Tag: politics

Dr. Martin Luther King, the Eight Commandments, and Bending the Arc of History

Little things like this are why I love and admire MLK and, by extension, humans in general. I’d like to suggest to you that the first eight items on this list would make an *excellent* daily substitute for the 10 Commandments. If you’re not natively inclined to be Of the Book, then please consider the possibility that this constitutes an acceptable non-sectarian Watchword (if you wanna strike “pray for guidance and” from Commandment #3, I’ve got no beef with that; it all amounts to the same thing as far as me and my Magic(k)al Sky Faerie are concerned).

Remember: The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice—provided that we get up every morning and put our weight towards bending that mutherfucker. It ain’t gonna bend on its own.

The 8 Commandments might read:

  1. Not all people in power are opposed to Justice. Accept goodwill on the part of many.
  2. All resources are for the use of all people. Take a vacant seat.
  3. Pray for guidance and commit yourself to complete non-violence in word and action.
  4. Demonstrate the calm dignity of our people in your actions.
  5. In all things observe ordinary rules of courtesy and good behavior.
  6. Remember that this is not a victory for us alone, but for all humanity. Do not boast! Do not brag!
  7. Be quiet but friendly; proud, but not arrogant; joyous, but not boisterous.
  8. Be loving enough to absorb evil and understanding enough to turn an enemy into a friend.

These are our commandments now. Keep them in your hearts, teach them to your children, talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you rise up. Bind them as symbols on your arm. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. Hear, and be careful to obey, so that it may go well with us and that we may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of our ancestors, promised us.

Amen

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s Eight Commandments

(document via Slate)

Continue reading “Dr. Martin Luther King, the Eight Commandments, and Bending the Arc of History”

On Micro-agression and Macro-depression and Xmas/Xanukah (with bonus tracks!!!)

Hey All,
I continue to write a monthly column for the Ann Arbor Chronicle. This time around it’s on math and Jews and *The Holidays* and microagression and Thoth and Ganeesh and Hobby Lobby and so on. Somewhere in the later half I say something like this:

The Ann Arbor Chronicle | In It For The Money: Happy Holidays!

. . .
This is incredibly frustrating – because the equivalence, driven by a well-intentioned desire to be inclusive – is so needless. Xanukah isn’t a “Jewish Xmas.” It’s Xanukah – a relatively minor religious holiday celebrating a military victory. If anything, it’s sort of a Jewish Fourth of July – which is more apt, but just as nonsensical. Similarly, Ramadan isn’t a “Muslim Lent,” Diwali isn’t “Hindu Halloween” – or even a “Hindu Xanukah,” despite the fact that Diwali is also the “Festival of Lights.”
Inclusion is nice, but you do it by including others in the stuff you are doing, not by arguing that their things are sub-functions of yours. We’re not idiots; we haven’t failed to notice that the entirely secular “Holiday Break” from school conveniently centers around Xmas and the Gregorian calendar roll-over date, and that “Spring Break” is aimed to coincide with Easter – not Passover.
One of the principal privileges of being in the Majority is that you get to be, by definition, “normal.” You don’t find yourself constantly contradicted by outsiders – well-meaning television shows and well-wishers and folks planning office parties – as to what your holy days mean. You don’t have to wrestle with autocorrect about the spelling of your holidays and well wishes. You don’t have to disclose a lot of personal details to explain why this or that day is no good for a meeting, because no one schedules a meeting for December 25th.
. . .

BONUS GIFT! Back in the day I used to record Holiday Music of my Own Devising, because it was fun, and because when push comes to shove, from a strumming-and-singing-and-programming-sequencers perspective, there are *a lot* of great Xmas songs. Here are my offerings, in reverse chronological order. Enjoy!

(FUN FACT: I wrote this while hanging out with my infant son all day, and have played it annually ever since; my son believes it is an accepted part of the general Xmas Music Canon.)

  • Dreidel Bells (FUN FACT: The beat here is an original GameBoy running an early German Nanoloop cartridge. Both voices are obviously me, but the filters for the robot voice badly overburdened my iBook, causing significant lag–which is why Mr. Roboto struggles so badly to hit his marks.)
  • DreidelDreidelDreidel (FUN FACT: The beat here is a vintage analog Boss DR-55 once owned by POE, crammed through a heavy-metal distortion stompbox.)