"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx
Here is this evening’s collection of Posts:
I am going to try and resume writing Fragments of Fiction. The top post is the opening of the story.
That is followed by What Race of Middle Earth are You or Call me Aragorn.
The next is a rambling, stream of consciousness post about interfaith relations which is too long and needs to be tightened up.
And then batting cleanup is a post about how much people spend on entertainment.
I was almost 25 when I left the city of my birth. It was time to go, time to move on and get away. There were new experiences to be had and the pain of what I had once been, what I had once had was too much. Everywhere I looked there were signs of the glory and the fall.
For most of my life I had been a scrapper, never afraid to fight, never willing to give up and not smart enough to get out. It was a self imposed punishment for sins that I had committed but was unwilling to discuss.
It is not much of a description, not very colorful at all. In fact it is rather ordinary, but that is ok, I am ordinary and I prefer it that way. If you stuck me in a crowd full of people you would be hard pressed to pick me out. It was like that in school, never did or said much in class. No need to draw attention to myself I did what I needed to do to get through and nothing more.
And for the longest time that had been enough, an average, nondescript existence. It suited me fine to be a guy who punched a time clock. But sometimes even the average man find himself in a situation that is beyond his control,a time in which he becomes something more than he has been.
But the question is not what he does to elevate himself but how he handles the elevation.
It was Friday night and I had just finished my shift at the plant. There was no rush to get home because there was no one to get home to, no wife, no family, no girlfriend, not even a dog. Just an empty house that was sparsely furnished.
Friday nights were not much different than any other night of the week. I’d go home, pop open a can of beer and stare blankly at the television screen content to let my brain turn to mush.
On this particular night I decided to stop at an ATM. I wanted to order a pizza and I had nothing but the spare change from the last time I had visited the liquor store. It wasn’t enough to buy a pack of gum, so I was forced to go to the bank.
There were two people ahead of me in line, a man and a woman and behind me there were a couple of teenage boys.
I didn’t see him approach. I didn’t notice anything about him including his presence until he was standing in front of us, waving a gun and shouting for our wallets. I have a bad habit of giggling when I am nervous. I don’t like being the center of attention and now was certainly a bad time to laugh, but laugh I did.
5’8 or so and about a buck twenty sopping wet with a bad haircut and a Judas Priest shirt, that is all he was, oh and he had a big gun and an even bigger attitude. He grabbed my collar and asked me what was so funny. Before I could answer he had grabbed the woman in front of me.
She cried as he pulled her in front of him and asked me if I thought that this was funny. I choked back a snigger and told him that it wasn’t. He told me that if I so much as smiled he would kill her. I wiped the smile off of my face.
It was the wrong thing to do, but I didn’t know it. The jackass cuffed me in the side of the head and laughed. It infuriated me, brought back memories of years of being teased and tortured by my someone who had been like an older brother to me. So I just reacted. I kicked him in the balls and smacked him in the head.
In the movies the gun falls and the hero (there has to be a hero) grabs it. Not here, not in my world. In my world when I slap him there is a flash of light and a loud noise. I am splashed with something, but it feels like hours before I realize that he just shot the woman, and that he did it involuntarily. The wetness I feel on my face is her blood.
I stand there in shock, numb and not really aware anymore of what is happening. The guy she had been with is beating the crap out of the jackass, the Judas Priest shirt is stained now, but it is with his blood.
There is a cop speaking to me, but I don’t answer. The real hero is lying, telling the officer that I saved everyone’s life, that if I hadn’t hit him the guy would have killed us all.
I didn’t hit him, I hit Georgie. It was Georgie I saw in front of me. It was Georgie taunting me, I just snapped and reacted. But I guess that somewhere inside I began to hear and to believe that I had been the hero, that when the bell rang I had come out swinging.
And that was really the beginning of the end.
There is an ongoing problem with the relationship between Jews and Christians. There is a misunderstanding that exists that is creating numerous issues that are going to need to be dealt with.
I wouldn’t characterize this misunderstanding as being between all Jews and all Christians. I suspect that there are large numbers of both groups who haven’t given a thought to any of this, but I also know that there are many who have and that is part of why I am writing this post.
Boiled down the misunderstanding is along these lines. There are Christians who see Jews working to tear down Christianity, to attack it and try destroy it and there are Jews who see Christians working to destroy Judaism. That my friends is the very simplistic version of this story. There are multiple layers here, but we’ll leave those alone for now.
Part of the impetus for this post was generated by a post by a Christian blogger here. His post was in response to a statement made by Abe Foxman, the national director of the ADL who issued a warning about the attempt to Christianize America. Here is an excerpt:
“Today we face a better financed, more sophisticated, coordinated, unified, energized and organized coalition of groups in opposition to our policy positions on church-state separation than ever before. Their goal is to implement their Christian worldview. To Christianize America. To save us!” he said.
Foxman proceeded to describe the process and to name names: “Major players include Focus On Family. Alliance Defense Fund, the American Family Association, Family Research Council and more. They and other groups have established new organizations and church-based networks, and built infrastructure throughout the country designed to promote traditional Christian values.”
I haven’t any problem with what Foxman said because my perception is that there is much truth in this. In September I covered a CNN story in which we read about the Southern Baptists and their discussions on how to convert more Jews. In that same post we revisited several Southern Baptist decisions including:
“The Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution in 1996 calling on its members to “direct our energies and resources toward the proclamation of the gospel to the Jewish people.”
A 1999 prayer guide by the International Mission Board recommended conversion of Jews to Christianity during their High Holy Days, an effort labeled “offensive and disrespectful” by Jewish leaders.
As recently as 2003 Jewish leaders criticized a Southern Baptist seminary president for saying Christians have a mandate to evangelize Jews just as a surgeon has a responsibility to tell a patient about the presence of a “deadly tumor.”
They are just one of the groups that have missionaries in place whose purpose is to witness to Jews for the purpose of conversion. They excuse this by claiming a religious obligation to do so. I am consistently surprised that they are so surprised by how vociferous a protest there is to these actions.
And I have to say that when I read some of the responses to things Foxman and other Jews have said I am most disappointed. Vox Popoli’s post irritated me. In it he said about Foxman:
“This guy would have made quite the grand strategist, wouldn’t he? With leaders such as these, it’s no wonder that Jews always manage to find persecution all over the world. Launching all-out assaults on the overwhelming majority doesn’t exactly strike me as the best way to win friends and influence people in any place or time.”
If I hear him correctly he suggests that Foxman should be lambasted for having the audacity to question the majority, as if the larger number automatically provided moral superiority, not to mention his foolish remark about persecution. And that is a topic to be grabbed a little later on.
And then within the comments there are all sorts of gems:
Mr. Astrosmith, smart boy that you are do you realize how many Jews were murdered or persecuted by your brethren using this allegation and you call us paranoid.
“Of course the reason Christians feel under assault is the largely Jewish and Jewish-led for the last 40 years ACLU/Southern Poverty Law Center have gleefully assembled their ranks of lawyers for a little Christian-bashing and getting Christ out of Christmas and the public and shopping mall spheres. Perhaps that is who Foxman should target. He might also wish a little word with his fellow Brooklyn Jew Michael Newdow who is after the Pledge and getting “in God we trust” removed from public buildings and US currency.”
Aside from making unsubstantiated claims old Cedarford seems to be under the misguided impression that trying to see that the Constitution is followed is wrong.
And then within the comments on the Haaretz article there is this little nugget:
“Abraham Foxman is unbelievable! He seeks to destroy the reason America is the ONLY true ally Israel has. The Christian faith is the only reason Israel exists. Oh, by the way, Foxman, do you like not having to run from Kristallnacht, pogroms and Zyklon B? Thank the christians. We are the reason more of your people did not die in the gas chambers.
Foxman should not be fighting the only people that like Jews and go after the people who lust to slaughter Jews: Muslims, especially the Palestinians. Why isn`t he fighting the Palestinians? Doesn`t he know the Abbas and his buddies kill Israelis every day? Doesn’t he know that Iran wants to kill every last Israeli?
Don`t bite the hand that feeds you.” Jay Stang
Call me crazy, but I don’t see any reason to thank someone or grovel for enjoying the same rights as anyone else in the US. And believe it or not, the US is not the only reason that Israel exists. It may have been at one point in time, but that is no longer the case.
Let’s circle back to the initial opening in which we talked about misunderstandings. As a member of the minority it is hard for me to see the discrimination that Christians, primarily evangelicals are complaining about.
We live in a country that has a clear definition of the separation of church and state in which we go out of our way to promote pluralism and tolerance for all, not just the majority. That means that courtrooms and other public (read gov’t funded) buildings are not decorated with the 10 commandments or other religious paraphenalia. A Buddhist, Hindu or Wiccan should be able to walk into a courthouse, for that matter anyone should be able to walk in and feel comfortable in the knowledge that the law of the land is going to judge them, not some biblical law that they may not believe in.
Students in school are entitled to be educated without being forced to be witnessed to or placed in other uncomfortable situations, based upon nondisriminatory laws.
Private businesses and homes are a different situation. I understand and accept that within these places there could be religious expressions of all kinds. When I go to the mall I expect to the salespeople to use some kind of holiday greeting. Frankly I get tired of everyone wishing me a merry xmas, but ok, I am not surprised by it and I am not even asking that it not happen.
All that I am asking for is an understanding that following the law is not discrimnatory but in our best interests. Our plurality and diversity is an exceptional strength that we can and should draw upon.
This is getting rather long so I’ll try and tie it up. For better or for worse there is roughly 2000 years of persecution of Jews by Christians. It really is just within the last 50 years that things have really improved, but within that time frame many of us have still witnessed things that can be seen as an attack on Jews and Judaism and witnessing can be categorized as such.
It is hard to see the majority as having to face the same challenges and even if we accept that they do it is not of the same magnitude.
And that is about it for now. Perhaps I’ll come back and try to cover this again at a later date.
In an earlier post I made a few remarks about writing posts. Since then I have received a number of questions about how I write so I thought that I would try and share some details about how I do what I do.
My computer is in the living room. To my left is the dining room table and to my right are couches, bookcases and the entertainment center. If I am writing during the day I have a nice view of the backyard but most of the time I prefer to write in the evening.
With the exception of the glow from the monitor the room is dark. I like to listen to my iPod and get lost in the music and thoughts about what I am writing about. I have more almost 3,000 songs on my iPod so the musical selection is pretty big and it varies depending on my mood and desire.
This evening I listened to the following:
Rod Stewart: Forever Young and Young Turks
Bob Dylan: Knocking on Heaven’s Door
Linkin Park: Somewhere I Belong
Abba: Dancing Queen
Toby Keith: As Good As I once Was and How Do you Like Me Now
Brad Paisley: Mud On The Tires and Whiskey Lullaby
U2: Where The Streets Have No Name
Depeche Mode: Precious
Lord of The Rings: The Breaking of the Fellowship
Roy Orbison: Crying
Van Halen: Panama
Ray Charles/Van Morrison: Crazy Love
Queen: I Want to Break Free
There were other songs, but that is a decent list for now. The music helps to set the tone. I try to dive into whatever mood the post is about. If it is sad then I try to be sad or whatever the appropriate mood is.
The posts I like best are those in which I get completely lost in my thoughts. They are the ones in which I feel like I have torn away the skin and am completely exposed. Every once in a while I am surprised to find a tear rolling down my face.
I am a voracious reader with very diverse tastes. I read as much as I can get my hands on. I read because I love the education but also because my craft requires constant attention and practice. That means that I need to focus on working on my vocabulary. It is strong, but it can always be stronger.
One of the most important skills is the ability to use words to paint a picture. Sometimes I feel as if I am quite successful at it and other times I feel like a failure.
I was asked how long it takes me to write an average post. I don’t really have an answer. I can tell you that I am fast. I can pound the words out at a very rapid clip and even when I am not on I am usually solid, but that is not always the greatest thing.
Within this blog I rarely if ever rewrite my posts.Virtually everything you see here is the first draft. If I notice glaring typos or mistakes I will fix them, but most of the time it is pound the keys and hit publish.
I don’t know if any of this was helpful, but it should give you some background. One more thing to mention. If you are having trouble writing just remind yourself that there is a beginning, a middle and an end. Sometimes simplicity is best.
The Misanthrope has an interesting post called How Much Do You Spend on Entertainment?
“Over the last 10 years, outlays for entertainment outpaced overall expenditures. Spending on health care and education, which almost doubled in that period, grew faster, according to an article in the New York Times.”
It is a worthwhile thought to consider. How much do you spend? Is there any money left for your savings and how much of that is absolutely necessary.
Personally I could probably give up DirecTV, the Net and my cellphone, but for a couple of weeks I would probably resemble a heroin addict.