{"id":10885,"date":"2015-11-22T20:00:09","date_gmt":"2015-11-23T04:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=10885"},"modified":"2015-11-24T21:49:10","modified_gmt":"2015-11-25T05:49:10","slug":"and-take-a-tip-from-la-belle-france-viva-la-difference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=10885","title":{"rendered":"And take a tip from La Belle France: &#8220;Viva la difference!&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-8131\" style=\"float: right; margin: 5px; border: 1px solid;\" src=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/stew.jpg\" alt=\"Observation Stew\" width=\"100\" height=\"75\" \/>Let&#8217;s end this week of news chum posts with song lyrics in the title with a very apropos song for a &#8220;news chum stew&#8221; post: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.oldielyrics.com\/lyrics\/pete_seeger\/all_mixed_up.html\">Pete Seeger&#8217;s <em>All Mixed Up<\/em><\/a>. The point of the song is a timely lesson for all of those who profess hatred or refuse to permit in refuges:<\/p>\n<p><em>There were no red-headed Irishmen<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Before the Vikings landed in Ireland<\/em><br \/>\n<em>How many Romans had dark curly hair<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Before they brought slaves from Africa?<\/em><br \/>\n<em>No race of man is completely pure,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Nor is anyone&#8217;s mind, that&#8217;s for sure<\/em><br \/>\n<em>The winds mix the dust of every land,<\/em><br \/>\n<em>And so will woman and man.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>And now, on with the stew:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>These Poor Refuges, They Just Cause Trouble.\u00a0<\/strong>Let&#8217;s start with the story of an immigrant refugee, a man who came to this country with nothing&#8230; and ended up not only as a founding father, but as a star on Broadway: Alexander Hamilton. We have two articles about this show: the first gives <a href=\"http:\/\/mentalfloss.com\/article\/71222\/20-things-you-might-not-have-known-about-hamilton\">20 things you might not have known about Hamilton<\/a>;\u00a0 the second is about how <a href=\"http:\/\/www.themarysue.com\/how-the-hero-of-hamilton-the-musical-is-a-woman\/\">the star of Hamilton is really&#8230; a woman<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Women on Broadway<\/strong>. Let&#8217;s go with this women theme for a minute. December 3rd is when the updated version of <em>The Wiz<\/em> is presented live on NBC&#8230; and the producers have let us know what their next project will be: <a href=\"http:\/\/playbill.com\/news\/article\/wiz-live-producers-promise-stage-bombshell-will-be-next-372197\">They are bringing <em>Bombshell<\/em> (from <em>Smash<\/em>) to Broadway<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Girl&#8230; Scouts?<\/strong> This article raises a question that has oft been raised to me as President of a synagogue brotherhood: why do we still have brotherhoods and sisterhoods in congregations. If we are truly egalatarian, they seem archaic institution&#8230; especially in this era of trans-rights? We no longer see sex as binary, so why two organizations? What is the article? It seems that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/11\/23\/us\/girls-in-california-are-latest-to-seek-to-become-boy-scouts.html?_r=0\">a group of girls in California have sued to become part of the Boy Scouts<\/a>. (if the link doesn&#8217;t work, as NYT links might, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/search?q=Girls+in+California+Are+Latest+to+Seek+to+Become+Boy+Scouts&amp;ie=utf-8&amp;oe=utf-8\">do this search<\/a>)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Racism on Campus<\/strong>. This one saddens me. According to the Daily Cal at UC Berkely, a bunch of students have created <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailycal.org\/2015\/11\/21\/alleged-campus-white-student-union-facebook-page-created\/\">a White Student Union page for Berkeley on Facebook<\/a> (ETA: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailycal.org\/2015\/11\/23\/dirks-issues-statement-uc-berkeley-white-student-union-page\/\">Subsequenty deleted<\/a>). This comes on top of <a href=\"https:\/\/gimletmedia.com\/episode\/46-yik-yak-returns\/\">the Reply All episode that reexplored racism on campus in light of the MizzU incident<\/a>. Sad to say, but much as we think racism and bigotry is dead, it isn&#8217;t. In fact, we&#8217;ve just created new ways for it to rear its ugly head. ETAA: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.snopes.com\/2015\/11\/24\/white-student-union-facebook-hoax\/\">This may have been a hoax, at least with respect to the WSU<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Visible vs. Invisible<\/strong>. Here&#8217;s one that probably isn&#8217;t a surprise. With the drought in California, everyone was ripping out their lawns and replacing them with drought-friendly plants. But guess what? <a href=\"http:\/\/la.curbed.com\/archives\/2015\/11\/los_angeles_lawn_rebates_ineffective.php\">Although it was visible, it really didn&#8217;t save all that much water<\/a>. Do you really want to save water? Do something invisible. Replace <a href=\"http:\/\/www.saveourwaterrebates.com\/toilet-rebates.html\">your toilets<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/socalwatersmart.com\/?page_id=2969\">your washing machine<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>No Duh<\/strong>. Here&#8217;s a no brainer: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eater.com\/2014\/12\/23\/7443135\/if-youre-ordering-takeout-on-christmas-and-christmas-eve-its-probably\">If you&#8217;re ordering takeout on Christmas or Christmas Eve, odds are that it is Chinese food<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Music and Bicycling<\/strong>. Here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.govtech.com\/transportation\/Cities-and-States-Try-to-Crack-Down-on-Distracted-Bicycling.html\">an article about how cities are cracking down on distracted bicycling<\/a>. Now, I&#8217;m all for safe bicycling. But I like to listen to my podcasts or music as I ride, just as I do in my car. Why can&#8217;t someone invent a bike helmet that can connect (either wired or bluetooth) to an iPod or MP3 player to play music and yet let you hear traffic noise.<\/li>\n<li><strong>I Never Knew<\/strong>. Lastly, here&#8217;s something that surfaced today. Did you know there is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sharielf.com\/museum.html\">a crochet museum in Joshua Tree<\/a>?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Let&#8217;s end this week of news chum posts with song lyrics in the title with a very apropos song for a &#8220;news chum stew&#8221; post: Pete Seeger&#8217;s All Mixed Up. The point of the song is a timely lesson for all of those who profess hatred or refuse to permit in refuges: There were no <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=10885\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71,56,36,28],"tags":[405,73,291,381,415],"class_list":["post-10885","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food","category-news-chum","category-rant","category-theatre","tag-bicycling","tag-restaurants","tag-societal-questions","tag-ucberkeley","tag-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10885","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10885"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10885\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10888,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10885\/revisions\/10888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10885"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10885"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10885"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}