The War on Chrismahanakwanzaakuh

I realize this post is very late and no longer timely, but I'm still posting it.
Or, It's a Christmas World; You're Just Living in It.
During the commercial breaks of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, I've been know to flip the channel to the O'Reilly Factor. This was where I was first introduced to the War on Christmas.
Initially I was a bit confused by the anger at the use of Happy Holidays and Season's Greetings. These phrases are meant to be inclusionary (and supposedly this is where the anger stems from), but they're not. The "Holiday Season" to me always meant the time from Thanksgiving to New Years. The time when Christmas decorations go up. The time when people shop, when Carols are played on the radio. Advent. The "holidays" weren't Hannukah, Kwanzaa, Solstice, Diwali, or Ramadan. In some European countries, Christmas isn't over until Epiphany; in Sweden St. Lucia Day (Dec. 13) is a big deal. The Eastern Orthodox Christmas is in January.
That isn't to say there haven't attempts at a more inclusionary "Holiday" Season. Marketing attempts. This year I've seen a lot more plastic menorahs in stores and restaurants than I used to. I've always hated them. They're cheap and one or more of the bulbs never works. They look nothing like the real menorahs that my family lights. My elementary school always had a beautiful huge christmas tree in the lobby, and on a small table next to it was one of those unfortunate plastic menorahs. To me, even at the age of eight, it said Christmas is beautiful, joyful and festive; Hannukah is cheap, small and unfortunate.
My Jewish aging hippy parents disapproved of the Holiday Season. Christmas was out of the question. Even Jewish Christmas (a movie and Chinese food) was frowned upon. Hannukah was celebrated in a purposefully austere manner. My parents objected to a minor Jewish holiday being turned into a glorification of commercialism and assimilation. We were reminded that in Israel, Hannukah isn't a big deal, and that when they were growing up, they would be happy to get an orange as a present. A Hanukkah Bush, Hanukkah Harry and a glazed ham were verbotten. Christmas, like happiness, isn't for the Jews.
But we do have our traditions, our holidays; they just aren't in December. We have a drunk holiday (Purim), a symbolic food holiday (Pesach), a starvation holiday (Yom Kippur), even a camping holiday (Sukkot.) I used to try to explain this to my non-Jewish friends, but I stopped after seeing the glazed looks on their faces.
A plastic menorah and a "holiday" season aren't inclusionary. They're cheap, easy ways to dodge the real question of ethnic and religous diversity.

Steeeeerike!

In the past 3 months I’ve had to deal with two strikes, the first I've ever had to deal with. When the GAs went on strike, I was initially ambivalent. No matter how much I felt that the United Auto Workers should have been saving people's jobs in Michigan rather than supporting the Grad students at NYU who were only marginally employed by NYU, I guess they had a right to unionize. But what I really objected to was being used as a pawn by both the GSOC and the University administration. I don't appreciate being made to feel like a scab by using the library or being asked to be a snitch by the administration and report which of my classes are meeting off campus. I still have a class meeting off campus this semester and no, J-Sex, I'm not going to tell you which one.

I've been told (accused, really) by several people that by not supporting the GSOC strike, I was a lipstick liberal. I am liberal; I am pro-union, but I also have a mind of my own and I'm not going to blindly support any cause that claims to have the same political leanings that I do.

I feel completely differently about the transit strike. Don't get me wrong, there is no love lost between me and the transit workers. In a city full of bad service, the transit workers are paragons of the laziness, rudeness and unprofessionalism that New Yorkers have come to expect, but in an economy where workers' rights and privileges are quickly being eroded, unions are more important than ever. The range of objections to the strike have been particularly suprising in a city full of alleged liberals. The elitism of people with post-graduate degrees objecting to having salaries less than those of the transit workers has been particularly disappointing. Social Security and Medicare are not retirement plans, and someone has to pick up the slack. If this means a few days of walking a few miles in the cold, New York should suck it up.

It's true that a few old and sick people were seriously inconvenienced by the strike, but the rest of New York was more insulted than injured. The story of a woman giving birth in a taxi has been pointed to repeatedly as an example of the havoc that the strike has caused, but in truth, women don't make it to the hospital all the time. This week it made the news. Most New Yorkers don't support the MTAs desicions closing of token booths and the one-person operation of trains, but they're obviously unwilling to do anything to keep that from happening.

Strike

If the MTA strike continues till Thursday, I'm looking at a two and a half hour walk in twenty degree weather beginning at 5:30 in the morning to get to my final.

Charity Mugging

Whenever I would see charity muggers on the street, you know those college kids in windbreakers from Greenpeace or Children International begging for signatures or money, I would be so grateful that despite all the crappy jobs I have had, I've never sunk that low. And then several Saturdays ago, I became one.
Standing on a street corner in Philadelphia, I found myself asking people if they had a minute for air quality. Most of them did not. I was there for an interview with an advocacy/research group that will remain nameless. For six hours I was expected to schmooze and act very concerned about environmental issues. The charity mugging was essential, because should I be hired, I would spend an entire summer doing just that.
The longer the interviews and public speaking activities went on, the more uncomfortable I felt. Here I was talking about environmental racism and homelessness with priviledged white kids, Liberal white guilt at its most blatant. One of the advantages of living in New York (or disadvantages) is the exposure I've gotten to all levels of society. I don't know many other places where you have public housing projects in close proximity to one-bedroom condos worth more than half a million dollars. And like the confusing jumble that the citizens of New York often find themselves in, the issues that concern them can not be neatly seperated into neat categories. It's naive to say, but it's true: it's all connected. "Fixing" the world is a messy job; you can't be afraid to get your hands dirty.

Security

A few weeks ago, I bought long underwear as a kitschy-maybe-I'll-wear-this-when-I-go-visit-the-'rents-in-Michigan purchase. Well they've come in very handy in New York. Where's the global warming?

Speaking of the 'rents, this week I realized more than I have ever before, that there's nothing more valuable than a family that loves each other. I never thought I'd be happy that the most serious thing we argued about on Thanksgiving was what kind of pies we were going to have.

The Best Music You're Not Listening To

Explosions in the Sky. Go. Listen. Now. Thank me later.