art

Jesse Rifkin: Real "Bad Jew"

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I’m a bad Jew,” a friend said, grinning ear to ear and then biting into a bacon-egg-and-cheese bagel sandwich. Even looking back on the Jewish gangsters of the 1920’s, socialist Jews of the 1930’s, hippies of the ’60’s and punks of the ’80’s, seldom has being a “bad Jew” seemed so trendy. Time and time again, American Jews simultaneously act and critique their own actions, rigidly adhere to ancient precepts and then question them. As a community, we create the counter thesis to our own tradition through rebellion, with the rebellion itself long since becoming a tradition. The problem is that “bad Jews” don’t always play their part so well.

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Feminist Filmmaking – Ida Lupino's "The Trouble With Angels"

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Mary Clancy, the ne’er-do-well protagonist of the 1966 comedy The Trouble With Angels is the Catholic education system’s worst nightmare: she is clever, irreverent, wise beyond her sixteen years, and full of “scathingly brilliant ideas.” She is sent (along with her best friend and most loyal follower, Rachel) to St. Francis Convent to be “straightened out.” It is there that she meets her foil and foe — the venerable Reverend Mother (played by the equally venerable Rosalind Russell), a stern nun with a fondness for order and cooperative, obedient young women. Shenanigans, of course, ensue.

Culture

Spiritual Wisdom of the Week

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This week’s spiritual wisdom is a beautiful poem that Ned Green wrote on the Appalachian Trail in his journal in 1997. On February 18, 2001, at age 26, he passed away while doing what he loved most — climbing. After his support on an ice ledge gave way, he fell into a deep chasm on Mt. Washington, New Hampshire. Precarious

A grounded bird
Perched feet from sheer faces,
Freefalls and deadly drops
Flying on jutted thrusts of rock
I suddenly feel boreal
And pseudo-alpine.

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Mark Twain’s Early Protest against the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

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We are delighted to start presenting occasional one-off posts by guest authors with this fine essay by Cynthia Wachtell, author of War No More: The Antiwar Impulse in American Literature, 1861-1914. By Cynthia Wachtell
I sometimes wonder what Mark Twain would make of America’s many modern wars. This year marks the centenary of Twain’s death, which means he died before World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the first Gulf War, and our current contretemps in Iraq and Afghanistan. Oh what a century he missed! Of course, Twain wrote the American classics Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, but he also spilled a lot of ink about war.

Culture

So Glad; Thoughts on Same Sex Marriage

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I am so glad that through the eyes of faith I can see a day when the state is out of the marriage business. When we all–straight and LGBT–have equal rights and responsibilities under the laws of civil union or domestic partnership. Marriage will then exist within the domain of faith communities, and they can marry whom they will.

Empathy

Trustbuilding in Richmond

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Marrying a foreigner and living in their country — as both my brother and I have done (we’re English but I live in Switzerland and my brother in the States) — can be a challenge: not just to fit in but to work out when to contribute by not exactly fitting in. My own experience leaves me doubly impressed by my old friend Rob Corcoran, a Scot and a white man, who married an American and went to live in Richmond, the former capital of the Southern states. When they arrived there, they moved into a mixed race neighbourhood, and quickly a couple of African-American neighbours became good friends. As an outsider perhaps my friend was better placed to see old problems with fresh eyes. Out of their experience grew a programme called Hope in the Cities.

Culture

Approaching the Oscar Grant Verdict with Empathy

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In a few days, possibly as early as tomorrow, a controversial trial will come to an end, and the verdict on Johannes Mehserle, the police officer who killed Oscar Grant in Oakland, California, last January, will be released. This is a tense moment in Oakland. What will happen if he is acquitted? What will happen if is found guilty? Whatever the verdict is, some people will be unhappy.

Culture

Independence from What?

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A few months ago, I signed up with the good folks at Tikkun to write a post on July 4th. I was hopeful at that time that I could write something encouraging, something hopeful, maybe something about interdependence. But yesterday, when I sat down to write, I found myself unable to. I had stopped off on my way home from visiting my sister and was drinking coffee in Union Square in San Francisco, my laptop open in front of me. The sunlight was gentle and clear.

Culture

Keeping Science and Technology in Check

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There’s no denying that science and technology have drastically changed our way of life in the last 250 years. Moreover, to many it seems that the wheels of science and technology are spinning out of control and there’s no way to slam on the brakes. When it comes to issues as disparate as global warming and government surveillance, our ethics and values are not always reflected in our use of science and technology. So how do we keep science and technology in check? How do we use them as tools rather than allow them to have power over us and our way of life?

Culture

A Conspiracy of Love

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Beautiful article in our local paper about Dean Ornish (at right with his family), “the nation’s pre-eminent proponent of adopting a healthy life to reverse chronic diseases.” Since founding the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in 1984, he has run trial after trial looking at whether lifestyle choices involving diet, exercise, meditation – and even love – can be as powerful in treating disease as drugs, radiation, chemotherapy and surgery. “In my 33 years, in everything we did, people thought we were crazy,” said Ornish, a self-described hugger who exudes a doctor’s natural air of concern. “People said the tests must be wrong or that this could only happen in California. But we have proven that lifestyle is treatment, not just prevention.”