The only thing we have to fear is everything

I recall having a conversation with my dad about the world. I complained that I couldn't let my kids out of my sight and he insisted that the world was no less scary when I was younger, but that we weren't aware of all the bad in the world because we didn't have the internet etc. He didn't see the world as grown scarier, but our awareness as out of control.

The fact is, things were different. Maybe there were fewer bad guys, or we were just blissfully ignorant of life beyond our neighborhood. I saw an online video crowing about how special my generation is. It posited that those of us who grew up in the 70's had a unique balance of unstructured freedom and technological simplicity and emotional resilience and maturity. I assumed it would be one of those "rah-rah" videos which spouted generic platitudes about one era so those people can feel special, but then it can be easily tweaked to celebrate another era. I likened it to those shirts that have the "Only the coolest people were born in _________" and the consumer can buy a shirt listing any year. 

But the argument actually bore itself out well. I did leave the house in the morning, not to return for hours. I did bike miles away with no phone or plan. I did have to fill up the time left to my own devices. And none of these are skills that my kids have had to develop or behaviors that I would allow. I kept much closer tabs on my kids -- they couldn't ride around the block without my knowing exactly when to expect them to make the turn back onto our street. I didn't let them go somewhere unless there was a plan for the end as well. Am I more worried than I need to be? Maybe, but better safe than sorry. So I over compensate, reversing the way I was brought up and encouraging my kids to live in fear of the world.

Is the world scarier? Do children need to be kept closer? Is this an expression of love that I didn't see from my parents so I'm trying to break a cycle? Is it the result of the craziness I ran into while unsupervised, as a child?

A Divine-graine

 I believe that, over the last year or two, I have developed a close relationship with my creator. I feel God's presence in my life very often in the subtle miracles which we often fail to recognize. Here is a little and dumb event:

fact -- two days ago, I noticed that my bar of soap has gotten so small that I need to start another one. The bars are stored under the bathroom sink. I forgot to take one out the next day (in the haze of the early morning, I am usually driven by muscle memory and instinct).

fact -- I get headaches, or at least I used to. My current regimen of pills has done an incredible job of keeping the headaches away so headaches are now very rare. Breakthrough headaches show up less than once a month these days.

Yesterday, I had a headache. Nothing too crazy but a good sized ache behind my right eye. I powered through work as it worsened, but when I got back to my place, I knew I would need to take an analgesic. So I wandered into the bathroom, conscious of nothing but a headache, opened the cabinet and saw the pills...right next to the bars of soap.

Yes, I truly believe that HKB"H gave me a headache to ensure that I remembered to set up a new bar of soap for the next morning. These little "coincidences" are the signs of an intelligence, a divinity that shapes our ends.

But the next thought is that, even though it is a sign from above, a headache is still a physical event that hurts like heck. A flame, no matter who lights it and why, can still burn you.

Mein Kraft

 I have some very deep and confused thoughts that I'm trying to figure out. I saw the Minecraft movie last night. I have never seen or played Minecraft and went into the viewing experience the blankest of slates. After watching it, I still know nothing about Minecraft. The difference is, now I'm also stupider in general.

This was the worst movie I have ever seen, but in a good way. I don't think I can explain it any better than that. It was horrible, but its intentionality, its sincerity in pursuit of being actively bad was a redeeming factor. I have seen bad movies that are just plain bad. This was bad but also, horrible.

Jack Black overacted. But he must have known he was overacting, and the writing demanded incredible overacting. So while I never had any understanding of his character or the driving logic of his actions, I stopped getting annoyed at his Adam Sandler-esque childlike behavior because he knew he was being idiotic and that's intentional.

There was nothing good about the movie except for some of the one-liners. I wish I remember any of them, but I do recall laughing loudly at some isolated moments, and shaking my head in absolute wonder at the stupidity on the screen at other moments. I did write down one joke 

Waitress: Are you finished?

Marlene: No, I think he's Swedish. But we're done with our meal.

That's a dumb joke, dumb on a dad level. But it was delivered unexpectedly and quickly.

On the whole, self indulgent, poorly written and presented, over acted and under developed. I never enjoyed watching what Big Dave calls a "steaming pile of monkey crap" as much as this. That doesn't mean it is any less monkey crap, but it is monkey crap with glitter.

There was a preponderance gratuitous violence including much ham to ham combat which I found amusing. Not the combat, but that it inspired me to write that comment.

Durn young 'uns

The kids came by today. We had a great visit, got stuff done, made fun of me. It was, in a word, "hoot". In 2 words, "a hoot." 2 words and punctuation; apologies. 

 Hours later, after life had clicked back and we are all somewhere else, I walked into the kitchen and noticed crumbs on the floor. I'm no cleans-horse but I had made an effort in advance of the little ones' appearance. But now, despite my efforts, there had been schmutz there all along? Mortified I was (not a palindrome, BTdubs) until I crouched down and investigated further. 

These were matzah crumbs! One might deduce from this that while one says he vacuums his house once a month, he is a liar as he would have done it at least once since Passover ended. But instead understand that my two children had spent a few minutes of their time with me standing in the kitchen, joking with each other and (most importantly in one particular sense), eating matzah!

Now exonerated of certain charges of slovenliness I still had to contend with the crumbs and I, like a dutiful old man, got my vacuum and started vacuuming vast swatches of my apartment, grumbling under my breath "dang kids, come here, eat my stuff and make a mess and then suddenly just HAVE to leave when it comes time to do some cleaning." 

 And I smiled broadly the entire time I said it.

---edit

Originally sent from my phone as an email. I did not know that that would remove all formatting. Apologies to those tortured by the wall of text. 

My New TV Show Idea!

I am hereby pitching the following television series. I think it will be a complete smash, so please send checks to me, care of me.

We have seen the adventures of Henry "Indiana" Jones as he battles Nazis, mad cultists, Communists and Nazis. He has crossed oceans and fought bad guys everywhere from here to there and Nepal (which is neither here nor there) leading to 5 movies and a show about his childhood, The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. But what about that other element of his life? How did he grow into the polished academic we all know and love?

It is time for a show that explores Dr. Jones, the archeaologist, and his Quest for Tenure. Episodes follow department meetings, political infighting and the constant fear of publish or perish. We will have to cast a young Marcus Brody and even Salah can be part of the action as we first meet him when he is still an international student in the B School. Imagine the wild chases through the stacks as Indy fights a deadline while trying to track down an elusive footnote. Dreaded confrontations with students during office hours, students who ask for extensions due to laziness. Poisoned apples, constant papercuts and ink blotches and complaints about grades haunt the young Prof as he negotiates the tenure track, keeping lunch meetings and rescheduling review sessions because he has a podiatrist appointment.

A sure fire hit. I figure Ryan Gosling as Dr. Jones. Send me my money.

Anti-Semitism

 It is probably arrogant for me to sit here, in my comfy NJ apartment and make grand pronouncements as if I am an appointed messenger of the Truth to the masses. But arrogance be damned (and I think that by at least one major theological system, it is), I think this needs to be said.

Anti-semitism. Capitalized, hyphenated, italicized, or whatever. People are getting all up in a tizzy about the adopting of the IHRA definition of anti-semitism by anyone in particular but they miss the point. The definition can not impact behavior but can be used as a test after the fact to see if one of the qualities of a particular statement or act is that it could be said to be anti-semitic. I also think that it, as a definition it is pretty bad. I know that they hedge themselves by calling what they have a "working definition" and that's great but I'm still working on it.

Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.

To be anti-Semitic there must be one trait that allows any statement or action to transcend mere malice or stupidity: the concept of Judaism must be either the subject ("Jews/Judaism are") or the object ("x the Jew) of negative portrayal or association. If a criminal is identified by his Jewish religion, then ask would he have been identified by his Christianity otherwise? What details does the public need to know to identify him at a distance?

If the bad guy is Jewish, and yes, this happens, to make any point of his Jewish-ness is still suspect. Why say his religion? Is it because you expect "his type" not to be criminals? Are you saying that there is a public expectation that Jews don't do bad things so he is an exception? All that does is play into other stereotypes which are comfortable but dangerous. Why make religion any part of the character? Would his being left-handed matter? Preference for vanilla and the Yankees. When an argument isolates the identity factor of "Jewish" in a person or connects an idea or event to "Jewishness" and then expresses negativity behavior driven by hate for the group then there is a problem.

Hate me because we fight then that's fine

hate me because of what you have heard, that's foolish

hate me because of who I am is a problem

So if one criticizes the state of Israel one has to accept one of two possibilities as it stands today:

1. criticism of the state has NOTHING to do with the state's affiliation with one religion and particularly parallel historical cases would show identical criticism of other states in the same situation.

2. if the criticism invokes Judaism then it is creating an expectation of Jewish identity in every action. Are people willing to praise Judaism specifically when things go right? Can people explain in each case how the government stance reflects Judaism (and why it is supposed to)?

 Consider that England has a state religion but people don't seem to tie the actions of anyone or anything to the Church of England unless the behavior is explicitly tied to religion. Think about some recent article that mentioned "Jewish settlers." Why did it say that and not "Israeli settlers"? If they had been Filipino workers would they have been identified by religion or nationality? What does bringing up religion bring to the table if not expectations.

If you are a sports bettor and you lost a lot of money by betting against Team Israel it is totally OK to say "I hate you Israelis" but to say "I hate you Jews" (that is, to invoke an unrelated protected status and use it as a target for the expression of hate) is not OK. And suffice to say that couching the hate or justifying it by claiming Judaism somehow IS related is also not OK.. If you want to criticize Israel and you do it by applying the same standards of its politicians and political system you would use to judge the government of any other country then go for it. Everyone else does! But if you inject, at all, the Jewish element of Israel's identity and then judge the government by a standard impacted by (your expectations of) Judaism, then your actions are driven by the religion and your feelings about it and that rises to the level of anti-semitism.

So is garden variety criticism of Israel's politics and policies "anti-semitic"? Not if the criticisms are fair, accurate and not driven a connection to Judaism.

Can one criticize a Jewish person? Sure. But if the criticism is about how he mows his lawn and religion is irrelevant, to bring up religion is then problematic.

Can one criticize Judaism? Sure! Subject it to all the logical arguments you want. Find the contradictions. But if you lie, or copy things that don't exist, then expect that part of the assessment of your behavior in any criminal proceedings would include measuring your actions against a standard understanding of "anti-semitism."

So when one hears about all the situations that the IHRA definition (though it really isn't the definition which is a problem...) will cause, consider what the problem really is -- people are afraid that they will have to confront that the things that they accepted and didn't think about, those unconscious expectations and unwritten rules, when they come to the surface, would reveal deep seated biases.

Yes I always worry because civil liberties are lost in the outskirts but I don't think that adopting this definition will have any impact on anyone. I'd love to find the court records in places that have adopted it to see how it has found itself into application and how it has resulted in a freezing of the local free speech.

post shiva visit thoughts

 I just came back from a shiva. During the first 7 days after a person is buried, the family receives visitors who provide consolation. I have thought about the process and the imposition on the mourner but today, I considered it from the POV of the visitor. I didn't know the deceased (having possibly met him briefly once or twice about 25 years ago) and I'm not in the community in which the mourner finds himself. But I went out of respect for the family. I dragged my sorry self out of bed and out of my apartment in order to pay respect to them.

That's what shiva is about. It helps the mourner process, learn and grieve. But the visitor has to interrupt his day to sit and say very little. Just being there, unsure of himself, not really knowing anyone. It isn't about the visitor. It is about stopping your day to consider another person, another family. It is about taking a break and living in the right now, and being reminded that lives are fleeting and we all should strengthen our connections before we don't have the opportunity.

So I sat and I thought about my own family and my own mortality until it was my turn to ask some questions and hear some stories. And I put my life on hold so someone else could know he wasn't alone.