on Keeping Kosher!

Many of my friends wonder why I keep Kosher, and are confused by the Kosher laws.  I thought I'd clarify some things here:

One of the most basic acts you can do as a living organism is eat.  Most people take this act for granted, almost as unimportant.  According to Bridget Murray of the Monitor on Psychology, our reliance on fast food is a “toxic food environment” that is responsible for “expanding America’s waistline”.  Keeping Kosher is a way to make the very basic act of eating into something purposeful, sacred, or momentous.  A person has to think about everything they put into their mouths and figure out if it is Kosher.

In our modern society, the most conscious thought about food comes when we decide what item we’re going to order off the McDonald’s menu.  We don’t think about what is in the food.  For instance, did you know that the majority of McDonald’s menu is made of corn?  To paraphrase New York Times writer Michael Pollan, Americans are unconsciously eating corn because our “chicken nuggets are made from corn fed chickens, breaded using corn meal, thickened using cornstarch and then fried in corn oil, while the dipping sauce and soda is sweetened using corn syrup.”  We are eating corn without any conscious thought of actually eating corn.  Although corn is a Kosher item, this process of unconsciousness is the exact opposite of what it means to be Kosher.

The word Kosher comes from the Hebrew word Kashrut, which means “laws for eating”.  When something is Kosher it follows a set of dietary laws.  These laws are set out in the book of Leviticus, which is followed by Jews in the Torah, Christians in the Old Testament, and Muslims as a precursor to the Koran.  Muslims extended these laws to create the laws of Halal.

The website: www.okkosher.com states: “We are what we eat. We know that the food we eat is absorbed into our flesh and blood.  Both mind and heart is affected.”

Many people think that in order for something to be Kosher, a Rabbi must bless it.  This is absolutely not true.  As long as the food follows the Kosher rules, it will be Kosher.  A Rabbi may be called in to certify that the preparation of package foods meets all the requirements.  You may have never noticed, but on nearly every package of food, from your sugar packets and potato chip bags, to your milk cartons and coffee cans, there are little marks to let you know if it is certified as Kosher.  These symbols are tiny, but once you notice them, you’ll begin to see them on nearly every kind of food.  The typical symbols are the Circle K, the U or Circle U, the letter D or the word Parve.  The K and U are certification laboratories whereas the D stands for dairy and the word Parve means it is neutral, neither meat nor dairy.

When my friend and I went out to dinner recently, she pulled out a Weight Watchers card and began to count points.  It seemed very complicated.  She used some points to get her entrée, but then subtracted points for something; added points for something else and then concluded that she would be unable to eat dessert that night.  A few weeks later we went out to eat again but this time, she didn’t have the little card.  I asked her if she was off her diet, and she explained that she had simply memorized the point system so she didn’t need the card.  That’s how the Kosher laws are; they seem complicated at first, but after a short time they become second nature.

The Kosher laws are broken into three parts:

The first Kosher category is foods that are specifically Kosher or not Kosher.  All fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, etcetera are Kosher if they’re not poisonous.  There are certain foods though that are strictly never Kosher; these are the forbidden foods and consist of certain animals.  All animals that have fingers or toes are not Kosher, such as dogs, monkeys, bats, people.  All lizards and reptiles are not Kosher.  Most birds, however, are Kosher, except for birds of prey such as owls, eagles, or hawks.  Animals that have split hooves are Kosher, such as cows, sheep, goats, and deer, but those with solid hooves, like horses, are not Kosher, and neither is the milk from such creatures.  Fish are Kosher as long as they have fins and scales, so sharks, whales, or eels are not Kosher while salmon, tuna and bass are.  Pigs are specifically called out as not Kosher, as are Ostriches (for some unknown reason) No shellfish are Kosher!

The second part is foods that are only partially Kosher.  For instance, a cow is Kosher, but the meat must not come from the hindquarters where the sciatic nerve is.  Most internal organs are not kosher.  Wheat flour, baking powder, bread, are either leavening products or are made using leavening products.  Leavening means that it causes bread to rise.  They are all Kosher except during the holiday of Passover.  This is why Jews eat matzah crackers during Passover; they don’t contain any leavening products.  Another consideration is that the animal must be healthy.  A sick animal, with abscesses in its lungs or sores on its body is not Kosher, even if it meets all the other criteria.

The Third part is foods that need to be eaten a certain way in order to make them Kosher.  You cannot eat dairy immediately after, or at the same time, as meat.  This rules out cheeseburgers, tacos, chicken Parmesan.  If you’re planning on eating a dairy dessert, such as pudding, you have to wait at least three hours after eating a meat dish, although Orthodox Jews may wait until the next day. Orthodox Jews are very strict about the laws and will even have separate stoves so that meat and dairy are never prepared together.  A commercial Kosher kitchen is usually divided into two completely separate kitchens for this same reason.  Orthodox Muslims follow many of these same strict rules.

As I mentioned earlier, there are definite religious reasons why someone would want to keep Kosher.  Observant Jews keep Kosher because it is a commandment in the Torah.  Muslims keep Kosher or Halal because it is both a commandment in the Torah, and a commandment in the Koran.  Many Christians nowadays are keeping at least partially Kosher because they are trying to connect with Jesus the man.  Jesus was an observant Jew and would have kept Kosher at all times.  The famous last supper could have been a Passover meal where he and his disciples would have eaten Matzah.  He would have refrained from eating dairy and meat together, and he would certainly never have eaten a pork chop or a shrimp cocktail.

There are other reasons why someone who is not very religious at all would want to keep Kosher.  One of the most fundamental parts to the Kosher laws, which I have not told you about yet, is that in order for a “Kosher” animal to truly be considered Kosher, it has to have lived a normal, healthy life for that animal, and then killed in the most humane way possible.  For this reason many people keeping Kosher refuse to eat Veal.  Many will only eat free-range chickens and beef that are free from steroids.  Many animal farms are cruel to their animals, keeping them in tiny, filthy cages, or injecting them with chemicals and then sending them to a vicious slaughterhouse.  The laws of Kosher forbids cruelty to animals such as removing limbs while it is alive, or by killing a mother’s young in front her.  Having meat that is certified Kosher ensures that the animals lived a full, healthy life, free of chemicals or inhumane treatment, and especially a painful death.

An animal’s life on one of our modern day food-farms can be horrible. According to the Sierra Club on their official website, “[chickens] are bred to have such heavy breasts that many are unable to stand, and die of thirst because they are unable to reach water…To artificially boost milk production, cows are often injected with hormones that cause crippling loss of bone mass and produce painful infections… The Humane Slaughter Act, passed in 1960 by the US Congress, has no provisions for awarding fines or penalties, is generally not enforced by the US Department of Agriculture, and is routinely ignored…Industrial animal production for food represents a systematic violation of nature.”  None of these methods are Kosher.

One may ask, can you pick and choose which rules you are going to follow?  An Othodox Jew or Muslim may answer “no”; but there are many difficulties in trying to keep Kosher in these modern times.  According to the website, Jewfaq.org, only 17% of Jews keep their meat kosher.  First of all, there are many rules that at first glance seem hard to follow; they outlaw many foods that you may have been raised on or have grown accustomed to, such as tacos or cheeseburgers.  Secondly, when you go out to a restaurant, how do you know if they are serving Kosher meat?  Does McDonald’s certify that its cows lived a good life and were killed humanely?  Does it make sure the meat doesn’t come from the hindquarters?

What if a friend asks you over for dinner?  Should you tell them you keep Kosher and then try to explain all the rules to them?  Are they ever going to ask you back?

Personally, I find eating Kosher to be simple.  The rules are really not that long or difficult to follow once you’ve gotten used to them.  And as far as restaurants go, I try to only order things that fit in with the majority of rules, like vegetarian plates.  However, there are times when I order meat from a restaurant and you just have to assume that it will simply not be Kosher; that it will be cooked on the same grill as someone else’s order of shrimp.  The world won’t end if you eat something non-Kosher, and your friends can make you dinner without worrying it will offend you.

According to a recent blog post I read, the Kosher McDonald's in Buenos Aires is the only one found outside of Israel.  This blogger had tried out the meal and found that the beef was far superior to any other McDonald's she or he had ever eaten at.

In conclusion, keeping Kosher is a discipline, like counting points in a Weight Watchers diet plan.  It’s a method of changing the act of eating from something that you don’t think about to one that has a lot of meaning.  It’s about not eating things unconsciously.  Every single time I put any food in my mouth, I think about whether or not it’s Kosher.  I look for the little marks on the packages.  With every piece of meat I wonder if the animal had a good life or if it was miserable or suffered a brutal death just to feed me.  By following rules for eating, you can do what your ancestors did; or you can do what Jesus would have done; or you can do what is humane and ethical.  It’s an interesting way to think about food, all the time.  That’s what Kosher means.

on language

Robert and I have been taking a sign language course recently.  The actual class isn't the usual ASL (American Sign Language) with it's French sentence form [Store go to I] and emphasis on exact structure; instead it is on PSE (Pidgin Signed English).  This is a common form of sign language used prevalently in the deaf community.  It follows standard English sentence structure [Me go to store] but cuts out a lot of needless words.  If a word doesn't directly communicate an idea or concept it can be excised.  The interesting thing, to me, about ASL and PSE is that it is a real language with dialects and constantly evolving words/signs.  In New York for instance a person may sign the word for "parents" by using the letter "P" and touching the forehead then the chin indicating father and mother respectively.  In the Midwest we just use the actual signs for father and mother together (an open hand with the thumb touching the forehead and then the chin).  There are signs that I learned as a child which are now considered "old signs" and are no longer used.  Some signs have gotten simpler, and other signs are brand new.  A friend told me yesterday that the old sign for computer was by taking both index fingers and transcribing circles, like the old tape reels on IBM computers.

This fluidity and evolution of language is caused by younger generations wanting to communicate easier with their peers.  I wonder if there are older signers out there bemoaning the "loss" of their old, outdated signs.

Sometimes a language evolves or is lost because of an invading language.  Many Native American languages have become lost or disused due to the obvious surrounding American-English language.  The same has happened to Aboriginal languages in Australia, and some African dialects.

Just this morning I read that the language called Polari, or Pulare has fallen into disuse and may be lost forever.  This was a language created (supposedly) by carny-folk and public theater workers in Britain as a way to converse without the general population understanding.  In the 40s and 50s it became a popular language for covert gay men.  It started as a mixture of guttural Italian and Romanian (Romany) and then got added to with Backslang (backward words) and Cockney rhyming slang.  Morrissey's song Picadilly Pulare from Bona Drag (Bona Drag means Good Clothes in Polari) has a chorus that says "So bona to vada, your lovely eek and your lovely riah!" which means: So nice to see you, your lovely face and your lovely hair.  Riah means hair because it is simply backwards, while eek means face because face backward is ecaf and said short becomes ec, or eek.  Many Polari words have made it into mainstream modern gay culture such as "Basket" for a man's crotch bulge, "Drag" for clothes, specifically women's clothing, and "Camp" for enthusiastic wittiness and over the top performing.  However, the language itself is no longer used and will eventually disappear altogether.

The controversy around Ebonics was especially contentious a few years ago.  Many claimed that this was just "lazy speak" by select American people of color and not a language that should be allowed, embraced or taught.  However, understanding how language actually evolves it is clear to me that this could end up, or already is, a legitimate dialect, just like a rich Southern Drawl, or Cajun.  My sister's mother-in-law says she is afraid of Klons.  It took me quite a while to understand that Klon is Pittsburghese for Clown.

Bad Scientists, you get no pudding!

I posted part of this post in Great Lakes Green Pages blog earlier this year.

You’d have to be living under a rock if you haven’t heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. It’s a giant mass of swirling trash floating in the Pacific Ocean in an area called the Great Pacific Gyre. Even Oprah has shown videos of dying animals and floating garbage, highlighting the desperate need to clean up this massive floating island of garbage rumored to be twice the size of Texas and over 300 feet deep! A search of the internet will continually display one or two photos of floating garbage, usually from below, or a poor dead baby bird that was fed plastic by its parents. There are hundreds of maps, diagrams and schematics showing how the ocean currents can trap floating debris. Greenpeace’s website even has an animation with arrows which depicts the ocean currents.

The one thing that’s missing, to really drive the concept home, is an aerial or satellite photograph. In fact, Wikipedia specifically states: “Despite its size and density, the patch is not visible from satellite photography.” The existence of the Eastern garbage patch was predicted in a 1988 paper published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, based on Alaskan researchers who found tiny particles of plastic suspended in the water of the North Pacific Ocean. They then extrapolated that other areas of the ocean, where ever currents caused a looping pattern, would trap these plastics and eventually form a giant floating island of trash. However, this was just a hypothesis, they hadn’t actually found such an island.

Later, Charles Moore, a sea captain and ocean researcher, wrote a series of articles in which he claimed to have sailed through a massive garbage island in the Pacific Ocean during the Transpac sailing race. No one else in the race came across this island, which is odd since it is rumored to be twice the size of Texas. Moore took no photographs of this phenomenon either, perhaps because he was in a race. However, Moore’s articles received instant media attention.

Wikipedia offers up a reason why there are no corroborating photos: “The size of the affected region is unknown, as large items readily visible from the deck of a boat are few and far between. Most of the debris consists of small plastic particles suspended at or just below the water surface, making it impossible to detect by aircraft or satellite images.”

Then what are all those photographs of floating garbage on the internet actually of? Turns out these are photos of other floating plastic debris in lakes, rivers, and bays which are used to illustrate what floating garbage would look like. According to the experts, this is exactly what a large floating island of garbage would NOT look like…evidently. On the DailyKos.com website, an image showing a giant field of plastic bottles has been made up of smaller images to create a “holistic” view, with the disclaimer that the image was “not taken at sea”.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I DO believe it exists; it makes all the sense in the world. We are a filthy species, spreading our toxic waste over the entire globe without a care. Despite my belief, I really don’t like the prevalence of doctored photographs, or photos taken somewhere else with no direct link to this phenomenon. I don’t need more diagrams showing me how the Carolus effect, or Ocean Gyre, or prevailing currents work. I understand how they could generate a giant mass of plastic. But, for my sake people, stop generating fake photos as this only helps the naysayers and disbelievers (they’re out there!). I’d love to have a video taken below the surface by divers, or photos showing a huge ship’s wake filled with churned garbage.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is really a huge soup of molecule sized plastic particles suspended in the saline water. It isn’t even visible to the eye; only to microscopes and other scientific equipment. The unfortunate thing is that the people generating media attention couldn’t grab enough interest by calling the area the Great Suspended Polymer Molecule Gyre. It just wasn’t catchy enough. The plastic comes from garbage so it was just a hop and a jump to the new title. 

All the graphs, charts and molecular diagrams in the world couldn’t get Oprah’s attention. 

Suddenly photos surfaced of large chunks of floating debris, and of poor exploded baby birds. This got attention. The problem, of course, is that all of the photographs have been faked or “re-appropriated”. I think this does a real dilemma a great disservice. It reminds me of the Tyrannosaurus debate: we don’t have a single full skeleton of the creature, so scientists used bones from other dinosaurs to make up the missing areas. This doesn’t discount the fact there were Tyrannosaurs running around, but it sure looks mighty suspicious and gives fodder to the Creationist Museum.

Now we have the new discovery by NASA scientists: alien life on Earth!  Well, even though the local news is calling it "alien", of course it's not from anywhere other than the Earth itself...so really the word alien here is meant to mean: "something dissimilar to the normal life".  It is said to be a bacteria that uses arsenic instead of phosphorus in its DNA.  The only form of life on the planet to use a different element in its DNA.  Wow, the implications are truly startling.  If you're not being blown away right now, you don't understand how friggin' important this discovery really is!!!  

However, their rush to go to press, and NASA's constant fear of being redundant or non-funded has cause these scientists to be...well...less than scientific.  They didn't publish these discoveries in any reputable report or magazine, they simply did a press release in order to "get the information out there as quickly as possible".  However, now that the most celebrated and honored biology scientists are questioning the severely unscientific methods used in the tests, the NASA scientists are claiming they will only argue the merits and points in a scientific journal, not in any other public forum.  The chief problem biologists are having with the NASA methodology is that NASA used water to wash the DNA and water itself has phosphorus.

C'mon scientists, don't make science into a joke!  Above all the scientific process must remain sacrosanct and perfect in order for the results to be taken seriously.  Too often, in a rush of publicity or fame, or simply in order to quickly convince a congressman that something terrible is occurring or about to occur, scientists don't follow prescribed scientific methods.  I'm very disheartened.  I really want there to be strange life forms out there, or even here on Earth.  Please scientists, help me to believe!

Circular Absurdity

I had posted this as my Facebook status a while ago, so many of you may have already seen it.  However, I felt I should post it again in my blog because this is where I first used the phrase "Circular Absurdity" to describe something so completely mind-boggling that your mind spins and won't get out of the loop.

One day my sister and I went to a local craft store.  My sister makes greeting cards and other crafts, extremely well.  In the back, near the cake decorating kits was a wall of "geese costumes".  These are little matching clothes people put onto their plastic lawn geese.  The clothes can make their geese look like pilgrims for Thanksgiving, or Uncle Sam for the Fourth of July, or even an elf for Christmas.  I find this practice to be completely bizarre, but at least I understand it.  My mind can wrap itself around this strange custom.

One of the costumes on the wall was of a goose.

Yes, that's right.  You can dress your goose up as.......a goose.

It even had an orange felt-beak.

My brain still turns to mush every time I try to figure this one out.

Hence the definition of "Circular Absurdity".