Wowee, it’s been a while!

I went on a bit of a direction here towards Judaism, but most of my posts in that nature have gone into my other blog with The Girl Detective, so I haven’t had a lot to say in a while. Turns out I’ve been pretty busy, with work and things.

Work’s pretty good, actually - I’ve learned it’s possible for me to go down the project engineering path, rather than to stay in the technical side of things, and also that said path is not closed to me on account of being an engineering technologist, instead of an engineer. Which is good - I don’t want to take three more years of school now, I’m 25 and there’s a family to start soon!

I’ve been on a bit of a tear on Amazon, lately, with books by Martin Buber and Abraham Joshua Heschel (the politically correct choice for admiration, naturally), and I think they’re going to be coming in soon. Can’t wait! I also found out there’s a book on Ladino that’s going to be available in September, so I put that on pre-order too.

In other news, why are there so few books on process control that are actually readable? I understand that mathematical modeling is important, but that’s not really the entirety of the field by any means!

Message to the three devoted readers

I haven’t made much in the way of serious posts in, well, quite a while, and here’s why - I’m doing most of my “serious” commentary over at Modern Mitzvot instead, so this will probably be mostly about stuff that’s not applicable there, like personal stuff or whatever I else I occasionally find interesting. So there you have it!

A triumphant return, sort of

I admit, I’ve neglected this, and I apologize to the three of you who still read it, but just tonight I found this blast from the past, encapsulating everything that was hilarious about the world of 1980s rock:

Now bear in mind, I’ve never embedded anything before, so this might not work:

Frank Zappa Part One

I can’t help but notice that this whole site is named after a Frank Zappa song but I’ve had little to say about him in the month or so that this has been up.

Frank Vincent Zappa was best known for obscene and juvenile songs about sex in the most puerile manner - Dinah-Moe-Humm (look it up), Bobby Brown, Dirty Love, etc. Truth is, that was only one facet of his work.

As far as rock musicians go, Zappa’s comments on the racial situation and racial tensions in America are among the most incisive and pulling-no-punches (not sure that’s a phrase but OK) ever committed to music in the 60s and 70s.

On his first album, Freak Out! (first or one of the first double-LPs in rock history!), he recorded a song called Trouble Every Day which talked about the Watts riot and media coverage, but also mentioned things like class mobility and race:

———————–

Well I’m about to get sick
From watchin’ my TV
Been checkin’ out the news
Until my eyeballs fail to see
I mean to say that every day
Is just another rotten mess
And when it’s gonna change, my friend
Is anybody’s guess

So I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’
Hopin’ for the best
Even think I’ll go to prayin’
Every time I hear ‘em sayin’
That there’s no way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day

Wednesday I watched the riot . . .
Seen the cops out on the street
Watched ‘em throwin’ rocks and stuff
And chokin’ in the heat
Listened to reports
About the whisky passin’ ’round
Seen the smoke and fire
And the market burnin’ down
Watched while everybody
On his street would take a turn
To stomp and smash and bash and crash
And slash and bust and burn

And I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’
Hopin’ for the best
Even think I’ll go to prayin’
Every time I hear ‘em sayin’
That there’s no way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day

Well, you can cool it,
You can heat it . . .
‘Cause, baby, I don’t need it . . .
Take your TV tube and eat it
‘N all that phony stuff on sports
‘N all the unconfirmed reports
You know I watched that rotten box
Until my head begin to hurt
From checkin’ out the way
The newsman say they get the dirt
Before the guys on channel so-and-so

And further they assert
That any show they’ll interrupt
To bring you news if it comes up
They say that if the place blows up
They will be the first to tell,
Because the boys they got downtown
Are workin’ hard and doin’ swell,
And if anybody gets the news
Before it hits the street,
They say that no one blabs it faster
Their coverage can’t be beat

And if another woman driver
Gets machine-gunned from her seat
They’ll send some joker with a brownie
And you’ll see it all complete

So I’m watchin’ and I’m waitin’
Hopin’ for the best
Even think I’ll go to prayin’
Every time I hear ‘em sayin’
That there’s no way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day
No way to delay
That trouble comin’ every day

Hey, you know something people?
I’m not black
But there’s a whole lots a times
I wish I could say I’m not white

Well, I seen the fires burnin’
And the local people turnin’
On the merchants and the shops
Who used to sell their brooms and mops
And every other household item
Watched the mob just turn and bite ‘em
And they say it served ‘em right
Because a few of them are white,
And it’s the same across the nation
Black and white discrimination
Yellin’ “You can’t understand me!”
‘N all that other jazz they hand me
In the papers and TV and
All that mass stupidity
That seems to grow more every day
Each time you hear some nitwit say
He wants to go and do you in
Because the color of your skin
Just don’t appeal to him
(No matter if it’s black or white)
Because he’s out for blood tonight

You know we got to sit around at home
And watch this thing begin
But I bet there won’t be many live
To see it really end
‘Cause the fire in the street
Ain’t like the fire in the heart
And in the eyes of all these people
Don’t you know that this could start
On any street in any town
In any state if any clown
Decides that now’s the time to fight
For some ideal he thinks is right
And if a million more agree
There ain’t no Great Society
As it applies to you and me
Our country isn’t free
And the law refuses to see
If all that you can ever be
Is just a lousy janitor
Unless your uncle owns a store
You know that five in every four
Just won’t amount to nothin’ more
Gonna watch the rats go across the floor
And make up songs about being poor

———————————

Given today’s nomenclature, I think one thing can be said about Zappa and lyrically - he did sing about white people a lot and in his overall oeuvre (when he wasn’t mocking yuppie culture, hippie culture, 70s disco culture) he was aware of white privilege at a time when white liberals seemed to believe that the Civil Rights Act meant that racism was over. I certainly am not trying to say he was the only one writing stuff like that, just that it’s all the more jarring that a polarizing man known for crude insensitivity to a great deal of things also had awareness of these things, so I admit I find that kind of interesting, as problematic as a lot of his stuff is from this standpoint.

Weekly Parashat 2

I know I’m a day late, but the fiancee is going on another family vacation for eleven days, so I spent the day more or less with her.

So this week’s portion is Emor, which means “say” - it covers Leviticus 21:1-25:1. I will be honest, I don’t have a lot to say about this - there are a lot of rules for ritual purity and the Levite caste.

Starting with Leviticus 23, however, the rules for the major Jewish holidays are set down: the Sabbath, what becomes Rosh Hashanah, Passover, the Day of Atonement/Yom Kippur, and the holiday of booths, Sukkot.

Leviticus 23:27 uses a peculiar phrase that probably could use some explanation:

“You shall have a holy assembly, and you shall degrade themselves.”

It’s been pointed out that this is the same term describing how the Egyptians treated the Israelites, and generally means “oppressed”, either as a noun or adjective - or “to oppress, afflict, abuse” as a verb. (Friedman, 396). This is where the idea to not take care of oneself or eat came from, I would probably say.

There is an intriguing story to round out Leviticus 24, however. The son of an Egyptian father gets into a fight with an Israelite man, and profanes the name of God, so he was taken before Moses and stoned. Now, the barbarity of blasphemy aside, some say this story’s primary purpose is to show the importance and strictly observed equality before the law of the land for Israelite and foreigner, in this case Egyptian. (Friedman, 400).

What is also interesting, at least to me, is that the considered foreigner has an Israelite mother but an Egyptian father. It is most likely the Biblical, as opposed to post-Biblical, method of measuring descent, that inspired the Reform movement to use patrilineal in addition to matrilineal descent to define Jewishness.

Getting back to the story, it finishes off with God telling Moses to tell the congregation that all the people in the land of Israel, citizen and foreigner alike, are under the law for blasphemy. This is also emphasized at the end of Leviticus 24, showing how important equality under the law is for the Torah. At least, from a citizen’s perspective.

Finally, we get to the “eye for an eye” bit in Leviticus, a frequently misunderstood passage. It’s been taken as evidence of the very stern and vengeful character of the Torah but in context, the whole passage suggests an idea of measured retribution - that is, the punishment should be in equal measure to the crime, and not any more excessive (those in the know would wonder how this fits with orders to kill children disobedient to their parents, but I digress).

“And a man who will strike any human’s life shall be put to death,

and one who strikes an animal’s life shall pay for it: a life for a life.

And a man who will make an injury in his fellow: as he has done, so it shall be done to him.

A break for a break, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth: as he will make an injury in a human, so it shall be made in him.” (Lev. 24:17-20)

Friedman amonishes us against taking this passage literally, noting that the Bible also refers to people “knowing God face-to-face” and that of course not being literal (Friedman, 401).

The lesson here, for progressive politics is this: think of the drug war, and of the treatment of lower-class prisoners and especially foreigners in the current War on Terror. The US claims to be a Christian nation, but if Christianity is built on Biblical morality, then the government has failed quite drastically by meting out excessive punishments for drug offenses and not allowing foreign nationals due process under law, which is what this Parashat very strongly emphasizes, mentioning it twice in one chapter towards the end, and also crafting a fairly lengthy story for additional emphasis.

Round and round and round

Starting my new job was exhausting this week, so I have had little to say, but then Donna on The Angry Black Woman brought this to the attention of readers.

So how are those sensitivity training seminars going, I wonder? Pretty well from the looks of it! I especially liked the “some Turkish people liked it, so it couldn’t possibly have been racist!” Apparently if some people of the affected ethnicity don’t find something racist, they’re to be treated as the default, because, hey! No work for us then!

What a great deal that is for us white people - I’ve gotta find me some token minorities who aren’t offended by anything so I don’t actually have to think carefully about what I do and say.

I had another post in mind about identity and passing, but it’ll have to wait for now until I find the right sources.

The First of Many Parashot - Kedoshim

The Torah portion for this week is Leviticus 19:1-21:1, and it’s called Kedoshim, which means “holy”. This is a pretty meaty portion of the Torah, and makes for pretty dry reading overall, but I think there are some very instructive lessons based on the sorts of things that’ve been going on lately.

First, before anything else, it starts with a directive to be holy (translations taken from David Elliott Friedman’s Commentary on the Torah):

“And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and you shall say to them: You shall be holy, because I, the LORD your God, am holy.”

And so this entire Parashat, possibly more than any other, expounds on what exactly the Torah means by humankind being holy. This section contains commandments on so many different topics: ritual sacrifice, bridal payments, the poor and the infirm, the elderly, magic, etc. etc. (Friedman, 378).

The truth is, this parashat is so dense and has so many great passages it requires a much longer and more serious look than I’m going to give it today, but let’s get started anyway!

“You shall not exploit your neighbor, and you shall not rob. An employee’s wages shall not stay through the night with you until morning. You shall not curse a deaf person, and you shall not place a stumbling block in front of a blind person. I am the LORD.” (Lev. 19:13-14)

So here, we have a stern directive to look out for the specifically disabled - the blind and the deaf. The verse ends with “I am the LORD”, as has been pointed out by many legit commentators (not me, I should emphasize), to remind the reader that even if the blind can’t see the stumbling block and the deaf can’t detect the deception, the LORD sees and the LORD is watching.

Another interesting (at least to me) commandment is the commandment to be immediate and hasty with an employee’s wages. Withholding wages from a worker could be seen as a form of oppression, and if their livelihood depends on a daily payment for labor or other work, we must pay them immediately and hastily, as oppression of the poor is also considered heinous in the eyes of the LORD.

Lev. 19:15-16 contain commandments against gossip, and a directive to judge both the rich and the poor alike in fairness. It’s been said this came about as an improvement on the Code of Hammurabi’s stratified legal code, with different laws applying to different professions and social classes.

Lev. 19:16 also contains one of the more famous lines from the Torah, “You shall not stand by at your neighbor’s blood” or “You will not stand by while your neighbor’s blood is shed.” This has taken on many interpretations over the years - some say this means you are not to stand by and allow someone to be slandered in your presence, for instance. Taken to the extreme it could look like a directive to get involved in foreign combats, which might be more ambiguous.

Lev. 19:17 instructs us to speak up when a brother has committed wrong, so that our keeping silence doesn’t bring about sin - in the professional word, this obligates us to speak up when an ethical violation has been committed, or this obligates us to speak up over appropriation, or overt or covert acts of oppression or coercion.

This, finally, brings us to one of the most curiously unknown passages in the Hebrew Bible, Leviticus 19:18:

And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

The misconception of the Hebrew Bible as being full of anger, stricture and condemnation of everything is a common one, and in fact there is much of this, so Judaism has long been assumed to be a religion more full of fire and brimstone than the Christian religion. Naturally, to these people, there’s no such thing as thousands of years of expounding upon the Bible’s message and turning into a religion (ideally) of love, tolerance, and forgiveness. But not excessively so.

Leviticus 19:19 contains commandments against mating two different animal species, and different plant species. I’m sure, and I know I’m not at all the only one, this has to be where much of the objection to genetic modification of both plants and animals probably comes from this one little passage. I am not as opposed to this as many people seem to be, but that’s not really the point of this plus I’m babbling. Moving on!

Lev. 19:26-31 contain a wide variety of commandments about proper eating practices, commandments against witchcraft, bridal payments, and things of that like which I’m not terribly interested about at the moment, and the ethical obligations pickup at 19:32, preaching respect for the elderly.

And here’s one of the big ones, almost towards the end of Leviticus 19 (emphasis mine):

“And if an alien will reside with you in your land, you shall not persecute him. The alien who resides with you shall be to you like a citizen of yours, and you shall love him as yourself, because you were aliens in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD, your God.“

It seems as though all the passages about treating those prone to oppression fairly end with “I am the LORD, your God” to remind us: even if these people can’t speak up for themselves like they ought to be able to, God is always watching. Instructive for the Western world, with our immigration difficulties in the US, Europe, and Canada.

The commandments of the Torah clearly drive us to pursue justice and equality for everyone, even if some of the commandments and language are anachronistic to society’s current needs.

I will not speak much of Leviticus 20, as it deals with the sexual commandments. I will say this about the chapter:

As has been said, the Torah contains an excess of 600 commandments, and while we Jews are expected to follow all of them, it is simply not possible to follow all of them. A sizable portion of them, especially in Leviticus (named for its applicability to the Levite priests) simply can not be followed by those of us who are not Levites. As Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has said, it is true that the Bible forbids homosexual behavior, but there are commandments people who are not Levites cannot follow, so homosexual people can not be expected to follow the commandment forbidding it nor should they be condemned and be treated as less than human for not following that commandment when, really, none of us follow all of them all the time. I might have misconstrued his argument, it’s been a long since I read his excellent book Judaism for Everyone.

That last sentence was one hell of a run-on, I have to say, but that’s about it for this one. I simply need to stop writing!

A personal anecdote or two

Up until last September when I went back to school, I worked for an electronics manufacturing outfit. I worked with a few different people over the course of five years - Ethiopians, Angolans, the Sudanese, Indians (not First Nations), Filipinos/Filipinas, El Salvadoreans, a lot of different people. One thing jumped out at me more than any other:

A lot of people doing this not-very-challenging labor had university degrees. I worked with one elderly gentleman who got a degree in Chemical Engineering from a university in Manila - sadly, I don’t remember the name of it anymore. He said it was the most prestigious in the country. It might’ve just been the University of Manila, I don’t recall. I knew another guy, from Pakistan, who worked in the Technical Services/Engineering Support Department, doing the same work as me, for which I had no schooling.

He had a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from a school in Pakistan.

I also worked with another elderly Filipino gentleman who had experience working on some oil rig in Saudi Arabia, he could speak English, Tagalog, Spanish AND Arabic fluently, and for at least a year when he came to Canada all he could find work as was a janitor.

Four languages and prior work experience and all he could get was a job as a janitor.

These were the three instances that still stick with me because, well, what kind of bullshit is this? I mean, I SUPPOSE that MAYBE Pakistan’s schools aren’t quite as rigorous as ours - I’ve never been there, so I have no idea, but I have no reason to automatically assume that’s the case if they’re anything like India’s. But even were that true, why could he not have received credit for it at any Canadian institution for at minimum a BEng for Electrical Engineering?

That guy with the Chemical Engineering degree told me a similar story - he came to Canada and nobody would recognize his degree, so he had to go back to the University of Calgary. The kicker? They didn’t give him ANY transferable credit, ANY at all, and he had to redo the whole program again. The small consolation there, he told me, was that there was nothing new he didn’t already take as subject material back home in Manila so he graduated with a 4.0, or something very close to it.

This kind of labor protectionism drives me batty. All I see everywhere is labor crisis, labor crisis, labor crisis - but I don’t see any equivalent progress in recognizing degrees from “third-world” countries with any legitimacy so all that important work we’re not filling, meanwhile we can’t seem to attract enough laborers of our own to fill those gaps!

Something’s gotta give - surely this protectionism, in Canada of all places, can’t be that important to us? Surely?

Another personal note

I just got my marks today for the second semester - I ended up with a 3.45 GPA, rounding me around to a solid 3.5! Score!

I now just hope that I’m going to get at the very least a passing grade for Technologist C Programming - then I’ll be good to go for all courses next year!

Next year, we’ll finally get to op-amps, FETs, second-order RLC circuits, the ARM microprocessor platform and (blah) RF communications. Not looking forward to communications, but I’m just lucky that out here the industry’s moved away from telecoms.

Kyriarchy and liberation theology

A very good idea of what is meant by kyriarchy can be found here, and I’d rather let that stand for itself because I don’t have anything that needs to be said that hasn’t already.

The subject of liberation theology came up subsequently, and the author Sudy had this to say about it:

Liberation Theology is largely associated with the “preferential option for the poor,” and centralizes liberation with the needs of the oppressed. What I love about that concept is regardless of spiritual belief, religious affiliation or atheists, there’s something beyond “theology” about that concept. It’s something we all, as humans, can understand - oppression, and the inequal distribution of resources, freedom, and privilege.

Now, I don’t really think anyone can deny that the Bible is really very problematic, but dealing with inequalities and distribution of wealth and inequalities of most kinds probably takes up more space than anything else - it can be said that this was the central message of many prophets as well. It is true that they mostly excoriated Israel for turning away from God and God’s message, but what exactly is meant by that? No more ritual sacrifice?

I believe it is the Talmud that teaches the transgressions in question were against the poor, and against the widow and the orphan that God demanded Israel advocate for, and in Isaiah Ch.1, you find evidence that the Israelites were still making ritual sacrifice but that God, speaking through Isaiah, no longer found any meaning with their empty gestures:

” 11. Of what use are your many sacrifices to Me? says the Lord. I am sated with the burnt-offerings of rams and the fat of fattened cattle; and the blood of bulls and sheep and hegoats I do not want.
12. When you come to appear before Me, who requested this of you, to trample My courts?
13. You shall no longer bring vain meal-offerings, it is smoke of abomination to Me; New Moons and Sabbaths, calling convocations, I cannot [bear] iniquity with assembly.
14. Your New Moons and your appointed seasons My soul hates, they are a burden to Me; I am weary of bearing [them].
15. And when you spread out your hands, I will hide My eyes from you, even when you pray at length, I do not hear; your hands are full of blood.” (Isa. 1:11-15, Chabad.or)

There is more evidence to be found, I’m certain - however that would make this post long enough to be a doctoral thesis, which I am certainly not going for.

One more striking thing, however, in Isaiah, is in contrast to the countless excoriations and harangues - God’s wish for the future:

‘In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will serve with the Assyrians. In that day Israel will be one of three with Egypt and Assyria; a blessing in the midst of the land, whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, “Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.”‘ (Isa. 19:23-25)

Isaiah expresses a desire for peace, for when one day Egypt and Assyria, ancestral arch-nemeses of the Israelites, would be ‘of three’. If we look for this kind of equality as the kind of deliverance God gave to Israel from Egypt, in Exodus, we find a possible liberation theology: God looks to a future for a day when even the nemeses of Israel enjoy their protections, their liberties and freedoms.

Now, for those of you alienated by the excessively biblical approach, here’s my ham-handed explanation:

I was looking for a specifically Jewish idea of liberation theology, as the New Testament has no bearing on Judaism whatsoever. I strongly believed the Bible to support this idea, and found what I consider to be some evidence, though not quite as solid as I would have liked without a more thorough look.

Anyway, back to what Sudy said - I agree with what is good about liberation theology. Even as a guy who likes the abstract nature of ideas, religions are most often communities and about the relationships between people and the divine, whatever the divine is expressed to be. My whole desire to search the bible and the prophets for this is because I believe that religion must, by necessity, be of service to the people - a vehicle to address and right grievances and wrongs, not as a tool to uphold the status quo.

That passage of the Egyptians and Assyrians in Isaiah reminds us that God loves all humanity, and the rest of the prophetic books show us that Israel’s supposed special status remains as long as their commitment to the ideals of justice for the poor, widows and orphans, and that injustice brings injustice in kind.

My conclusion here is that it’s my belief that liberation theology is Biblical, even though nobody was necessarily saying it wasn’t, I guess, but that it is also a necessary component of being righteous.