Saturday, March 30, 2002
Are you feeling a little altruistic today?
Many of us, including me, blog because doing so gives us a sense of self-satisfaction. But that’s not all we can accomplish through these writings of ours. Sometimes we can help to do some good for someone else.
This is a site that went live yesterday, and many bloggers have made it their mission to get the word out as widely as we can to generate support for this amazing boy. I’ve had information about this effort from someone I trust, so I know that is a real project to help Thomas Pacheco, a very real boy in very real need. So, check it out, please.
Comments
Many of us, including me, blog because doing so gives us a sense of self-satisfaction. But that’s not all we can accomplish through these writings of ours. Sometimes we can help to do some good for someone else.
This is a site that went live yesterday, and many bloggers have made it their mission to get the word out as widely as we can to generate support for this amazing boy. I’ve had information about this effort from someone I trust, so I know that is a real project to help Thomas Pacheco, a very real boy in very real need. So, check it out, please.
Comments
Friday, March 29, 2002
Happy Eostre
This is from a pieceabout the origins of Easter.
Spring holidays have been celebrated at least since the beginning of recorded history. They all mark the end of winter when the earth sleeps and the start of the spring session when everything seems to be reborn.
Early people believed that each season was ruled by a certain deity. There was a deity called Eostre, the goddess of spring, who was worshipped in the northern and central parts of Europe. Her name is believed to have come from the word to describe the direction of the sunrise - "east." Some think the word Easter came from the same source. Every spring people in these regions held festivals to honor and thank Eostre. They offered her cakes that are similar to hot cross buns.
Some early tribes believed that things found in nature, such as bodies of water, mountain and trees, had their own spirits. It is believed that the May Day festivals started as a tree worshiping rite. The ancient Druids, a pre-Christian religious sect found mostly in Britain and France, thought that trees, and most especially oak trees, were sacred objects. The Druids prayed to the trees for sunshine, rain, and to make the earth fertile.
Ah. Sychronicity. (See previous post.)
Comments
This is from a pieceabout the origins of Easter.
Spring holidays have been celebrated at least since the beginning of recorded history. They all mark the end of winter when the earth sleeps and the start of the spring session when everything seems to be reborn.
Early people believed that each season was ruled by a certain deity. There was a deity called Eostre, the goddess of spring, who was worshipped in the northern and central parts of Europe. Her name is believed to have come from the word to describe the direction of the sunrise - "east." Some think the word Easter came from the same source. Every spring people in these regions held festivals to honor and thank Eostre. They offered her cakes that are similar to hot cross buns.
Some early tribes believed that things found in nature, such as bodies of water, mountain and trees, had their own spirits. It is believed that the May Day festivals started as a tree worshiping rite. The ancient Druids, a pre-Christian religious sect found mostly in Britain and France, thought that trees, and most especially oak trees, were sacred objects. The Druids prayed to the trees for sunshine, rain, and to make the earth fertile.
Ah. Sychronicity. (See previous post.)
Comments
March winds are blowing, but at least it’s not snowing.
It is 65 degrees in Albany, NY today, and I took my mom out for a walk around the building, where we ran into Alice, a lovely woman whom my mother met when she first moved in here. So I left them to sit in the sun together and proceeded to take a more energetic 3-mile walk on my own.
There is a short path through a wooded area that I often like to take to have a least a brief illusion of being away from cement and human structures. I was remembering the secluded house I used to own in the country, set up on a hill where an ancient oak presided in its enduring solidity. In moments of despair or sadness or even boredom, I used to stretch my arms around its trunk (I could barely reach an eighth of the way around), lean my cheek against its weathered bark, and breathe into its essence whatever it was that was keeping me from engaging with the vitality of my life. In those intimate moments with that stoic oak, I understood the reverence that the ancient Druids felt for the divinity inherent in nature.
So on my trek through the woods today I looked for a replacement for my old confidant, and I found one – younger, less imposing, perhaps less divine. I don’t know. But as I stretched my arms around its trunk (I could reach almost half way around) and leaned my cheek into its rough hide, I again felt that mythic connection to its fundamental durability, its elemental link to the very heart of this mother planet. Like the priests at Dodona, I asked for truth. And the March winds continued to blow.
Comments
It is 65 degrees in Albany, NY today, and I took my mom out for a walk around the building, where we ran into Alice, a lovely woman whom my mother met when she first moved in here. So I left them to sit in the sun together and proceeded to take a more energetic 3-mile walk on my own.
There is a short path through a wooded area that I often like to take to have a least a brief illusion of being away from cement and human structures. I was remembering the secluded house I used to own in the country, set up on a hill where an ancient oak presided in its enduring solidity. In moments of despair or sadness or even boredom, I used to stretch my arms around its trunk (I could barely reach an eighth of the way around), lean my cheek against its weathered bark, and breathe into its essence whatever it was that was keeping me from engaging with the vitality of my life. In those intimate moments with that stoic oak, I understood the reverence that the ancient Druids felt for the divinity inherent in nature.
So on my trek through the woods today I looked for a replacement for my old confidant, and I found one – younger, less imposing, perhaps less divine. I don’t know. But as I stretched my arms around its trunk (I could reach almost half way around) and leaned my cheek into its rough hide, I again felt that mythic connection to its fundamental durability, its elemental link to the very heart of this mother planet. Like the priests at Dodona, I asked for truth. And the March winds continued to blow.
Comments
Don't Do It, Burningbird!
Shelley says that she's going to exercise her right to spontaneously combust her weblog. Among other stresses of life, she's intensely job hunting. Lately she's also felt the heat of heavy criticsm over the wires. I hope that she also can feel the heartfelt warmth from those of us who admire her courage to speak truths others don't want to hear, her articulate cybertongue, her fiery heart, and the inspiration she have given us to reach for our own blog potential. For many many of us, to have her leave blogdom is like a death. If she has to leave, for all kinds of reasons, then I hope she knows that we will welcome and celebrate her resurrection when it comes.
Comments
Shelley says that she's going to exercise her right to spontaneously combust her weblog. Among other stresses of life, she's intensely job hunting. Lately she's also felt the heat of heavy criticsm over the wires. I hope that she also can feel the heartfelt warmth from those of us who admire her courage to speak truths others don't want to hear, her articulate cybertongue, her fiery heart, and the inspiration she have given us to reach for our own blog potential. For many many of us, to have her leave blogdom is like a death. If she has to leave, for all kinds of reasons, then I hope she knows that we will welcome and celebrate her resurrection when it comes.
Comments
Thursday, March 28, 2002
This is not a black and white world.
I've heard it said that there are always three sides to every story: his, hers, and the truth. In this case, it's not even that simple. But there are two very clear sides, two very real realities, and I cannot help but hear the point that this side is making. In an interview with CNN's Bill Hemmer, this is what Usama Hamdan, a spokesman for the Palestinian terrorist group, had to say about the situation in the Middle East.
HAMDAN: I am not talking about eliminating Israel. I am talking about fighting for freedom against Israel's occupation of our lands. Israel is always, always trying to talk about (Palestinians wanting) to eliminate Israel. But as Palestinians, we are talking about the occupation.
The Palestinians will continue their struggle against Israel until they reach their goals. The main goal for the Palestinians now is to repatriate their lands and have their own state.
HEMMER: If there's any chance of Israel returning the West Bank and Gaza, there has to be some sort of cease-fire worked out, and then a peace agreement worked out after that. So why not hold back on your fire and see what can happen at the negotiating table?
HAMDAN: You are talking about cease-fires. Two months ago, (Palestinian leader) Yasser Arafat announced a cease-fire, and for three weeks no attacks were launched against Israel. But after three weeks, Sharon attacked the Palestinians -- he killed two of their leaders, one from Hamas and the other from Fatah.
After that, we understood that there is no real cease-fire with the Israeli government, that they want this cease-fire as a trick to continue their operations against our people. So if they want a real cease-fire, they are supposed to withdraw their tanks from our cities.
They are supposed to announce the cease-fire from their side first. We are not asked to do that because we are under occupation. You can't ask us, with the knife on our neck, to raise up our hands -- we must fight not to make this knife cut our necks. So you can't talk about a cease-fire while he's killing our people.
For the Palestinians, that is their side of the story. That is their reality. That is their truth. It is as true and real for them as their enemy's reality is true for that side. Neither group is willing to relinquish any of the "truths" that it insists are the only real reality. It's like a street gang war magnified ten thousand times. It is men-who-should-know-better taking testosterone-driven street-justice to its inhuman extremes. What in hell do they think their almighty God thinks of what they are doing!
No wonder I tend toward female chauvanism and irreverent non-belief.
Comments
I've heard it said that there are always three sides to every story: his, hers, and the truth. In this case, it's not even that simple. But there are two very clear sides, two very real realities, and I cannot help but hear the point that this side is making. In an interview with CNN's Bill Hemmer, this is what Usama Hamdan, a spokesman for the Palestinian terrorist group, had to say about the situation in the Middle East.
HAMDAN: I am not talking about eliminating Israel. I am talking about fighting for freedom against Israel's occupation of our lands. Israel is always, always trying to talk about (Palestinians wanting) to eliminate Israel. But as Palestinians, we are talking about the occupation.
The Palestinians will continue their struggle against Israel until they reach their goals. The main goal for the Palestinians now is to repatriate their lands and have their own state.
HEMMER: If there's any chance of Israel returning the West Bank and Gaza, there has to be some sort of cease-fire worked out, and then a peace agreement worked out after that. So why not hold back on your fire and see what can happen at the negotiating table?
HAMDAN: You are talking about cease-fires. Two months ago, (Palestinian leader) Yasser Arafat announced a cease-fire, and for three weeks no attacks were launched against Israel. But after three weeks, Sharon attacked the Palestinians -- he killed two of their leaders, one from Hamas and the other from Fatah.
After that, we understood that there is no real cease-fire with the Israeli government, that they want this cease-fire as a trick to continue their operations against our people. So if they want a real cease-fire, they are supposed to withdraw their tanks from our cities.
They are supposed to announce the cease-fire from their side first. We are not asked to do that because we are under occupation. You can't ask us, with the knife on our neck, to raise up our hands -- we must fight not to make this knife cut our necks. So you can't talk about a cease-fire while he's killing our people.
For the Palestinians, that is their side of the story. That is their reality. That is their truth. It is as true and real for them as their enemy's reality is true for that side. Neither group is willing to relinquish any of the "truths" that it insists are the only real reality. It's like a street gang war magnified ten thousand times. It is men-who-should-know-better taking testosterone-driven street-justice to its inhuman extremes. What in hell do they think their almighty God thinks of what they are doing!
No wonder I tend toward female chauvanism and irreverent non-belief.
Comments
Oh, this is just too perfect!
I used to have something on my site to keep track of the number of hits, and I probably will put it on my newly designed site when it's ready. But I'm afraid that I'll start posting things that will push up my hit numbers rather than stay true to the whole reason I started blogging originally. I have to admit, however, that Mike Sanders' suggestion for a "Google Persuader" is priceless.
Here's what he says to do:
Go to this page of popular Google Search terms and try to use every term in a paragraph on your blog. If you can use them in the same order that they are listed, with as few words as possible, it is even better:
[example] The Oscars awarded Halle Berry a pre-Easter present as well as bringing Elin Nordegren and Jennifer Connelly to our attention. I don't know much about Alex Baroni or Ostern, but Passover is coming and I think Ali G and Celine Dion are involved in some sort of controversy.
Ya gotta love it and love Mike for thinking it up.
Comments
I used to have something on my site to keep track of the number of hits, and I probably will put it on my newly designed site when it's ready. But I'm afraid that I'll start posting things that will push up my hit numbers rather than stay true to the whole reason I started blogging originally. I have to admit, however, that Mike Sanders' suggestion for a "Google Persuader" is priceless.
Here's what he says to do:
Go to this page of popular Google Search terms and try to use every term in a paragraph on your blog. If you can use them in the same order that they are listed, with as few words as possible, it is even better:
[example] The Oscars awarded Halle Berry a pre-Easter present as well as bringing Elin Nordegren and Jennifer Connelly to our attention. I don't know much about Alex Baroni or Ostern, but Passover is coming and I think Ali G and Celine Dion are involved in some sort of controversy.
Ya gotta love it and love Mike for thinking it up.
Comments
As time slips into the future.
More of my past is gone again, with the passing on of Dudley Moore (just four years older than I am now) and Milton Berle. Uncle Miltie was a weekly staple on our black and white miniature TV back in Yonkers, New York in 1948. He brought transvestitism into our very living rooms and we loved it. He is the icon of Drag Queens. He played right to the camera with his zany "off-side" remarks, and we laughed and loud and loved every minute of his stap-stick antics. Good-bye Uncle Miltie.
In many ways, the importance of the deaths of these two extraordinary men pales in the face of the deaths of thousands upon thousands of good and ordinary people. But there is always the Big Picture and the Little Picture for each of us. Moore and Berle now. My mom, I imagine, within the next five years, and then it's me and my generation waiting at the finish line. I can't help think about that and what I want to do with the years I have left. I can't help wonder if some of what I'm doing is what I should be doing.
David Landsman tells a funny-but-oh-how-true story on his blog today about the conversations of a couple of check-out girls about "old people." Yes, it's relative. But yes, it's also all too real when it's real.
Comments
More of my past is gone again, with the passing on of Dudley Moore (just four years older than I am now) and Milton Berle. Uncle Miltie was a weekly staple on our black and white miniature TV back in Yonkers, New York in 1948. He brought transvestitism into our very living rooms and we loved it. He is the icon of Drag Queens. He played right to the camera with his zany "off-side" remarks, and we laughed and loud and loved every minute of his stap-stick antics. Good-bye Uncle Miltie.
In many ways, the importance of the deaths of these two extraordinary men pales in the face of the deaths of thousands upon thousands of good and ordinary people. But there is always the Big Picture and the Little Picture for each of us. Moore and Berle now. My mom, I imagine, within the next five years, and then it's me and my generation waiting at the finish line. I can't help think about that and what I want to do with the years I have left. I can't help wonder if some of what I'm doing is what I should be doing.
David Landsman tells a funny-but-oh-how-true story on his blog today about the conversations of a couple of check-out girls about "old people." Yes, it's relative. But yes, it's also all too real when it's real.
Comments
Wednesday, March 27, 2002
What's your number?
Got tothis enneagram test via a link from Tish.
I came out a Two.
Twos are defined by their empathy of other people. They are uniquely gifted at tuning in on the feelings of others. This makes them great networkers. They feed on their connection to others, love of friends and family. However being too caught up with other people can drain them, and cause them to lose track of their own personal well being.
Sounds typical for all of us actively "sandwich generation" people.
Comments
Got tothis enneagram test via a link from Tish.
I came out a Two.
Twos are defined by their empathy of other people. They are uniquely gifted at tuning in on the feelings of others. This makes them great networkers. They feed on their connection to others, love of friends and family. However being too caught up with other people can drain them, and cause them to lose track of their own personal well being.
Sounds typical for all of us actively "sandwich generation" people.
Comments
Tuesday, March 26, 2002
I keep forgetting that this is not the old real world.
In the old real world, I used to dream of having a forum – maybe a column in a newspaper -- that maybe thousands of people would read. I could put all of my views out there and people I didn’t even know would read them. And maybe I could persuade them to agree with my point of view. Or maybe I could inspire or encourage people who think as I do to speak out as well. But these people really wouldn’t know anything about me personally, so, if I wanted to, I also could risk irritating, antagonizing and, disagreeing with them with all the verbal vehemence I could muster. In the old real world.
In the old real world, before email, before blogging, I used to write letters. All the time. Letters to old college chums, old beaus, former students – people who knew me long and well. I could say just about anything I wanted in those letters. I knew that they would understand that sometimes I get carried away and get confrontational, aggressive, hard-headed. They would know how to call me on it without taking it personally.
Sometimes I forget that this is not the old real world. This is the web. And this is the blogging network on the web comprised of tenuous connections with only partially understood personalities. And that partial understanding works both ways.
I find that I am trying to make old dreams real in a world that is not the old real world. A blog is not a newspaper column with a lot of anonymous readers. And it is not a letter that I am writing to someone who has known me long and well and will understand that sometimes I come on really strong – and will forgive me.
I guess I have am finally coming to personal grips with the intellectual and intelligent discussions that have been going on ever since blogging started. What is it? Journalism? Diary entries? Commentary? What is our responsibility to our readers? Do we have any responsibility? I don’t know the answers. But my putting myself in the middle of some serious and uncomfortable blog dynamics is finally making me take these questions to heart. I suspect the wise path would be let allow my heart to figure it out.
Comments
In the old real world, I used to dream of having a forum – maybe a column in a newspaper -- that maybe thousands of people would read. I could put all of my views out there and people I didn’t even know would read them. And maybe I could persuade them to agree with my point of view. Or maybe I could inspire or encourage people who think as I do to speak out as well. But these people really wouldn’t know anything about me personally, so, if I wanted to, I also could risk irritating, antagonizing and, disagreeing with them with all the verbal vehemence I could muster. In the old real world.
In the old real world, before email, before blogging, I used to write letters. All the time. Letters to old college chums, old beaus, former students – people who knew me long and well. I could say just about anything I wanted in those letters. I knew that they would understand that sometimes I get carried away and get confrontational, aggressive, hard-headed. They would know how to call me on it without taking it personally.
Sometimes I forget that this is not the old real world. This is the web. And this is the blogging network on the web comprised of tenuous connections with only partially understood personalities. And that partial understanding works both ways.
I find that I am trying to make old dreams real in a world that is not the old real world. A blog is not a newspaper column with a lot of anonymous readers. And it is not a letter that I am writing to someone who has known me long and well and will understand that sometimes I come on really strong – and will forgive me.
I guess I have am finally coming to personal grips with the intellectual and intelligent discussions that have been going on ever since blogging started. What is it? Journalism? Diary entries? Commentary? What is our responsibility to our readers? Do we have any responsibility? I don’t know the answers. But my putting myself in the middle of some serious and uncomfortable blog dynamics is finally making me take these questions to heart. I suspect the wise path would be let allow my heart to figure it out.
Comments
Why do I always miss the good stuff?
While I’ve been riding my feminist bloghorse, there have been much more important issues being wrestled with on some of the blogs I most respect – and they all seemed to have checked in on the issue in the Comments section of burningbird’s blog – here and here and here. In a way, it might have been fortuitous that I missed it all because I tend to shoot off my mouth from the hip when I get caught up in the heat of the moment. (Heh. What an image that conveys!)
So now that the ashes are down to a smolder, I’ll state my position in less fiery terms than I might have had I dashed into the fray earlier. I made this comment on burningbird’s blog, but I think I need to say it here more publicly:
I have very strong viewpoints about any number of things, but I never would pull anyone's blog off my roll because they disagree with me. What I might do, however, is make a separate blogroll section called "dissenting opinions" or something like that if I wanted to make sure that my blog was not directly associated with theirs -- although they would have to be really extremists on all fronts before I'd relegate them to the hinterlands of my blogroll. …I not only agree with burningbird's "viewpoint," but I'm more and more despairing of the America in which I want to be a proud citizen. Our government has definitely let its shadow side eat up its heart and humanity. We are reaping what we have sown. My American countrymen/women who are still suffering the aftermath of 9/11 should not lay the total blame on the terrorists; they should look into our own government's heart of darkness. So, we (some of us bloggers) will all be in good company when we join each other on America's growing "blacklist" and mourn, together, the death of freedom and our country's part in the murder of innocents.
And I add here, as well, that I see that same shadow devouring all of the parties who continue to escalate the situation in the Middle East. There are no good guys in any of this – at least no good governments. Whatever good is left in any of us is hiding in our individual hearts, cowering in fear of being labeled “enemy sympathizers.” Except for a few brave souls who still remain true to The Golden Rule or the ethic of reciprocity, which is found in the scriptures of nearly every religion. Perhaps we have finally succeeded in killing all of our gods and our humanity as well.
Comments
While I’ve been riding my feminist bloghorse, there have been much more important issues being wrestled with on some of the blogs I most respect – and they all seemed to have checked in on the issue in the Comments section of burningbird’s blog – here and here and here. In a way, it might have been fortuitous that I missed it all because I tend to shoot off my mouth from the hip when I get caught up in the heat of the moment. (Heh. What an image that conveys!)
So now that the ashes are down to a smolder, I’ll state my position in less fiery terms than I might have had I dashed into the fray earlier. I made this comment on burningbird’s blog, but I think I need to say it here more publicly:
I have very strong viewpoints about any number of things, but I never would pull anyone's blog off my roll because they disagree with me. What I might do, however, is make a separate blogroll section called "dissenting opinions" or something like that if I wanted to make sure that my blog was not directly associated with theirs -- although they would have to be really extremists on all fronts before I'd relegate them to the hinterlands of my blogroll. …I not only agree with burningbird's "viewpoint," but I'm more and more despairing of the America in which I want to be a proud citizen. Our government has definitely let its shadow side eat up its heart and humanity. We are reaping what we have sown. My American countrymen/women who are still suffering the aftermath of 9/11 should not lay the total blame on the terrorists; they should look into our own government's heart of darkness. So, we (some of us bloggers) will all be in good company when we join each other on America's growing "blacklist" and mourn, together, the death of freedom and our country's part in the murder of innocents.
And I add here, as well, that I see that same shadow devouring all of the parties who continue to escalate the situation in the Middle East. There are no good guys in any of this – at least no good governments. Whatever good is left in any of us is hiding in our individual hearts, cowering in fear of being labeled “enemy sympathizers.” Except for a few brave souls who still remain true to The Golden Rule or the ethic of reciprocity, which is found in the scriptures of nearly every religion. Perhaps we have finally succeeded in killing all of our gods and our humanity as well.
Comments
Monday, March 25, 2002
History, whether fact or myth, is the story according to whoever is telling (or writing) it.
Tonight’s “biography” segment on the A&E channel was on Jezebel, the Phoenician princess whom the writer of her story in the Old Testament labeled a “harlot.” According to A&E, Jezebel was the daughter of Ethbaal, King of Tyre and Sidon, and wife of King Ahab of Israel (869--850). She introduced Phoenician habits (and religion) to the capital, Samaria, thus earning the undying enmity of the prophet Elijah and his successors. After Ahab's death, Jezebel was the power behind the throne of her sons until the usurper Jehu seized power in an army coup. He had Jezebel thrown from a window, and trampled her to death under his chariot.
The perspective of the A&E biography is the story of the woman ... who rose to infamy as the queen of Israel. Being a foreigner, a woman, and one who worshiped foreign gods, Jezebel was a triple threat to the people of influence in Israel. From the moment of her arrival in Israel, her independence, aggressiveness, and desire for power earned her archenemies dedicated to her overthrow. After surviving economic and political turmoil, she finally met her match with Elijah, one of Israel's most revered prophets. Ultimately, she was murdered, leaving behind a legacy that remains today. But was Jezebel truly an evil despot, or simply a misunderstood and unappreciated woman who was ahead of her time? [emphasis mine]
As is its custom, the “Biography” program interviews various teachers, researchers, and writers with some expertise on the life and times of the person whose life is being examined. In the context of the current blogversations in process about religion and spirituality (all from the perspective of male-dominated religious persuasions), it might be worth those involved in these conversations to take a peek at these biographies scheduled for this week on A&E’s “Biography:” Mary Magdalene, Salome, Adam and Eve, and repeated on Easter Sunday, Jezebel.
Because of one-sided history telling, today, any woman who has strength, a voice, who has power and who is at odds with a political or religious establishment is likely to be called a “Jezebel.” Yet, there is enough research to suggest that the original Jezebel was, instead, a strong, courageous, loyal woman who stood up for what she believed in, who remained loyal to her father’s house, her family, and her religion, and, as a result, she was murdered at the hands of General Jehu, who was sent to commit the deed by the famous biblical prophet Elijah.
Jezebel was no angel. She had her armies fight and murder her enemies, just as her enemies in Israel did the other way around. She fought and killed in the name of her Gods, just as the Bible says the Israelites fought against her in the name of their Yahweh. But somehow she winds up as the “Queen of Infamy” while Elijah is hailed as a great prophet and leader.
Guess who wrote down that story.
For a broader perspective on Bible-based stories and other cultural mythologies, check out the scholarly publication edited by Carolyne Larrington, The Feminist Companion to Mythology.
Comments
Tonight’s “biography” segment on the A&E channel was on Jezebel, the Phoenician princess whom the writer of her story in the Old Testament labeled a “harlot.” According to A&E, Jezebel was the daughter of Ethbaal, King of Tyre and Sidon, and wife of King Ahab of Israel (869--850). She introduced Phoenician habits (and religion) to the capital, Samaria, thus earning the undying enmity of the prophet Elijah and his successors. After Ahab's death, Jezebel was the power behind the throne of her sons until the usurper Jehu seized power in an army coup. He had Jezebel thrown from a window, and trampled her to death under his chariot.
The perspective of the A&E biography is the story of the woman ... who rose to infamy as the queen of Israel. Being a foreigner, a woman, and one who worshiped foreign gods, Jezebel was a triple threat to the people of influence in Israel. From the moment of her arrival in Israel, her independence, aggressiveness, and desire for power earned her archenemies dedicated to her overthrow. After surviving economic and political turmoil, she finally met her match with Elijah, one of Israel's most revered prophets. Ultimately, she was murdered, leaving behind a legacy that remains today. But was Jezebel truly an evil despot, or simply a misunderstood and unappreciated woman who was ahead of her time? [emphasis mine]
As is its custom, the “Biography” program interviews various teachers, researchers, and writers with some expertise on the life and times of the person whose life is being examined. In the context of the current blogversations in process about religion and spirituality (all from the perspective of male-dominated religious persuasions), it might be worth those involved in these conversations to take a peek at these biographies scheduled for this week on A&E’s “Biography:” Mary Magdalene, Salome, Adam and Eve, and repeated on Easter Sunday, Jezebel.
Because of one-sided history telling, today, any woman who has strength, a voice, who has power and who is at odds with a political or religious establishment is likely to be called a “Jezebel.” Yet, there is enough research to suggest that the original Jezebel was, instead, a strong, courageous, loyal woman who stood up for what she believed in, who remained loyal to her father’s house, her family, and her religion, and, as a result, she was murdered at the hands of General Jehu, who was sent to commit the deed by the famous biblical prophet Elijah.
Jezebel was no angel. She had her armies fight and murder her enemies, just as her enemies in Israel did the other way around. She fought and killed in the name of her Gods, just as the Bible says the Israelites fought against her in the name of their Yahweh. But somehow she winds up as the “Queen of Infamy” while Elijah is hailed as a great prophet and leader.
Guess who wrote down that story.
For a broader perspective on Bible-based stories and other cultural mythologies, check out the scholarly publication edited by Carolyne Larrington, The Feminist Companion to Mythology.
Comments
The Lies We Watch
As the Academy Awards play out, I share herewith exerpts from a text of a local public radio interview with Steven A. Leibo Ph.D.,Professor of International History & Politics and Chair, Division of Social & Global Studies at Russell Sage College. His remarks were shared via email by a mutual friend.
I am always searching for ways to make the past more meaningful and to help people better understand the present -- constantly on the lookout for historically based materials that might excite my students about the wonders of our relationship with the past – to find works, from novels to films, to get them involved. And if some of those works perhaps distort the past, get it wrong because their creators are more interested in commercial advantage than educational advance – that is not a problem. Rather, it is something I can fix later, after the students -- inspired by seeing The Name of the Rose on medieval Europe, or the film on Gandhi on South Asia -- are finally listening.
And so it is not surprising that I went off last weekend to see the film We Were Soldiers Once, ironically doing so just as another generation of Americans were apparently dying in the snowy mountains of Afghanistan, fighting and dying as they did so often during Vietnam from the doorways of helicopters. And in truth, I had little choice about seeing it. After all, I had spent years studying and teaching about that struggle and leading groups of vets and teachers throughout Vietnam every year, and I know I would be asked constantly what I thought. So with some optimism, I set off, thinking perhaps that after so many years the pain that distorted and politicized so many earlier Vietnam films -- from the Deer Hunter to Platoon -- would have subsided and we might have a more nuanced presentation. And there is plenty of need for such a film – one that would depict in a more balanced fashion that struggle that began with so many good intentions.
That seemed a reasonable enough expectation, after all it was based on that powerful book, We Were Soldiers Once and Young by Harold Moore, the battle’s commanding officers and Joseph Galloway, a reporter who took part, and it is set in early 1965, before the anger and cynicism born of later frustrations had begun.
So I set off, not with any particular mind set, though I had read the book and met people who took part, had myself wandered in the Valley of Death it depicts, waiting to see what the film’s producers had done with our newest effort to tell the story of those young men who went off to war, valiantly hoping to defend the values of America as their fathers had once fought in World War II and Korea.
But what I found, after two hours of extreme bloodshed, was a film still too tied to the controversies of that era, that was afraid to even mention them -- a film that chose to simply let the flow of blood so graphically recreated for us by the makers substitute for real understanding of the sacrifices and patriotic motives of so many who fought in those early ears of Vietnam struggle.
In fact, not once in the entire film is there a discussion of why any of this is going on, not even that good fight against Communism, whose later collapse in the face of its many mistakes ultimately confirmed the importance of our struggle against it. But the film is afraid to even make the statement -- literally to even say the word. And what of the larger issue – that 20th-century-long planet-wide effort to end western colonization, which provided so much of the motivation among the Vietnamese for their struggle first against France, and then later the United States. It has been buried as deeply as anti-communism.
Not even for a moment do the producers try to enlighten us -- even as they so expertly show bodies blown apart and strong men dying stoically – with even a few of the reasons behind all this violence. And to make matters worse, fearing to explain the real issues, the producers fall back on the old cliché of turning the enemy into animals. The film opens in fact with a group of charmingly western French soldiers being ambushed by Vietnamese fighters, without even giving us a moment of reflect on what the French might be doing there, claiming curiously that the French did not know the terrain -- as if they had not held Vietnam as a colony for a century and were not, even as that very scene played out, trying to regain their colony lost during the Second World War. There was no effort to explain that embarrassing reality.
We are merely shown over and over again the word “massacre” printed neatly as a caption in an old French book on war, making it clear to everyone in the audience -- in case they later somehow managed to fall asleep during the constant images of swarming North Vietnamese soldiers -- that the Vietnamese just don’t seem to like westerners and have an especially rude habit of killing any western soldier with the temerity to show up armed on their territory. And those images are so vivid – those images of swarming Vietnamese – that it makes the occasional effort to portray the Vietnamese as humans look like sops to an after-the-fact political correctness committee.
And so I left the theatre, a theatre filled with young people on dates and a few older Americans sitting quietly alone deep in their own thoughts, wondering when or even if we would have a real film on that era – a film that would actually help us understand what happened in southeast Asia so many years ago …..
So, what are we left with in this age, so unwilling to look honestly and seriously at anything substantial – an age when the idea of a big event is staging a boxing match between Amy Fisher and Tanya Harding, when ABC’s Nightline is threatened with cancellation to make way for David letterman’s stupid pet tricks.
Comments
As the Academy Awards play out, I share herewith exerpts from a text of a local public radio interview with Steven A. Leibo Ph.D.,Professor of International History & Politics and Chair, Division of Social & Global Studies at Russell Sage College. His remarks were shared via email by a mutual friend.
I am always searching for ways to make the past more meaningful and to help people better understand the present -- constantly on the lookout for historically based materials that might excite my students about the wonders of our relationship with the past – to find works, from novels to films, to get them involved. And if some of those works perhaps distort the past, get it wrong because their creators are more interested in commercial advantage than educational advance – that is not a problem. Rather, it is something I can fix later, after the students -- inspired by seeing The Name of the Rose on medieval Europe, or the film on Gandhi on South Asia -- are finally listening.
And so it is not surprising that I went off last weekend to see the film We Were Soldiers Once, ironically doing so just as another generation of Americans were apparently dying in the snowy mountains of Afghanistan, fighting and dying as they did so often during Vietnam from the doorways of helicopters. And in truth, I had little choice about seeing it. After all, I had spent years studying and teaching about that struggle and leading groups of vets and teachers throughout Vietnam every year, and I know I would be asked constantly what I thought. So with some optimism, I set off, thinking perhaps that after so many years the pain that distorted and politicized so many earlier Vietnam films -- from the Deer Hunter to Platoon -- would have subsided and we might have a more nuanced presentation. And there is plenty of need for such a film – one that would depict in a more balanced fashion that struggle that began with so many good intentions.
That seemed a reasonable enough expectation, after all it was based on that powerful book, We Were Soldiers Once and Young by Harold Moore, the battle’s commanding officers and Joseph Galloway, a reporter who took part, and it is set in early 1965, before the anger and cynicism born of later frustrations had begun.
So I set off, not with any particular mind set, though I had read the book and met people who took part, had myself wandered in the Valley of Death it depicts, waiting to see what the film’s producers had done with our newest effort to tell the story of those young men who went off to war, valiantly hoping to defend the values of America as their fathers had once fought in World War II and Korea.
But what I found, after two hours of extreme bloodshed, was a film still too tied to the controversies of that era, that was afraid to even mention them -- a film that chose to simply let the flow of blood so graphically recreated for us by the makers substitute for real understanding of the sacrifices and patriotic motives of so many who fought in those early ears of Vietnam struggle.
In fact, not once in the entire film is there a discussion of why any of this is going on, not even that good fight against Communism, whose later collapse in the face of its many mistakes ultimately confirmed the importance of our struggle against it. But the film is afraid to even make the statement -- literally to even say the word. And what of the larger issue – that 20th-century-long planet-wide effort to end western colonization, which provided so much of the motivation among the Vietnamese for their struggle first against France, and then later the United States. It has been buried as deeply as anti-communism.
Not even for a moment do the producers try to enlighten us -- even as they so expertly show bodies blown apart and strong men dying stoically – with even a few of the reasons behind all this violence. And to make matters worse, fearing to explain the real issues, the producers fall back on the old cliché of turning the enemy into animals. The film opens in fact with a group of charmingly western French soldiers being ambushed by Vietnamese fighters, without even giving us a moment of reflect on what the French might be doing there, claiming curiously that the French did not know the terrain -- as if they had not held Vietnam as a colony for a century and were not, even as that very scene played out, trying to regain their colony lost during the Second World War. There was no effort to explain that embarrassing reality.
We are merely shown over and over again the word “massacre” printed neatly as a caption in an old French book on war, making it clear to everyone in the audience -- in case they later somehow managed to fall asleep during the constant images of swarming North Vietnamese soldiers -- that the Vietnamese just don’t seem to like westerners and have an especially rude habit of killing any western soldier with the temerity to show up armed on their territory. And those images are so vivid – those images of swarming Vietnamese – that it makes the occasional effort to portray the Vietnamese as humans look like sops to an after-the-fact political correctness committee.
And so I left the theatre, a theatre filled with young people on dates and a few older Americans sitting quietly alone deep in their own thoughts, wondering when or even if we would have a real film on that era – a film that would actually help us understand what happened in southeast Asia so many years ago …..
So, what are we left with in this age, so unwilling to look honestly and seriously at anything substantial – an age when the idea of a big event is staging a boxing match between Amy Fisher and Tanya Harding, when ABC’s Nightline is threatened with cancellation to make way for David letterman’s stupid pet tricks.
Comments
Sunday, March 24, 2002
I, Faithless
Jonathan Delacour and Mike Golby continue their examination of spiritual beliefs. I have come to a place similar to Jonathan's, largely by the same Catholic route, through Jung, but then onto other kinds of books -- Merlin Stone, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Robert Graves, Elaine Pagels, Annie Dillard....
What research and writing ultimately shows, it seems to me, is that we humans continue to create and re-create our gods in our own images. And then, when we allow our worst human nationalistic tendencies to motivate us to commit crimes against those not of our politics or faith, we can say -- not "the devil made me do it" but "it is the will of god." In his almighty name, we kill for land, for economic, political, and cultural control; we kill because we believe that we are right and "they" are wrong, because the god they created doesn't exist but the one we created does. Many individual members of organized religions live as good, moral, and compassionate people -- but not necessarily because of what their religious institutions are and have been, but rather in spite of them. Whether consciously or not, they live by the universal golden rule of "do unto others...." And in doing so, to me they prove the basic irrelevance of organized religion. (Except, of course, these institutions do provide employment for scholars, writers, monks, and clerics of all persuasions. And they give people a sense of belonging. I can get that from blogging.)
I place my faith in the wisdom of poetry. I breathe what I am: the first and last of all things. (Theodore Roethke)
There is no messiah but us.
Comments
Jonathan Delacour and Mike Golby continue their examination of spiritual beliefs. I have come to a place similar to Jonathan's, largely by the same Catholic route, through Jung, but then onto other kinds of books -- Merlin Stone, Jean Shinoda Bolen, Robert Graves, Elaine Pagels, Annie Dillard....
What research and writing ultimately shows, it seems to me, is that we humans continue to create and re-create our gods in our own images. And then, when we allow our worst human nationalistic tendencies to motivate us to commit crimes against those not of our politics or faith, we can say -- not "the devil made me do it" but "it is the will of god." In his almighty name, we kill for land, for economic, political, and cultural control; we kill because we believe that we are right and "they" are wrong, because the god they created doesn't exist but the one we created does. Many individual members of organized religions live as good, moral, and compassionate people -- but not necessarily because of what their religious institutions are and have been, but rather in spite of them. Whether consciously or not, they live by the universal golden rule of "do unto others...." And in doing so, to me they prove the basic irrelevance of organized religion. (Except, of course, these institutions do provide employment for scholars, writers, monks, and clerics of all persuasions. And they give people a sense of belonging. I can get that from blogging.)
I place my faith in the wisdom of poetry. I breathe what I am: the first and last of all things. (Theodore Roethke)
There is no messiah but us.
Comments
Whatever World This Is, I Want to Be a Part of It
Spurred by David Weinberger's new book, Small Pieces Loosely Joined , there is all of this dense discussion still going on among webloggers about the nature of the "web." In her post on "Figments of Reality," Daniela of livingcode discusses these discussions. Her words reflects why I am so engaged in weblogging and its potential for human/e development. She says:
It is a temple that transcends space and territory. It is spaceless in the sense that not one person can claim this space as in the real world. But it is also a place that a lot of people want to partake of, and do so very well. It is extelligence. Is it for the lack of such physical spaces that we seek a virtual one? Or is it because we feel comfortable on neutral teritory, where the possibility of a superculture transpires more readily?
Extelligence. Superculture.
Does that make Blogtank the Extelligence Superforce?
Comments
Spurred by David Weinberger's new book, Small Pieces Loosely Joined , there is all of this dense discussion still going on among webloggers about the nature of the "web." In her post on "Figments of Reality," Daniela of livingcode discusses these discussions. Her words reflects why I am so engaged in weblogging and its potential for human/e development. She says:
It is a temple that transcends space and territory. It is spaceless in the sense that not one person can claim this space as in the real world. But it is also a place that a lot of people want to partake of, and do so very well. It is extelligence. Is it for the lack of such physical spaces that we seek a virtual one? Or is it because we feel comfortable on neutral teritory, where the possibility of a superculture transpires more readily?
Extelligence. Superculture.
Does that make Blogtank the Extelligence Superforce?
Comments
Sunday Morning Coming Down
Unnhh. Too much sugar on that bus trip yestersay. Chocolate chip cookies on the bus; Pepsis at the Flower Show; chocolate mint fudge and m&m covered pretzels after lunch and on the way back. I look at Marek's post, including instructions for signing up at the new Blogtank and I want to go back to bed. (What am I doing here? I know what I'm doing here. This is not my world. This is my world. Marek's mania is contagious.) Boy, he must really crash after one of those manic caffeine-high pseudoterraforming binges. He could have flown all the way to Poland on his own last night.
Unnnhh. I think I bruised a rib the other day when a door I was pulling open rebounded and smacked me on my left side, head included. (I had stashed something behind the door and didn't realize it was sticking out that far. See, older isn't really wiser, is it?)
Comments
Unnhh. Too much sugar on that bus trip yestersay. Chocolate chip cookies on the bus; Pepsis at the Flower Show; chocolate mint fudge and m&m covered pretzels after lunch and on the way back. I look at Marek's post, including instructions for signing up at the new Blogtank and I want to go back to bed. (What am I doing here? I know what I'm doing here. This is not my world. This is my world. Marek's mania is contagious.) Boy, he must really crash after one of those manic caffeine-high pseudoterraforming binges. He could have flown all the way to Poland on his own last night.
Unnnhh. I think I bruised a rib the other day when a door I was pulling open rebounded and smacked me on my left side, head included. (I had stashed something behind the door and didn't realize it was sticking out that far. See, older isn't really wiser, is it?)
Comments
Halley and I Missed Our Big Chance
Halley Suit and her family were in downtown Boston today. Just think! We might have had a chance to meet if we only had known.
Comments
Halley Suit and her family were in downtown Boston today. Just think! We might have had a chance to meet if we only had known.
Comments
October Sky in March
On the way back on the bus tonight from a long day at the big Boston Flower Show, we watched the movie October Sky, about the kids who were inspired to figure out how to build their own rockets after watching Sputnik sail across the sky in October of 1957. I had seen the movie before, so I allowed myself to doze on and off while I listened to the sound track of my life at 17 as a freshman in college -- sorority rushing, falling for a fraternity guy, getting pinned, going to formal dances, learning how to drink lots of huge 10 cent glasses of beer without getting drunk, cutting classes on Friday afternoons to start the weekend's dancing, getting unpinned, and barely making the 2.5 grade point average that allowed me to go back the next year.
Like a lot of people, I review my life in the context of the songs that were popular in each of my life’s eras. Last week, I heard on the radio a bunch of Simon and Garfunkel songs, and they took me back to when my marriage was breaking up – Sounds of Silence, The Dangling Conversation, Bookends, Patterns, Cloudy. Every time I hear those songs I’m back being 33 again and watching my life fall apart around me and my two kids. When I hear For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her I have a good cry for the romantic girl I once was who thought love would be all I needed, that love would be enough. And every time I hear early Carly Simon, or disco's Donna Summer, I am back re-inventing myself into several different people at the same time so that I can explore so many of the things in life that I missed as a young and totally clueless wife.
And every time I start to wonder if the choices I made were the right ones and to fret about what the future might hold, I play my all-time favorite song as sung by Mary Travers. It reminds me that when one door closes, another door opens. We just have to keep going.
All my life's a circle/ Sunrise and sundown/ Moon rolls thru the nighttime/ Till the daybreak comes around./ All my life's a circle/ But I can't tell you why/ Season's spinning round again/ The years keep rollin' by./ It seems like I've been here before/ I can't remember when/ But I have this funny feeling/ That I’ll be back once again./ No straight lines make up my life/ And all my roads have bends/ There's no clear-cut beginnings/ And so far no dead-ends.
Comments
On the way back on the bus tonight from a long day at the big Boston Flower Show, we watched the movie October Sky, about the kids who were inspired to figure out how to build their own rockets after watching Sputnik sail across the sky in October of 1957. I had seen the movie before, so I allowed myself to doze on and off while I listened to the sound track of my life at 17 as a freshman in college -- sorority rushing, falling for a fraternity guy, getting pinned, going to formal dances, learning how to drink lots of huge 10 cent glasses of beer without getting drunk, cutting classes on Friday afternoons to start the weekend's dancing, getting unpinned, and barely making the 2.5 grade point average that allowed me to go back the next year.
Like a lot of people, I review my life in the context of the songs that were popular in each of my life’s eras. Last week, I heard on the radio a bunch of Simon and Garfunkel songs, and they took me back to when my marriage was breaking up – Sounds of Silence, The Dangling Conversation, Bookends, Patterns, Cloudy. Every time I hear those songs I’m back being 33 again and watching my life fall apart around me and my two kids. When I hear For Emily, Wherever I May Find Her I have a good cry for the romantic girl I once was who thought love would be all I needed, that love would be enough. And every time I hear early Carly Simon, or disco's Donna Summer, I am back re-inventing myself into several different people at the same time so that I can explore so many of the things in life that I missed as a young and totally clueless wife.
And every time I start to wonder if the choices I made were the right ones and to fret about what the future might hold, I play my all-time favorite song as sung by Mary Travers. It reminds me that when one door closes, another door opens. We just have to keep going.
All my life's a circle/ Sunrise and sundown/ Moon rolls thru the nighttime/ Till the daybreak comes around./ All my life's a circle/ But I can't tell you why/ Season's spinning round again/ The years keep rollin' by./ It seems like I've been here before/ I can't remember when/ But I have this funny feeling/ That I’ll be back once again./ No straight lines make up my life/ And all my roads have bends/ There's no clear-cut beginnings/ And so far no dead-ends.
Comments
