9 ’Av

Jewish date:  9 ’Av 5769.

Today’s holiday:  The Fast of 9 ’Av.

Relevant to today’s holiday:  A message from the National Council of Young Israel.

Today’s quasi-holiday:  National Cheesecake Day (very poor choice).

Worthy causes of the day:  “CNN: Dump Lou Dobbs”, “CNN: Deal with your Lou Dobbs problem”, “5% FOR THE WORLD'S MOST VULNERABLE:  ASK YOUR SENATORS”, and “Tell the Gang of 6: Give back your dirty insurance money.” I had not planned to post today at all, but all these worthy causes ganged up on me.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. More religious oppression:  “Hindu Temple and families ransacked and looted”, “UZBEKISTAN: 'Joy' children's holiday camp attacked”, and “Sudan 'trousers trial' adjourned”.  I am not making that last one up; in Sudan, they arrested a woman for wearing pants.  It may sound like a joke, but Islamic morality police are anything but funny, especially when someone may get 40 lashes just for dressing wrong.  One may think it not right for women to wear pants (I suppose), but surely Sudan has more urgent problems to deal with, e.g., genocide?
2. The strangest “honor killing” of which I have heard yet:  “Rights groups: Gaza man suspected of killing daughter for owning cellphone”.  Anything I could say to explain this would be pure guesswork.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Despite confession, Kasab remains 'gunman' for NYT”
  

Weird things will resume after the Nine Days.

Aaron

Beware of exotic silverware

Greetings.

Jewish date:  18 Tammuz 5769.

Today’s holiday:  Friday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time.

Today’s quasi-holiday:  Don’t Step on a Bee Day.

Worthy cause of the day:  “Guarantee Every Child Has Access to the Services They Need” and “Urge the chief of the Forest Service to end the policy of hazing and killing buffalo.”

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. “now would be a good time to call :”
   
   and “Apparently, Basement cat felt that 4”
   
   I really have no idea how black cats ended up as symbols of evil.  If anyone knows, please tell me.
2. “Plan to ban Uluru climb sparks debate”:  Uluru is a mountain sacred to Australian aborigines.  It is understandable that some would prefer that people did not treat it as a mere tourist attraction and challenge in mountain climbing.
   
3. More religious oppression:  “UZBEKISTAN: Banned from meeting fellow-believers”, “Malaysia Sikhs lose fight against man's conversion”, “Hamas tries to detain woman on beach in feared imposing of strict Islamic law”.
   
4. “Syria Increases Penalty for Honour Killings”:  This article is remarkable for two reasons.  The first is that the title is misleading, given that the increase in penalty is to a mere two years in jail.  (Bernie Madoff got 150 years, and he did even kill anyone.)  The second is that the article completely fails to mention anything about the, shall we say, provenance of honor killings.  Syrians are predominantly Muslim, and Muslims are the group most associated with honor killings.  They do occur occasionally among other groups, but Syria is not record as having appreciable numbers of Sikhs or Hindus.  Nowhere in the text is there any mention of Islam, Muslims, or Arabs at all.  I smell whitewashing.
   
5. “Pope orders reform after Holocaust denial flap”:  Took him long enough.
   
6. “Hindus demand removal of 'offensive ad' by Burger King”:  People do not usually approve of their deity being used to sell food.  Not to mention the idea is tackier than climbing a sacred mountain.
   

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Blog based on Time Magazine’s cover story on Divorce”
  
• “Michael Jackson”
  
• “Orchestra plays live soundtrack to horse race”
  
• “Bottled up: Data on contaminants in bottled water still lacking, government says”
  
• “Frenemy, locavore among new words in Webster's”
  
• “Presidential Commandments (1989)”
  
• “Debunking the Domino Theory”
  
• “Anonymous Sources on Resettling Refugees”
  
• “Turtles crawl on runway, delay flights at JFK”
  
• “Did China's Nuclear Tests Kill Thousands and Doom Future Generations?”
  

Today’s weird things have been prompted by “Silverware in Conjunction”:

Given enough humans and enough time, they will invent practically anything.  I was aware before this of sporks, but now I have discovered that people have gone to the trouble of inventing and even selling spifes, knorks, and what this quasi-Venn diagram calls “knipoonorks”:  Splayds.  Enjoy (or wonder why such things were invented in the first place), share the weirdness, and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

Beware of dahus

Greetings.

Jewish date: 19 Nisan 5769.

Today’s holidays: Ḥol hamMo‘edh Pesaḥ, Smigus Dyngus/Dyngus Day/Wet Monday/Easter Monday.

Today’s quasi-holidays: Blame Somebody Else Day.

Worthy cause of the day: “Reinstate Moratorium on Outer Continental Shelf Oil Drilling”.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. More problems with freedom of religion: “ABKHAZIA: 'We'll kick out anyone'”, “Sikhs protest against knife rules”, “Protestant clergyman arrested again in Beijing”, and “Jumoad: Protect Christian community in Lantawan”.
2. A problem with freedom of speech: “Rights lawyers decry magazine's closure for "blasphemy"”.
3. I have no idea what to make of this: “Swedish parishioners unveil Lego statue of Jesus”.
   
4. “Jordanian man accused of stabbing pregnant sister in 'honor killing'”: This is a very unpleasant story of a man in Jordan who murdered his sister because he “believed that she had… started seeing other men”. Now, it is conceivable that his belief was correct, but nothing substantial in the way of evidence is presented. As such, this man may have killed an innocent woman. This is why in well-designed systems of laws extrajudicial killings are limited to emergencies: so that guilt or innocence may be calmly, objectively determined, thus reducing the probability of mistakes which can never be undone. Today I find myself especially puzzled why killings like this ones are called “honor killings”. Suppose that the accused woman really was guilty. Should this be accounted a blot on the family honor? Arguably yes: she did something wrong, and there is the implicit question of whether how she was raised contributed to this. But suppose the accused woman really was innocent. If adultery should be accounted a stain on the family honor, why should murder be no less disgraceful? Unlike the adultery, which was only suspected, the murder definitely happened—and who would ever consider a real crime any less serious than one that may not have happened? I have no clue why the murderer is considered honorable while his victim is considered dishonorable. I suspect “honor” in this case is a mistranslation.

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Pirate Gangs”
  
• “What is a megamouth shark? Is it still a scientific mystery?”
  
• “Pssst: Gossip hurts--but friends can protect you from the worst of it”
  
• “Knowing Your Chances: What Health Stats Really Mean”
  
• “Food-borne illnesses hold steady in U.S.”
  
• “Congo forces politicians to pay their taxes”
  

Today’s weird thing is the “dahu”. Enjoy, share the weirdness, and happy Pesaḥ.

Aaron

18 Tishri 5769: Ḥol hamMo‘edh Sukkoth/National Mammography Day

Greetings.

Worthy cause of the day: “Tell the Bahamas to Stop Killing Sea Turtles”.

Relevant to Divine Misconceptions:

1. “Some hear doll's burbling as a clear endorsement of Islam”: No, I am not making this up. It is probably a fluke and unintentional.
   
2. “Conservative Christians lead push for Prop. 8”: Proposition 8 would eliminate any legal right to homosexual marriage in California. Unlike most articles on subject of homosexuality in Christianity, this one actual takes the trouble to list a few relevant verses, so let us go through them one by one:
   1. Genesis 19:4-6: An incident of attempted homosexual rape in Sedhom (Sodom). This is not legal material, plus the incident happened before the giving of the Torah, so it is not a good basis for deriving law. Clearly the attitude towards homosexual rape is negative, though the context does not make clear whether the homosexuality part or the rape part or both are what is abominated. Note that nowhere in the Hebrew Bible is there any positive depiction of homosexuality of any kind.
      
   2. Leviticus 20:13 (“And a man that will lie with a male like having sexual intercourse with a woman, the two of them did an abomination; they shall die; their blood is upon them.”: This is an unambiguous prohibition of male homosexuality. The justification given for why this does not apply today is nonsense: “Times have changed, and the verses applied to those times only. The chapter also mandates death for adulterers.” One of the major problems Christianity has is justifying gerrymandering what parts of the Law still hold and which do not. There is no mention of an expiration date or any condition for expiration of any commandment, which is why Orthodox Judaism holds they all still apply, even ones Christians tend to look on as downright weird. Even Jesus never claimed any end to Torah prohibitions. Therefore the prohibition of homosexuality still holds.
      
   3. Romans 1:27: This is a very negative depiction of homosexuality. The justification “St. Paul criticizes a range of behaviors.” is nonsense since everything else depicted negatively in this section is something traditionally considered bad.
      
   4. 1 Corinthians 6:9: I am not competent enough in Koine Greek yet to judge whether or not homosexuality is being discussed among other vices. Sorry. This, of course, does not cancel out the verse in Romans.
   Let us face it: there is no ground to stand upon to claim that homosexuality (or male homosexuality, at any rate) is an acceptable practice in Christianity. And I would like to emphasize practice. None of these verses say anything about having homosexual feelings, which is quite a different matter.
   
3. “Baltimore archbishop tells Virgin Mary 'visionary' to stop activities”: Kudos to the Catholic Church for their skepticism of questionable visions.
   
4. “Good Taste”: Yes, people are weird like that. Palin still sucks as a vice-presidential candidate.
   
5. “Earliest Reference Describes Christ as 'Magician'”: Or maybe it is something else. Let us let the archaeologists work this out.
   
6. “Peaceful Demostrator Punched by Scientologist at Los Angeles Event”: This is a new tactic. Usually Scientologists file lawsuits. Maybe the fact that Anonymous protesters tend to be masked and therefore unidentifiable, hence difficult to sue, has something to do with it.
   
7. “World Dignitaries Open International Conference On Religion”: The fact that no religious leaders are mentioned as attending this conference does not bode well, though holding it in Tehran is an interesting tactic.
   
8. “Palestinian man in Jordan kills daughter to cleanse family honor”: And the real shame is that “Forensic doctors said an autopsy showed the girl was still a virgin.” Obviously the father failed to find out if his daughter had actually done anything dishonorable before killing her. It should therefore also be obvious why moral judgement in the absence of evidence is a very, very bad idea.
   
9. “False claims exposed of Kenyan pastor who protected Sarah Palin from witches”: Apparently Thomas Muthee lied about his struggle against “witchcraft”. Mama Jane, the alleged witch he claims to have run out of Kiambu, Kenya, never left town.
   

Today’s news and commentary:

• “Hottest Planet Ever Discovered”
  
• “Obama buys first video game campaign ads”
  
• “Secret London wartime tunnel complex for sale”
  
• “"Walking fish" reveals fresh evolutionary insights”
  
• “Mysterious Mars Moon a Pile of Rubble ”
  
• “Quantum Cryptography: As Awesome As It Is Pointless”
  
• “Angry about economy? Smash some plates and move on”
  
• “What are vestibular migraines?”
  
• “Disco tune "Stayin' Alive" could save your life” (No, I am not making this up.)
  
• “CIA Tactics Endorsed In Secret Memos” (Oops.)
  

Today’s weird thing is the International Earth-Destruction Advisory Board. Enjoy, share the weirdness, Shabbath shalom, and ḥagh sameaḥ.

Aaron