By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, December 23rd, 2010 
Consider season’s greetings. For many, these are unselfconscious gestures. But for others, they are loaded with significance. We can celebrate Christmas, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah, after Thanksgiving, along with the new New Year, together and show respect for each other, but some prefer to exclude.
Indeed, this is the time of year that I often feel like an outsider in my own country. It has felt this way my whole life, though it was much harder as a child. I heard, and learned by osmosis, the Christmas songs, from White Christmas to Silent Night, and like all American kids, I was charmed. I was trained by the mass media to be sentimental about the holiday season and the Christmas spirit. I was intrigued by Santa Claus and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. But I also knew that this all was not for me, not for Jews, not who I am.
When I was a kid, in a town that was 30% Jewish, 60% Catholic, 10% “other,” I did experience anti-Semitism of an everyday sort, accused of killing Christ by Catholic kids at the bus stop, having a hard time on my little league team with two particularly aggressive teammates.
There was not much socializing between the Jewish and the Catholic kids, there was a Jewish and a non-Jewish side of town. It was mostly not a matter of antagonism, more about knowing one’s place. Any gesture toward Christmas celebration on my part meant, somehow, not standing up for myself. I was taught by my parents to question Jews who had a Christmas tree, to think that such assimilation was a form of self hatred.
Yet, I knew then, as I know now, that this is an overwhelmingly Christian country and I am one of the outsiders. It is at this time of year that we, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and atheists, feel disconnected from the mainstream. But when someone says Happy Holidays, as opposed to Merry Christmas, I do feel more at home.
It’s an act of civility. What the talking heads of Fox News call the “War on Christmas,” I know as acts of generosity and openness.
The proclamation . . .
Read more: Season’s Greetings
By Matthew LaClair, December 22nd, 2010 
 Matthew LaClair is a student at Eugene Lang College. He attended Jeff’s course this semester on Democracy in America. He is also a radio correspondent for WBAI in NYC. He sends in this report of a fictoid from the Heartland.
I received the following chain e-mail from a relative of mine. I thought of it as a good example of dangerous fictoids, because after I checked the story out, I found it has simply never happened. Here, read the unedited text of the e-mail:
Thought for the day: Calling an illegal alien an ‘undocumented immigrant’ is like calling a drug dealer an ‘unlicensed pharmacist’ .
Have you ever wondered why good stuff never makes NBC, CBS, PBS, MSNBC, CNN, or ABC news………an 11 year old girl, properly trained, defended her home, and herself….
…against two murderous, illegal immigrants…
…and she wins, She is still alive.
Now that is Gun Control!
BUTTE, MONTANA
Shotgun preteen vs. Illegal alien Home Invaders: Butte, Montana November 5, 2009
Two illegal aliens, Ralphel Resindez, 23, and Enrico Garza, 26, probably believed they would easily overpower home-alone 11 year old Patricia Harrington after her father had left their two-story home. It seems the two crooks never learned two things: 1 – They were in Montana 2 – Patricia has been a clay shooting champion since she was nine. Patricia was in her upstairs room when the two men broke through the front door of the house. She quickly ran to her father’s room and grabbed his 12 gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun. Resindez was the first to get up to the second floor and was the first to catch a near point blank blast of buckshot from the 11-year-old’s knee crouch aim. He suffered fatal wounds to his abdomen and genitals. When Garza ran to the foot of the stairs, he took a blast to the left shoulder and staggered out into the street where he bled to death before medical help could arrive. It was found out later that Resindez was armed with a stolen 45 caliber handgun he had taken from another home invasion robbery. The victim of that robbery, 50-year-old David 0Burien, . . .
Read more: Fictoid from out West
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, December 13th, 2010
 As the United States reviews its policies in Afghanistan they should pay close attention not only to events on the central stage, but also to small details of everyday life, such as the Afghanistan’s National Woman’s Soccer Team.
A review of our policy on Afghanistan is due this month. As I have already indicated, I think this is a war that is bound to fail if the current logic of engagement does not include a planned withdrawal. The longer American and NATO troops stay there in large numbers with great visibility, I think, the stronger the support for those who fight against occupation. But a rapid and complete disengagement will lead to a battle between the Taliban and the highly ineffective and corrupt government of Hamid Karzai, in which the victor is not known but the victims are the Afghan people.
It is truly a dilemma.
In the face of the dilemma, I think it is important to pay close attention to the facts on the ground. Last week, in The New York Times there is a report on an instance of what I mean by “the politics of small things,” a report on a national women’s soccer team.
They play under great restrictions. Their fathers, brothers and uncles frequently disapprove of their activities. They actually have to practice on a NATO helicopter landing field, because outside the military zone, they are too vulnerable to attack. They take great pride in their physical accomplishments. Most recently, they actually defeated the women’s team of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. Khalida Popal, an official of the Afghan women’s soccer federation and long a team member, noted that “We wanted to show them Afghans are friendly people, not like the stupid people they are fighting.”
These women also reveal to us and to themselves the power of Afghan women to fight for themselves against great odds, and the importance of their struggle. And as is the case of other instances of the politics of small things, such as the poetry café in Damascus I discussed in a previous post, Afghanistan with its national women’s soccer team . . .
Read more: The power of Afghan women
By Iddo Tavory, December 12th, 2010 
Iddo Tavory recently began teaching at the New School, in New York, after completing his Ph.D. at UCLA, in Los Angeles. His areas of research focus include the sociology of religion, temporality and interaction. -Jeff
Last week I went to MoMA. Since I came to New York I got more “culture” than ever before. It isn’t that Los Angeles had no great museums, but something about New York—or perhaps the fantasies of the city that I had—spurred me to go to museums much more. The exhibition I went to was Abstract Expressionist New York, which I was particularly excited about: New York art, shown in New York.
In other words, it is a bit like listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers in California, only far more highbrow. As my partner and I were walking around, we were trying to make sense of the paintings, to decide if we like De Kooning and Motherwell, to “get a feel” for this kind of art. Though we both come from middle-class families, neither of us feels really comfortable around modern art, say, after early Expressionism or Cubism.
It isn’t that we don’t like it, it’s just that we don’t feel like we know how to evaluate it. It isn’t that we aren’t moved, it is almost as if we don’t know how to be moved. It is a strange sensation, looking at a painting and trying hard to be moved. Being moved, after all, shouldn’t involve trying. That’s the whole idea with emotion.
In fact, we do learn to be moved. More precisely, we learn ways to open ourselves to the possibility of being moved. Through the process known in sociology as “socialization,” we learn the knowledge, skills and preferences that will shape the choices we make, the direction we take.
This isn’t only a nice sociological idea, but something that we found out first hand when we were leaving the . . .
Read more: MoMA KIDS: Teaching Art Appreciation
By Rachel Sherman, December 9th, 2010
Rachel Sherman is a sociologist at the New School. Her specific field of study is social class and service work.
Last week, the legislation known as the “Domestic Workers Bill of Rights” took effect in New York State, having been signed on August 31 by Governor David Paterson. The existence and passage of this bill is due primarily to several years of organizing by Domestic Workers United (DWU), an organization of nannies and housecleaners in New York City.
 DWU offers computer literacy and child care training to its members, helps protect workers against abusive employers, and has produced a report on domestic employment, “Home is Where the Work Is,” based on original research. Their main policy effort, however, has been campaigning for the passage of this bill, which will affect over 200,000 workers in the state.
The law includes the following provisions: The right to overtime pay (at time-and-a-half) after 40 hours of work in a week, or 44 hours for workers who live in their employer’s home; a day of rest (24 hours) every seven days, or overtime pay if the worker agrees to work on that day; three paid days of rest each year after one year of work for the same employer; protection under New York State Human Rights Law, and the creation of a special cause of action for domestic workers who suffer sexual or racial harassment.
Although these demands are not especially radical (more controversial provisions, such as paid holidays and two weeks notice prior to termination, were removed from the final version), this law will materially influence the lives of many workers. Perhaps equally important, the law is symbolically significant, for a number of reasons. First, domestic workers have traditionally been excluded from labor legislation, beginning with the New Deal laws covering collective bargaining and minimum wage and hour regulations.
Although over the years some laws (such as those covering the minimum wage) have been extended to apply to domestic workers, their work remains largely unregulated. Thus the bill, which also mandated investigation into the feasibility of granting collective bargaining rights to these workers, is a step toward establishing nannies . . .
Read more: Domestic Workers Gain Visibility, Legitimacy
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, November 24th, 2010 
Thanksgiving is a special holiday, the great American secular celebration: a common ritual, eating of a turkey dinner, almost universally practiced, in all the nooks and crannies of the social landscape. Indians may not be very enthusiastic. The return on their historic hospitality was not very good. And those who are concerned about the Native American place in the national story may have their critical doubts, but still just about everyone takes part or at least is expected to take part, including me. A conversation I had with a good friend earlier in the week reveals what it’s all about.
My pool at the Theodore Young Community Center will be closed from Thursday through Sunday, as there will be no new posts at DC during this extended holiday weekend. Knowing the pool would be closed, I made sure I went today and earlier in the week. I chatted with Beverly McCoy , the receptionist and social center of gravity there, about the upcoming holiday. She explained her preparations.
Today she is driving to her son and his family in Central Pennsylvania. Yesterday and Monday, she was preparing, doing her packing and making the cornbread stuffing, a must for her African American family. Thanksgiving wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without Bev’s down home stuffing, a specialty of the South.
I have a similar but slightly different expectation at my Thanksgiving dinner at my sister in law, Geraldine’s, place in Brooklyn, across from the museum. She and her husband Bernard will cook the dinner, but one of the necessities is prepared by my other sister in law, Lana, the kugel (the traditional Jewish noodle pudding). As Beverly’s Thanksgiving requires her cornbread stuffing, ours wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without Lana’s kugel.
My daughter, Brina, felt this deeply when she was spending her junior year abroad in Paris. When the program director organized a potluck Thanksgiving dinner for the Brown students studying there, Brina immediately thought of the kugel, which was a big success, even as it puzzled the French Thanksgiving guests, a sweet dish that wasn’t . . .
Read more: Thanksgiving, Kugel, and Cornbread Stuffing
By Michael Corey, November 23rd, 2010 
A tragic story about Target, a hero dog that was killed in error by a worker in an animal shelter, caught my attention. The story brought to mind my uneasiness with state sponsored killings of all sorts. Additionally, I was intrigued by the way words shape narratives, in this case “euthanize” and “kill.”
Target was a war hero. She was a stray dog who survived gun shots and explosions in Afghanistan. She and two other strays, befriended by U. S. soldiers, deterred a suicide bomber wearing explosives. They barked at and bit the attacker, and in the process spared the lives of large numbers of soldiers. One of the dogs was killed. Target and Rufus, the other dog that survived with the assistance of aid workers, were taken to the U. S. to live with soldiers who had helped care for them in Afghanistan.
Target became famous after appearing on the Oprah Winfrey show. Unfortunately, last week, Target escaped from her backyard. She didn’t have on identification tags nor did she have an identification microchip implanted in her. Someone found the dog and called animal control. While Target’s family continued to search for her, she entered the institutional dog shelter system. Through a series of missteps, the owners didn’t get to the shelter in time.
“Euthanize” and “kill” have been used to shape alternative Target narratives. “Euthanize” and its related terms, “put down,” and “put to sleep ”(or “PTS”) are more comforting, “kill” or “execute” more disturbing. In Target’s case, the later terms are more descriptive of the case. Target wasn’t suffering. She wasn’t in physical distress. She wasn’t aggressive. She didn’t have any severe behavioral problems, and she wasn’t a threat to other people or animals.
Euthanize: Policy Implications
The deconstructed word euthanasia is “good,” “gentle” or “easy” death derived from the Greek. It typically refers to the painless killing of a suffering person or animal which either has an incurable, painful disease, or is in a permanent coma. While Euthanasia is generally considered to be illegal as it applies to humans, it is considered to be humane as it applies . . .
Read more: Euthanize or Kill: What is the Difference?
By Jeffrey C. Goldfarb, November 17th, 2010 
I worry about the penetration of the market and its logic into all spheres of social life. I see this almost everywhere I turn. It’s the future of America that Republicans wish for, but it is my nightmare.
In New York City, Mayor Bloomberg has chosen Cathie Black to be Chancellor of the largest public school system in the United States. She is not an educator, never went to public schools, has never worked on school issues and didn’t send her children to public schools. But the mayor still confidently declared her to be the most qualified person, as The New York Times reported, calling Ms. Black “a superstar manager who has succeeded spectacularly in the private sector” and added, “There’s no one who knows more about the skills our children will need to succeed in the 21st century economy.” Hers are market, not educational, qualifications for a management position in the NYC public school district.
In my and the country’s second city, Chicago, where I studied for my Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, in the meanwhile, smaller issues are at stake, a local battle of symbols. The Chicago Transit Authority is selling naming rights “for rail lines and stations, bus routes, retail concessions, and special events. Even the venerable (sic) CTA logo will be on the auction block,” the Chicago Tribune reports.
And where I studied as an undergraduate at the State University of New York at Albany, because of a budget crisis, five humanities programs, including French, Italian, Russian, classics and theater, have been suspended, apparently because these programs don’t contribute to the university’s and the individual’s bottom line. (link) Such majors don’t attract many students, and those who are so attracted upon graduation have trouble finding work. But how can there be a university without the humanities? (link) This hits close to home for me. Albany is the place where I decided to make the unusual move that has defined my career, starting my research by studying the sociology of theater.
How can it be that the business of the New York City school system and of my alma . . .
Read more: Is the Business of America Business?
By Kimberly Spring, November 16th, 2010 ![KSpring[1]](../../../../wp-content/uploads/2010/11/KSpring1-150x112.jpg)
In two previous posts, DC has considered the military in terms of its means and ends. First, I asked about pragmatic pacificsm, and in response, US Army veteran, Michael Corey, discussed the use of war as a political tool. Today’s contributor, Kimberly Spring, is a PhD candidate at the New School. -Jeff
 In my research, I work with military veterans who served in Iraq. For them, this Veterans Day was not a day for parades, but for political action and protests. It may be that many service members find themselves questioning the strategies and tactics of Pentagon privately, but these veterans represent the minority of active duty and former service members who publicly criticize the military.
Protesting in this way has caused them difficulties. Speaking against the military is taboo. Breaking the “code of silence” to talk about abuse and brutality among their fellow service members is a betrayal.
Thinking about the polarizing discourse around the military, I wonder how discussions about means and ends in war can ever achieve any depth. Our portrayal of those who serve in the military remains split between, on the one hand, blanket condemnation of the savagery of men who glorify killing and domination, and, on the other, unqualified, unabashed reverence for the honor and sacrifice of those who serve.
The veterans who I work with struggle between these two extremes. In the US, national discourse has taken an uncomfortable swing toward the latter depiction – any criticism of service members is impolitic, for the left and the right.
But the idealization of soldiers denies the much more ambiguous experience of the men and women who serve.
We should not confuse the economic and personal need that leads many men and women to enlist with the idealism of sacrifice. We should not forget that service members are flawed, just like the rest of us.
That sometimes they act bravely, and other times they act out of fear; sometimes with compassion and other times with cruelty; that they, like anyone, operate in an arena of uncertainty and ambiguity.
Somehow we never fail to be astounded by the My Lais and the . . .
Read more: Means without Ends?
By Michael Corey, November 11th, 2010 
Today, on Veterans Day, I am happy to introduce my friend and US Army veteran: Michael P. Corey. Michael is a New School PhD with a special interest in the Vietnam War and collective memory.
The terms “means” and “ends” bring to mind relations among self-centered nations competing with one another. “A mean to an end.” “The end is worth its means.”
 It is one way of looking at the international political situation. This world looks very different from the top looking down and from the bottom looking up. For many policy makers, it involves judgments made in the name of national interests and security; and in more recent years additional concerns have been about international interests and security. From the bottom looking up, especially among combat veterans, the major concern is simply survival.
In 1927, Carl Schmitt in The Concept of the Political wrote, “The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy … The friend, enemy, and combat concepts receive their real meaning precisely because they refer to the real possibility of physical killing. War follows from enmity. War is the existential negation of the enemy.” About 100 years prior to Schmitt, Carl von Clausewitz observed, “War is nothing but a continuation of political intercourse with a mixture of other means.” These, the view from the top down.
A perspective from the bottom looking up is a passage by William Broyles, Jr. in his often quoted 1984 essay, “Why Men Love War,” “War is ugly, horrible, evil, and it is reasonable for men to hate all that. But I believe that most men who have been to war would have to admit, if they are honest, that somewhere inside themselves they loved it too, loved it as much as anything that has happened to them before or since.”
These perspectives pose challenges for veterans of all sorts and for those who have either antiwar or pacifist beliefs. War is a tool of politics, and it has consequences. Alternatively, the unwillingness to use war as a tool also has consequences.
Veterans Day sparked some remembrances . . .
Read more: On Veterans Day: A Reflection on Means and Ends
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