriet Sherwood. Most of the piece is about coverage of the new anti-BDS legislation, but she added something else that caught my Jewish foodie eye. Anne writes:
In a similar, and totally related, development, Harriet Sherwood reports on McDonald’s withdrawing its McFalafel from Israeli restaurants due to its unpopularity.
So far so tasty.
Then she scrambles her omelette by adding in this nasty little aside right at the end:
"Falafel is thought to have originated in Egypt, although Israel now claims it as a national dish."
Oh! Those thieving Israelis! Not only content to steal other people’s land, now they go and steal other people’s foods! They can claim it as their national dish but we liberal-minded people know better.
Once again Sherwood betrays her bias by inserting an unrelated dig at Israel.
May she stew in her own falafel oil.
This sort of tripe is not uncommon with anti-Zionist types. Assuming as they do that Israelis plopped into the Middle East like Martians from outer space, they are constantly on the lookout for examples of appropriated Middle Eastern foods and such, in order to better define Israelis as fundamentally inauthentic and nonindigenous. I thought I should add a note at Anne's blog, reproduced below:
Lemme ‘splain, Harriet. In 1948, Egypt had 75,000 Jews. Currently, it has less than a hundred. Most of those people headed to Israel, after state persecution and confiscation of their property. In 1956, the Minister of Religious affairs announced that ‘all Jews are Zionists and enemies of the state’, and promised to expel them. Almost no one managed to stay after the 1967 war.
In Israel, these fine people continued to make felafel, and along with other Jews from the region popularized it with the multicultural population of the new nation.
Now, of course, not only is their right of return to Egypt not a potent talking point with left-wing pundits, but even their right to make and eat felafel is apparently up for grabs.
Eejit.
In a similar, and totally related, development, Harriet Sherwood reports on McDonald’s withdrawing its McFalafel from Israeli restaurants due to its unpopularity.
So far so tasty.
Then she scrambles her omelette by adding in this nasty little aside right at the end:
"Falafel is thought to have originated in Egypt, although Israel now claims it as a national dish."
Oh! Those thieving Israelis! Not only content to steal other people’s land, now they go and steal other people’s foods! They can claim it as their national dish but we liberal-minded people know better.
Once again Sherwood betrays her bias by inserting an unrelated dig at Israel.
May she stew in her own falafel oil.
This sort of tripe is not uncommon with anti-Zionist types. Assuming as they do that Israelis plopped into the Middle East like Martians from outer space, they are constantly on the lookout for examples of appropriated Middle Eastern foods and such, in order to better define Israelis as fundamentally inauthentic and nonindigenous. I thought I should add a note at Anne's blog, reproduced below:
Lemme ‘splain, Harriet. In 1948, Egypt had 75,000 Jews. Currently, it has less than a hundred. Most of those people headed to Israel, after state persecution and confiscation of their property. In 1956, the Minister of Religious affairs announced that ‘all Jews are Zionists and enemies of the state’, and promised to expel them. Almost no one managed to stay after the 1967 war.
In Israel, these fine people continued to make felafel, and along with other Jews from the region popularized it with the multicultural population of the new nation.
Now, of course, not only is their right of return to Egypt not a potent talking point with left-wing pundits, but even their right to make and eat felafel is apparently up for grabs.
Eejit.
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