I wound up with a 7 hour layover in Chicago. The nice thing about train travel is that when you have a layover, you can leave the terminal. And when you have a layover in Chicago, you’re downtown, right in the Loop.
The Art Institute is closed on Tuesdays, so I went to Exile in Bookville, a bookstore on the second floor of the Fine Arts Building on Michigan Ave. The Fine Arts Building still retains much of its 1898 decor, and it even still has elevators that need to be operated by human beings. Exile in Bookville turned out to be an excellent small bookstore. I passed over William Cronon’s environmental history of Chicago and the midwest (too bulky to carry on the train) and instead bought The Future Is Disabled by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha. I also stopped at the DePaul University bookstore, which is run by Barnes and Noble.
By then it was half past four. Time to start walking slowly back to Union Station. I stopped to take a photo of part of a public art work on Quincy St. at South State St.
Public art, Quincy Street at South State Street, Chicago
As I continued walking, I looked for more public art….
Photomontage, Chicago Board of Trade statues symbolizing agriculture and industry, c. 1885Alexander Calder, Flamingo, Klucynzski Federal Building, Chicago, 1973Claes Oldenberg, Batcolumn, Social Security Administration Building, Chicago, 1977
It turned out to be a very pleasant layover in Chicago.
We’re having an interfaith prayer vigil this afternoon, for Cohasset resident Ana Walshe. (I just tested positive for COVID, so I can’t go.) Since this is a story that’s been in the news, as soon as word got out about the prayer vigil, our church started getting calls from media representatives.
One of the media representatives who called First Parish was just plain rude. An email we got sounded pushy and not at all sympathetic. Another church got a call offering to help publicize the event for us, something we really don’t want. The attitude of media representatives seems to be, “We need news, and you’re going to provide it for us!”
So here are some words of wisdom to media representatives:
It would be wise for you to remember to follow the norms of ordinary politeness. If you are rude, we won’t forget.
It would be wise for you to remember that you may be talking to someone who has strong feelings about this issue. If you sound callous or uncaring, we won’t forget.
It would be wise for you to remember that we don’t need you any more to publicize local events. Social media and word of mouth work better.
All of which can be boiled down to: Treat people nicely.
Update: This afternoon, I received email from a reporter asking for an interview. I replied that I had COVID and was not able to give an interview. The reporter said they hoped I’d feel better. How nice! You can be sure that I remembered that person’s name, and if they contact me again I will be predisposed to talk with them.
There’s a growing movement to get people to wear masks at public events. The motivation? Maskless events post a risk to people with certain disabilities, and/or with chronic illnesses, and to their caregivers.
In other words, this is an issue of disabilities rights.
Of course, it’s not just masks. Ideally, all the events that we organize or participate in would be set up to minimize the transmission of infectious diseases. And it’s not just COVID. It’s also about influenza and RSV (and yikes, now there’s even a measles outbreak in Ohio).
“I am committed to diversity and inclusion, including people with disabilities, chronic illness, and caregivers, therefore I pledge to only participate in or organize events that have robust Health and Safety policies.
“Events must meet these criteria: • The event has a Health and Safety policy, and if the policy changes it is only strengthened – never weakened – between the event’s announcement and the event itself. • The event actively communicates this policy by including it on their website, in the registration flow, and speaker proposal process, discussing the policy regularly during events, and including it everywhere important announcements are shared. • The event’s policy includes active measures designed to minimize the number of participants who are infected with transmissible diseases like COVID-19, as well as mitigate transmission between participants.”
You can “sign” the pledge online.
A good concrete way to strengthen disability rights.
“On International Day of Persons with Disabilities, we recognize and celebrate the equal rights and dignity of disabled people everywhere and reaffirm our commitment to building a world where people with disabilities are afforded the opportunities, independence, and respect they deserve.”
I found out too late to do much about IDPwD this year. I’ll have to add it into next year’s calendar.
Someone on Mastodon wondered what it would be like if Muppet characters took the place of a human actors in a romantic movie. Then she came up with a series of movie stills to show what it might have looked like.
So I began to think about my favorite movie, Casablanca, and how a Muppet character might fit in. Instead of Humphrey Bogart, what if Link Hogthrob played the part of Rick Blaine… and this is what my imagination came up with:
Some people in Scotland have started a Radical Bird Club. Here is part of their manifesto:
“RBC strives to be inclusive* to adults** of any age, class, sexuality, race & ability. you don’t even have to know anything about birds. it’s just walking, talking, observing, listening & being with other people who want to appreciate the natural bounty around us – whether you’ve been doing it for years or are just realising that it’s kind of your thing. *does not include bigots, fascists, sexists, racists, homophobes or ableists **must be okay with general sweariness, so not recommended for anyone under 16″
I like this idea. I’ve been shying away from joining local bird clubs because too many of them feel too competitive to me. The competition can include macho posturing around who has seen the most birds, to wealth posturing around who has the most expensive birding gear. A Radical Bird Club focused on “walking, talking, observing, listening & being with other people” seems like a good idea.
They want to turn this into a global phenomenon. RBCs around the world!
I haven’t time or energy to organize anything at this point in my life. But if someone else organizes an RB near me, I’d check it out.
“I think what is important is that we move away from thinking of allyship as something we are, but instead think of it as something we do,each time we do something. Each time we want to contribute to a particular struggle for justice, we must decide what must be done in the moment, irrespective of what we have done before or what type of person we think we are.”
I came away from this blog post thinking that if I hear someone saying they are an ally, this may not mean much. I’m going to watch what they do instead of listen to what they say they are.
Jew or Judean?
Marginalia hosts a scholarly debate on how to translate ioudaioi in texts from the last centuries BCE and the first few centuries CE. Does it mean Jew or Judean? While this may seem like a big argument over a trivial detail, the scholars involved claim the stakes are higher than you’d think.
For example, if you translate ioudaioi in the Gospel of John as “Jew,” then that could reinforce one of the foundations of Christian anti-Semitism. The ioudaioi, the Jews, killed Jesus. Whereas if you translate ioudaioi as “Judean,” someone from the land of Judea, maybe you can undermine that foundation of anti-Semitism.
But other scholars argue that in some texts, ioudaioi is better translated into modern English as “Jew,” sometimes as “Judean.” It all depends on the context. And we don’t want to inject anachronisms into translations.
Another point comes up: Is it anachronistic to talk about Judaism as a religion in this era? Was Judaism more of an ethnic identity than a religion? (In a related story, Haaretz reports on archaelogist Yonatan Adler’s new book that advances the claim that the archaelogical record does not show evidence for Jusdaism as a religion before the 2nd century BCE.)
Dare You Fight?
Editor Neal caren is creating an online collection of W. E. B. DuBois’s articles for The Crisis. These articles were written between 1914 and 1934, and many have not been collected previously.
DuBois’s essays are fascinating to read. His articles for The Crisis sounds radical even by today’s standards.
“It’s not entirely the Twitter people’s fault. They’ve been taught to behave in certain ways. To chase likes and retweets/boosts. To promote themselves. To perform. All of that sort of thing is anathema to most of the people who were on Mastodon a week ago…. To the Mastodon locals it feels like a busload of Kontiki tourists just arrived, blundering around yelling at each other and complaining that they don’t know how to order room service.”
Although I’m most emphatically not a Twitter user (I left Twitter in 2014, not in 2022), I am a new Mastodon user. I hope the Mastodon users don’t see me as behaving badly….
Our cross-country move isn’t over yet. We’re still unpacking — and if this move is anything like past moves, we’ll still be unpacking cardboard boxes for a year to come. Today the box I happened to unpack turned out to have a costume for a stuffed animal in it.
During the pandemic, I did a series of weekly videos, many of which focused on stuffed animal characters. Sometimes the stuffed animals wore costumes. But when we moved, I packed away all the stuffies and got rid of all the costumes — or so I thought. For here was one of the costumes.
I had no intention of doing anything for Halloween this year. But if it’s Hallowe’en and you find a costume on Halloween, you might as well use it.
This was the extent of my Halloween celebration — five minutes of dressing a stuffie in costume, and taking a photo.
I got my fifth COVID shot today, the so-called bivalent booster.
Getting a COVID shot is boring now. But it didn’t used to be.
We got our first shots the day after our age group was eligible. We had to drive an hour to find an appointment. There was an elaborate check-in process. After getting the Pfizer shot, we had to sit down for fifteen minutes until they were certain we weren’t going to pass out or go into anaphylactic shock. Four weeks later, we got the second dose at the same drugstore, going through the same elaborate process. I was ill for two days after the second shot. Then it became a big topic of conversation for the next month: Did you get vaccinated yet? Which vaccine did you get? How long were you sick for afterwards?
We felt invincible for about four months, until the Delta variant hit. Then at last we were eligible for our first booster. This time, we got an appointment at a mass vaccination clinic, held at the San Mateo Event Center, formerly called the county fairgrounds. We waited in a long line of cars while volunteers in fluorescent yellow vests directed us into a big barn. Did we want Pfizer or Moderna? We had heard that you should get the one you didn’t get the first time. So we got Moderna. Then we had to drive into a big parking area while they monitored us to make sure we didn’t pass out. Once again, it was all very dramatic. And I was ill for a day after I got the booster.
For the second booster, I went to the Redwood City medical center where my primary care physician had her office. It was just like getting my annual flu shot. A nurse told me I shouldn’t worry about sitting in the waiting area after getting the shot. I got the shot, left the building, and drove home. My arm hurt for the rest of the day, but I didn’t feel ill.
Today I drove to Braintree to get both my annual flu shot and my third COVID booster. My appointment was at an older, somewhat dingy pharmacy. This time I remembered to wear a short-sleeved shirt. After I got my shot, the pharmacist told me to sit and wait fifteen minutes. I heard the man talking to the pharmacist as he got his shot. “Another shot, I can’t believe it! We’re going to be doing this forever,” he said, in his high querulous tenor voice. She murmured something soothing. “I guess it’s like getting your flu shot every year, isn’t it. And these people who don’t get shots. Can you believe them?!” Another soothing murmur. By this time I had waited five minutes. I decided I wasn’t going to pass out and walked out of the store. There was nothing exciting about any of it.
I still worry a little when I hear about people I know getting COVID. But getting your COVID shot is no longer exciting. It’s just part of the annual routine.
We have a post box for our mail, so sometimes we receive mail sent to previous holders of that box number. Today we received the October issue of “Decision” magazine, published by the Billy Graham Evangelical Association.
The editor-in-chief, Franklin Graham, wrote the lead article in this issue, titled “We Can Still Turn Back.” Franklin Graham says, in part:
“On Nov. 8, tens of millions of voters will head to polls across America in the most crucial midterm elections in recent history. To say that much is at stake is a gross understatement. It isn’t just control of Congress; it may be our last chance to stop the immoral and ungodly policies that have brought our national to the moral brink of disaster.”
What are the “immoral and ungodly policies” to which he refers? About what you’d expect: same sex marriage, abortion rights, and “transgenderism.”
In his article, Franklin Graham concludes, “That’s why it is so critical that you go to the polls on Nov. 8 and vote from the candidates who best align with godly, Biblical principles.”
But which Biblical principles? Franklin Graham’s net worth is estimated to be on the order of $10 million, and he has an annual income on the order of $600,000. Yet in Matthew 19:16-21, we hear this story:
“Then someone came to [Jesus] and said, ‘Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?’ And he said to him, ‘Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments.’ He said to him, ‘Which ones?’ And Jesus said, ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; Honor your father and mother; also, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ The young man said to him, ‘I have kept all these; what do I still lack?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’…” [NRSV; emphasis added]
Franklin Graham contributes to good in the world through the global charity he heads, Samaritan’s Purse. But I do not see Franklin Graham actually following this teaching of Jesus in Matthew 19:16-21, to go and sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor. Sadly, this makes it look like he picks Bible passages that confirm his biases while passing over Bible passages that cause him discomfort.
Which makes him appear hypocritical.
No wonder young people are leaving organized religion in droves.
