How can you even make a word ilegal? Especially a word that is a customary common greeting to about a billion(…) people on this planet?
This is not fire-in-a-crowded-theatre, this is a polite way to say hi.
1 Like
Well, drugs are still illegal as well, so historical consistency may not be their thing.
Also, I assume that yoga time is being replaced with talks on the evils of worshiping Mammon…
1 Like
Makes perfect sense. After all, sex while standing up leads to dancing.
2 Likes
For too many people who go on about freedom, the most important freedom is the freedom to deprive others of theirs.
12 Likes
So, I resisted replying to the inevitable smackdowns Alabama would get (and richly deserves), but some thoughts, since I’m stuck here until retirement:
- Alabama is indeed home to fringe-moving-to-the-center organized white supremacy, but it’s also home to centers of culture and learning for Black people, and it has some really interesting pockets of culture, like the Hmong and other Vietnam immigrants along the Gulf cost (who were roundly fucked by that oil spill and corrupt allocation of the monies intended to meliorate the problems).
- Birmingham was and is a locus of progressivism, moreso than in some surrounding urban centers. This is a residuum of the communist organizing done here Back in the Day.
- The Democrats used to be really strong here until party leadership was seized by inept and corrupt leadership; they have been (after prolonged efforts) cast out, and new, energetic progressive leadership is in the wheelhouse.
- Doug Jones was probably a one-off for now. But the new leaderships seems to have a clue that telling people what they can deliver is a winning strategy.
- So, rather than pissing on Alabama and suggesting it secede or be swallowed whole by hell as I sometimes fantasize, it’s much better to wish it a Stacey Abrams style success.
/random thoughts
20 Likes
I imagine that the closest-to-legitimate concern here is that kids will “misinterpret” the feelings of peace that come from mindfulness. Christians (of a certain stripe) have it repeatedly ingrained that ANY inner peace, calm or confidence that occurs during prayer come explicitly from Jesus and God, not the act of mindfulness itself. This associative training really works on people, but only if you are prevented from experiencing those feelings of relief-from-the-chaos-of-life without asking for them from God/Jesus. The “problem” is, it’s just as easy to train people that a Himalayan salt-rock, a lucky rabbit’s foot or a blankie is their source of peace, as long as they work to associate it with feelings of calm.
Functioning secular psychology/physiology is a serious threat to the strict religious myth-building for fundamentalists. Of course, plenty of progressive sects have allowed the God-in-the-gaps to evolve and flourish, as life has plenty of mystery left to build myth around even if ypu let science in.
8 Likes
These yahoos are so far gone I don’t think the most cynical of them could recognize their own concern in that regard, let alone articulate it like you just did.
5 Likes
There go my plans to open my children’s yoga studio there… Even had my “Sweet Om Alabama” sign printed and everything.
20 Likes
They can solve that problem by inventing Christian yoga.
But they aren’t smart enough.
3 Likes
Hey, it worked to combat the scourge of that there Jew salt.
5 Likes
Out of all of the Christian sects, I would have thought that the Episcopalians would be among the least likely to care if it was Kosher salt blessed by a rabbi.
7 Likes
My suspicion is the the Episcopalian priest was the only cleric the anti-semitic salt entrepreneur approached who didn’t care enough to refuse the request. “Bless your salt? Uhh, sure, why not?”
10 Likes
Interesting… (from Alabama Prayer in Public Schools Laws - FindLaw)
Is Prayer Allowed in Alabama Public Schools?
Alabama statute establishes a period of quiet reflection in which students may pray or meditate silently, similar to laws in many other states. But the state also specifically permits teachers at public schools, “recognizing that the Lord God is one,” to pray and lead students in prayer at the beginning of any class period. Although the prescribed* prayer spelled out in the statute addresses monotheism generally, it runs counter to established federal case law.
*fixed site’s error
10 Likes
Man, that prayer is so aggressive and authoritarian, and somehow also really fucking dry. It certainly reads like it was written by a bureaucrat. It’s like a fundamentalist TOS.
6 Likes
Interesting typo there. “Proscribed” means forbidden. The correct term is “prescribed”.
7 Likes
I should change that since it has nothing to do with Alabama, it’s an error of the site that tracks this stuff
3 Likes
I believe that’s called “the hokey pokey”.
(not sure how common that is, but yes that was a part of my elementary school P.E.)
7 Likes
interesting how a meandering dissertation on aspects of Jewish humor can be extrapolated to cover the entire human experience of the joke.
Yeah, we should go back to Mayan Ballgame!
1 Like
5 Likes
