“Ghosts aren’t real” it’s very fair and rational that you believe that

“Ghosts aren’t real anymore” I’m about to hear a poem or very sad story

This is one of those non-poem things that are among my favorite poems.

As the OP stated, the use of alliterative consonants is aesthetically just great, especially the placement of the strongest use at the end: “fuck him on the floor.” The use of “chintz” is indeed great word choice.

Because I’m insane, decided to scan the poem:

Not only is the second sentence, indeed, perfect iambic pentameter, the entire poem is perfectly metered, though the first sentence has four iambs rather than five.

There are further things I love about this poem, though: I like the casual connotations of “keep it real” juxtaposed with “chintz.” It causes me to interpret the “chintz” more strongly as meaning something fake, a facade. There is also of course the coarseness of “fuck,” which is a contrast with “chintz” but a different kind of contrast, gutsy and carnal where “chintz” is flimsy and inanimate.

And then there is the storytelling: there is SO MUCH storytelling in just these two lines. To break it down: The speaker is having sex with a married man, in the house he shares with his wife, which is “filled with chintz”—something that here connotes fakeness, in contrast with “keep it real.”

The illicit encounter in the poem takes place within a house filled with facade, the flimsy construction of the wife’s marriage and domestic sphere, but the encounter itself is a taste of something “real.” That’s a story, and it’s just two lines.

This is EIGHTEEN SYLLABLES, y’all. The amount of meaning condensed into these eighteen syllables is stunning, and it is so elegantly done.

And then I found screenshots the absolute wildest Twitter thread I’ve ever seen in my entire life:

“I didn’t wanna be a Rabbi despite the fact that I’m actively campaigning as a Rabbi and selling myself as a Rabbi. A random guy asked me to be his Rabbi, despite the fact that I’m not a Rabbi— how could I say no? I kept reaching out to real Rabbis, but “lefty Jews” don’t get calls back from congregational, establishment Rabbis. They definitely ignored me because I’m “lefty” and not because I’m pretending to be a Rabbi.

So for Jewish people: I’m not a Rabbi.

For non-Jewish people: I am a Rabbi.

There are multiple extremely major racefaking red flags in some of the language used here ("HaShem has made it clear this is the path"?? Lubavitcher being the only widely accepted ordination not in Israel?? Wtf do you mean he was ordained "through his grandfather", smicha doesn't work that way???). However, I was not about to level an accusation this serious without substantial reason, so I went digging.

"Rabbi Fora" has covered her tracks by deleting most of her Facebook history, but what remains still makes it extremely clear that she was raised Pentecostal:

And that her immediate family are all still practicing Christians:

Could she have converted? Possibly, but if she converted, she's said nothing at all on the subject anywhere publicly at all, which is odd, because she went out of her way to make a post "beating everyone to the punch" regarding her past and her deadname:

Also... "My Rabbinic abbreviation is Fora"??? Wtf is a "rabbinic abbreviation"??? That's not a thing!

But being able to marry people doesn't make you clergy. It means you can marry someone. I know plenty of people who have gotten "ordained" to marry family members and none of them are pretending to be clergy members.

Earl Blumenauer was the Representative for Oregon's 3rd District. He has been replaced by Rep. Dr. Maxine Dexter. When she talks about going downtown, she means Portland. She means she lives in the 3rd.

So do I. Earl was my rep. Rep. Dexter is now.

So believe me when I say, with my whole chest, "Bullshit, you couldn't get a call back from anybody local as a genuine seeker."

This is going to require me to break one of my major rules, so let me make it clear up front that I am not interested in discussing the content of what I'm about to tell you all, and I am presenting you with facts, not presenting any kind of opinion on the content of the things I'm about to link to, okay? I am only saying these things exist.

Because you know what's in East Portland?

https://shirtikvahpdx.org/

Congregation Shir Tikvah, an independent congregation which currently has an appeal for aid for Gaza and a prayer for Palestine as the 3rd and 4th paragraphs on its front page.

Do you know who was the rabbi of Shir Tikvah in 2023? I do. Rabbi Ariel Stone. She just recently retired, and Rabbi Elizabeth took over. Rabbi Emerita Stone still teaches at Shir Tikvah and has been known to take on rabbinical students. You can find her curated teachings on I/P on Shir Tikvah's site.

Not only does Shir Tikvah exist, with that leadership, but it's literally the only synagogue on the East side of Portland! Every other synagogue is across the river! Shir Tikvah is the synagogue near where she lives, if Earl Blumenauer was her representative!

So the idea that she just could not find anybody willing to take her on because she's sooooooo lefty and because, as she implies, of her views on Palestine? Yeah. I call absolute bullshit.

Also, I want to make it clear that what makes me suspicious about her Jewishness is not that she was raised Pentecostal, and it’s not that her family are still evangelical Christians – it’s specifically that, in addition to fraudulently claiming to be a rabbi, she’s seemingly gone to great lengths to conceal both of those things, to the point of implying in a few places that she was raised Jewish, which she was clearly not.

Jews by choice are Jews, full stop. It does not matter how they were raised and it does not matter who they are related to. And it’s possible for real Jews to be cagey about their upbringing and to not want to openly talk about their conversion journey. But in my experience, Jewish gerim do not generally take calculated steps to hide the fact that they are gerim in a political context, even if they are embarrassed by their past, and indeed, even when they are a part of a community which is not as accepting of gerim as it should be. I’m technically a ger myself, though both of my biological parents are Jewish (long story), and so I’ve spent a lot of time in groups for gerim, patrilineals, zera israel, and other similarly marginalized communities. Right or wrong, the vast majority of gerim with evangelical backgrounds who I have met lead with that in virtually any context where they are speaking for our entire community, in no small part because they want to put distance between themselves and the cultural appropriation that they’ve witnessed from others like this. Pretty much the only people who are not actively trying to distance themselves from Messianics and racefakers are Messianics and racefakers.

its own reward, and yet, should

still be rewarded

Anyway, the next night we watched a thing about some pig man who is supposed to live in Vermont. People said it had claws and a pig nose but walked upright like a man. Now, I happen to know that sideshows used to shave bears and present them as pig men. So every piece of evidence they gave of this monster sounds to me like a bear with mange.

So now the running joke in our house is that everything is bears. Aliens? Bears. Loch Ness monster? Bear. Every cryptozoological mystery is just a very crafty bear.