Interesting Links for 27-12-2014

[andrewducker]

• Crowley’s Law
  (tags: censorship criticism freespeech )
• We got my dad a done for Christmas. It will probably end up like this.
  (tags: drone Christmas presents )
• More flexible hours for working women could save the UK £700m a year
  (tags: women work UK money )
• The 20 best games of 2014
  (tags: games )
• Some fascinating background on the Christmas Truce

Comments

[a_pawson]

I know a lot of people who eat Chinese food at Christmas, simply because all the Chinese restaurants/take-aways are still open and everywhere else is closed.

[don_fitch]

Yup. And the idea that "Jewish People Eat Chinese" seems more than a little bit Strange to me. Quite a few of the Jews I know actually keep Kosher in a fairly strict sense, and it's really difficult to find a Chinese restaurant that doesn't use the same wok for cooking shrimp that they use for cooking your beef or chicken dish (with the meat being, most likely, non-kosher). Hey, I think the whole thing is silly , and fascinating, and yes, I respect both strictly-kosher Orthodox observers and people wo don't order Chinese dishes with "Shrimp" or "Pork" in the name, but don't enquire too closely into the contents, and those who eat everything (well... I tend to draw the line at dog, cat, rat, and human meats, as well as chilli peppers & hot curry, but....).

[kalimac]

Kosher rules are very much a purist vs. non-purist thing, Don. Many Jews don't keep kosher at all; others merely avoid trayf (outright forbidden foods, like shrimp or pork), and often more because they're not used to them than because of the laws, the same way that many Anglos won't eat, say, tripe.

Those who do keep kosher vary through those who just avoid the forbidden foods vigilantly, through those who expect the meat to come from a kosher butcher; through those who look for the mark of some kosher-certifying organization; and up to those who insist the certification has to come from their rabbi and won't trust the rabbi from down the street. Of these 4 groups, only the first would be likely to be found at a Chinese restaurant, unless it's certified as kosher (or certified as strictly vegetarian with no contamination of meat products, which would count as kosher).

[don_fitch]

Yup, that's about the way Avram Davidson explained ti to me mumblety-mumblety years ago --
-"you set the Rules to follow, and then you _follow_ them"- (maybe he added something about no matter what, your get complaints from other Jews, especially you relatives).

What I was kvetching about was the author's apparent assumption that Chinese on Christmas was a universal (or even common, outside of New York) Jewish practice. It might possibly be, but I really don't think so. And yeah, as far as I can figure out, most of the Jewish people I know either don't keep kosher at all, or just don't order dishes labeled "Pork" or "Shrimp/shellfish" at Chinese (or other) restaurants. *People*

We got my dad a done for Christmas. It will probably end up like this.

[drdoug]

When you said the drone would end up "like this" I imagined this footage, also doing the rounds:

http://youtu.be/EZjFz5iN8BE

Re: We got my dad a done for Christmas. It will probably end up like this.

[andrewducker]

Hah - that was awesome. Will send it to my dad!

[kalimac]

I think the Jews = Chinese food equation is mostly a New York thing. I had no inkling of its existence throughout my Midwest and West Coast Jewish childhood, or well into my adulthood. Though I expect there were Chinese restaurants around here even then. We had a large family and rarely ate out for expense reasons; and when we did, we usually stuck to basic American cuisine because of all the picky-eating children. The only take-out food we ever had was Kentucky Fried Chicken.

My first-ever experience with Chinese food came at age 10 in a school trip to San Francisco, and I didn't eat it regularly until at university, where there were cheap Chinese lunch places.

[ticktockman]

My father's parents kept kosher in the house (separate dishes and silverware, plus extra sets of each for Passover), but ate out at any restaurant.

Any interesting text on the matter of eating at Chinese restaurants (but not necessarily, I think, on Christmas) can be found in Portnoy's Complaint. I don't suppose it is mandatory reading for horny repressed Jewish 14-16 year old boys anymore.

Young Alex Portnoy mused that traif food somehow became kosher when it was chopped into little bits and served up in Chow Mein at a restaurant. It was an hypocrisy he recognized but couldn't explain.

[randomdreams]

I love the dick wall.

My grandfather claimed that the christmas truce was not the only time that happened -- that surreptitious peaceful trading contact was actually fairly frequent, often with an accompanying truce. I got the feeling that his experience was that everyone basically sat in the trenches until ordered to leave them and advance, and otherwise the only people actually shooting were the snipers.