these faded memories

Similar things happened in Uganda and Ethiopia.

I went in, and there was a different tour group sitting in the daily chapel listening to their guide. I don't remember where they were from, and I didn't immediately recognize the language. They listened for maybe five or ten minutes after I entered, and then they got up and left. The docent, who was this little ancient dude easily in his 90s, saw that I hadn't left with the group, and he knew that I wasn't with them. He had a little English and he asked me about who I was. I was American, here with a British group.

"You Jewish?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

As soon as I said that, the whole mood of the conversation changed. He showed me the mechitza and kvetched about how the women behaved in their area. Then he asked if I'd like to see the Shabbat sanctuary, which was up a flight of stairs. Of course I wanted to see that! I'd heard great things about its grandeur and beauty.

So the ancient docent walked me out into the entry hall, flipped a light switch, and pointed me up the stairs. He was not going to climb all those stairs at his age, thankyouverymuch. So I went up and saw the Shabbat sanctuary, which was absolutely every bit as amazing as I'd heard.

Later that evening, over dinner, the college Master, his wife, and the Bursar all shared that they'd visited the Great Synagogue, too. But they were quite surprised to hear that I'd gone upstairs. The docent had not offered them the opportunity to see the Shabbat sanctuary. And I immediately knew why.

The genetic markers associated with certain ethnic groups do not pass down evenly or proportionately; they're subject to the same rules of dominance/recessiveness and the chance of mutation as all other genes are.

So, like, if you have a Jewish person and their DNA test shows 98% German and 2% Jewish, that does not mean 98% of their ancestors were German; it means that more of the genetic markers associated with ethnic Germans were passed down to this person than the genetic markers associated with ethnic Jews.

And (as the prev posters have said), it also doesn't tell you anything about what culture this person was raised in, and which aspects of their heritage they feel most strongly attached to. "Blood quantum" is a really myopic way of deciding who "counts" as what ethnicity.

All this leaving aside that it's been shown multiple times that ethnic Jews, Palestinians, Lebanese, and Druze are, in fact, genetically related.

Each of the lyrics comes from an old-time hickory song for fiddles, and is a lyric from that corresponding song.

"Fire on the Mountain" --> "Fire on the Mountain, run boys run"

Fire On The Mountain - Fiddle Player POV

"The House of the Rising Sun" --> "The Devil's in the house of the rising sun"

House of the Rising Sun

"Ida Red" --> "Chicken in the bread pan peckin' out dough"

Ida Red - Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys

"Granny Will Your Dog Bite" --> "Granny does your dog bite? 'No child, no'."

FTC #149 Granny Will Your Dog Bite

And for your furthered education, The Mountain Whipporwill.

in a time before things like radios and record players, every time you heard music was because there was somebody in the room with you playing an instrument. and many, many, many social events involved dancing, which requires music. so, if you're planning any kind of gathering in the american south or appalachia, you need to find a fiddler. and the fiddler's job is to play music that everybody knows and likes and can dance to.

the mistake The Devil makes in his bet with Johnny is that he misinterprets the contest as being about technical ability, so he has this big flashy song. he plays fast and impressively with a band of demons playing unfamiliar instruments in unfamiliar rhythms. he's definitely more skilled at playing than Johnny, and thinks he has it in the bag.

by Annabel Sinclair

Writing in an opinion piece for The Washington Post, Ashley L. Jackson said she completed her conversion on 12 June after what she described as a years-long spiritual journey shaped by study, illness and a growing connection to Jewish life.

Jackson, a writer, producer and founder of the nonprofit Push The Next Generation, said her father attended a Shabbat service at her synagogue two years before he died, where he joined in the celebration despite coming from a Baptist Christian background.

She wrote: “As the Saturday morning service proceeded, my father sat in the front row – holding my hand, dancing to prayers in a language he did not speak, eating the Sunkist candies the congregation had tossed to celebrate a bar mitzvah.”

Reflecting on her decision to become Jewish, Jackson said she had found a faith that matched the values she had been raised with.

“I was raised to believe that faith must lead to action,” she wrote. “In Judaism, I found an enduring expression of this belief.”

She said she had long been struck by Judaism’s emphasis on learning, ritual and the concept of Tikkun olam – repairing the world – adding that the sound of the shofar during her first Rosh Hashanah moved her deeply.

“A woman has been arrested in Syracuse, New York, on complaint of her father-in-law, whose daughter she had married a few days before. She wore a complete suit of man’s apparel–and had evidently got a wife ‘under false pretences.’ The young bride didn’t seem to think that it made any difference, and clung to her female husband with all a wife’s affection. The justice committed the imposter to prison ‘for further examination’–but under what law she can be punished we confess ourselves ignorant.”

Otherwise, attacks on water and power will become a normal form of retaliation across a region that cannot survive them. The danger is even greater when confronting a regime that has repeatedly shown itself willing to pursue a scorched-earth strategy, sacrificing the country’s infrastructure and its people to preserve its own power. Weakening a government and breaking a country are not the same thing.

Regimes can fall, and armies can withdraw, but poisoned aquifers, collapsed power grids, and destroyed water systems can condemn civilians to displacement, disease, and poverty for generations. A war presented as an attempt to change who governs Iran must not destroy the systems that make the country governable. If the stated goal is to give Iranians a better future, that future cannot be built on the ruins of the systems they need for survival.

Trump’s Destruction of Iranian Life Is Strengthening the Regime

Of course the ideal should be a world without prisons. In a perfect utopian future, we would have no need for cages because we would have successfully dismantled the root causes of crime, poverty, and harm. But this smug, dismissive refusal to engage with the grittiest realities of human behavior helps absolutely nothing and actively works against her goals.

It treats a foundational question of public safety as a tiresome "gotcha" rather than a deeply legitimate human concern.

When activists retreat into pure idealism and dismiss the public's valid fears about violent crime as unworthy of a response, they don't look visionary. They look condescending, elitist, and entirely disconnected from the reality of human nature.

So I read the rest of this comic and more of her work.

The underlying logic of this deflection relies on a false dichotomy - the idea that if you dare to ask how an abolitionist world handles a rapist or a murderer, you must be a blanket defender of mass incarceration.

Over here in reality, you can fully recognize that our current justice system is deeply flawed, broken, and failing survivors, while still demanding to know what replaces the physical containment of dangerous individuals.

To frame a question about immediate physical safety as a structural roadblock is an intellectual bait-and-switch. It assumes that anyone asking for a practical plan just "doesn't get it," when in reality they just want to know how you plan to keep their loved ones safe.

The comics series "Who's Left" is garbage.

Here's how it dismisses people who lived through the communist (authoritarian) regimes of the 20gh century: by calling them old and xenophobic.

And here's how it defends those regimes:

Speaking as a lifelong left-leaning liberal: this is tankie bullshit and it deserves your contempt.

Walnut was born in a species-recovery breeding program in the 1980′s.  The program had crane chicks hand-raised by human volunteers, and at that time they did not fully understand the measures necessary make sure that the chicks do not imprint on humans and retain their identity as cranes.  

As a result, her keepers believe, Walnut does not recognize other cranes as members of her own species.  

It has not been proven that Walnut killed her previous suitors; however, there is a persistent rumor in the white-naped-crane-conservation community that she did.  

Because this species is highly endangered, and the gene pool of the captive population is small, it’s pretty important for the survival of her species that Walnut A) mate, and B) not kill a bunch of other cranes.  

The actual name of the keeper is Chris Crowe.

They both arrived at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in 2004.   

Walnut immediately began paying special attention to Chris--and ignoring the eligible male crane in a nearby enclosure.  

Walnut initiated their courtship, performing the opening moves of a mating dance.  

Chris realized that if he reciprocated the mating dance, it might be possible to artificially inseminate Walnut with her participation and consent.  (The process normally involves restraining the bird.)  

It worked!  

Chris and Walnut have had five children, who were raised by other crane couples at the facility--sometimes the biological dad and his mate--both because it’s unclear whether Walnut would accept the chicks as her own, and because Chris is not equipped to be a Crane Dad.  

However, the Institute provides her with artificial eggs to sit on, and Chris takes his turn looking after them.  (This would not work with real eggs because he can’t sit on them properly, but Walnut seems to feel that he is on the job if he just stands over them.)

she has not been PROVEN to have killed her exes, but there is a PERSISTENT RUMOR (really officers she's simply DEVASTATED, she sobs, wearing a new feather boa unfortunately resembling her most recent deceased husband)

His name is Chris CROWE. (Mrs. Walnut Crane-Crowe?)

the mental images of a whole human man learning and performing the crane mating dance, and "sitting" on artificial eggs so she thinks he's performing his duties as a husband and father (and apparently OBJECTS if he does not?)

"chris, buddy, you gotta marry the possibly-murderous crane lady for the GOOD OF THE SPECIES." (alternately: "chris, my man! good news! we found you a very interested lady! She's 36, she's very spirited and independent, she holds a very important and rare status in her society! ...Is there a downside? WELL...")

everyone needs to hear about the situation in india right now. the youth of this nation are going through hell and back to protect the foundations that our country was built on in the first place, while the adults who are supposed to actually be in charge try to silence our voices.

NEET, which is an exam taken by millions of students per year and is the ONLY gateway for medical admissions across the country, had its papers leaked. so many took their lives because this exam meant everything for their future. and NTA, the agency who conducts this exam, was not held accountable.

there was national backlash. cockroach janta party (initially a satirical political party formed by abhijeet dipke in retaliation to the remarks of the chief justice of india calling the youth "cockroaches" and "parasites of society") started protests at jantar mantar, demanding the resignation of the union education minister, dharmendra pradhan. the movement also asked for ten million inr (~100,000 usd) in compensation for the families of students who died by suicide and wanted NTA be held accountable.

sonam wangchuk, a climate activist and education reformer, also went on a hunger strike at jantar mantar to protest against this corruption in india's higher education system. his fast began on june 28, demanding the resignation of the union education minister. his fast lasted for 20 days until delhi police FORCIBLY removed him and admitted him to safdarjung hospital on july 18.

because of this, cockroach janta party announced "chalo sansad," a march to the parliament beginning on june 20th, 9:00 am ist. but the police seems to be responding with water cannons, mobile jammers, and baton charge. all of this, because of a peaceful protest led by people no older than 30.

The government is doing everything it can except for actually having an honest dialogue with the protestors.

It’s important to note that despite all the police brutality, despite how the government has had extra forces airlifted to Delhi to help quash the protest, this has deterred no one.

Not only is the protest in Delhi going strong, the government closed down every metro station in Central Delhi in an effort to stop them and it still hasn’t.

There’s protests in most major cities in India in solidarity. Palakkad, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kochi, and probably more besides. There has been a protest in the UK as well in solidarity.

People who aren’t at the protest are donating so much food that the organisers have had to ask them to stop doing so because there’s more than enough. In lieu of that people are donating money for medicine, lawyers, cleanup, and umbrellas.

Most crucially, hopes aren’t broken. Spirits aren’t broken. People with bruises and broken bones are still showing up. People are showing up cosplaying as freedom fighters and super heroes and a dinosaur. People are doxxing goons who show up trying to incite violence. People are making reels. People in Mumbai literally opened a moving police detainment van to allow arrested students to escape.

A Jew makes a Jewish story. It gets popular. It gets readapted. The Judaism is erased. We get told to get over it and make our own stories.

A Jew makes a Jewish story. It gets popular. It gets readapted. The Judaism is erased. We get told to get over it and make our own stories.

This person had this photo saved to their Palestine board. Here’s some classic nastiness I encountered while looking for it…

So like I thought you people believed in “Palestinian Jews ?” I thought you believed that there were Jews in Palestine who engaged in Palestinian culture? They assume it must have been stolen as opposed to the possibility that this dress belonged to this woman ??