pimpdaddysalad's house of treats

When my mom was in college, she just wouldn’t have been capable of predicting what college would be like for me. I took a full semester of college from 5 hours away because I can virtually attend class through a pocket sized device that projects my image and voice into a shared virtual classroom where I can interact with my professor and other students. I wrote research papers without physical access to a library because I could read my college library’s books on my computer.

Except they didn’t. His father before him didn’t do this, and your son will not live like you. This is not enshrined in tradition. This is not life. This is not how things are, or have been, or how they ever been. Look at it. This beautiful, ageless world of saving for your kids’ college and paying off mortgages and nuclear families. There is no way of life to pass down to your children, no tradition, nothing your father gave you that you can give to your son! You were born into a world that is unintelligible and inaccessible to the children you wanted to inherit it, and you and your children will both die in a world that is as foreign to you both!

I don’t envy the Boomer generation, nor do I have some kind of conceited disdain for them for not being able to adapt to now. So, so much of what defines our lives happened for the first time in their lifetime, and the absence of those things cannot be explained to us. Do you remember what it was like before television? Well…what is “it?”

I taught this midrash last week to a class of about ten 3rd-8th graders whom I have been teaching since September and have never met in person. I asked them to continue the midrash: if Moses made a second stop in 2021, what would confuse him, and what would reassure him?

The youngest kids had a fantastic time imagining Moses trying to use an iPad, trying to understand that he was in a classroom, that we were doing remotely what he had seen Akiva do in person. The older kids wondered if he would be astonished at our level of literacy, or our coed learning.

When I asked what would reassure him they were momentarily stumped: it wasn’t the first time this group has struggled to identify positives about their lives and experiences, except in a guilty “some people have it worse” kind of way. I reminded them of what reassured Moses in the schoolhouse of Akiva: knowing that what he taught had evolved from rather than superseded the traditions of our ancestors. “Who are we learning about right this very minute?” I prompted.

Which is sort of true.... if you only look at Europe. And European soap.

Because let me tell you, if you live in the tropics? Or the desert? You are washing your entire body, including your scalp, with as much frequency as you can possibly justify. Which is often. Twice a day, even.

And whaddya know, this is reflected in the soap and soap-like substances used in South/Southeast Asia and the Middle East, which were far milder than european soaps, smelled nicer, and were used in conjunction with moisturizing oils. Because people who live in hot climates know how to live in hot climates. Wow. Mindblowing.

And upon the advent of British Imperialism, rich Brits coming home from India also brought home the practice of “shampooing” which is literally derived from the Indian* term “champu.” This was in the early 1800s, so as early as the fucking Regency period we have Europeans using soap-like substances on their hair.

AND let us also not ignore the face that this post talked about the harshness of soap while talking about modern, factory-made soap, and not the soap that was essentially made by hand for centuries. Modern industrial soap follows modern industrial recipes that use far less fat than historical or hobbyist-made soaps. These contain more fat than is necessary, which will remain after wash and helps moisturize. Also, one of the primary moisturizing agents, glycerine, was first derived from olive oil by Muslim scientists. People knew how to make soap that didn’t fuck up your skin and hair and they fucking used it.

So like. Yes, the powdering and brushing was a thing, but so was washing your hair if you weren’t a fucking European.

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As in, you don’t have to be required to test in English to get licensed which makes the transition easier to learn English gradually.

Anti-Asian sentiment is at an all time high while people still demand their nails to be done.

The burglar that broke into my house: bodily autonomy?

Noam Chomsky, was born to Jewish immigrants in Philadelphia on December 7, 1928. He holds a joint appointment as Institute Professor Emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Laureate Professor at the University of Arizona, and is the author of more than 100 books on topics such as linguistics, war, politics, and mass media. 

Lessons From Chomsky [x]

“One of Chomsky’s simplest principles is among the most difficult to apply in practice: You should judge yourself by the same moral standards that you judge others by. This has formed the core of his critique of U.S. foreign policy… In both linguistics and politics, Chomsky often uses his famous “Martian coming to Earth” example: Try to imagine what our planetary affairs would look like to someone who was not part of one of the particular human societies, but was separate from them and able to see their commonalities. They would perceive the similarities between human languages, rather than the differences, and they would see the bizarre ways in which each country perceives its own acts as right and everybody else’s as wrong, even when the same acts are being committed.” 

She will also no longer be allowed to do any favours—there are elderly people living in isolated farms around here, and she (and other postmen) often offer to bring some groceries to them (which they don’t buy during their shift) in winter when the roads are bad, or meds from the pharmacy, and starting next year there will be inspectors doing surprise inspections of postmen’s cars to check for anything that is not post, with penalties if they find groceries or other stuff. I couldn’t think of why so she explained gloomily that the post company started a (paid) service to provide this kind of assistance so it is now wrong to offer the same help for free.