Category: Culture

Society by Joe WilcoxMay 6, 20061:04 pm

Yeah, I’m Angry

Family friends run a construction business. The husband, who is from Central America, sees a fair number of people looking to take advantage of Hispanic business owners and workers. The presumption is Hispanic means illegal immigrant. And if the, uh, American doesn’t pay, there’s nothing the illegal can do. In fact, there often are threats about turning in the Hispanic immigrant to US authorities.

Now, this man is legal. He has a green card and runs an honest business. But he witnesses plenty of discrimination against Hispanics and gets some of it, too. I mention this because, one, it really pisses me off and, two, there is this immigration debate raging on Capitol Hill.

Society by Joe WilcoxMay 2, 20068:12 am

Bean-hole Beans

It’s Saturday, and that means baked beans throughout Northern Maine. Most grocery stores sell fresh-baked beans (no canned stuff) and bread hot from the oven. It’s longstanding tradition with roots going back to the Pilgrims/Puritans. The tradition mingles with another: Bean-hole Beans.

Early Massachusetts settlers adopted the Native American tradition of baking beans in pots buried in the ground. For the religious folk, beans baked overnight would feed people on the Sabbath, the day of rest, which started on Saturday evening. The Puritans adapted Native bean recipes, also replacing—or rather changing—corn bread for brown bread. Nearly 400 hundred years later, throughout much of Maine, the tradition of Saturday night baked beans is steadfastly observed, with family replacing religion.

Living by Joe WilcoxApr 16, 200612:04 pm

Be Better Neighbors

Yesterday, I wore my Alienware T-Shirt, with the company’s logo on the front—an alien, of course. For some reason, I got several questions about it. So I said: “Well, this is my illegal alien. He’s afraid of getting sent back to his home planet, and I’m protesting with him.”

There’s truth to what I said. I’m unfavorable to the hardline US legislators are taking with this immigration bill. I just don’t see turning all these immigrants into criminals, or turning them away. As one of the sixth graders pointed out today in the Sunday school class I teach, most Americans are immigrants. And to the Native Americans here 400 hundred years ago, the off-continent settlers were the illegals and, as it turned out, invaders, too.

Society by Joe WilcoxApr 12, 20063:14 pm

Hacker Commandos

Looks like Orthodox Jewish hackers are replacing porn with pictures of Rabbi Menahem Mendel Schneerson. Dubbed “sex commandos”, they place text, “we, the Da-Net group, have hacked into this site and erased all its abomination”, […]

Culture by Joe WilcoxApr 6, 20066:05 pm

Funerary Relief Bust Lament

I took my daughter and her friend downtown today, hoping to catch some remnant of the National Cherry Blossom Festival. But there was none. Day before, my daughter and I braved the steady (and pelting rain) for a few short hours. We gave up on the parade, but managed to shop the merchandise along Pennsylvania Ave. I bought her a kimono jacket and trinkets.

But, today, cars rather than merchants filled Pennsylvania Ave. So we continued the walk up 12th Street to the National Mall. For young girls the mall means someplace to shop, so I explained the difference of this Mall. I have yet to break my daughter of calling the Washington Monument, which flanks one end of the Mall, the “big pointy thing”.

Living by Joe WilcoxApr 3, 20063:24 pm

Let Be the Midwives

The New York Times looks at the prosecution of midwives in Indiana, where only doctors and nurses can legally assist births. I believe the same may hold true in Maryland, where we used a licensed midwife-nurse for our daughter’s birth.

Midwifery certainly predates any law governing the practice or the modern-day practice of hospital deliveries. This doctor-hospital thing is a fairly recent practice, while midwives have been birthing babies for millennia.

Living by Joe WilcoxMar 29, 20068:39 am

From (Docking) Cradle to the Grave

How much do some people love their cell phones? It’s a grave question, as some people choose to take along their cell phones when they die—or so claims the BBC.

Seriously.

Society by Joe WilcoxMar 28, 20063:03 pm

Way to Go, Kids

Now this is what social networking should be for: High school students use MySpace to organize a walkout over proposed immigration changes. The kids are right. It’s wrong to make illegal immigration a felony. The […]

Living by Joe WilcoxMar 12, 20064:31 am

Twisted Tales for Girls

In today’s New York Times, author Naomi Wolf looks at “cute” books for teenage girls that are anything but sweet.

Teenage girl series, such as “Clique” or “Gossip Girls”, are fitting to the adage, “You can’t judge a book from the cover”. Beneath the banal paperback covers are pages rife with status, shopping, and sex. Excerpted from one of the “A-List” series novels, one teen describes sex with her boyfriend: “We used to jump each other, like, three times a night. When we went out to the movies, we’d sit by a wall and do it during the boring parts”.

Living by Joe WilcoxMar 11, 200610:57 am

Smokers’ Revenge

My daughter and I hauled over to Quiznos for lunch. On Saturdays, kids meals are 99 cents. More importantly, it’s about 20 Celsius in Washington and perfect day for eating on Quiznos’ outdoor tables. Humph. […]

Culture by Joe WilcoxMar 6, 20065:36 am

Hollywood’s Last Laugh is None

This morning’s MSNBC commentary by Andy Denhart gets right to what’s wrong with Hollywood. Andy pretty much described satirist Jon Stewart’s Oscar officiation as a flop. I agree, but not for lack of being funny. The audience had no tolerance for laughing at itself. Jon made fun of the stars, but they weren’t laughing at themselves.

Writes Andy, in one example: “An admitted and unashamed progressive himself, Stewart later made fun of the film industry’s perceived liberalness, telling viewers the Oscars are a chance to ‘see all your favorite stars without having to donate any money to the Democratic party’. Our favorite stars barely chuckled”. Self-deprecation wasn’t the humor of the evening.