So Much Anger

People are so darn angry lately. Since when does your having a different opinion than me mean I should not spend time with you, not be friends with you, not listen to what you have to say? People who refuse to hear opposing views and take in new information must be so insecure in their beliefs. If you are so sure your belief is correct, you should not be threatened by having opposing views expressed. Why is it, then, that opposing views are squashed, their believers not even allowed to attempt to make their case? 

Clearly the answer is that people are not secure in their beliefs and are concerned that if others hear a different opinion, they will change their minds. Humanity benefits from the input of each individual, however insane you may feel they are. When you disallow a controversial speaker, unfriend someone on Facebook over a post with which you disagree, or become angry when someone expresses an opposing view, what you are really announcing is that your beliefs are so fragile that they cannot hold up to the scrutiny of the opposition.

Are you even interested in finding the very best answer out there or are you more interested in saving face? When a politician you tend not to agree with says something you think is illogical, I bet you denounce their argument; would you speak up if a politician you like made the exact same statement? You can and should point out flaws in anyone's arguments; it shouldn't matter who the person is.

As for me, I'm interested in pursuing the truth and the best solutions. I have my opinions but I try to welcome the opportunity to be proven wrong and be open to changing my opinions based on new information. If I begin to doubt my opinion after hearing a different view, that's not going to stop me from letting my friends share their opinions; more likely, I'll start to wonder if perhaps my opinion wasn't right in the first place.

We have some huge problems facing our country and our world today and yelling, name calling, and unfriending don't solve any of them. Not only must we be willing to truly understand the other person's point of view, but we must also be willing to accept new information and adapt our opinions accordingly. Let's learn to swallow our pride and look for the best answer, even if it's not the one with which we entered the discussion. Let's remember the humanity in each of us as we attempt to make our world a better place for all of us.

Santa Claus Is Not Coming to Town

Tonight at CrossFit, a classmate asked if I had plans for Christmas. I had previously told her I wasn't sure if I was going home and when I told her that no, I didn't have plans for Christmas, she invited me to come hang out with her family. I eventually explained that I don't have plans for Christmas because I'm Jewish. She laughed and said the invitation was still good, and I thanked her.

As she was preparing to leave the gym after working out, she came to hug me and said, "If I don't see you before, Merry Christmas... Oh! Not Merry Christmas..." I told her I'm not one of those people who is offended by "Merry Christmas"; why would I be offended when someone is giving me nice wishes?

The thing is, I'm 23 years old now.

Image via http://www.clipartlord.com

Rewind a few years and I'm 5. Having attended a Jewish preschool, kindergarten was perhaps my first exposure to Santa Claus. In afterschool care one day, a classmate announced that his new shoes were from Santa. Like most other five-year-olds, I believed in Santa, but unlike most other five-year-olds, Santa did not come to my house. I was maybe a little jealous but mostly remember feeling baffled that Santa would know what size shoe to bring. I used to go to bed on Christmas Eve praying that Santa would come, but he never did.

My next Santa-related memory was two years later in second grade when we were given an assignment to write a letter to Santa Claus. Now keep in mind that I was still a Jewish kid whom Santa didn't visit, but I was only seven and still unsure about how exactly Santa worked. What was I supposed to say to this magical man who gave presents to all my classmates but never to me? My family was often told that Santa was not a religious symbol; fine, but that didn't change the fact that he came to my classmates' homes and not mine. My mom was volunteering in my class one day when we had computer lab and the teacher had her typing students' dictated letters. When it was my turn, I just came to her and cried.

When dealing with the "December Dilemma", it is so important to realize that children and adults will react differently. As a teenager and now adult, I will do just about anything Christmas-related if it's something my friends or non-Jewish family members invite me to do with them. I'll go to Christmas services at church, bake Christmas cookies, or help decorate a tree. While I don't put a tree or lights in my home, I am happy to celebrate with loved ones. I even dressed up as Santa Claus for Halloween my junior year of college!

Today if I were asked to write a letter to Santa, it would be a goofy activity that I would have lots of fun with. I am secure in my Jewish identity and I know that presents from Santa really come from parents. But as a seven-year-old, writing a letter to Santa was a truly traumatic experience.

From elementary school me to any teacher or caregiver deciding if a holiday project will be fun for all her students, please consider those in your class who do not celebrate Christmas. What is designed to be a lighthearted, innocent activity may be utterly confusing for some students. Christmas is a beautiful holiday and any extra sensitivity is not to take away from that, but rather to protect young children who cannot yet comprehend how to be non-Christian and still enjoy Christmas activities.

One Human

Human Value Chart

Julie is a single mother of 4. Because of family instability, she barely made it through 10th grade before dropping out of high school. She currently works 35 hours a week as a cashier and cook at Wendy's and makes $7 per hour.

value of Julie.......................................................................................ONE HUMAN



Jake is a CEO of a major corporation and works a lot, sometimes over 70 hours per week. He and his partner Jim live in a house worth $1.2 million. Jake has a PhD in marketing from UT Austin and makes $600,000 per year.

value of Jake......................................................................................ONE HUMAN



Juan snuck into the United States illegally from Mexico two years ago and has been doing manual labor on a private farm for $3 per hour. His girlfriend is still in Mexico with their young son and Juan sends money to support them whenever he can.

value of Juan......................................................................................ONE HUMAN



Theresa worked as a prostitute at a brothel that also dealt heroin. She tried to stay out of the drug side of the business but inevitably got caught up in it and is now serving five years in a low-security prison. She wears an orange jumpsuit seven days a week but has no regrets about her life choices that led to this point.

value of Theresa.................................................................................ONE HUMAN



Person X is X years old. (S)he works for X company and makes X dollars per hour. Person X has X family members and lives in X with X. (S)he practices X religion and is a member of X political party. (S)he spends free time doing X. Person X uses X for transportation, has X medical issues, and has been arrested X times.

value of Person X...............................................................................ONE HUMAN



And God created man in His image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Genesis 1:27 (Jewish Publication Society, 1999)

This Is News?

One of the big stories on social media today is the following: Abby Wambach Kisses Wife After Win. Yes, after the USA won the Women's World Cup, Wambach ran to the stands to find her wife and give her a kiss. But my question is, why is this news? Isn't the point of the gay rights movement for gay people to be treated the same as everyone else? If teammate Alex Morgan publicly kissed her husband after the big game or Carli Lloyd kissed her fiancé, would that be major news? I think not.

There is nothing noteworthy about Abby Wambach kissing Sarah Huffman yesterday. The fact that the media latched onto this special moment between partners and turned it into such a big deal means that they have missed the point of the gay rights movement- or at least whatever gay rights movement I am behind. I simply don't care whether someone is gay or straight. I see sexual orientation as just one small piece of each beautifully complex human being with traits such as kindness and honesty ranking far higher in importance than sexual orientation.

Abby deserved to be in the news today, but not in a frivolous story about a kiss. Is sexual orientation really the most important component of this internationally acclaimed soccer star? My hope is that someday, instead of being all over the news the next day, a kiss after a big win might just be left as a personal moment between an athlete and her biggest fan and that the media might focus their attention on things far more important than a star's sexual orientation.

SCOTUS Gay Marriage Ruling: We Missed The Real Issue

Hooray, gay marriage! That's what I've been seeing all over social media today. And no, I'm not upset about the Supreme Court ruling. I believe sexual orientation develops similarly to handedness (being right or left handed) with some combination of genetics and environment and is largely unchangeable. It's not the ruling that is wrong; it's the fact that this issue even had to come up in the first place.

Where in the Constitution is the government given any authority over personal relationships and marriages? Hint: The answer is nowhere. Therefore, the government's issuing of marriage licenses to anyone, opposite or same sex, is unconstitutional.

Gay Americans want the same legal perks that heterosexual Americans have in marriage: tax advantages, homeownership, hospital visitation rights, end of life decisions, etc. But why are these rights tied to marriage in the first place? There should be neither legal perks nor disadvantages to being partnered and/or married; all of the legal advantages currently given to married couples should be available to everyone. Both single and partnered individuals should be able to identify an emergency contact to make critical healthcare decisions in case of incapacitation. Any competent individual(s) should be allowed to adopt a child. Why is being legally married necessary for any of these scenarios?

Let's leave the defining of personal relationships and marriage to religious institutions and individuals and their family and friends. It is unconstitutional to give legal perks to heterosexual couples that homosexual couples cannot enjoy. It is also unconstitutional to demand that a clergy member officiate the wedding of two men or two women or that a caterer serve at a gay wedding.

In summary, get the government out of personal relationships, whether heterosexual or homosexual. It has no constitutional right to be there.

News Flash: Your Workout Program is Not Better Than Theirs

Since the middle of January, I have been going to CrossFit four times a week as my main exercise. I'm having a lot of fun with it and getting stronger each week, but despite my excitement, I have been hesitant to tell lots of people about it. Why? To explain, let me tell you about some imaginary people's workout routines:

Alice goes to an hour-long yoga class every day before work (5 mornings per week). On the weekends she enjoys spending time with her kids playing in the backyard and going for family bike rides.

Nick plays on a competitive soccer team in the city league. His team practices four evenings a week and has at least one game most weekends.

Christina is a busy full-time mom who spends the first part of every morning getting her older kids off to school. Several days a week during her toddler's nap time, she puts him in the stroller and goes for a two-mile walk.

Joseph is into powerlifting and has won several local competitions. He trains five days a week with other serious lifters perfecting his form and increasing his lifts.

Mark goes to the gym three days a week and spends thirty minutes on an elliptical machine followed by thirty minutes of weight lifting on strength training machines.

Lynn runs fifty miles per week, including a long 15-20 mile run on Saturdays.

So the question is, who has the best workout routine? And the answer is... it depends on the person! Is her workout program helping her keep her objective health numbers in check, such as blood pressure, cholesterol, bone density, and body fat percentage? Does he enjoy his workout routine rather than viewing it as an unfortunate chore? If the individual can answer yes to these questions then it's a GOOD program! Everyone has different starting points, from morbid obesity to already quite fit, different goals, from winning national tournaments to reducing or maintaining body fat percentage, and everyone has different amounts of time to devote to their program.

So yes, I do CrossFit. Does that make me better than any other exerciser out there? No. Do I enjoy doing CrossFit? Yes. Is CrossFit the right program for everyone? No.

Let's worry about our own workout programs and stop demeaning others who have chosen different routes to staying fit and healthy than we have. Calling CrossFitters "crazy", serious lifters "meatheads", people who primarily do cardiovascular exercises "cardio bunnies", etc., has no place in the fitness community.

Lunch Date with a Murderer

Joe has been in a feud with Nate for as long as he can remember. Their families have lived near each other for generations and have never gotten along. Worst of all, nobody is exactly sure how the whole conflict started in the first place. Joe grew up hearing stories of his grandparents' and even great-grandparents' struggles with Nate's family and has always been so bothered by the whole situation. Joe's friends and even acquaintances he barely knows are full of various suggestions; some say that Joe should meet up with Nate for lunch to talk and try to find middle ground while others have advised Joe to offer Nate one of his prized possessions, like maybe the old baseball cap from the 20's that is now worth a nice chunk of cash.

The major issue, though, is that while Joe wants this whole feud to end so he and his family can get on with their lives, Nate and his family want Joe's family dead. Because they are subtle about this wish, only a few of Joe's friends know the truth; most think that if Joe was just a little nicer to Nate and his family, the feud would end. But Joe knows that no amount of negotiating or gift giving will ever satisfy Nate. Nate has been taught from birth to hate Joe's family and he will not give up the feud until Joe is dead.

Replace Joe with the Israelis and Nate with the Palestinians and you have the true story of the conflict in the Middle East. How can any productive negotiations ever happen when Israel wants peace and the Palestinians want Israel and its inhabitants dead? No matter how much land Israel gives up, the Palestinians will not be satisfied. They don't want a two-state solution; they want a one-state Jew-free solution. While there are numerous Palestinian Arabs who wish to live peacefully amongst their Jewish neighbors, they are greatly overshadowed by the Jew-hating leadership of the Palestinian Authority.

It's Really Not That Radical

Nearly a third of individuals in this demographic have tried it. In fact, people in this demographic are two to six times more likely to try it than the general population. It is estimated that more than 1500 individuals from this demographic die from it every year, making it the leading cause of death for this demographic.

The fact is that nearly half of gay teens will attempt suicide and it's not that hard to figure out why. 90% of them have been harassed at school and they are bullied 2-3 times more than straight teens. Gay teens may come out to their parents only to be kicked out of the house, abused, or made to go through processes designed to rid them of their gayness. Being excommunicated from their religious group and/or told they are destined for hell doesn't help, either.

There is a teaching in Judaism that to save just one life is as if you have saved the entire world. Stopping these suicides will not take any radical changes in your beliefs. You don't need to support a hook-up culture; you can maintain your current value of saving intimacy for commitment, but just extend that value to include people of all orientations. You can continue to support strong, two-parent families, but just allow your picture of a perfect family to be headed by any two individuals who are in love and have committed their lives to each other, whether they are a man and a woman, two women, or two men.

If people were choosing to be gay to cause an uprising, I can see how people would be upset and unsupportive. But they're not. Honestly, why would anyone choose to be gay? Because they think being bullied and denied rights sounds like fun? More and more scientific research is showing a correlation between biology and sexual orientation. God made everyone a little bit differently, and some people happen to be gay. Let's move our culture toward being more accepting off these people who are so much more similar to us than different.



Statistics from speakforthem.org and nyaamerica.org

Cheater

I'm sitting in the back of the classroom, staring at one problem minute after minute. Nothing. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. I panic. It's the last test of the semester before the final and I need to do well. I look up. Most of the forty or so heads in the room are bent over a test in concentration. The professor is at the front of the room, sitting. She looks up occasionally but is mostly occupied with catching up on grading.

I notice a guy a few seats ahead of me on the right. He's hunched over like everyone else and from the professor's viewpoint so far away, he looks like every other test taker in the room. But from where I sit, I can see that he's not. Yes, he is focused on something on his desk, but it's not always the test. He looks at the test for a moment, then spends some time scrolling through his smart phone before going back to working on his test. Maybe he's just using it as a calculator, which would be alright except that calculators of any kind are prohibited during tests in this class. Is he Googling formulas? The professor handed out a formula sheet, and information not on the sheet is expected to be in our heads. Maybe he's logged on to a tutoring website and is working through the problems with an unsuspecting teacher. Maybe he's texting someone for answers. I don't know what he's doing. All I know is the only thing I see on anyone else's desk is a test, but this guy has his smart phone.

image via www.varsitycollegeprep.com

I look back at my test. I know how to do most of the problems but I'm stuck on just a few. My smart phone is in my backpack, powered off. I could pull it out and she wouldn't even notice, I start to think. I could do a quick Google search and put it back. It wouldn't even be that big of a deal. Yes it would, my conscience counters. You're not a cheater. But it's not fair, I whine to myself. Because I didn't study quite enough, I can't ace this test. That guy may have studied even less than I did, but he's probably going to do pretty well.

I replay in my head what I've been told for years: It'll catch up to him eventually. Oh ya, when exactly? When he keeps a scholarship and I don't because my GPA falls just below the cut-off? When he gets hired and I don't because he had an A-average and I had a B?

I turn back to my test and finish what I know how to do, which is most of the questions. I then look back over the few I am stuck on. If only I could just look this up real quick…nope, not going to happen. I sigh and get up to turn in my not-quite-completed test. Having a conscience sure is inconvenient sometimes.

Eight Thousand Every Day

Nearly one month ago, Mali, our family's 13-year-old beagle/springer mix, was euthanized. Mali was part of our family for nearly twelve and a half years and had been diagnosed with Cushing's disease a little over a year before. At the time of her death, she was quite senile and for about a month had spent most of her days lying on the tile in the kitchen. When I picked her up and put her on the table in the exam room at the vet's office, my mom started scratching her cheeks and talking to her and before she was even injected, Mali was quite relaxed and potentially even asleep. She didn't move from her relaxed, sleepy position at all except to twitch her leg slightly at the moment the needle entered her. She didn't squirm or fight; she was exhausted after a long, happy life, and was ready to move on.

Somewhere in the U.S. that day, a similar scene was unfolding, but actually that scene was much more gruesome. A young dog, maybe one year old, maybe five, was also in an exam room. He was not elderly and sick like Mali, but rather happy, lively, and energetic. He excitedly sniffed around the room and wagged his tail as he waited for the vet. When he was placed on the exam table, he definitely did not fall asleep. In fact, he didn't even lie still. He fought the sturdy hands charged with holding him in place as the vet sighed and injected the dog's vein. Within seconds, the struggle was over and he was dead.

I cried and cried as my little Mali was euthanized, but looking back, it was also beautiful. She gave us so much; she deserved to leave this earth with at least some of her dignity still intact and before she suffered the painful effects of old age and Cushing's disease that were starting to overtake her and would surely become much worse in the days and weeks ahead.

In contrast, the young dog's death was nothing short of horrific. In fact, 3 to 4 million dogs and cats in shelters are euthanized every year. That means that the day Mali died, a minimum of 8,219 dogs and cats were needlessly put to sleep. Yes, you read that right: more than eight thousand potentially adoptable dogs and cats are euthanized in the United States every day. Sure, some are sick or old, but the majority are cute, loving, adoptable dogs that shelters just don't have the resources to continue to support.

photo from www.occupyforanimals.org

Despite this horrifying statistic, breeders continue to facilitate the making of new dogs and people continue to purchase dogs from breeders; in fact, over a quarter of dogs and cats owned in the United States were bought from breeders. Many animals are acquired from the litter of a friend or family member's dog. A small percentage of dogs and cats are bought from pet shops, which are known to sell dogs that come from puppy mills. It's a harsh reality, but the fact is that for every animal that is obtained through any of the above methods, another shelter dog who could have been adopted is not.

Euthanasia of sick, hurting animals is a gift; euthanizing healthy animals is disgusting. It would be so simple to drastically reduce the euthanasia rate of healthy dogs and cats in the United States. All we need is more people to be on board. Spay and neuter your animals; the cost of spay or neuter surgery is less than the cost of caring for a litter of puppies or kittens for just one year and many shelters offer low-cost or free spay/neuter surgeries to qualifying pet owners. Regardless of what kind of dog you are looking for, check shelters first. If you are set on a specific breed or just a purebred in general, there are many breed-specific rescue organizations and a whopping 25% of dogs in local shelters are purebred. With the acquiring of any dog, you run the risk of it being wild or aggressive, and shelter dogs are no different. Just like breeder dogs, shelter dogs can be mean, but the majority are loving, trainable, and friendly.

I hope that I can honor the memory of Mali by raising awareness about this important issue. Won't you join me?

Statistics in this post are from www.aspca.org.

End the R.I.P.

I'm a typical college student in that I enjoy spending some time each day on Facebook keeping up with friends and acquaintances. While most of what I see is light-hearted and fun, I have noticed that a certain three letters appear too much on my Facebook news feed: R.I.P. By themselves, they can be part of many different words with many different meanings, but together in that order they mean only one thing: Another death of someone my age. They are three letters that a 21-year-old should not see plastered all over an acquaintance's Facebook page at least once every few months. Knock on wood (or whatever other superstition you subscribe to), I have not had a close friend pass away. However, I regularly learn of the deaths of friends of friends, old classmates, and distant acquaintances. The number one cause of these deaths? Drugs, and more specifically, heroin.

Over a year has passed since I learned of the death of a young man I used to know. We weren't friends, but he was a grade ahead of me in school and we had math class together when I was in ninth grade and he was in tenth. He was a bright kid, popular, funny, a star athlete. I learned after his death that due to a sports injury, he had to have shoulder surgery during high school. To cope with the pain, he was prescribed some heavy-duty painkillers. I don't know all the details, but at some point he got hooked. He started heroin not long after when it was offered to him at a college party and soon became addicted to the deadly street drug. He struggled with the addiction for some time before his parents one day found him dead in his bed. I can't even imagine.

After learning of his death and intermittently the deaths of other people I once knew, I became interested in learning more about this drug taking so many young lives. One thing that stood out to me: Many, many kids struggling with heroin addiction or dead from heroin overdose experimented with prescription painkillers before starting heroin. Also, many were good kids and only started taking the painkillers because of a sports injury or surgery. After being exposed to painkillers, their addiction to heroin came much more easily.

About two weeks ago, I was experiencing some pretty intense chest pain. I'm young, so I knew I probably was not having a heart attack or anything serious, but the pain was rendering me unable to sleep, so I eventually visited a clinic. The PA spent some time listening to my breathing, looking in my nose and throat, and squeezing my chest, trying to discover the source of the pain. She even ordered a chest X-ray just to be safe. Ultimately, a specific cause was not found. I did, however, leave the clinic with a prescription for some moderately heavy-duty painkillers. I expected to receive maybe 4 or 5 pills to get me through the next couple days until whatever was going on with my chest was able to heal. I left the pharmacy that night with 20. As I expected, my chest pain went away within a few days so I only used a few of the pills. I had been prescribed at least 15 pills more than I needed.

You see, it seems that this is far from uncommon. Doctors are taught to overprescribe to avoid having to see the patient again for a refill. The unfortunate side effect of this practice is it leaves powerful painkillers lying around people's houses where risk-taking teens and young adults have free access. A portion of them will go on to become dependent on the pills and will do anything to have them. They will eventually realize that buying heroin on the street is much cheaper than pills and will make the switch. From there, their fate is sealed.

Please, please, please, guard your prescription painkillers and take unused extras to prescription pick-ups. Keep tabs on your friends and speak up if you notice changes in their behavior. Hang out with people who find ways to have fun without hard drugs. Encourage doctors to limit the prescribing of painkillers, especially to young people. Educate yourself about this serious issue that is killing our peers and together we can take steps toward ending the R.I.P. posts.

Bullying in our own Backyard

A national crisis. An epidemic. Taking lives at an alarming rate. No, I'm not talking about some new virus going around. I'm talking about bullying.

Bullying has made headlines quite a bit lately with the release of the new documentary, Bully. The film follows the lives of several bullied teens throughout the course of an entire school year. While I have yet to see the film, my point is that it has brought a lot of media attention to the issue of bullying.

As a kid, I was a head taller than almost every classmate, and I was pretty bright. While I wasn't all that different from the other kids, being so tall and often the first to understand concepts in class made me just enough of an oddball to be a victim of bullying. In 1st grade, one little boy had a "clubhouse" at recess, and I was not invited to join. In 2nd grade, a girl pushed me around daily while everyone was hanging up their backpacks in the classroom. In 4th grade, a couple of boys called me "smart one". In 6th grade, I had some leather shoes that I liked to wear and was called "moo shoes". These are just a few examples, and they were not isolated incidences; they happened daily for several months if not the whole school year.

I'm not trying to start a pity party here. At 20 years of age, I have some great friends and, perhaps more importantly, the freedom to avoid people who are mean. But looking back at my childhood, I can see an obvious pattern of being the victim of bullying. We learned about bullying at school, but it never occurred to me until I was older that what happened to me was bullying.

Despite being a victim of bullying, I never realized that what was happening to me was bullying, because bullying is taught to kids as something that happens to other people. "Kids, we're learning about this so that if you ever see it happening, you'll know how to respond." Are you kidding me? I have yet to see a school, youth group, sports team, Girl Scout/Boy Scout troop… you name it, that is truly free of bullying.

Kids are mean sometimes. It's how they are, but that does not mean that bullying is "just part of being a kid". The actual content of what we teach kids about bullying is fine, but we must adapt a "when you see it happening" attitude when we teach kids how to respond to bullying.

Let's stop looking at this issue as something that happens in other groups, other schools. Teachers, coaches, child care workers, youth leaders, camp counselors, please don't ignore it when a kid is obviously being singled out. And, speaking of obvious, bullying is often far from it. It's the way kids stand in a circle talking and won't let another child join in the group. It's the stepping on another child's heels while walking in line when the adult is at the front. It's the absence of passing to one particular team member. The response cannot be, "now, now, little Jimmy, let's be nice please". It must be a firm conversation with the bully, involving the bully's parents if necessary, that lets everyone know that bullying will not be tolerated under your supervision.

Accept it. Bullying is happening in every community. Posting on Facebook about how we want to end the national bullying crisis is lovely, but until each person takes some responsibility for this issue, things are not going to change.