As we get our houses ready for National Immigrants Day (October 28), from a friend in Maskachusetts:
I just drove on Sandy Pond Rd in Lincoln. A Somali (I assume, since he was black with lighter skin and curly hair) took out a prayer mat, oriented it toward Mecca and was doing a midday prayer on the side of the road (there’s no sidewalk). Right in front of a house belonging to a family with a last name of Goldstein.
(Note the hateful failure to capitalize “Black”, but the friend who used the hateful language is an immigrant and, therefore, it would be wrong for me to criticize him while he is enriching us with his presence.)
A July post from the church in the middle of town:
In April, we posed–and eventually distilled–a question in response: What if we activated one of our spaces–the parsonage–to provide urgently needed temporary housing to refugees?
We wish to state clearly that using the parsonage for refugee housing is not necessarily what will be proposed at a special congregational meeting on September 29, but the “what if” of this hypothesis (some might even call it a lightning rod) is what we are working with to ground our debate, open our hearts, and stretch our imaginations.
*The recommendations for length of stay per family vary from several months to about a year.
In Massachusetts, appropriate housing is hard to find and expensive. Newly arriving refugees are often put up in a crowded hotel room for up to 90 days while they are connected with essential services and look for other housing. Some families are transferred to shelters.
A Biden-style trans-enhanced Rainbow Flag is at the bottom of every page of the church’s web site:
(See Is LGBTQIA the most popular social justice cause because it does not require giving money?)
The July post had estimated the cost to the church of helping out migrants at roughly $48,000 per year, mostly in foregone rent. I contacted a friend who is a member of the church to ask whether this expenditure had been approved by the congregation:
That issue was put to rest before the meeting, thank Heaven. … What we voted on is a $7 million improvement of the stone church, which I favored. 95% of the Church agreed. Progress!
So the Righteous voted to spend $7 million on themselves and nothing on the migrants whose cause they champion.
Related:
- Harvard graduate discovers that the suburbs are packed with narrow-minded white heterosexuals (in which the same church hired a pastor claiming to be Brown and 2SLGBTQQIA+)
> Harvard graduate discovers that the suburbs are packed with narrow-minded white heterosexuals
Have you thought about writing for the Babylon Bee? Sounds like a headline.
Progress indeed, away from hanging witches as Puritans. That church you mentioned isn’t Congregationalist anymore, however Congregationalists have a tradition of independence:
Wikipedia: > Each congregation independently and autonomously runs its own affairs.
The ones we went to varied, some spend the money on themselves, others did good deeds. Democracy at work. Our church in CT was one of the latter, and the heart of the community. Looks like it’s open and affirming, now:
https://mcc-ucc.org/about/open-a-affirming-ona.html
> Open and Affirming (ONA) is the United Church of Christ’s (UCC) designation for congregations, campus ministries, and other bodies in the UCC which make a public covenant of welcome into their full life and ministry to all persons.
> At a special congregational meeting on February 21, 2010, the Monroe Congregational Church, United Church of Christ became an open and affirming congregation by vote of the membership.
The mentioned Goldsteins should put up large pro-Israel signs with bright Stars of David.
It’s not the old neighborhood. Greenspun spends 1/3 of his time in Greenspunchusetts, 1/3 in FL, & 1/3 on the road.
Thanks, lion, for sharing your expertise regarding my schedule. I think that I might be at 15 days on the ground in Maskachusetts so far for 2025 (next planned trip is January 2026 to teach at MIT), but I don’t remember making it out to Lincoln during any of those 15 days (I was in Brookline, Boston, and Cambridge). Lincoln doesn’t have a marijuana dispensary, as far as I know, and therefore isn’t a reasonable destination for anyone interested in the full Maskachusetts experience.
Maybe once the kids have finished high school I will start to spend a significant amount of time away from Florida, but I’m still not sure where we’d go for the summer months if indeed we had the freedom to become seasonal. What plans have you made for my schedule once the glorious final high school graduation occurs?
@philg
I’d vote for you going to places where they are trying to do the right thing. Are there any? The Luddite Club traveled to Seine-Port France:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/france-smartphone-ban-scrolling-mayor-village-b2824647.html
Also, Michigan is nice in the summer, Ann Arbor has banned leaf-blowers, which is progressive. Now I’m going to break my rusty cage, and disconnect… | | | ( 🦜 ) | | |
Thanks, PP. The Islamic Republic of Michigan sounds nice for the summer, especially Traverse City and Mackinac Island, but it is quite flat, which isn’t the best contrast with Florida.
“So the Righteous voted to spend $7 million on themselves and nothing on the migrants whose cause they champion.”
In my FL city, a committee of several interested Righteous – local churches, social service non-profits, and the city – was formed to come up with a solution for overnight housing of the homeless during the 6 or 7 nights when temperature is forecast to dip below 40 degrees.
The committee met several times and all the Righteous were proud to sign on and advertise their righteousness. The solution was that the city would open up and staff a basketball gymnasium for the overnight homeless stays. The Righteous all shook hands and patted themselves on the back for a job well done. While the well-off, tax exempt churches quietly kept their doors and available space locked up and off limits. The problem now is that the basketball gymnasium is in a predominately black part of town, and the black leaders are complaining about the city moving the homeless to the black area.
Bristol/Northport ME is nice in summer. Far from the madding crowds of Bar Harbor.
Seeking to burnish our bona fides as right-thinkers we took our nephew on safari to Provincetown, taking care to observe the native fauna through raised windows. Ultimately defeated by lack of parking in P-town we settled onto a perch in Wellfleet…close enough.
Location scouting report for famille Greenspun summer digs:
In the parking lot at the trailhead for Chequesset Neck we spotted plates from as far away as Ontario & Pennsylvania. The hikers we encountered on the trail were uncommonly cordial. Not exactly Shenandoah but homey for New England. Could this portend the multi-culti paradise we’ve been promised?
Some modest but handsome manses with a view of the Herring River suggest possibilities. Availability: Unknown
Thanks, CC. One thing that I enjoy about our Jupiter, Florida lifestyle is being outdoors without biting insects, which were bad in Maskachusetts and are usually terrible in Maine all summer. Given that we live in a flat suburb I think that the best contrasts would maybe be a vibrant city (but that can be wearing after a while) or mountains. Or a city in the mountains! Europe used to have a lot of great options, but most of Europe is now a collection of people with nothing in common (the legacy population plus assorted migrants who themselves may have nothing in common other than, for a lot of them, Islam). San Francisco, actually, would be an awesome place to spend the summer if the Bay Area were trimmed back to its 1970-1980 population (the level for which the transportation system was built) and if there weren’t a risk of being subjected to gender reassignment surgery during every visit to the doctor. Before SF became the Land of the Continuous Traffic Jam it was possible to zip from the center of town out to Muir Woods in about 30 minutes, park, and walk among the Redwoods or up into the hills. Today, it might take 30 minutes just to drive a few blocks within the city and parking reservations at Muir Woods would have to be made months in advance.
(Right at this moment, actually, Muir Woods is entirely closed because Donald Trump refuses to follow my advice and declare all National Park Service sites “essential” (due to the obesity emergency!))
Many’s the time I hiked or biked the trails around Muir.
For bug-free living & San Francisco-like climate, Lima, Peru comes to mind. Afternoons when it threatens to get too hot, a cooling fog rolls in off the Pacific. For more altitude (7700 ft.) and less urbanism there’s the ‘white city’ of Arequipa. For those who can’t get enough altitude, Cusco is highly recommended at 11,000 ft.
Try the cuy.
Tastes of chicken.