{via Getty images}

Here are 9 from the last 30 days, with my comments.

“sweet christian girl”

Sorry, definitely wrong blog for that.

“cool tattoos for guys arm for a dead dad”

I *think* that you’re aiming for a nice tribute to your dad here. Watch your syntax, though.

“tell me what each district stands for in hunger games”

How about asking nicely?

“i want to be skinny pregnant”

I understand how you feel, but please don’t try for that. Read this.

“polly pockets in medieval times dress”

That would be AWESOME.

“jesus eating lunch”

And why not?

tiffani amber thiessen fat thin

Geez, neither! Curves do not = fat

“tim keller eating disorder”

I don’t think he has one. But you never know!

“mom failure overweight child”

No. No, you’re not a failure. You might like to read this.

“woman being eaten alive by stone bear statues”

Uh, ok.

My mom’s hands holding one of our favorite Jewy meals…

My buddy Ellen Painter Dollar introduced me to Catherine Newman, whose writing I just love. She’s hilariously funny and irreverent, and she writes about family and food and justice and she’s Jewish and has the same birthday as my son and she laughs and snorts about the ridiculousness of online writing and commenting with the self-assurance and humor I hope to have someday.

Plus, she writes for Brain, Child, a magazine I looove, wrote a book that made me laugh out loud, and her recipes are awesomely awesome.

She says things like:

“Somewhere online is a newspaper article where I am quoted talking about those very same leftovers, and I sound like a finalist in the World’s Biggest Jew contest. “Better you should. . . ” I start every sentence. “You don’t know from . . . ?” I ask. “Oy,” I say.”

…and one of my hands holding another of our favorite Jewy meals.

And she created her own peppermint patty recipe.

Check her blog out here!

Today only, there’s a great deal in town: $18 for a fish & chips dinner that includes sides and dessert at St. Agnes’ RC Church in Greenport.

photo credit Fareham Traditional Fish & Chips

At Noah’s, a fish & chips costs $24. At O’Malley’s, it’s $19.95. At Claudio’s, you can’t get anything seafoodish for under $25–and that’s before tax & tip.

This is a deal, folks. A deal.

Let me tell you what, tourists. If you want to experience some of what really makes this small town great, go off the beaten track and attend a benefit dinner like this. The food is good, inexpensive, and the atmosphere is family friendly.
All proceeds from the fish & chips dinner benefit Robert L. Perry daycare–the only daycare east of Mattituck. Due to austerity measures, it has lost all its state funding. Our community needs this place to stay open.So come on. Who doesn’t love fish & chips, sides and dessert, for $18, that benefits kids besides?It’s in the Parish Hall, 6th Street off Route 25 [Front St.], Greenport, from 3:30-7:30. Eat in or takeaway.

Not exactly where the Parish Hall is, but close-ish. (it’s between Rt 25. & Wiggins, on 6th. Follow the fragrance of fresh-fried fish.

Nine years, three degrees, three states, three countries, two continents, two children and one cat later, I still say,

Where you go, I will go.

Including to Broadway! To see Death of a Salesman! With Philip Seymour Hoffman!

{Thank you!!!}

]]> http://rachelmariestone.com/2012/05/17/nine-years/feed/ 3 breadforstones -1 playbill http://rachelmariestone.com/2012/05/16/a-judge-on-rushing-to-judgment/ http://rachelmariestone.com/2012/05/16/a-judge-on-rushing-to-judgment/#comments Wed, 16 May 2012 10:00:56 +0000 Rachel Stone http://rachelmariestone.com/?p=2730 ]]> {In response to some discussion on the Trayvon Martin case, I’m happy to welcome Tim Fall (who’s a a judge) back to the blog to talk about due process.}

I have the only job Jesus ever explicitly prohibited: “Judge not.” (Matthew 7:1, Luke 6:37.) Yet every day I put on a black robe (I call it my black muumuu) and sit on the bench judging.

It’s a living.

Of course, Jesus isn’t talking about judging as a profession, or exercising judgment in our day to day lives, but about judgmentalism, described by D.A. Carson as a “critical spirit, a condemning attitude.”

You’ve seen it; you know what it is–if you’re like me, you’ve done it.

It comes up a lot when a particularly heinous crime is committed, or someone famous gets
arrested. Everyone has an opinion, and the internet lets everyone else know what it is. For a lot of people, an arrest is as good as a conviction. After all, people think: ‘where there’s smoke, there’s fire–no one gets arrested unless they did something wrong!’

If this were true, we could set up a really efficient system: a police officer arrests someone and drives them to prison, tells the warden the person is guilty of a crime and the warden then just locks them up. See what I mean? No need for courtrooms, no need for judges, no one gets a lawyer, no one ever gets called for jury duty. Efficient!

Efficient, and unjust.

Soon after I became a judge in the mid-90s, a young man appeared in court wearing a jail jumpsuit, and upon hearing the charges blurted out, “That wasn’t me, it’s my brother! He did it to me again!” It turned out his brother had done it to him again. The poor guy’s brother made a habit of committing crimes and giving the police a false name, which led to this guy’s arrest because you know what name the miscreant always gave? The name of the poor guy standing in front of me in the jail jumpsuit. Fortunately for him, the court-appointed attorney got it straightened out quickly and the poor guy was set free. The brother? He was eventually picked up, as always.

Our Constitution provides everyone with the right to due process; for an arrest, that
merely means that the police only need “probable cause.” It’s a fairly low standard; if the
police have a valid reason to think a particular person committed a crime, they can arrest that person for it.

In my state, if it’s a felony, we hold a preliminary examination where the prosecutor needs
to present sufficient evidence to support a strong suspicion that the crime occurred and that this person is the one who committed it; this is a higher level of proof than needed for an arrest, but lower than for conviction. The case gets dismissed if there’s not enough evidence.

At trial, the prosecutor has to put on enough evidence to prove the case beyond a reasonable
doubt. If there is enough evidence, the jury returns a guilty verdict. If not, then not guilty. I’ve had both types of verdicts in my courtroom, and it’s not a bad system, especially when you consider that there are places in this world where nothing even remotely resembling due process exists.

In some countries, that model of unjust efficiency I set out above is the norm – the government just arrests people, puts them in prison, and keeps them there. So why do people in our society not cherish our Constitutional rights of due process?

Why do people rush to judgment and call out for justice before anyone has examined the evidence, before the accused person is even given a chance to be heard?

I think people don’t trust the system to work because they don’t know how it works. And if they aren’t familiar with the system then they don’t know that it does work. But what about those times people do get away with committing crimes, hurting others, ruining lives? This might be the deeper issue. We know that sometimes people literally get away with murder. How can we trust a system that does not bring every single criminal to justice?

If that’s what you want from a criminal justice system, you’ll be disappointed.

That perfect system doesn’t exist in any government here on earth. We have some that work fairly well considering that everyone involved is a fallible human being. But no system is perfect.

The good news, though, is that there is one infallible and perfect judge, “the Judge of all the
earth” as Abraham put it. (Genesis 18:25), and I find that when I am tempted to condemn or rush to judgment, trusting God tends to put a damper on the desire to be judgmental.

Rushing to judgment is dangerous. I’d rather rush to the Judge.

Only one of the other posts in this series hasn’t focused on a toy (The Evolution of Morton Salt & Coca-Cola), but it’s interesting to me for a few reasons:

via Grapefruit Moon Gallery

1. The woman on the White Rock beverages label is from an actual work of (originally non-commercial) art: Psyche at Nature’s Mirror by Paul Thumann. White Rock purchased the rights to the painting and has used it–and variations on it–as part of their logo for about 130 years.

2. White Rock freely acknowledges the slimming of their icon:

“Over the years, depictions of Psyche have changed slightly. The 1947 model was estimated to be 2 inches taller but 15 pounds lighter than the original model. The 1975 model added another 2 inches but dropped 7 pounds and now stands at 5 foot 8 inches with a weight of 118 pounds.“

Okay, so let’s do the math:

Today’s model:  5’8″, 118 pounds (BMI: 17.9=underweight)

1947 model:         5’6″, 125 pounds (BMI: 20.2=normal weight)

1892 model:         5’4″, 140 pounds (BMI: 24=still normal weight)

Avg. woman:       5’4″, 140 pounds (hey! wait a sec!)

At the risk of sounding like a skipping record (I miss records), why are the images of women–even on mundane things like bottled water!–always getting unrealistically, unhealthily thinner?

This affects people! Every week, people tell me about little children–I’m talking preschoolers, here–who are “afraid” of getting “fat.” I can’t help suspecting the endless images of unrealistic thinness everywhere are part of the reason.

And now for the pictures:

1892

1924

1940

1947

1970s (mercifully, draped) Psyche

It’s not that someone’s going to look at a bottle of White Rock and get an eating disorder. It’s just that images of idealized thinness are so ubiquitous, I fear they are becoming normal.

“bursting with enthusiasm for some social entrepreneurship project: making a cheap water-purification system, starting a company that will empower Rwandan women by selling their crafts in boutiques around the world.”

Bead for Life artisans.

They (and this is a hypothetical ‘they’ because he’s talking in general terms here) “think they can evade politics,” “have little faith in the political process” and “believe that real change happens on the ground beneath it.”

He calls this a delusion. Matthew Lee Anderson at Mere Orthodoxy appreciates this critique, adding to it a quote from the ethicist Oliver O’Donovan:

“Compassion is the virtue of being moved to action by the sight of suffering…it is a virtue that circumvents thought, since it prompts us immediately to action. [...] it [requires no] independent thinking about the object of morality, only a very strong motivation to its practice.”

Of course it’s important to consider what means are most helpful to help. It’s true that ‘helping’ in unhelpful ways can hurt. But I feel that Brooks’ critique is insubstantial (not being rooted in an actual organization, only in imaginary groups of ‘activists’) and that we need compassion every bit as much as–or maybe even more than–reason.

not very rational.

After all we’re not the most reasonable creatures. We’re actually really unreasonable, most of us, which is why we find characters like Spock and Sherlock Holmes amusing oddities.

Here’s a specific example:

Not long ago Tim and I watched this documentary about HIV/AIDS. At one point, top virologists (folks who worked at NIH and WHO, for example) took a trip to South Africa where they spent some time on hospital wards–huge rooms full of dying people. They were already the world’s AIDS experts, but several of them pointed to that point as a turning point for them in their research: they saw people, and were resolved to help them. In the same documentary, former president Bill Clinton talked about walking along the AIDS quilt, seeing the blocks that represented a life lost to AIDS, and resolving to further efforts in the fight.

Something happens when we connect with a good story, and I fear that in denying the validity and importance of the visceral response, we deny an essential part of who God created us to be.

Why do you think organizations like Heifer International and World Vision have gift catalogs and sponsorship programs? Your $30 doesn’t really go straight into paying for some chickens or a child’s lunch program. But assigning that meaning to your money gives it a different quality. It calls out (rightly!) that quality of compassion, and the good folks at these good organizations use it as they see fit.

I don’t see that as a problem.

OK, compassion doesn’t stand alone. It isn’t the final goal.

But it’s a really good place to start.

Do we need people on the Spock end of the spectrum to see that relief and development are run effectively? Sure we do.

But just as much as we need them, we need people–good storytellers!–to help us give a darn.

From the article:

“…when babies are delivered in unsanitary conditions without proper care, terrible things can happen to an otherwise healthy child. Each year, close to one million newborns die from infections, according to the World Health Organization.

from Birthing Project USA

For this reason, the United Nations Population Fund and numerous aid organizations are distributing so-called safe birth kits in the developing world. The kits usually contain soap, a plastic sheet, a razor blade to cut the umbilical cord, tape, gloves, a towel to wrap the baby in and a pictorial instruction sheet. With these tools, almost anyone can deliver a baby safely.”

You can read about how to assemble a safe birth kit here.

You can donate $8 to buy a safe birth kit through the United Methodist Committee on Relief here.

It’s a good way to honor a mother or grandmother.

peace & xo,

Rachel

Maybe it’s partly because tourists are nasty. 

I hate to admit, I can really, really identify with American-disdaining Parisians. I, myself, struggle with being an American-disdaining Greenporter.

by Claudio’s dock, Greenport, Long Island, New York

My town has, in the last decade or so, become a destination for vacationers and day-trippers. There’s a bus that runs between here and New York City, and something like 30% of the homes in this town are 2nd homes–vacation homes. I joke that our town is like Main Street, USA, in Disney World, except it’s real.

It’s cute, my town–there’s a downtown with actual shops and restaurants that are not Big Boxes or chains. There are cafes that are not Starbucks. There’s an adorable carousel, waterfront parks, docks, and more.

Antique Carousel, Mitchell Park, Greenport, Long Island, New York

As much as I’m thankful that the steady flow of tourists makes for a steady flow of $$$ into the community, I have to admit that it’s a struggle for me to love the tourists as myself, because while the majority of tourists are inoffensive, even pleasant, those who are clearly identifiable as tourists are often quite annoying. I will call the tourists that annoy me “clearly identifiable tourists,” or “CI tourists.”

Here’s my petulant little list of grievances:

• CI tourists often ignore crosswalks and step into the street without looking
• CI tourists are often loudly drunk at very late hours
• CI tourists litter on and pee in the hedges
• CI tourists walk the sidewalks at a snail’s pace and don’t make room for strollers or people–they don’t seem to look around.
• CI tourists are loud and demanding in the grocery store. Once I heard one of them complain that ‘local people’ should get their shopping done during the week. More than once I have watched them torment the cashiers with utter nonsense.
• CI tourists peer over the hedges and remark loudly about what is going on, as if I and my family are part of the entertainment.

Basically, my grievances can be summed up thusly:

• Tourists don’t see themselves as neighbors for the time that they’re here.

I love to be asked directions. I love to give recommendations about where to go, where to eat, and what to do in my town. I’m happy to help a tourist find a public bathroom. I try to treat the tourists the way I like to be treated when I’m a tourist.

Stirling Harbor, Greenport, Long Island, New York

And so I kind of resent it when tourists treat me and my community members consumptively–as if everything and everyone is there for their pleasure, full stop.

As we make our way into vacation season, consider what it means to be a good neighbor wherever you are–being a good neighbor doesn’t depend on being in your neighborhood, and it’s easy to forget, when we’re on vacation, that everyone we meet is not a cruise director or a Disney ‘cast member,’ but an ordinary person just trying to go about her day.

Webb St. Station Miniature Railroad, Greenport, Long Island, NY

They’re people like us, and nobody wants to be part of the scenery. Right?

If you live in a vacation destination, what has your experience of tourists been like?

Any thoughts on why (or whether) it’s easier to be a bad neighbor on vacation?

{via BlueDuckBakeryCafe.com}

One of the reasons (I think) that the S’s marriage lasted truly ’til death did them part was that they both loved to please the other. And food was a big part of that love language. When Mr. S retired from working, he decided that they’d eat many of their dinners in restaurants so that Mrs. S could ‘retire,’ too–his way of thanking her for the decades of excellent meals which he spoke well of pretty much to his dying day.

But whereas Mr. S was usually forthcoming with what he liked and didn’t like, Mrs. S has always been much quieter. So much so, that a few weeks ago, I had to pry her dessert request out of her.

(I don’t always ask her what she wants. Just sometimes.)

Me: What do you want for dessert next week? Whatever you ask for, I’ll make it.

Edie: Brownies are the easiest.

Me: I don’t want to do what’s easiest! I want to do what you want.

Edie: I don’t know if I should say.

Me: Mousse? Pie? Any kind of pie? Rice pudding?

Edie: No, not rice pudding…they give us that a lot here, and it doesn’t taste homemade.

Me: Tell me what you want!

Edie: says nothing, looks away, ashamed.

Me: (thinking: what is she possibly thinking of? A cake out of which Chippendales pop?)

Edie: (uncomfortably) I’d like a chocolate layer cake. With chocolate frosting.

Me: (thinking: is that all? Finally!)

And so on Saturday morning, I pulled out my stand mixer, made a terrific mess:

and a classic chocolate layer cake from The Cook’s Illustrated Cookbook:

To tell the truth, I’m not altogether sure that Mrs. S even remembered asking for the chocolate layer cake. And her appetite was smaller than usual, so she ended up eating only half of it. But neither of those things matters.

What matters to me is that she was able, finally, to admit her secret desire, and that, by God’s grace, I was able to meet it.

I’m still trying to figure out why that feels important, right and good.

Maybe it’s because I read somewhere that American women are embarrassed to buy candy bars.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in a tradition that taught that all (or at least most) desires are evil and not to be fulfilled.

Maybe it’s because admitting desires takes trust and facilitates closeness.

What do you think? Did you grow up in a tradition that taught you to be suspicious of desires? When have you experienced freedom and pleasure in admitting what you want?