Saying the quiet part out loud

Copied from Facebook:

"As of December 8th, pediatric cases of pertussis in Michigan 1,578
In 2023, there were 110.
Vax rates declined by 60%"

I'm just going to say this, despite how offensive it may be, because I think it needs to be said--parents who refuse to vaccinate their children because they're afraid that vaccines might cause autism are saying that they'd rather their child be dead than different.

Parashat Vayishlach, 5785/2024 edition: Dina was just collateral damage

[Written after havdalah.]

My husband says that a previous rabbi of ours thought that the real reason why the Torah recorded the rape of Dina was to justify the fact that the sons of Jacob/b'nei Yaakov did not intermarry with the people of Shechem.  In other words, that whole story was a polemic against assimilation and had absolutely nothing to do with Dina.

This indifference to the fate of women seems to be a frequent trend in the Tanach/Jewish Bible.  Sarah gets passed off as Avraham's sister twice, and Avraham gets rich as a result.  No one cares about Sarah's suffering.  Leah and Rachel spend years competing with each other to see who can make more babies, and Jacob/Yaakov benefits.  Tamar nearly gets burned alive by Judah/Yehudah for getting pregnant, and he benefits from the continuation of his family line.  Dinah gets raped (some say seduced), and her brothers benefit by taking the women and children of Shechem captive after killing all the men, with no concern for Dinah's future.  No one mentions that the female descendants of Jacob/Yaakov who were enslaved in Egypt were probably spared from being killed so that the Egyptian slaveholders could use them as sex slaves and breeding stock.  Miriam, traditionally considered to have saved the life of Moses/Moshe as a baby, stands up for her right to be recognized as a prophet by G-d, and G-d punishes her by striking her with leprosy, after which she disappears from the Torah until her death is mentioned.  King David's/David HaMelech's daughter Tamar gets raped by her half brother, and we have no idea happened to the rest of her life.  King David's/David HaMelech's servants bring a real, live female--Avishag--to the king to play the part of an electric blanket to the king in his old age, and we have no idea happened to the rest of her life, either.  The prophet Hoshea is disrespectful of his wife (and gives his children nasty names), and everyone still quotes him, with no comment about his behavior, when putting on tefillin.

It's hard for a feminist to take.  Are the sages of old/Chazal sufficiently distressed by any of these tales to have created midrashim of which I'm not aware?

See also my Thursday, November 29, 2012 post, Parshat Vayishlach, 5773/2012 thoughts.

Not hip-hop, just hop--I injured my foot *again*

I think I injured my foot just by standing for too long, which is the same way I injured the same foot two years ago almost to the day.  This is becoming a bad habit.  The good news is that the x-ray showed that my foot isn't broken.  (It wasn't broken the last time, either.)  The bad news is that I'm still hopping around the apartment on crutches, and my poor husband (bless him) is stuck doing *everything.*  But I should be fine in a week or two.  Physical therapy, here I come.

Note to self:  In the future, set a timer for 20 minutes every time you're washing dishes or doing other chores, and *sit down* for five minutes when it rings!

Welcome back to the good old days (😡)

Isn’t it great?  Now we can go back to wives obeying their husbands and making babies whether they want to or not, “coloreds” knowing their place, “homos” being neither seen nor heard, everyone saying Merry Christmas instead of Happy Holidays, no one daring to speak any language other than English in public, and an end to stupid curb cuts, sign language interpreters, and that special education nonsense.  Take off your white hood—there’s no need for it anymore.

😡

Yes, this is satire.  No, I am not amused.  I’m not looking forward to the next four years.  😢  

I'm sorry to say that I predicted this:  See my Thursday, May 16, 2019 post, Re abortion-rights abolition quest: Only "dominant-class" males have permanent rights :( :( :(.

See also my Tuesday, November 28, 2017 post, Discrimination is discrimination:

"It should not still be the case that anyone who's not a white Christian U.S.-born heterosexual male who speaks English as his first language is fair game for discrimination in the United States."