By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Dec 5, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET It’s hard to know the course we are on or where we are in the race or even where it will take us.
Sometimes it isn’t clear if we are closing in on the finish line or the edge of a cliff.
And sometimes when it seems to be the edge of a cliff it is really only a small jump down and part of a longer obstacle course.
 And sometimes when it seems to be the finish line and we push out our chest to secure victory we learn we have already been lapped by our competitor. Or forgot to hand off the baton several laps ago.
Which means, I guess, not to waste too much time anticipating or prejudging and do your best to adjust and make the most of whatever you find around the next turn.
And if you have been carrying a baton for several hours, you probably have some explaining to do.
By Lauren Mayer, on Wed Dec 4, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET Okay, maybe the older version of that title phrase (involving contempt) might still be true regarding annoying relatives. (My father used to insist there was just one small group of them who went from wedding to bar mitzvah to reunion, changing accents and clothing but otherwise identical, and including the great-aunts who commiserated about their digestive issues, the cousin who told offensive jokes, and the cocktail-swilling uncle who insisted on singing his off-key version of “New York New York” with the band. But I digress.)
However, I have noticed that when people get to know someone with a different political viewpoint, sexual orientation, or national origin, they are much more likely to view them positively. This has been strikingly true when it comes to issues like same-sex marriage, where even die-hard conservatives with gay relatives soften their views (unless they have another relative running for office on an anti-gay-marriage platform . . . . see Cheney: Dick). I know I’ve become more tolerant of conservative views with which I disagree since I found out a few of my best friends are Republicans and I took the time to listen to their reasoning. (I still disagree with them, but at least I don’t think of them as mutant aliens – remember, I live in the San Francisco area, where Republicans are as rare as Democrats were when I was growing up in Orange County.)
Speaking of growing up in Orange County, back in my day, Jews were equally rare, so I was usually the only kid in my class who could explain our holidays. I actually did have to correct one 4th grade classmate who had heard that Chanukah involved worshipping potato chips. (He’d heard something about potatoes and frying . . . love that 4th grade logic!) (Mind you, Jews can be equally ignorant, especially given the rampant commercialization of Christian holidays – when they were little, my sons were convinced that Christmas celebrated the birthday of Santa Claus.)
So in honor of Chanukah, I thought I’d offer a few pointers to help those of you who don’t celebrate it.
– Chanukah started several thousand years ago, so it isn’t part of an insidious war on Christmas
– Chanukah is a relatively minor holiday (we have TONS of them), so faux-Christmas touches like Chanukah bushes are not very authentic
– Latkes (potato pancakes) and sufignot (jelly donuts) are traditional and delicious, meaning the holiday is a great excuse to eat fried food
– Contrary to what some envious kids might think, Jewish kids don’t usually get 8 days of elaborate gifts (as a rule mine get one big present and 7 days of wrapped-up books, snacks, and socks . . . hey, I’m a working musician and this is my busy period!)
And in case you need any more clarification, here’s a little musical explanation –
“The Chanukah Cha Cha”:
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Nov 28, 2013 at 9:15 AM ET Over the past few weeks, politicians, comedians, and the lamestream media have joined in what can only be referred to as The Shandah of the 21st Century: the trenchant desecration of the sacred holy day of Thansgivukkah.
In case you missed the Stephen Colbert satire, the Bostonian turkey-shaped menorah, or even the Presidential shout-out; millions of Americans have been exposed to the rare and historic confluence of Thanksgiving and Chanukkah with snide laughter and tweeted snarkery, treating Thanksgivukkah as just some ironic day of mock-celebration — akin to The O.C.‘s lame interfaith mashup, “Christmukkah,” or the brilliant, yet secular Frank Costanza inspiration of “Festivus.”
Indeed, while Thanksgivukkah has been only celebrated formally twice before in our nation’s history — in those extraordinarily rare cases in which a late November fourth Thursday coincided with an early winter Hebrew lunar calendar — the holiday once served as an integral thread that wove together the Jewish and American fabrics.
And yet, there is a dark, forgotten undercurrent to this Festival of Turkey Light.
I’m here to set the record straight and remind my fellow Jews and my fellow Americans of the secret, sordid history of the holiday of Thanksgivukkah:
NOVEMBER 1621
Shecky Howard
In a global conspiracy rivaled only by the fake Moon landing, the coverup of Paul McCartney’s death and the transparently fabricated long-form birth certificate of our Kenyan-born President, the anti-Semitic textbook industry has scrubbed all records of America’s first Jewish citizen, Shecky Howard.
Escaping religious persecution as a Jew in late 16th century Europe, Shecky pretended to convert to Christianity, and chose the faith with which he seemed most comfortable — the big black hats, mother-inspired guilt-trips, and victimization of Separatist Puritanism.
OK, not a great choice for a guy fleeing religious persecution…
But Shecky made the best of a bad situation. And after serving as the mohel, pediatrist and the stand-up entertainer on the Mayflower (Sample joke: “Take my wife’s apron…please!), Shecky was primarily responsible for the early peaceful entente reached among the Pilgrims and Native Americans in Plymouth, after he quietly confided to the Indian leadership that he too was a Member of the Tribe. Perhaps most poignantly, the Puri-Jew Shecky convinced both sides that turkey was the appropriate protein of choice (and carved the first bird with his circumcision tools), by arguing that pork chops would be inappropriate…because…uh…well…applesauce hadn’t been invented yet.
NOVEMBER 1863
The official American holiday of Thanksgiving was first declared in 1862 by our first Jew-ish President, Abraham Lincoln.
(OK, I said Jew-ish, not Jewish. Read the difference here and consider his black hat and beard, his über-protective wife, his passion for minority civil rights, his Kentucky birthplace (we’re all Jewish here), and most of all, HIS NAME WAS ABRAHAM, FOR MOSES’ SAKE!)
It’s no wonder, then, when the second official Thanksgiving coincided with Chanukkah, Lincoln invited Shecky Howard’s great-great-great grandson Mordechai to officiate the very first Thanksgivukkah ceremony at the White House.
And it was then that the Thanksgiving dinner as we now know it took formal shape — a family event loaded with Jewish influence — mothers insisting that their children eat every last morsel of food (THINK OF THE STARVING CHILDREN IN AFRICA!); participants guilted to travel long distances to spend agonizing hours in cramped quarters with their neurotic extended families; even the dreaded cardboard folding Kids’ Tables, a remnant of overcrowded Passover seders.
The Black Friday shopping tradition arose from the rush to purchase Chanukkah gifts before the Jewish Sabbath began that evening. And most significantly, the modern mythical ethic of Thanksgiving — the Pilgrims’ supposed quest for religious freedom — was lifted by one of Rand Paul’s ancestors directly from the story of Chanukkah’s brave Maccabees: Archeological evidence recently revealed that the Mayflower was actually a Gilligan-esque three hour boat tour gone horribly, horribly wrong.
NOVEMBER 1899
The most recent Thanksgivukkah occurred on the eve of the 20th century, when an elderly Mordechai Howard took the invitation of President William McKinley to introduce merged holiday themes at their White House celebration: turkeys stuffed with sweet potato latkes, jelly doughnuts filled with pumpkin sauce, hora dances circling piles of green bean casserole.
But alas, the ceremony went totally, awfully awry. Mordechai’s three toddler grandsons were playing a robust — some say vicious — game of Spin the Pilgrim Dreidel. After losing all of his cranberry sauce-flavored gelt, the oldest son poked the youngest in the eyes, then banged him on the head with a Star of David engraved musket, accidentally knocking over the brown gravy-fueled menorah, setting fire to the White House curtains, and ultimately killing Vice President Garret Hobart.
The Howard children
With the pogroms furiously raging in Eastern Europe, and the wave of Jewish immigrants desperately finding refuge at Ellis Island, an anti-Semitic backlash was rearing its ugly head, and the notorious Thanksgivukkah fire added (brown gravy) fuel to the hatred. A multifaceted coverup ensued; even the history books were altered to claim that Vice President Hobart died of “ill-health.” (Look it up here.) No one knows what happened to the three Howard children, although one colorized picture of them remains and is posted here.
===
So alas, we come to today, as we celebrate Thanksgivukkah for the last time apparently until the year 79,811. I urge my fellow Americans — particularly my fellow Jews — to refrain from the easy jokes, and instead honor the great Howard family…Shecky, Mordechai, even the three clownish grandsons..and remember what this holiday is truly about: religious freedom, family togetherness, delicious food, and most soi-tenly, the miracle of laughter.
===
If you like this piece, please read How Adam Sandler’s Chanukkah Song Saved the Jews and The Five Most Jew-ish Gentiles in Pop Culture.
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Oct 22, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET  Click here to BUY MY BOOK! Two of my favorite books are The Bible and Musings from the Middle.
You are probably saying to yourself, “John, I know you wrote one of those books, right?”
Well, yes. I sure did. And thanks for remembering. (It was the latter book, of course.)
Now, I am not saying that the two books have anything even remotely in common. They don’t.
Is Musings from the Middle a great book? No. An important book? No. Not at all. A well written book? Not really. A good book? Not if you are sober while reading it. Is it even an insignificant book (as opposed to a book completely devoid of any substance)? Arguably but it is a very weak argument and, frankly, more of a frivolous musing.
But here’s the thing. The Bible has, I believe, 66 Books. And at times can get a little heavy trodding reading it. Wouldn’t it have helped to have had an extra book –just one–called “Musings?” If for no other reason just to break things up a little?
Maybe “Musings from Mathusula.” He lived a long time and would have had lots to muse about.
Imagine kids learning the books of the Bible. “Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Musings, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, Ruth.” It just flows, doesn’t it? OK, maybe not the first time you read it but conceivably it could grow on you over time.
Granted it is impossible to compete with Genesis and Exodus but most Biblical scholars would surely agree we could all use a mental break and a few laughs after Leviticus and before plowing into Numbers.
The Book of Musings wouldn’t teach anything. Just serve as a kind of a palette cleanser.
Well, an extra book of the Bible titled Musings is not going to happen. But you can still get the book Musings from the Middle, albeit completely separate from the Bible. And that is unfortunately probably the only way it will ever be sold.
And even though it wasn’t written by Mathusela people tell me I have Mathusula’s sense of humor.
Not really. I just made that up. But it is already a shameless sales pitch, so why not throw that in. Mostly I am just trying to get my sales rank on Amazon.com higher than 2000 times Mathusela’s age and figured since the Bible is selling so well…..
By John Y. Brown III, on Thu Oct 3, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET Deep religious ponderings.
I don’t believe my religion is right and other religions are wrong.
But if pressed….I do like to think my religion is just a little bit superior to yours.
You know, classier, I guess.
Maybe a bit more “uptown” and perhaps even a little more sophisticated, too.
I guess what I am trying to say is that we Presbyterians, as a denomination, tend to do better at cocktail parties than our competitor denominations.
For example…..I just had a couple of Church of Latter Day Saint women drop my my house to share some literature with me. Thought it was UPS but when opened the door saw no brown but did see the The Watchtower publication being held by one of the ladies— and instantly knew that it wasn’t UPS —and didn’t appear to be FedEx or DHL either.
I admire Mormons a great deal. But I am glad my religion doesn’t go door-to-door to evangelize. Telemarketing to evangelize would be beneath us too. We are better than that. We use mass mailings, for example. And try to keep telemarketing campaigns to minimum.
Of course, I didn’t say anything to the Church of Latter Day Saints ladies about any of this. Just thanked them and suggested they talk to a neighbor who had friends last weekend park in my driveway.
Debating religion on my doorstep wouldn’t have been very Christian of me. Especially when it would be easier for me to wait and just talk about them behind their backs on Facebook.
And I would never bring up something like this at a cocktail party.
But wouldn’t put it past a Methodist.
===
What is the world’s most popular “unsaid” daily prayer?
My guess is….
“Why can’t the rest of the world just behave! So I don’t have to.”
I recommend saying it at least once out loud. After that, I find I ave a hard time even thinking it to myself.
Sometimes saying something out loud–and hearing it–helps me stop thinking it to myself.
By Lauren Mayer, on Tue Sep 24, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET Most young girls become infatuated with pop stars at some point – and reflecting back on those initial crushes reveals a lot about who we are (and how old we are). For example, there were the bobby soxers who squealed over a young Frank Sinatra, the girls swooning over Elvis the Pelvis (before the Vegas sequined jumpsuit days), and teens fainting at Beatles’ concerts. In my day, we were too young to go to a Beatles concert but not too young to pick our favorite – the popular girls all liked Paul, cool girls worshipped John, out-there individualists picked George, and I was probably one of three girls who had crushes on Ringo. (Because he was the funny one – that’s the same logic that drove me to pick Peter as my favorite Monkee . . . . but I digress.)
As we grow older, our crushes evolve – often to include movie stars (while all my friends admired George Clooney, I always had a thing for Kevin Kline – again, he was funny), even comedians (the funny thing works for a lot of us) and political leaders – whether it was liberals admiring Barack Obama in 2008, or conservatives swooning over Paul Ryan last year (or my parents’ generation who loved JFK). These more adult crushes tend to include substance as well as appearance, admiration of talent or accomplishment or potential (like when I was one of lots of people, men and women, fantasizing about Nate Silver, doing statistical analysis with me in a dimly lit office, softly murmuring demographic data in my ear . . . . . . and YES, I know he’s gay, but hello, it’s a fantasy, I’ll never meet him anyway so what difference does his orientation make?)
Where was I? Oh, my latest crush, which seems novel to me, although my friends who grew up Catholic remind me of their crushes on priests, and there were some pretty hot scenes in the Thorn Birds between Meggie and Father Ralph. Still, I’d resisted the appeal of a man in clerical dress (and don’t tell me it’s a cossack or whatever, it looks like a dress to me) until the new Pope started blowing fresh air into the Vatican. The last time people were this excited about changes within Catholicism was Vatican Two – which inspired Tom Lehrer’s immortal “Vatican Rag.” So I figured it was time for another musical salute to the Pope . . . .
“Oh Francis (I’m A Jew Who Has a Crush On You!)”
By John Y. Brown III, on Fri Sep 13, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET I guess you could call them Atheist Enthusiasts. Seems like a growing group of people these days like to take on the Big Guy and prattle on and on about it.
I think it makes them feel powerful. How couldn’t it? I hardly ever win an argument with my wife. I can’t imagine what it would feel like feeling like I won argument against God.
I just don’t understand people who like to gab on and on about what they don’t believe in. Makes me suspicious….like they are trying to convince themselves more than those they are lecturing.
I mean….I don’t believe in UFOs but I don’t go around telling people about it everyday. It just never occurs to me because I am at peace with it.
Which makes me wonder if atheist enthusiasts who also don’t believe in UFOs create groups and write books about not believing in UFOs. If so, I want to be clear I am not in that group of UFO non-believers…but in the more dignified group that doesn’t believe in UFOs.
By John Y. Brown III, on Sun Sep 1, 2013 at 10:10 AM ET I Have a Dream, Too (Albeit a tongue in cheek one. But it’s still worth dreaming about. Especially on Sunday mornings.)
50 years ago this week, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr, gave his historic “I Have a Dream” speech which helped usher in the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Was it enough? It was a start. And 50 years later we have made great progress toward racial equality. But there is still work to be done. Six days a week—Monday through Saturday—there are still inequalities between the races in terms jobs, pay, standard of living, and other economic and material measures. But fortunately, the gap is slowly closing.
But what about that seventh day, Sunday? Sure, whites continue to have it better the first six days of the week where work and material measures dominate. But on the seventh day, Sunday, blacks continue to have vastly superior church services than whites. In other words, in the spiritual realm, the gap between black and whites at church on Sunday mornings is as stark in 2013 as it was in 1963.
Dr King’s historic speech in 1963 was conspicuous in its absence about referencing lackluster white church services that Caucasians have been forced to endure for several centuries.
And so… 50 years after much of the economic racial divide is being closed, it is time for someone to raise the question about whether the spiritual racial divide will ever be bridged. After all, what is true color-blindness if any blind person can be escorted into a church and know instantly whether he or she is in a white or black church? Predominantly Black churches tend to have lots of energy and Spirit. Predominantly White churches tend to have lots of quiet orderliness and throat clearing —and people whispering, “Excuse me. What time is it, please?”
Worst of all, there are no historic laws or cultural prejudices that caused this disparity. There were no faux “separate but equal” laws that allowed black churches to be more alive and fun while white churches seemed dry and stodgy. That’s right. We weren’t even discriminated against. We white folks did this to ourselves.
Perhaps it’s time someone in my race stood up and said “Is this really the best we can do?” Or more to the point, “Will going to church for white folks ever look like it is as spiritual, as inspired, and as inspiring and as it is for our African-American brothers and sisters?”
Well?
May I get an Amen out there?
Unfortunately, no. Not if you are white. Because, like, “What would people say?” Right?
C’mon folks. Let’s dedicate ourselves to make white church the new black in 2013. White folks can dream, too, you know. And this is my dream as a way of celebrating and honoring the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s historic speech. And, with hope, closing the racial divide in America just a little bit more.
(Footnote: Of course, my church is the exception to all of this. But could still be a tad more soulful. With both a lower case and upper case “S” But I’m nitpicking. The only other exception is Lyle Lovett. (See below.) Perhaps Lyle Lovett can lead us from the low-lying foothills of churchiness to the inspired mountain top of the fully engaged church services of the Promised Land. And without programs to pass out. Anyway, that’s my dream.)
By John Y. Brown III, on Tue Aug 27, 2013 at 12:00 PM ET What if God inadvertently left a carbon copy of the answers to life’s ultimate questions in the garbage can next to the driveway leading up to the Garden of Eden?
And Eve found them (we have to assume Adam wasn’t very curious and probably wouldn’t have noticed) and after sniffing the fresh carbon several times decided to share the answers with humankind and as a result we all behaved daily like perfect little model human beings?
Wouldn’t that be embarrassing?
I think after a few Biblical Days God would probably get bored and shake up all the pieces and start over again.
In other words, it’s OK if the world doesn’t make sense to you right now and you aren’t sure what you should do with your life or even what you should do at 4:30pm this afternoon.
It helps keep God busy. And entertained. At least that’s what I think.
By Artur Davis, on Tue Aug 27, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET How depressing is it that the freshest commentary on Martin Luther King’s legacy is now twenty years old in its own right? Bill Clinton’s extended remarks at a Memphis church in 1993 remain the gold rhetorical standard for King commemoration: Clinton stretched a conventional riff about what King would make of contemporary America into an elegiac portrait of the self despair and internally inflicted injuries that haunt the black community, and the eloquence is deepened by Clinton’s sensitivity toward the national neglect that gave those wounds room to flourish.
Much of the speechifying and editorializing around this half week of “I Have a Dream” reminiscing will pale in comparison with Clinton’s talk. The favored cliché of a half empty, half full glass will pair the obvious successes—the fact that it will be a black president who occupies King’s place on the Lincoln Memorial to offer an official tribute; the emergence of a black economic elite that is one of the most potent consumer bases; the commonplace nature of advances for blacks in virtually every sector—with the just as apparent misses, from poverty to high rates of minority incarceration to the persistence of racial backlash. The most predictable liberal voices will invoke voter ID laws, stand your ground defenses, and stop and frisk police tactics in New York City as modern counterparts to Jim Crow and George Wallace, and conservative critics will seize on the gulf between each example and the harshly repressive color code of America pre 1965 to frame those same liberal voices as a farce.
There will be the inevitable effort to downsize King into the familiar ideological boxes of the past several decades. But while something should be said for Ross Douthat’s perspective that a few contemporary ideological battles have aligned at least some conservatives with traditional civil rights priorities on education and criminal justice reform, there is even more to be said for the notion that King had, and likely would have continued to have, an ambiguous relationship with liberalism. If LBJ’s Great Society wasn’t sufficient to deter King from making his last initiative a Poor People’s march on Washington, it’s reasonable to envision his evolution toward skepticism about other antipoverty programs and their effectiveness. And while some of the critique would have demanded more spending and redistribution, it’s fair to speculate if some of it could have sounded more right-leaning themes. A man who founded a civil rights movement on the ethic of individual participation and self-worth may well have uncomfortable with, for example, welfare unconnected to work requirements: and that would have sharply shifted the perimeter of the debate over welfare during the next 25 years, a period when pre Clinton liberals generally defended and wrote into law a vision of unconditional government assistance.
Does that mean that King was a prospective cheerleader for the Reagan agenda? Hardly, but it is not so difficult to imagine King sympathizing with Robert Kennedy’s famous description of public education as the second most distrusted institution in the inner city (trailing only the police). Or to see King turning into an early foe of the left’s contributions to urban pathology: from the hollowed out, decaying public housing structures crammed into the least desirable places on the city’s edge, to the bargains that political hacks negotiated, like a minimal police presence in exchange for peace with the gangs, and lucrative pensions for patronage jobs as a tradeoff for more robust social services. The interest group factionalism of the Democratic Party, it is also worth noting, is a descendant of the LBJ/Hubert Humphrey style liberalism that King seemed to be edging away from in his final months, in favor of Bobby Kennedy’s challenge to the Democratic machinery. If King had lived, it is not far-fetched to think that the next generation of partisan politics might have looked to him like something of a wasteland, as well as a protection racket for a lot of weak, ineffective dogmas.
In other words, one does not have to ridiculously envision King as a budget cutting, quota-bashing conservative to realize his potential for unsettling liberalism from a different, more eclectic vantage point. It is equally interesting to wonder how much polarization could have been avoided if one of the sharpest critics of urban dysfunction had been Martin Luther King as opposed to suburban conservatives, or if King’s evangelicalism had competed with fundamentalism to be the face of religion in politics during the seventies and eighties, or if King’s adeptness at defining a moral case for his goals had won over at least some of the blue collar whites and southern moderates who turned to the right.
Read the rest of…
Artur Davis: The Forgotten King
|
The Recovering Politician Bookstore
|
