Monday, December 23, 2019

 Whew, son. I'm not going to lie to you, beloved. I've had a rough day and I'm in no shape to do this. Still, duty calls, even if softly.



 Without going into too great a detail, I've been sick all day. I must've picked up a virus or perhaps that half-a-pizza I ate last night had something screwy with it. In any event, from this morning when Otis got me out of bed until a little over an hour ago, I've kept it shut down. The big sleep did me a world of good, though. Again, no details, but my tummy might be not inclined to take on a spaghetti dinner, it isn't rebelling on me like it was earlier today. It wasn't pleasant, but I did get it all out of my system.

 Okay, enough of that. In any event, today's been kind of quiet, relatively speaking. I forgot this yesterday, but Happy Hanukkah to all my Jewish friends and neighbors. It started last night and lasts until Dec. 30. I will freely admit I have only a passing knowledge of the holiday and its importance to Jews. You don't find many of the Tribe up here in Northeast Mississippi and most of the folks of the Jewish persuasion I've met on my wanderings have been of the secular inclination.

 Back in Athens, I was work buddies with a sister-brother pair who were the children of a rabbi. My boss's rabbi, as a matter of fact. I want to say Reform but I could be wrong. In any event, they were pretty liberal, as I understand it, but pretty serious about their faith. The sister's husband even converted to Judaism and I'm lead to believe that's no mean feat. Some Jewish people are pretty hardcore, but I doubt many of them make it to Georgia.

 Growing up nominally Freewill Baptist in a place where the only Jews I ever saw were on television, I've never been able to grok the continuing strain of antisemitism that runs through society. Where it comes from, why it still burns so brightly in some people, I just don't understand. And the haters don't care if the Jewish person they're hating on is in temple every time the synagogue doors open or never goes even on the holidays at their grandma's request, if the person is a Jew they're going to hate that Jew.

 I don't remember where I read it, but it's funny that the very word to describe these people, "Jew", is also used as a bat to abuse them. I'm familiar with the stories and theories and articles of faith the bigots use. They're just silly and stupid, like claiming the Illuminati still run things. Hell, I've read through The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and a wackier batch of bullshit you'll never find. Once its origins are learned, it shouldn't be good for anything but covering up a hole in one's shoe.

 But hate they do, and like all hate based on how someone came out of the chute, I don't understand it. I don't know if it's come across, but I'm a pretty open-minded and accepting dude when it comes to race, religion or sexuality, especially for someone from rural Mississippi, apparently. People ask me how I came to that, and it's simple: it just doesn't make any logical sense to hate someone who doesn't look or worship or screw like me, not as individuals or as a group. It's easier to live and let live, and a modicum of thought on the subject should reveal nothing but the solid fact that no one is running a damn thing around here.

 Speaking of loopy antisemitism, Olivia Nuzzi had an article in the New York Magazine with Trump's Schrodinger's do-boy Rudy "Fuck My Legacy" Giuliani. In amongst the overall whackjob convorsation she had - one he's still raging at her hours later over - he claimed he (a Catholic) was a "more of a Jew" than Modern American Conservatism's bête noire George Soros.

 Just goes to show that for Modern American Conservatives that the only thing that matters for American Jews is how much they love (or just don't care about) the status of modern-day Israel. I'm sure I don't have to tell anyone that's been paying the slightest bit of attention, but don't trust non-Jews who give y'all shit about Israel. Long story short, they don't have the slightest bit of interest in your overall health and well-being.

 The last thing I want to go into was yesterday's completely unhinged speech by Donald Trump to a Palm Beach gathering of the Hitler Youth's comedy group, TPUSA. In it, he rants and raves about the wind before going on a truly bull-goose loony tirade on windmills. To be fair, he's on record as claiming windmills cause cancer and kill birds, mainly because he doesn't like them near his golf courses. Our president, ladies and gentlemen, and there is absolutely nothing that can dislodge the Faithful from their worship of him. Even Evangelicals are turning on regular Christian institutions that fail to pay proper homage to Trump. Don't expect it to get any better, either.

 That's plenty, I think. Again, a very Happy Hanukkah to one and all, with wishes of peace and sanity for everyone. Again, though, I'm not holding my breath.