Yesterday, I did receive by email the approval of the documents I sent to San Carlos (where Virgil is.) Not in time to visit that day, though. I had sent a note through the electronic system – they print it out and give it to him on paper, so it’s not immediate – asking him to call me, but, as I type, I haven’t heard from him yet. (The other thing I did was put the need for a new form on my calendar for next year – with about 2 weeks to spare. In the meantime, I don’t really know how to plan. I expect I’ll hear from him in time to plan effectively, but just now, it’s frustrating.
Robert Reich on the May Day demonstrations. This is helpful but not, IMO, good enough to run on Sunday. Particularly since the following day Trump** issued an executive order defunding NPR and PBS. My local public radio station is not a member of NPR, but it does – or it did – receive some federal funding.
HuffPost covers the Apricot Antichrist’s declaration that being poor is good for you. You may think that sounds like St. Francis – but nothing could be farther from the truth. Sur, Francis lover poverty, but that was because he chose to be poor. That’s 180 degreed from being forced to be poor because everything you had was taken away from you. Francis would not have been in favor of that at all.
Heather Cox Richardson writes about the media – not the mainstream media, and not the media of the resistance, but the Turmeric Tyrant’s own media – which may be the direst threat to democracy of all, more so than his flouting of the law and the courts, because it creates and intensifies a cadre of true believers who are beyond the ability of reason to influence. Yes, we’ve already observed that in his first term and in his campaigns, but this is an escalation on an undreamed of scale.
I’m sure everyone is familiar with the figure of justice, whose statue stand outside or inside many courthouses – not just the home of SCOTUS. But you may or may not know that the has a name and a history, Her name is Themis, and she is the daughter of Uranus and Gases(heaven and earth.) She was also the second wife of Zeus (his first wife, Juno, being notorious for her jealousy, which may partly explain why Themis is little known) and as such was the mother of the Hours, the Fates, and others. She was the goddess of law, cosmic order (equity), and oracular knowledge. Lawyers and law students know of her because her name is also the name of an online school which helps students cramming for their bar exams. She has been having a rough time lately, what with MAGA and other Talibangelical Christians who seem to think they can trifle with her.
Why do I bring her up in connection with an article on, among other things, Jubilee? Well, for one thing, sometimes true justice must be and is administered outside the courts. But as the Goddess of cosmic order, I think she would appreciate that.
Jubilee is not a Greek word; it presumably comes from Hebrew since it (the word and the concept) first appear, to my knowledge, in the complex details of Mosaic law. That law established the certain years would be years of Jubilee and all kinds of things must be done – probably any one of which would trouble the wealthy. Things like freeing slaves and canceling all debts. This article covers how at least some enslaved people in the United States were able to use the holiday season for individual Jubilees. (One of the songs from the period is even named “Jubilo.”) And then I’ll have a little more to say about Jubilee years.
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For enslaved people, the holiday season was a time for revelry – and a brief window to fight back
Adolphe Duperly’s painting depicting the destruction of the Roehampton Estate in Jamaica during the Baptist War in January 1832. Wikimedia Commons
During the era of slavery in the Americas, enslaved men, women and children also enjoyed the holidays. Slave owners usually gave them bigger portions of food, gifted them alcohol and provided extra days of rest.
Those gestures, however, were not made out of generosity.
As abolitionist, orator and diplomat Frederick Douglass explained, slave owners were trying to keep enslaved people under control by plying them with better meals and more downtime, in the hopes of preventing escapes and rebellions.
Most of the time, it worked.
But as I discuss in my recent book, “Humans in Shackles: An Atlantic History of Slavery,” many enslaved people were onto their owners and used this brief period of respite to plan escapes and start revolts.
Feasting, frolicking and fiddling
Most enslaved people in the Americas adhered to the Christian calendar – and celebrated Christmas – since either Catholicism or Protestantism predominated, from Birmingham, Alabama, to Brazil.
Consider the example of Solomon Northup, whose tragic story became widely known in the film “12 Years A Slave.” Northup was born free in the state of New York but was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana in 1841.
In his narrative, Northup explained that his owner and their neighbors gave their slaves between three and six days off during the holidays. He described this period as “carnival season with the children of bondage,” a time for “feasting, frolicking, and fiddling.”
According to Northup, each year a slave owner in central Louisiana’s Bayou Boeuf offered a Christmas dinner attended by as many as 500 enslaved people from neighboring plantations. After spending the entire year consuming meager meals, this marked a rare opportunity to indulge in several kinds of meats, vegetables, fruits, pies and tarts.
Isaac Mendes Belisario’s ‘Band of the Jaw-Bone John-Canoe’ (1837). Slavery Images
There’s evidence of holiday celebrations since the early days of slavery in the Americas. In the British colony of Jamaica, a Christmas masquerade called Jonkonnu has taken place since the 17th century. One 19th-century artist depicted the celebration, painting four enslaved men playing musical instruments, including a container covered with animal skin, along with an instrument made from an animal’s jawbone.
“Every child rises early on Christmas morning to see the Johnkannaus,” she wrote. “Without them, Christmas would be shorn of its greatest attraction.”
On Christmas Day, she continued, nearly 100 enslaved men paraded through the plantation wearing colorful costumes with cows’ tails fastened to their backs and horns decorating their heads. They went door to door, asking for donations to buy food, drinks and gifts. They sang, danced and played musical instruments they had fashioned themselves – drums made of sheepskin, metal triangles and an instrument fashioned from the jawbone of a horse, mule or donkey.
It’s the most wonderful time to escape
Yet beneath the revelry, there was an undercurrent of angst during the holidays for enslaved men, women and children.
In the American South, enslavers often sold or hired out their slaves in the first days of the year to pay their debts. During the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, many enslaved men, women and children were consumed with worry over the possibility of being separated from their loved ones.
At the same time, slave owners and their overseers were often distracted – if not drunk – during the holidays. It was a prime opportunity to plan an escape.
John Andrew Jackson was owned by a Quaker family of planters in South Carolina. After being separated from his wife and child, he planned to escape during the Christmas holiday of 1846. He managed to flee to Charleston. From there, he went north and eventually reached New Brunswick in Canada. Sadly, he was never able to reunite with his enslaved relatives.
Even Harriet Tubman took advantage of the holiday respite. Five years after she successfully escaped from the Maryland plantation where she was enslaved, she returned on Christmas Day in 1854 to save her three brothers from a life of bondage.
‘Tis the season for rebellion
Across the Americas, the holiday break also offered a good opportunity to plot rebellions.
In 1811, enslaved and free people of color planned a series of revolts in Cuba, in what became known as the Aponte Rebellion. The scheming and preparations took place between Christmas Day and the Day of Kings, a Jan. 6 Catholic holiday commemorating the three magi who visited the infant Jesus. Inspired by the Haitian Revolution, free people of color and enslaved people joined forces to try to end slavery on the island.
In April, the Cuban government eventually smashed the rebellion.
In Jamaica, enslaved people followed suit. Samuel Sharpe, an enslaved Baptist lay deacon, called a general strike on Christmas Day 1831 to demand wages and better working conditions for the enslaved population.
Two nights later, a group of enslaved people set fire to a trash house at an estate in Montego Bay. The fire spread, and what was supposed to be a strike instead snowballed into a violent insurrection. The Christmas Rebellion – or Baptist War, as it became known – was the largest slave revolt in Jamaica’s history. For nearly two months, thousands of slaves battled British forces until they were eventually subdued. Sharpe was hanged in Montego Bay on May 23, 1832.
After news of the Christmas Rebellion and its violent repression reached Britain, antislavery activists ramped up their calls to ban slavery. The following year, Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act, which prohibited slavery in the British Empire.
Yes, the week between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day offered a chance to feast or plot rebellions.
But more importantly, it served as a rare window of opportunity for enslaved men, women and children to reclaim their humanity.
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As I said, Mosaic law established years of Jubilee, during which, essentially, everyone had a chance to start over, freed from obligations. I did not check my memory against the Bible, but IIRC, it was every fiftieth year. But if Pope Francis wants to make it every 25th tear, I’m all for it. And apparently he does. Because he has invited me to join a Zoom call on planning for Jubilee 2025 (the last one was Jubilee 2000.) And that call is happening Monday, December 23. I didn’t get an invitation because I am special – I’m not – I assume it’s because I have signed petitions for justice that I got on the list. So I am extending it further to all of you.
Here’s the description:
“Live from St. Peter’s Square, Jubilee and Caritas Internationalis leaders hold a press conference to launch campaigns on debt relief in 160 countries for Jubilee 2025. The December 23rd St. Peter’s press conference explains the themes of debt cancellation lifted for special Jubilee Years among faith communities. The high-level press panel takes place 24 hours before Pope Francis begins Jubilee 2025 by opening the Holy Jubilee Doors and Calls for global debt relief for our people and our planet.
And here’s when it starts on Zoom:
December 23, 2024 | Rome: 3:00 PM – Accra: 2:00 PM – Rio de Janeiro: 11:00 AM – Washington DC: 9:00 AM [EST, 8:00 AM Central, 7:00 AM Mountain, 6:00 AM Pacific – and I believe 5:00 AM Alaska and 4:00 AM Hawaii.]
And here’s how to get the Zoom link:
Go to https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScZKbW9lh_ULG-poup0aCHHyXTViC-gXCZE-Aihlu_Mz94BCg/viewform Fill in your email address – click the circular box that says “Virtually” – add your name and a couple of other items, and you’ll be sent a live link. If you have never Zoomed before, you’ll b taken to a place where you can get their app, which takes up very little space on your computer and doesn’t mess with anything there; if you have Zoomed before this shouldn’t be necessary. And there you are.
If you have doubts that there are still any real Christians left, especially in major denominations (and I’m the first to admit that the Catholic Right is horrendous), maybe even just knowing this is happening may help alleviate them.
Well, if the ADL is wishing people Happy Hanukkah, then I guess I can (In fact, I’m probably a day late. Even so, I have more days available.)
Theologically, Hanukkah (however you spell it) is considered to be a minor holiday commemorating a military victory. But there are reasons why it’s more widely recognized (particularly in the United States) than more major Jewish holidays. For one thing, every human culture since pre-pre-history has had sone kind of holiday, festival, ritual – centered aroind the winter solstice, and celebrating light. For another, Hanukkah, certainly in the United States, has become very much about the children. And parents of any culture can see an opportunity to teach religious and cultural principles without pushback just as well as parents of any other culture.
In fact, I find actions like those of Hobby Lobby – removing all Hanukkah merchandise from all stores – to be shameful. I’ve said this before, but I think not here. The historical events upon which Hanukkah is based can be roughly dated to 170-160 BCE. (I grant that at that time history was not considered an exact science deserving of accuracy, but there are written histories datable to at least sometime in the BCE referencing Antiochus abd the Maccabbees.) That certainly suggests that Joseph and Mary grew up celebrating Hanukkah, which in turn siggests that Jesus as a child also celebrated, even in Egypt. All these self-styled Christians who whine about this or that attempt for any person to be the person they were born to be “makes the Baby Jesus cry” should start asking themself what taking away the baby Jesus’s dreidl and gelt away – let alone latkes – does to the baby Jesus’s mood.
It’s still possible to find the books of First and Second Maccabbees in some (though not all) Catholic versions of the Bible. And Handel’s Oratorio “Judas Maccabeus” – at least parts of it – are still being sung (probably mostly by Jews for Hannukah, ironically.) I’m not trying to advocate cultural appropriation, but would it hurt us to give a nod to a story which is part of our story too? One which shows what religious persecution really means (and that it DOESN’T mean people saying “Happy Holidays”)?
Religious persecution also doesn’t mean a menorah (specifically a Hanukkiah – menorah basically means candlestick, and there are different kinds) like this one. Anything that holds the right number of candles in the right configuration will do – and probably has done, at some point in history.
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
If anyone feels that today’s article coupled with my remarks constitute more of a personal rant than a political statement, I won’t disagree. However, if politics is to be regarded as a means of improving (and then maintaining and building upon those improvements – a proposition which seems to be losing suppport, but which should not be, then the personal Is political – is, indeed, the foundation of all politics. And it distresses me personally me that we seem to be going backwards, not only on this political point, but also on our cultural understanding of reality. I am not old enough to have see Christine Jorgenson in a movie, but I am old enough to have heard about her, and heard that she was a female soul (or person, or personality – I’m sure not everyone used the word soul – born into a male body. That made sense to me thenm and it still makes sense as an explanation, and still makes it quite clear that Christine had no choice in the matter. Yet, we were told then, and many of our worse, this youth are still being told today, that “gay” is a choice. Because “God doesn’t make mistakes.” No one appears to grasp the implication here -that, “No, God doesn’t make mistakes. You just think, in your arrogance, that you know what constitutes a mistake better than God does.” Dorothy L. Sayers knew better than that – in a novel published in the 1930’s, she has the character of a poorly educated farmer say of an elderly lesbian, “The Lord makes some on ’em that way to suit his own purposes.” These days, our “poorly educated” think they know better then their own all-knowing God.
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Biological sex is far from binary − this college course examines the science of sex diversity in people, fungi and across the animal kingdom
Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.
Title of course:
Diversity of Biological Sex Characteristics
What prompted the idea for the course?
Most people view biological sex, or the physical features related to reproduction, as simple and binary – either male or female. Even those who recognize that gender – referring to cultural norms around biological sex, or a person’s internal feeling of being masculine, feminine or both – can be complex and nuanced don’t see biological sex in the same way. Many also regard variability in sex and gender as exclusive to people – not found in nonhuman animals.
I am a behavioral neurobiologist who has been teaching human physiology since 1998. Over the past several years, I have focused my reading and writingon the biology of sex. It struck me that many of my students had misguided assumptions about sex characteristics, including that all people are physically either 100% male or 100% female.
First, we examine why sexual reproduction evolved in any species. This question is still hotly debated among biologists because sex is inefficient. It requires time and energy to find a suitable mate and unite your sex cells, plus it allows you to pass on only half your genes to your offspring.
In comparison, asexual reproduction – essentially cloning yourself – is much more efficient. You don’t have to find a mate, and everyone can produce offspring themselves because there are no males. In biology, “male” refers to an individual that makes small sex cells like sperm, and “female” refers to an individual that makes large sex cells like eggs.
Sex characteristics manifest in different ways across the animal kingdom.
We then transition from nonhuman animals to people, via the brain. We learn about a few smallbrain structures in vertebrates that likely have reproductive functions and are differently sized in females versus males on average. We also learn that most people have some brain structures that are more typically male, others that are more typically female and still others that are intermediate – in other words, most people are mosaics of female-typical and male-typical brain sex characteristics.
Perhaps more than ever, there is a debate about how to treat people who do not fit neatly into a female or a male box. Many assume that biological sex is binary and regard transgender and nonbinary people as mistaken or confused. In addition, for many decades, intersex infants have undergone surgical procedures to make them appear more typically male or female. Even those who support transgender, nonbinary and intersex people often assume that biological sex is binary. But this assumption is not anchored in evidence.
What will the course prepare students to do?
Students often say that before they took this course, they had no idea biological sex characteristics could be so diverse, despite having taken several biology courses.
An improved awareness of the complexity of biological sex may help shape the research and teaching of future biologists. This will help them design experiments that take account of the diversity of their subjects and be more inclusive in their teaching. It may also help all students ask better questions and make better judgments about social and political issues related to sex and gender.
Ari Berkowitz, Presidential Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Biology; Director, Cellular & Behavioral Neurobiology Graduate Program, University of Oklahoma
============================================================== Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, that’s really all I have to say – and no doubt it’s more than enough.
Yesterday. after putting as much as possible for the blog together, I looked at another free knitting pattern I had found – this one for a crutch cover. I have a coulple of pairs of critches. I never use more than one at a time (I probably should touch wood when I say that) and when I use one, it isn’t always for pain – sometimes – most times – it’s for balance. Years ago I got a couple of sets (underarm pad and hand pad) in leopard skin patterns, one natural colors and one shocking pink; but they do need laundering, and I thought it would be nice to have some spares. The pattern calls for a cast-on technique I can always use more practice on, and it also calls for brioche stitch (like stocknette but the odd and the even columns are different colors.) I’m not experimenting with brioche stitch yet – instead, I’m using novelty yarn scraps instead of plan yarn for texture. The designer is known on the internet by the name “The Wooly Kraken,” which gave me a smile.
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Short Takes –
Daily Beast – RNC Flounces Out of Presidential Debates Commission With Unanimous Vote
Quote – In a Thursday statement that announced the unanimous vote, RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said, “We are going to find newer, better debate platforms to ensure that future nominees are not forced to go through the biased CPD in order to make the case for the American people.” Click through for details. Reality may have a liberal bias – and, if so, it’s about the only thinkg that does. Certainly the media and the CPD don’t.
NBC News THINK – Why Good Friday is a warning against far-right Christian nationalism
Quote – Yet while Trump’s authoritarian MAGA movement has become all but synonymous with white evangelical Christianity, it does not speak for most Christians in the U.S., who are sick of seeing our faith hijacked for hateful political agendas. Click through if a Scriptural condemnation of “white evangelical Christianity” woould be useful to you. Lord Acton’s famous quote doesn’t go far enough. One does not need to have power to be corrupted by it. Wanting power is more than enough to corrupt.
Crooks and Liars – James Carville Has Had It With Democratic Whiners
Quote – If you’re a Democrat, I don’t care what you are with gender, race, if you don’t see that and you are not outraged, and it doesn’t make you want to vote, I can’t do anything for you! You’re just a whiny, complaining person…. If we can’t stand in there for Joe Biden and talk about the great things he’s done, then we don’t deserve to win this election in 2022. Click through for full opinion. Not that anyone here is guilty, necessarily. But this is the same thing we saw in 2016. It didn’t turn out well.
Yesterday I overslept – the only surpise there is that it didn’t happen sooner after the weekend. But at least I had gotten pretty well caught up the previous day, so I was able to keep up.
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Short Takes –
Why ‘bad’ ads appear on ‘good’ websites – a computer scientist explains
Quote – Programmatic advertising is a powerful tool that allows advertisers to target and reach people on a huge range of websites. As a doctoral student in computer science, I study how malicious online advertisers take advantage of this system and use online ads to spread scams or malware to millions of people. This means that online advertising companies have a big responsibility to prevent harmful ads from reaching users, but they sometimes fall short. Click through for more detailed explanation, I used to see people in comments complaining about site advertising (and assuming everyone else was seeing what they were seeing) on a daily basis Nowadays I don’t. But the problem is still real – in fact worse, because not it has infested newsletters (from large sites which use a mail service to send them out.) Not that anyone here ever does … but never click on an ad in a newsletter, even from a trusted site.
Dr. Seuss’ Banned Anti-War ‘The Butter Battle Book’ Is Now a Netflix Kids’ Show
Quote – Written in 1984, The Butter Battle Book centered around the war between an orange race called Zooks and a blue race called Yooks. Their countries were divided by a wall over a disagreement on which was the right way to butter bread: Yooks preferred them butter-side up while the Zooks preferred butter-side down. Given the time of the book’s publication, The Butter Battle Book was considered a direct commentary on the Cold War. Seuss unapologetically delved into exploring the consequences of nationalism and the nature of war via the military-industrial complex. Most of the book focused on a heated arms race that got so deadly, it ended with a dour, open-ended conclusion. Click through for synopsis of original, synopsis of adaptation, and a trailer (plus a link to a John Olver video torching Ted Cruz ove Dr. Seuss which is probably not new.) Theodor Geisel was not a perfect person … but his propensity for making people think (which too many people don’t like) was a great gift.
truthout (OpEd) – Republicans Refuse to Name Courthouse After Black Judge in Overtly Racist Move
Quote – Hatchett retired from the court in 1999 and went into private practice. He passed away last year at age 88, a widely praised and highly admired jurist. “Joe Hatchett is a person who lives and has lived by the ethical precepts which have historically guided the conduct of truly great judges and lawyers of our past and present,” said former American Bar Association (ABA) President Chesterfield Smith when Hatchett was awarded the Florida Supreme Court Historical Society’s Lifetime Achievement Award. “Joe Hatchett to me exemplifies what is best in an American judge, one who is sometimes lonely, but one who never shirks standing alone.” Click through for full opinion. Yes, this is truthout, and yes, truthout is pretty far left. Bu there’s only one phrase in it I could conceivably disagree with, and that because it is too kind to Republicans. See what you think.
Yesterday was another pretty quiet day. It was cold, and there was some snow, but I do have a working heater in place (as opposed to last week, when the one I had died), so i was just fine.
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Short Takes –
Daily Beast – Why Putin Is Itching to Get His Hands on This Ex-American Banker
Quote – [Bill] Browder, a financier who had once been the largest foreign investor in Russia, had long been a thorn in Moscow’s side before he was detained that day in May 2018. Years earlier, Browder had discovered that many of the companies he had invested in were being robbed by oligarchs and corrupt officials. Unwilling to let this fraud go unchallenged, Browder, as detailed in his 2015 bestseller Red Notice, decided to fight back. Click through for the gist of the story. I expect that Freezing Order is quite some book. Every group has its exceptions, even bankers (I don’t mean bank employees, who are generally good pwople; I’m thinkinfg of management when I make that generalization.)
New Mexico In Depth – Money for abandoned uranium mine cleanup spurs questions about design, jobs
Quote – Uranium mines are personal for Dariel Yazzie. Now head of the Navajo Nation’s Superfund program, Yazzie grew up near Monument Valley, Arizona, where the Vanadium Corporation of America started uranium operations in the 1940s. His childhood home sat a stone’s throw from piles of waste from uranium milling, known as tailings. His grandfather, Luke Yazzie, helped locate the first uranium deposits mined on the Navajo Nation. His father was a uranium miner, then worked for Peabody Coal mine. Yazzie, Diné, heard the family stories about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scanning his family’s home for radiation in 1974, when he was 4 years old, finding several high contamination readings. Click through for details and anecdotes. Cleaning up after fossil fuels is bad enough … but cleaning up after uranium is worse.
Want to improve student achievement? Hire a Black principal.
Quote – Researchers have found that principals of color yield multiple benefits for students of color. A University of Minnesota study published in January about the impact of Black women principals in secondary schools linked Black principals and higher math achievement for students. Black men make up a slight majority of Black secondary school principals, but the researchers suggest that Black women in these roles have a positive effect on student achievement and teacher investment in schools. Click through for evidence. I don’t know that this would work in every school district, but in those where it wouldm it would do so like a champion.
Food For Thought:
Not a picture today, but a short quote from an email from Faithful America. Anyone not in the Christian faith tradition, please take this as confirmation of what you already know: far too many “Christians” don’t act Christian.
During Holy Week, the church remembers the final days of Christ’s earthly life and ministry. But we often forget just what it was that Jesus did to anger the religious and political authorities in the first place:
“Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers… He said to them, ‘It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer;’ but you are making it a den of robbers.'”
If we’re serious about following Jesus, we need to start flipping more tables ourselves.
_Destruction_of_the_Roehampton_Estate_January_1832.png){kind=link}
