Bumper Stickers

December 5, 2010

So I was out driving this morning and noticed a car with not one but FOUR of the same bumper sticker on it. It was one of them Red Cross stickers saying to give blood. Four of that sticker, side by side, on that car’s bumper.

You see cars like this now and then. For some reason there needs to be like five Obama ’08 stickers because just one doesn’t get the message across. Or interestingly enough, seeing more than one of the same environmental sticker.

I wonder the point. I mean, more than one sticker of a similar message, yeah, that makes sense. But of identical stickers, right next to each other, can’t see one without being able to see the other. You slightly sacrifice the aesthetic appeal of your car to have these stickers on there, so you’d think that space being used should be used well and efficiently. I’ve got a NYRA bumper sticker on my car, the “Constitutional Rights Are Not Just For Adults” one, though it’s been on there a few years and I’ve been meaning to take it off and slap a fresh one on there. Might put a second on there, perhaps one of the two that debuted this year, “Age Is Not An Accomplishment, Youth Is Not a Sin” or the rather nice “Students Are Not School Property”. In any case, it won’t be just another Constitutional Rights one next to the other one. That is just silly.

The Holidays

December 4, 2010

Oh, a chat! Let’s listen in…

Christmas: Hey, Chanukah, how’s it going? On your, what, 4th night now?

Chanukah: Yup. And you’re still three weeks away, I see.

Christmas: Why are we so far apart this year?

Chanukah: Happens.

Christmas: I don’t like it. Prefer you were closer to me, so your people and mine could celebrate at the same time!

Chanukah: I’m usually closer to you. But maybe I prefer it this way. Everyone thinks I’m just a Jewish version of you anyway, when that is so not true.

Christmas: Well, you’re similar in a way.

Chanukah: How so? My celebration is about our candle oil lasting eight days instead of just one when we were trying to rededicate our temple after we were attacked. Yours is about… God having a kid.

Christmas: I mean the lights! Yes, there was Jesus, but that involved a big star lighting up the night sky. Yours too involves lots of lights when things looked dark. Not to mention countless other Winter Solstice celebrations that have merged with me, all with the same basic idea of celebrating light and warmth when the world is otherwise cold and dark.

Chanukah: Yeah, that’s another reason I don’t want to get too close to you. You’re sort of a December holiday Wal-Mart. It seems every single Winter Solstice or other celebration this time of year has just gotten sucked into you. Well, it’s not happening to me!

Christmas: It’s not so bad. Look, your days jump around all the time. Maybe if you were more a part of me, they’d be set days for once. Less confusing.

Chanukah: *choke* What?! I do begin on a set day. I start on the 25th of Kislev. The Gregorian calendar isn’t the only calendar, you know!

Christmas: Okay, okay. I’m sorry. But, hey, we’re both the 25th of a month! That’s something!

Chanukah: No, it’s not. Just… stop. We’re not merging. Menorahs and dreidls will not be part of you. They’re ours.

Christmas: Well, that doesn’t seem fair. Everyone can join us! Trees and wreaths and candy canes and presents for all!

Chanukah: It’s just a matter of preserving our traditions. Besides, we do have presents. We give gifts on each of the eight nights.

Christmas: Ah, you do exchange gifts then?

Chanukah: Yup. Our families meet for meals, light the candles, exchange the gifts, sing songs, play games, and do all sorts of other things.

Christmas: I’ve pretty much got all that, too.

Chanukah: So it’s even less reason for a merger. Besides, plenty of my people still celebrate Christmas.

Christmas: And that’s wonderful. The more the merrier.

Chanukah: 🙂

Christmas: Ohhhh… I see what you did there…

Children’s Art

December 3, 2010

So at my job, just like everywhere else this time of year, we get holiday cards from people and businesses we’ve dealt with over time. Our first one arrived a couple days ago, with some artistic image of Texan cowboy boots or something on it (that’s Christmassy somehow, I guess?). Well, it was one of those cards where their images are made by children as some sort of charity thing. Okay, that’s cool.

Except when I glanced at the back of the card, then I got annoyed. Among the explanations that the cards help kids with cancer, good stuff like that, was that this card’s artist was from Midland, Texas… and was 18 years old.

Uhh, no. Just… no!
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Vindicated!

December 2, 2010

I hate cheese.

That’s one infamous thing about me that anyone who knows me even a little bit knows or will find out soon enough. When I first mention it, I get some strange looks and shocked reactions, as if I’d just praised Satan or something. Some wonder if I’m healthy. Some ask if or assume I’m a vegan. A college roommate said “but cheese is a nutrient!” (If that quote hurt your brain a little, that’s nothing. The same girl once told me that I shouldn’t carry such a heavy backpack or I’ll give myself cerebral palsy… yeah.) I’m not really a big fan of dairy products in general. Don’t care for yogurt. Only ever buy milk if it’s to have it with cereal. I like ice cream, of course, but most ice cream has very little milk in it anyway. I was glad to notice on a Cool Whip tub one time that it contains no dairy (or, well, at the time, it does now). I mentioned this to someone and the immediate response was “yeah, I know, that sucks, stick to Redi-Whip instead” or something like that. They just assumed the observation of no dairy was to me a bad thing, but not at all. To be normal, you must want lots and lots of dairy products.

Then I saw yesterday’s Cracked list, 6 Insane Conspiracies Hiding Behind Non-Profit Groups. Go read it. I’ll wait.
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Guilt by Demographic

December 1, 2010

To begin yet another December Entry-a-Day Blogathon here on Sure, Why Not?, here’s a resentful, unforgiving edition of…

SHUT THE HELL UP!!!!

These anti-Semitic assholes who refer to the Jews as a whole as “Christ killers”. Drives me up the damn wall. They are so-called Christian assholes who hate Jews and want to excuse this feeling as justified because “oh noes, they killed Jesus!” Never mind that Jesus himself was Jewish, as were his mother and disciples! Never mind that it was the Romans who had at least as much a hand in the crucifixion as the Jews did, yet I don’t see anyone referring to Italians as Christ killers.

Of course, feels pointless to say that this is irrational. That’s a given. All hate is irrational.
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I’m Only Half Arab

November 26, 2010

So yesterday was Thanksgiving, and we did one thing a little different. Rather than just stuffing our faces at our own house, we fixed some food and drove into Virginia to my aunt’s house to spend yesterday evening there. This aunt is my mother’s sister, and my mother’s side of my family are Christian Palestinians. My dad’s side are just boring WASPs. So that makes me, of course, half Arab.

What does it mean to be half Arab? Well…

I’m only half Arab. I eat my hummus… with tortilla chips!

I’m only half Arab. I make spinach fatayer… meaning I stuff a spinach filling into Pillsbury biscuits!

I’m only half Arab. I’m willing to martyr myself for what is right… by telling my relatives that my Jewish friends are awesome!

I’m only half Arab. A distant cousin tells me in Arabic that I’m wonderful… and I actually have no idea what she just said but I’m sure she’s pissed at me!

I’m only half Arab. I like to make tabbouleh… except the bulghur wheat is a pain in the ass, so it’s really just chopped tomatoes and cucumbers in a bowl. Close enough!

I’m only half Arab. Sometimes I get “randomly” selected at airport security… and sometimes I don’t!

I’m only half Arab. I’ll take my baklava… alongside a nice piece of pumpkin pie!

I’m only half Arab. I drink coffee from a teeny tiny little cup… while watching the Thanksgiving NFL game!

I’m only half Arab. I go to bed at 2am… which my family tells me is way too early!

I’m only half Arab. I yell everything I say… which makes me the quiet one!

I’m only half Arab. My relatives go on and on about how I need to find a good man and get married… which I just sort of ignore.

Aladdin and Two Genies

November 23, 2010

So I just finished watching Aladdin on ABC Family. Love that movie! Even taking into account I’m partial to Disney movies in general, it’s awesome. Hard to believe it’s been eighteen whole years since it came out, and I still have most of the songs memorized. And I recall how, back in like 1992, we were all amazed at the wonderful graphics that went into the Cave of Wonders tiger entrance.

But, as often happens when you see a movie you’ve seen many times over many years, you start noticing things. You start to question why certain things happened one way when some other way would have made more sense. Or some other way would have solved or sidestepped a plot relevant problem entirely. Lord knows Cracked has any number of lists along those lines!

What I’m thinking of now is at the very end of the movie. I’m not giving a spoiler alert because, well, I’m not sure there’s anyone who hasn’t seen Aladdin, and even less likely anyone would, well, care about a spoiler to a damn Disney movie. They’re cartoonish fun, not murder mysteries.

Aladdin tricks Jafar into making his third wish, to become an all-powerful genie. So Genie does it and Jafar is all happy and powerful at first, only to get sucked into his newly materialized black lamp. In his itty bitty living space. Then Genie flicks the lamp off into the distance to the Cave of Wonders.
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Trick or Treat!

October 31, 2010

Now for a pumpkin-carving, spooky edition of…

Here’s to You!!!

So I raise my glass (or perhaps a Reese’s Cup!) and say, “Here’s to you, trick-or-treating!”

Happy Halloween!

As I write this, I’m sitting at my front door with my laptop, periodically getting up to pass out candy to lots of adorable neighborhood children in adorable costumes! Yay!

I have to say, I’m happy that the rise in helicopter parenting and stranger danger hasn’t totally demolished trick-or-treating, although those have certainly taken some massive blows to it, varying depending on location. When I was living at my grandmother’s house a few years ago, there weren’t very many kids around on Halloween, which was disappointing. But now that I’m in a different neighborhood, there are a bunch!

Yet I get people I know getting apathetic about it, who… ugh… don’t give out any candy and just leave the lights off that night. See, I could never do that. How could I not participate in trick-or-treating? I remember trick-or-treating myself, occasionally having to pass by the darkened doorsteps of my boring neighbors who seemed to be going “bah humbug!” to the whole thing. Makes no sense.

It’s great! Sitting all evening with a bowl of candy I’m totally taking from now and then. The kids come up, dressed up in costumes they put some amount of effort in, all smiles, and I give them some candy and they smile even bigger and say “thanks!” Awww! 😀

I sometimes wonder if this contributes to the objectification of children. I guess, the idea does seem to be “aww, you’re so cute! here’s a treat!” But I suppose that’s more a side thing, while there is good in the social aspect of visiting neighbors under happy terms, walking around the neighborhood on a lovely autumn evening (seriously, in my entire life, I think it has rained on Halloween only once or twice!). And it is an evening when, despite the occasional presence of parents to make sure Pedobear doesn’t attack, the kids themselves truly run the show. Therefore, we must keep up trick-or-treating, not grow apathetic, and keep Halloween and all the good clean fun it carries with it alive!

And to not ruin it by trying to make it more adult.

Although, for your information, absolutely none of the little girls I’ve seen out tonight, or on any Halloween, despite what the news says, have been dressed like prostitutes! 🙄

Religious Identity

September 29, 2010

I hereby decree…

I get to choose my own religious identity. You do not.

You know how annoying it is for people to decide for you which religious (or any other for that matter) box you fit in? Especially when it is contrary to what you have explicitly stated?

Some people fit in the neat little box of Christian, Jew, Muslim, Atheist, whatever. But not everybody does, in fact I’m certain most people don’t. And that’s where people get confused.

While I don’t really consider myself non-Christian, lately I’ve been going by Secular Theist. When asked what that means, I say “I believe God exists but I don’t believe in doing anything about it.”

And people totally just nod and say that’s cool…

Oh, wait, no they don’t. They instead insist I’m really agnostic. 🙄

Fuck you, I’m not agnostic. I do believe God exists. Agnostics believe there’s no way to know and may or may not lean either way. I do know God exists.

Or then I get called a Deist. No, I’m not damn Deist, either. Deists believe God created the universe. I do not believe God had anything to do with that. So, no, not a Deist.

Then they get really confused that I don’t believe in a Creator. So that must mean I’m really an Atheist!

No! I’m not an Atheist. What did I just say? I DO believe in God. Just because I may agree with most atheists when it comes to religious fundamentalism run amok, such as the God in School entry a few days ago, doesn’t mean I’m an atheist myself. Just because my belief in God doesn’t take the same form as that of most other theists, doesn’t mean I’m not still a theist.

Or then I get the “oh, you just THINK you aren’t an atheist but you totally are, lulz!” Funny, if I were an atheist, wouldn’t I then be smart enough to be able to have a better idea of my own religious identity than YOU? That must mean I’m either a stupid atheist or an intelligent theist. Can that idea sink into your mind? LOL PARADOX!

Or can you try the idea of not assigning useless labels to people based on what specific ideologies they may have? Or is that too hard?

Shine On

September 27, 2010

As you may recall, back on January 24, 2008, I lost my grandmother. As said in that title, she was supposed to live forever. But she didn’t. -_-

That’s okay! I still had another grandmother who was REALLY supposed to live forever! 😀

Er, no. We lost her last night to massive heart complications. 🙁

Widad S
March 25, 1926 – September 26, 2010

Nice job so far, 2010. First Nigel and now… my last grandparent! What the FUCK?! :doitnow:

Oh, damn, that’s right. My last grandparent. When I was born, I only had the two grandmothers to begin with, their husbands having died in the 1970s, long before I came along. Now they’re both gone, off into whatever happens next. Along with my grandmother, I suppose a certain aspect of my youth was lost with her. Now my parents are the elders. Weeeeeird.

So, what am I to do about it? I realize my response here seems very different from losing Grandma. Certainly doesn’t mean I’m mourning any less now. Just acknowledging that I perhaps deal with this differently from before, and, despite being related to them both in the same way, they still held different roles in my life.

And anyone’s death, especially a grandparent I suppose, serves to remind that we’re all like a whole lot of twinkling stars. We come into existence and shine and shine for however long before we are extinguished. Stars of course go billions of years. We humans go a hell of a lot shorter than that. So we must make sure we shine as bright as we can, and in doing so inspire the other stars to shine bright. Like a shiny chain reaction. Of shininess.

Yeah, what do you want? I didn’t study astronomy and got a D in physics. Whatever.

Anyway, scientific inaccuracy of metaphor notwithstanding, what are we doing to shine bright? What am I doing? Well, I’m with NYRA and as such trying to make the world better by promoting youth rights! Quite proud of that.

Then another thought occurred to me. My newly lost grandmother is my mom’s mom, the Arab side of my family. So, yeah, I’m part-Arab and working on civil rights activism. Nice.

I wonder what other Arab-blooded American activists there are…

Oh, wait…

SHIT!

I have a lot of work to do. :\

(Lower the drinking age.) 😉