Happy New Year... Sorta

With everyone getting ready for New Years Eve, I thought it might be a good time to recognize the other New Years... perhaps we should celebrate them all... I'll bring the beer...

(Dates are New Years during 2006)

Gregorian Calendar - January 1 (January 1)
Indian National Calendar - Chaitra 1 (March 22)
Kurdish Calendar - Jezhnan 1 (March 21)
Persian Calendar - Farvardin 1 (March 21)
Islamic Calendar - 1 Muharram (January 31)
Chinese Calendar - Month 1, Day 1 (January 29)
Jewish Calendar - 1 Tishre (September 22)
Julian Calendar - January 1 (January 14)
Baha'i Calendar - Baha' 1 (March 20)
Bengali Calendar - Pôhela Boishakh (April 14)
Coptic Calendar - Thout 1 (September 11)
Ethiopian Calendar - Enkutatash (September 11)
Javanese Calendar - Mangsa Kaso 1 (June 23)
Nanakshahi calendar - Chet 1 (March 14)
Bikram Samwat - Baisakh 1 (April 13)


I'm sure there are a lot more I didn't include, but either way,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The Secret War

The Gap Band - You Dropped The Bomb On Me

Channukah

Another Jewish holiday arrives, and with it, a new song by Israel Beer. So, grab your dreidel and start...

Spinnin' on Nun

Religion and Homosexuality

I prefer not to delve in to personal beliefs on homosexuality or other people's personal beliefs on it. Believe whatever you want. I do have a problem, however, with people taking things out of context and trying to rationalize their personal beliefs that way.

On the holiest day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur, in the afternoon service, we read from Leviticus, Chapter 18. This is the section of the Torah (part of the old testament to Christians) that is most often quoted as showing what G-d thinks about homosexuality and how we should act towards it. Clearly the rabbis thought this was a very important section since it is read on such a holy day. The line that specifically speaks of homosexuality is:

18:22 Do not lie with a male as you would with a woman, since this is a disgusting perversion.

This clearly doesn't leave my wiggle room. Now, on the surface, it seems that what all of those preachers on TV are yelling about is correct, but look at the rest of the paragraph and you'll see that this sentence cannot be read alone. I'll highlight a passage I think is very interesting:

18:19 Do not come close to a woman who is ritually unclean because of her menstruation, since this is a sexual offense.

This verse is also very clear and gives very little wiggle room. I have never heard of any preacher disallowing this. How can someone be so incredibly passionate about one sentence and yet ignore other sentences just before it? It seems like those who preach so strongly against homosexuality need to either start preaching against sex during a woman's period until she has ritually bathed or they need to start viewing the bible as an entire, cohesive book. You cannot pick out the pieces you are passionate about and throw out the rest.

Now, I'm not saying I obey all the laws in the bible. VERY far from it. What I'm saying is that if you're going to use the bible as justification for ostracizing and hating a group of people, you need to also listen to everything else it has to say -- if not in the whole thing, at least take entire sections. Cherry picking sentences that fit your needs while ignoring others only shows a desire to prove ones point, not a desire to follow what you believe is the will of G-d. I know there are other passages that also speak of homosexuality, Wikipedia has an entire article on the topic, but this seems to be the one most often referenced and used.

Also, an interesting note: This passages specifically mentions men, not women. Like always, just something to think about. If I'm way off base here, tell me in the comments and I'll post updates and changes as necessary. I'm not a religion expert, just a casual observer.

A Little Joke

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The woman below replied, "You're in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You're between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."

"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist.

"I am," replied the woman, "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is, technically correct, but I've no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help at all. If anything, you've delayed my trip."

The woman below responded, "You must be in Management."

"I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well," said the woman, "you don't know where you are or where you're going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise which you've no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's my fault."

Marriage

For those of you keeping up, I'm engaged. When you get engaged, right after people say "Congratulations", they almost always say, "You know, marriage is hard." Why do they do this? It boggles the mind.

Now, I've never been married, so take what I say with a grain of salt. It seems to be that it's not marriage that's hard, LIFE is hard... People seem to make a leap:

Life is hard. I am married. Therefore, Married life is hard and thus marriage is hard.

This is clearly a silly way to look at things. The other problem I have with the statement is that it's almost a challenge. It's as if people are saying, "Marriage is hard... Probably too hard for you." I bet there are studies (I'm too lazy right now to look for some, but maybe I'll post some later) that say that happily married people have a much easier life than happy non-married people because you have someone to rely on and help you when you need it.

I guess I'll have a lifetime to decide if I'm right!

Either way... getting married seems harder than being married...

Learning

I've found myself with some spare time lately. At first I started reading news sites, then other blogs, then I would just stare off into space. One day I realized that I have the entire Internet at my disposal. So, now everytime I see, hear, or read something that interests me, I try and remember to look it up on Wikipedia. Not only does this fill my spare time, but I've learned a lot about topics I knew nothing about before. I've kept up a small list of the articles I've been reading. I encourage you, one of the two people that read this thing, to read through some of these articles, especially the ones that don't seem that interesting at first.

The White House
Korea's Demilitarized Zone
Abortion and Religion
Hatikva
3 Gorges Dam
Jewish Bible
World War One
Eisenhower Interstate System
GPS
Windsor Castle
Moscow Kremlin
Coronation of the British Monarch
Eurail
Freedom Tower
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Chernobyl
Swastika
Battle of Belleau Wood
Battle of the Somme
Battle of Verdun
Engagement Ring
Enron International
Glossolalia
Pentecostalism
People's Socialist Union

Please post comments with other interesting articles!

Chopped Herring

I feel it is time to explain the URL of this blog... chopped herring. Many of you may not know what it is or why a blog is named chopped herring.... I will explain.

First, my blog used to have the URL of my name. After a while, I figured this was probably not the smartest idea. There's always a chance that can get me into trouble one day. So, the task of gererating a new domain name fell upon Rachel, my fiance. After many, many suggestions, I chose Chopped Herring. Here are my reasons why:

First, "Chopped Herring" is a nice sounding phrase. It's the kind of phrase that Dave Barry would say is a good name for a rock band. It rolls right off the tongue.

Second, and this is very important, I LOVE CHOPPED HERRING! I really, really do. It's a wonderful combination of bottled herring, eggs, crackers, and other secret ingredients. If you've never had chopped herring, you really can't consider your existence on this planet a "life". You should get up right now, run to your nearest Jewish deli (or Jewish grandmother) and get some... don't worry... I'll wait.

So, while I've only given two reasons for the URL name, which is clearly not enough for a good grade on my TAAS exam, it will do.

Dieting

I just lost about 50lbs.

I wasn't monstrously obese to begin with, but I was definitely carrying an extra small child around with me everywhere I went. He was fat, sweaty, and I'm glad to be rid of him. When I see people that I haven't seen in a few months, they often ask me how I lost the weight. I respond, "diet and exercise." I have learned that this is the opposite of what people want to hear. What they'd much prefer I say is, "I went to Target and bought this great tasting drink. It costs $0.35. You wake up the day after drinking it 50lbs lighter."

The usual response I get after saying "diet and exercise" is that it was very easy for me (and much easier than it would be for the person talking) because 1) I'm a man, 2) I'm young, 3) I'm lucky, 4) I live at a perfect longitude and latitude for weight loss, etc. Now, I'm not saying that some of those things may not have helped, but it says something when the person accusing you of such things is enjoying a HoHo.

Let me let you all in on a little secret. Being fat is easy... Being skinny is hard. Especially if you like food and laziness. If you are overweight and look really closely at your thinner friends, you'll probably notice that they eat far less than you, snack less than you, and are more active than you. This is not a coincidence.

So, now on to how you, too, can lose a lot of weight in a little time. (I lost my weight in a little under 4 months)

1) NO SNACKING! EVER! 3 meals a day is all you need. If you're really, really hungry just think that in a couple hours, you'll eat again. Drink a whole bunch of water and you'll feel much better.

2) No fried foods... No cheese! I love cheese! I love it a lot. I can eat a block of cheese in a sitting. I also like fried foods. In fact, fried cheese could be the greatest invention ever. The wheel is the only thing that comes close, and that's only because it gets you to the fried cheese faster. Also, cut down on the booze. I know that when you're dieting you want to drown your sorrows in a nice, cold beer, but that's just extra calories you'll have to burn off later (see #5 below).

3) Don't eat what's put in front of you. I eat out a lot. Far more than your average person. While I have a fiance who is a WONDERFUL cook, we like to enjoy other foods as well. When you go out for dinner, you often get a plate that could feed an entire African nation. DO NOT EAT ALL THAT FOOD! You have to get into the mindset that you are not paying for the food, but you're paying for a meal. Stop eating when you're not hungry anymore. You should stop WAY before you're actually full. You can always take the food home and it eat the next day. Also, when you go to a Mexican or Italian restaurant, ask them not to bring you chips or bread. Those are just carbs and fat. -- that means it makes you FAT!

4) Eat sensibly. Fat Flush, Atkins, low-carb, high-protein. These are all a huge waste of time for anyone but the publishing industry. The only way a person can lose weight and keep it off is to change their lifestyle. I've never met a person who did low carb and stayed that way forever. In order to keep the weight off, you have to change the way you eat and look at food -- forever. Instead of fad diets, you can eat sensibly. Eat smaller portions. Eat grilled instead of fried. All common sense things that can really work, but wont sell books.

5) Get your ass on a treadmill --- and I don't mean just once! You have to do it regularly. At least 3-4 times a week... 5-6 times would be much better. It doesn't necessarily have to be a treadmill. Any cardio workout will do... Dance, basketball, racquetball, elliptical trainer, etc. What's important is that you do it for at least 30-45 minutes per day, most days in the week, every week. Every time you're sitting on the couch flipping channels, bored out of your mind, get up and go for a walk or down to the gym.

I know this is not the kind of advice that make me rich (or make me friends), but it really is the best way to do it. I welcome your comments.

P.S. If you're interested in my latitude and longitude for weight loss purposes, I live at:

32° 47' 53" N
96° 47' 49" W

Engaged

I'M ENGAGED!

I LOVE YOU, RACHEL!

Passover

To celebrate Passover starting tonight, please enjoy the musical styling of my good buddy Israel:

Passover The Pain

Post comments with what you think of it!

Voting

I was listening to NPR the other day, and there was a commentary on how bad it is that the turnout for the local primary election in Dallas was less than 10% (I think it was about 6%). The commentator was shocked at how low the turnout was, and felt that we, as Americans, were letting our country down by not voting. This seems to be the conventional wisdom in America. Puff Daddy's (or P. Diddy, or Diddy, or Didgeridoo, or whatever he's calling himself now) "Vote or Die" campaign seems to be the attitude of most people.

This attitude is wrong, and a little stupid. Allow me to explain...

We LOVE democracy. Apparently, we can't get enough of it.

I tried to find my county's ballot for the 2004 general election, but to no avail (If you can find out, please post the link in the comments.). Here is the ballot for Travis County (Austin, TX) for 2004. As you can see, the ballot includes about 39 different races for each person to vote for. There are a lot of jobs on the ballot that most people don't understand in the first place: Constable, Railroad Commissioner, County Commissioner. Unless your full time job is researching those people, there is no way you can intelligently decide on each of those races. This leaves a few options:

1) Straight party vote. I know a lot of people who vote like this. Because a lot of people vote like this, candidates for lesser known positions will often try to become the candidate from a party that gets the most votes in an area (GOP in Texas, for example). They may not follow the party line or care at all about the party, they just know it can be the key to winning a race, especially in a less well-known race.

2) Random Guessing. There are people who vote for candidates with the funniest names, candidates whose names sound nice, candidates who seem to be from a certain race (based on their name) -- Hernandez for Hispanic or Goldstein for Jewish, for example. All of these only hurt our democracy and put Mike Hunt in office regardless of what he believes.

3) Not Voting. While not politically correct, or the ideal option, sometimes this is the right thing to do. I would much rather have 5% of the population vote, and be knowledgeable about the races and issues, than 95% of the population vote ignorantly. Democracy is a great system of government, ignorant democracy is one of the worst!

As a sidebar, I'd like to point out that we do not live in a democracy, but a republic. We elect people who decide issues for us. In a democracy, we'd all vote on every issue. Actually, we live in a plutocracy.

What is the solution to this problem? Well, I see a few. First, we should not be electing so many positions. For example, perhaps instead of electing all those different judges, we could elect a panel to appoint judges, or put that role in the hands of the governor or legislature. We elect them. If they put in bad judges, we shouldn't elect them next time. Second, we are in the 21st century. In this day and age, we should have the ability to have a central repository for information on candidates. The Secretary of State's office already makes sample ballots available online. In addition to that, they should have links to each candidate's website. When the candidate petitions to be on the ballot, they can supply a website where voters can go for more information. Third, there should be a central website for YES/NO answers to policy questions facing the different positions. The candidate can supply a YES/NO answer to a series of questions that are relevant, so voters can EASILY see where they stand on the issues.

So, next time you go to vote, really think about the candidates you're voting for, and decide if you know them well enough to hire them to work for you, because that's what you're actually doing.

And now, some links to more information:

US Voter Turnout
International Voter Turnout
Texas Secretary of State - Offices up for election in 2006

Corn

I LOVE CORN!

(As I mentioned in the "Olive Theory" post below, this is part of the "Idiotic Post Series")