CNN: The spicy hotdog sausage fueling French protests – by Oliver Briscoe Excerpt: Protesting in France is a hungry business, and when the country’s angry citizens put down their placards, they seek out sustenance. Not for classic French cuisine though. Above all else, demonstrators demand spicy hotdog sausages. Beef and lamb merguez sausages, spiced with cumin, chile or harissa to recipes imported from North Africa, are the food of the streets in France – and not just in the recent protests against pension age reform that have spread through the country. There was merguez in May 1968 when student uprisings whetted appetites […]
Fabric Arts , Hawaii
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The history of quilting in Hawaii
NY Times Style Magazine: In Hawaii, the Quilt Makers Keeping a Centuries-Old Tradition Alive — This week, pieces by the Poakalani quilting circle are on display during the Salone del Mobile in Milan as part of a collaboration with Loewe. A few more links about this tradition: Wikipedia: Hawaiian Quilt FluxHawaii.com: Kapa Kuiki Hawaiian Quilt Makers #Hawaii #Quilts
Food , Mexican Food , Mexico
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A historical look at the chile pepper
NYTimes (via archive.is): How the Chile Became Hot — Why did the consumption of hot peppers — after centuries of cultivation and global migration — come to confer status and sophistication? #Chile #MexicanFood
AI , Meta-Analysis
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AI vs. the screen writers?
NY Times: TV’s War With the Robots Is Already Here — A.I. screenwriting, a point of contention in the Writers Guild strike, may not yet be ready for prime time. But streaming algorithms and derivative programming have prepared the way for it. – by James Poniewozik (May 10, 2023) Television loves a good sentient-machine story, from “Battlestar Galactica” to “Westworld” to “Mrs. Davis.” With the Writers Guild of America strike, that premise has broken the fourth wall. The robots are here, and the humans are racing to defend against them, or to ally with them. Among the many issues in the […]
AI , Social Justice , Socialism
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Advice via AI – How can capitalism be defeated?
What follows are some results I received today from Bing’s AI tool wih this question : Tell me how capitalism can be defeated. Searching for: how to defeat capitalism Searching for: how to defeat capitalism Generating answers for you… Generating answers for you… This is Bing. I found some information from web search results that might help you. There are different perspectives and strategies on how to defeat capitalism, depending on one’s political and ethical views. Some of the ideas that I found are: Delegitimize capitalism by exposing its harmful impacts on people and the planet, and by promoting alternative values and […]
Free Speech , LGBTQ , Oklahoma
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Oklahoma needs public television! Save OETA!
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/opinion/2023/05/08/outdoorsman-tell-gov-stitt-and-your-legislator-to-support-oeta/70194158007/ Please take a moment and call or email your state legislator, urging them to override Gov. Stitt’s painfully stupid (and hateful) veto of funding for OETA (Oklahoma’s PBS network — FYI, the only network that serves the entire state). #PBS #OETA #Oklahoma #LGBTQ
Judaism , Mennonite , Oklahoma
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A presentation: Comparing the Anabaptist and Jewish traditions
Video: Two Traditions that I love: Comparing Anabaptism and Judaism The following is the text of a talk I gave at Joy Mennonite Church in Oklahoma City on April 23, 2023. I am very thankful that this church (where I once ministered) was willing to let me come back and share some of my observations from these two traditions (FYI, I am now Jewish). Also, FYI – the accompanying slide show for this talk can be found here. (SLIDE 1) It is such a joy to be here at Joy today! (laughs) Today I’m going to speak about what I […]
JMB Website News
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Experimenting (again) with blogging via wordpress but also as part of the fediverse
Hello friends, I’ve blogged for many, many years mostly under the name of JMBzine.com, but a while back I got very frustrated with WordPress after I experienced having my account hacked and I went back to blogging via a static HTML website. I enjoyed doing the static website, however, two things have convinced me that it is time to try going back to #wordpress: Static HTML is fun to write and cleaner, but it takes time. And then adding the complications of photos and graphics, the end result is that I blog much less frequently. I’m now a big fan of […]
LGBTQ , Theology
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A response to the Word Nerd about LGBTQ-inclusive theology
The following is a letter-to-the-editor that I wrote to Bible Study Magazine in response to “Word Nerd-Language & the Bible,” a column by Editor Mark Ward in the September/October 2022 print issue of the magazine. Dear Editor, I am deeply disturbed by your decision to use your Word Nerd column in the September/October 2022 issue to promote a theology that is hurtful and dangerous. It is simply not true that I Corinthians 6:9 contains “explicit prohibitions of homosexuality,” as there are many who argue that it is not so clear at all (see for instance this essay by Rev. Adam Erickse, this essay from […]
Bike , Photos
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Picture from E-bike – August 2022
Here are a few pictures I took on yesterday’s #ebike ride in a nearby neighborhood. #Oklahoma #OKC #Photos #Birds #Heron