Disqus - Latest Comments for musings2

Re: Evangelicals Are Falling In Love With Passover — Is There Anything Wrong With That?

musings2 — Sun, 02 Apr 2017 16:49:39 -0000

Ever since I can remember hearing the story of Jesus Christ's crucifixion and resurrection on Easter, as well as the Holy Week run-up to them, I have known Passover figured heavily into the events. Look at Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper - it's a seder. Gospels are full of references to the week of Passover. The evangelicals do not own these references, they've been integral to Christianity since the gospels were written. Of course the earliest adherents (pre-gospels) were Jews. Many Catholic institutions (Boston College for instance) have interfaith seders with local rabbis. It's a holiday which post-Vatican II clergy at least have always encouraged Catholics to appreciate, respect and take part in, without any sense you have to convert Jews to the belief that Jesus is their Messiah as well. Even the Palm Sunday message has changed from blaming the Jews for Jesus' betrayal, to something about everyone's guilt in condemning an innocent man.

Re: Trump and the End of Innocence

musings2 — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 17:19:19 -0000

Of course America isn't innocent. But leaders know they can be held accountable down the line. It surely hangs over them and comes into their consideration from time to time. This does not make Putin the equivalent of any old American president. Russia has its own ways of taking out the trash.
But they aren't what we'd recognize as the rule of law in our sense.

The crude acceptance of equivalence is one thing I object to in his exchange. But what even seems to contradict what he says of innocence is that there was once a golden age when "normalcy" prevailed. It's something conservatives buy with the fervor of those seeking diet nostrums who never manage to weigh any less, but often more. Going back to imaginary innocence is as illusory as asserting that it is the current state of affairs.

Re: Banning Refugees From Countries America Destroyed Is Wrong

musings2 — Sun, 29 Jan 2017 10:15:09 -0000

Looking at the faces of those people posted on Twitter who wasted their time trusting the good people of the USA (and FDR), sailing in on the St. Louis, you have to ask yourself what brilliant minds were lost forever and what solid future neighbors and citizens.

This was a waste of lives that would have been so easy to save, as are the lives of many of those fleeing a different but no less fatal situation in Syria.

That someone might understand the equal claim they have on our compassion gives the possibility of atonement for the past sins, one of which was also the Iraq War.

Re: Taking the Long View

musings2 — Thu, 26 Jan 2017 10:45:00 -0000

My daughter and sister were not "Soros funded." They used their own transportation to D.C. and L.A., and their own accommodations. They made their own signs. Women wanted to show up because their personal rights are at stake. This was a candidate who made statements about prosecuting women for getting abortions. He wants to gut public education and health coverage, so teachers and health care people take an interest. Interests of various kinds are at stake. Even if Soros showed up and took the podium showering money on the crowd, he could never have turned them out for this. Women are too much their own people to ignore the threats represented by Trump's campaign rhetoric turning into executive edicts.

Re: Taking the Long View

musings2 — Thu, 26 Jan 2017 10:39:35 -0000

The "shallowing" of the common mind - good word.

Re: Taking the Long View

musings2 — Thu, 26 Jan 2017 10:35:43 -0000

A Latin phrase I learned in my Estates and Trusts class in law school is one I frequently think of when a younger person thinks he is destined to outlive an older one: "Nemo est haeres viventis." "No one is the heir of any living person."

Or from another source: "Time and chance happeneth to them all." Ecclesiastes 9:11 (Funny numbering, eh?)

Re: Taking the Long View

musings2 — Thu, 26 Jan 2017 10:23:39 -0000

Ayn Rand died years ago. If you examine her ideas, many were deeply flawed. If ideas ruled the world nothing would be accomplished. Ideas are a beginning not an end in themselves. Think anew, Justin. Then judge peoples' actions, not their statements. Trump should be judged by his actions - and so far, his cabinet choices argue that offensive wars are in the mix.

The idea of plundering Iraq for its oil is something only a looter would express. The actions which might follow such a vision would be disastrous (as was the original Iraq War).

The notion that a certain breed of men should be entitled to other peoples' territory will be resisted, you can bet. He can call it ISIS, but it will be the same tribalism we have here in the states, only pushed to the wall and fighting to the death, something we have not recently been tested on in the "Homeland."

Re: TK Dublin not Jlem - Fast Forward – Forward.com – Forward.com

musings2 — Wed, 11 Jan 2017 16:58:02 -0000

If Hebrews of old called non-Hebrews "the Nations", what did that mean? People like Herod, in Roman times, were put in power by other than the Hebrews. So nation-hood and its boundaries were also nebulous, as King David and King Solomon are more legend than history as we know it today. Jews lived other places too, like Iraq, from thousands of years back.

Whatever "country" was Palestine, history seems to support that there was considered to be one, and you find it in old geography books. What is not in doubt is that there are non-Jewish people who lived there, and their descendants still live there.

The constant harping on non-rights of Palestinians seems to indicate a great sense of insecurity on Israel's part. If you keep pretending they don't exist, it seems childish.

Re: Neo-Nazi Sets Armed March Against Montana Jews to Coincide with MLK Day

musings2 — Wed, 04 Jan 2017 10:19:56 -0000

I would not assume that everyone who visits an alt-right or storm-ish website is a supporter. Quite the contrary in many cases. "Know your enemy" is probably a motive for many.

Re: Israeli Soldier Convicted of Manslaughter in Killing of Downed Palestinian

musings2 — Wed, 04 Jan 2017 09:41:16 -0000

From the face of it, this seems a killing in the heat of the moment, and manslaughter is the proper designation. As to sentencing, it seems to be that military order was violated, and to discourage other and worse breaches of etiquette - chivalry if you will - a stiff enough sentence must be imposed. Yielding to right wing tendencies to excuse your own for everything, coddling a defendant because he belongs to your race, would subject the IDF to condemnation. So while the maximum sentence would be wrong, and "time served" would be too lenient, a balance must be struck, if only to teach a lesson. Two to five years, perhaps, with time off for good behavior.

Re: The Leak That Came in From the Cold

musings2 — Fri, 16 Dec 2016 16:50:52 -0000

Well, I think that there is a question whether he was the person who actually received the packet.

Re: The Leak That Came in From the Cold

musings2 — Fri, 16 Dec 2016 16:46:28 -0000

It's not whether something is a conspiracy theory, it's whether the authorities have circulated it and want you onboard with in. Those who try to see around the edges of the current props are castigated as truthers or conspiracy nuts or worse. Make sure you embrace only quality bovine excrement.

Re: Fake News and War Party Lies

musings2 — Sat, 10 Dec 2016 12:30:55 -0000

I didn't notice Buchanan's denunciation of the Republican Bush during an Iraq War which his administration obviously lied us into.

Re: Trump, Taiwan, and the Chinese Paper Tiger

musings2 — Fri, 09 Dec 2016 08:41:58 -0000

China's huge population has always been a mixed blessing. I remember projections of enormous cities in Central Africa (by National Geographic) that never happened. The AIDS epidemic changed everything. China also hosts new strains of disease, like our annual outbreaks of influenza. It's difficult to project what might emerge. Even crop failures would be serious, all subject to the vagaries of nature.

"The bigger they are, the harder they fall," might apply, for the short-term, although there is always resilience there based on sheer numbers.

Re: Trump, Taiwan, and the Chinese Paper Tiger

musings2 — Fri, 09 Dec 2016 08:32:40 -0000

This is a very insightful essay, but it still pulls its punches as to Trump's judgment in ignoring the "one China policy". Although he is President-elect, it seems he must still play to his right-wing base, which used to ask after the ouster of Chiang Kai-shek and the fleeing to Taiwan - "Who lost China?" as though a leftist fifth column was more to blame than internal forces within a very old country that after the fall of the Japanese empire, was on the move.

The jobs-to-China question is also playing to the base - but it is real enough when you look at most household objects that used to be made in the US. The problem is that cheap goods means people can afford more than they had. If suddenly your shoes cost three times as much, that won't make for happiness either. You can shop around and still buy American, but that comes with a generally upper-middle-class price tag. Will penalties to runaway shops fix that? Not fast enough to work within the next election cycle. Trump's base will suffer enough from some new five year plan, that he will have to resort to mean-spirited scapegoating of immigrants to keep himself in power - another arrow in his quiver as is well known from the campaign.

He disdains talk of high-tech production methods (e.g. robotics) which also impinge on high-paying factory jobs. The global economy insures that many components used in this system are manufactured in China. I also recently saw an ad for Mexico as a manufacturing power, where medical devices are pumped out by such firms as Medtronic. New factories there make use of a work force that no longer has to cross the border and work in LA - and there are advantages to the companies in terms of off-shoring profits (which they'd do anyway, until caught like Apple in Ireland by the EU). Anyway, Trump's grasp of the current system plays to the pain of a base which cannot adapt. Whether or not he is as naive as they seem to be is the question. If so, he is going to pull down the economy before he can build anything, not an experiment a normal presidency is likely to survive, since it isn't a dictatorship like China had when it made its own transition.

Re: WATCH: White Nationalist Challenges Rabbi on Jewish Nationalism

musings2 — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 08:36:17 -0000

The slogan was, "A land without people for a people without land". From the European perspective, this might also have described the place that became the USA. The Pilgrims actually thought God had prepared the way for them in Massachusetts by wiping out a large population of Indians in an epidemic, who left behind food stores. Yes, once they started expanding, the Indians appeared and resisted them. It really wasn't so empty either in Massachusetts or Palestine.

Re: WATCH: White Nationalist Challenges Rabbi on Jewish Nationalism

musings2 — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 08:30:08 -0000

When you call someone "dummy" it is clearly with the intention of silencing him. In fact nations are usually not tribal, but a group of tribes, living under the same laws.

Re: WATCH: White Nationalist Challenges Rabbi on Jewish Nationalism

musings2 — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 08:25:49 -0000

Sorry, but it's a bad idea in Israel that should not be imported here. At least in Israel it has been more feasible because of its small size, but ridiculous in the US.

Re: WATCH: White Nationalist Challenges Rabbi on Jewish Nationalism

musings2 — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 08:21:02 -0000

The Vatican? I heard a different story about the somewhat duplicitous Pius XII actually shielding Jews.

Re: WATCH: White Nationalist Challenges Rabbi on Jewish Nationalism

musings2 — Thu, 08 Dec 2016 08:19:04 -0000

Not sure what you are driving at - have you been in England lately? It is multiracial, as is France the last time I visited it. There were different bases for admitting non-indigenous Brits and French - due to their imperial pasts. Much as we consider Puerto Ricans to be American, Pakistanis being part of the Commonwealth have been able to settle in Britain (and in fact were explicitly brought in for manpower in the textile industry during WWII). The US, being the "New World" (at least from Europe's viewpoint) has been in need of immigrants from its inception. You cannot suddenly declare that is all over.

Re: How We Should Remember Kirk Douglas on His 100th Birthday

musings2 — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 12:06:45 -0000

I mostly remember him as a sexy barbarian in "The Vikings" with that other sexy Jewish guy, Tony Curtis.

Re: Genetic study reveals surprising ancestry of many Americans

musings2 — Wed, 07 Dec 2016 08:58:27 -0000

I have some very early colonial (East Coast) heritage. About 1/4 of my ancestors were descendants of English who came in the 1600's. When I have researched them, I find them in sometimes cooperative enterprises with Indians (whaling and fur-trapping), sometimes war-like (Pequot War and Deerfield Massacre - that one led by the French), and sometimes overlapping (involving captivity).

Although no tradition or memory exists of it, I come out .2% "East Asian/Native American" at 23andme, My cousins, if they have Southern heritage also have Sub-Saharan African in similar percentages.

At this point it seems likely that my Indian heritage, if there is one, centers on some Algonquin roots. Since they lived in towns eventually, and made land deals with the English, they were in every colony in New England (under various tribal names but with that language). At one time, land title might even have derived from saying your claims were legitimate because you married the sachem's daughter. This might even have worked against claims of distant English aristocrats, who tried to get your charter revoked in favor of them. I think some English actually saw things in those ancient feudal terms for a time, early on. (See History of Fairfield, Ct.)

So however the admixture came, it's there.

Re: This Hanukkah Version of a Gingerbread House Annoys Me Like Nothing Else

musings2 — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 18:47:54 -0000

Thanks.You said a mouthful, better than I could. In my father's family (whose parents both also had Jewish relatives), there was a sort of warfare around Christmas. My grandfather's origins were New England, with its tradition of "Ebenezer Scrooge" towards Christmas celebration, and my grandmother's were in a Brooklyn German immigrant family, with a lot of Danish roots as well. She was all about celebrating the holiday, he was about boycotting it.

Re: This Hanukkah Version of a Gingerbread House Annoys Me Like Nothing Else

musings2 — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 16:19:24 -0000

The winter solstice being upon us in the Northern Hemisphere, depression is common and people need cheering up, whatever their ethnicity. Building little cookie houses is not religious, and never was. It's about eating sweets. For Christians, Advent is like Lent. They are supposed to deny themselves these pleasures until XMAS. But do they? Of course not, except among the most observant Catholics, perhaps.

Re: This Hanukkah Version of a Gingerbread House Annoys Me Like Nothing Else

musings2 — Mon, 05 Dec 2016 16:12:22 -0000

I would be careful about re-writing the history of the Jews in America. I could see how someone from a more religious, more recent wave of immigrants might do that, but consider this: New York City department store-owning Jews have played a big role in how we celebrate Christmas in this country. It's a Dutch and German thing - Jewish and Christian. Merchants have always loved to get the public to go nuts over-spending, and to turn Main Street or Fifth Avenue into an enchanted space.

Do you realize that in Boston, when it was still influenced by Puritanism, well into the late 19th century, Christmas was not a holiday?

My only objection to the Manischewitz product is that it isn't whimsical and cute enough. Not Fiddleresque or Dr. Seussical enough for my taste. Needs some marzipan action figures, too.