My Aunt Is Hot

Here is a copy of an essay I wrote for Maplewood online about the maplewood south orange school district banning holiday songs.

“A Plea For Neutrality”

I left Columbia High School in June 2004, a diploma holding member of the prestigious Columbia High School alumni. Three months later, I’ve returned to my home state of New Jersey, and my alma mater of Columbia to see it once again shrouded in scandal. It’s good to see that some things never change.

While visiting the school on Wednesday, I bore witness to a crowd of crowing protesters. When I asked a student what they were protesting, she informed me that Columbia no longer permitted the singing religious songs in school. My very first thought was, “People are PROTESTING this?”

Religion is never an easy subject to talk about, much less regulate. I feel the greatest sympathy for those in the school district charged with writing and ultimately defending their policies. I also have the greatest respect for people who feel like our schools are losing their culture. However, I have very strong personal convictions about religion and our schools. I haven’t a modicum of empathy for those who feel their religious beliefs are being persecuted. Our schools have too long been shelters for religious propaganda under the guise of “culture”.

One may ask how “culture” has left us with an emotionally charged situation such as the one we’re facing today. The problem doesn’t lie specifically in culture, but rather its politically correct cousin, “multi-culture.” For years, this buzzword has been thrown around, and for years it’s been used to describe the Maplewood/South Orange school district. And it’s through analysis of this term we can better understand why we have to prevent religious songs from being sung in school.

Instead of opting to use the buzzword multicultural, I’d like to describe our school district as diverse. In 2003-2004 we had about 35% white enrollment, 60% black enrollment, and 5% from all different backgrounds. [ http://hometown.aol.com/njfabian/changing_racial_make.htm ] The religious affiliations are even more varied. Personally, I have met Mormons, Jehovah’s witnesses, Born Again Christians, people of eastern faiths, and Jews in Columbia High School. Every person has culture, regardless of who they are, what they believe, or where they are from. However, it’s wrong to describe Columbia as “multi-cultural”. If you’ve ever been to one of the annual holiday concerts, you’ll know exactly what I mean. Christian related songs dominate the concert. Occasionally the choir will sing something in another language (though, on more than one occasion it’s been a Christmas song), but it’s a rare day you’ll hear a song in Hindi.

The solution, many people feel is to accommodate everyone. Teach the choir Hindi, get the Gospel Choir singing “Dreidel, Dreidel”, and have the band play “Jingle Bell Rock”. Ignore the practical concerns of the moment, and the fact the Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t believe in any sort of holiday practice. Imagine a world where we celebrate everyone’s beliefs. Suddenly we can embody that utopian image of acceptance.

Therein lies the problem: Celebrating everyone’s beliefs requires a compulsory decision. Like the Pledge of allegiance, celebrating anyone’s beliefs requires a decision as to whether or not you agree with their beliefs, and whether or not you’re going to accept them. Such decisions, especially in a discipline-oriented atmosphere, could be extremely detrimental to children. Suppose you were told your whole life that Jewish people killed Jesus. How content will you be to sit in that audience listening to “Dreidel Dreidel”? Further, how can you show your dissent in a respectful way at an event that has compulsory attendance? Not attending will lead to disciplinary measures that could impact your ability to get into college, find your first job, etc. However, attending signals your affirmation of a belief that you do not hold. It’s these very situations that prevent the “celebrate everything” mentality from being valid, or practical.

The only practical response is to leave the religious expression out of the school system. In this way, nobody is excluded from the festivities, nobody is forced to make philosophical decisions, and nobody is forced to affirm a belief they don’t have.

In conclusion, it’s in diversity that we can learn about each other. The only celebration taking place in our school should be the celebration of diversity. Taking religious music from our schools isn’t a blow to culture, or a crime against God. It’s simply a measure to make sure that everyone can celebrate in his or her own way, and to allow everyone to celebrate without having their beliefs questioned. As with any revolution, there will be casualties. Activists like Bill Powell have already felt the sharp blade of common sense held by the strong arm of secular goals and equal opportunity. It’s only through turmoil we become stronger, and it’s only through controversy do we become smarter. I applaud the school district in making a move toward allowing its students to focus on academic betterment.
Joshua Ziering

I don’t think 10 days of pure debauchery came even close to describing what it is to go home for Thanksgiving from College. Here’s the best analogy I can think of: In high school, you are Thomas Anderson. You know that something out there is better than the life you are living right now, but have no idea what it is.

When you go to college, and come back for Thanksgiving, it’s like you are Neo, and you have suddenly recognized that you are the one. You’ve realized that The Matrix is nothing more than childs play. Suddenly things that seemed impossible are now probable. Suddenly, you are in control of everything. The only limit is yourself, and you’re bent on doing some impossible ass shit.

The only un-cool part of going home is the ‘going’ part. Traveling sucks. Traveling with stuff that can easily be misconstrued(Correctly construed?) for stuff that is a bomb really sucks. Last time I went back to Arizona from NJ, they took all my airplane stuff and had to swab it to make sure it wasn’t a bomb. The lady was really nice about it, even though I thought it was funny as hell. She asked all about what I do with this stuff, and why I like airplanes and whatnot. She did so out of general interest. Anyway, this morning, half asleep, I get the weird peering into the X-Ray screen, and then the obligatory, “IS THIS YOUR BAG?!” Then the lady was like “What’s inside?” I said something about a radio control. Then she says, “FOR AIRPLANES!?” I said yeah, and I smiled because I remembered her. Clearly, she remembered me and said “You again?!” We exchanged pleasantries as she was checking my airplane stuff for explosives. That kind of made my day.

Joshua Ziering

Tomorrow I go back to New Jersey for the second time since coming to the desert. I’m told it’s turned bitter. I have no doubt that leaving will be a most bitter sweet event, if for no other reason than to come back to my time warp here in Arizona. I freaking wrote a fucking poem about it the other day. I figured I should do something constuctive before I set out for 10 days, of what I’m sure will be nothing less than debauchery.

Flight 434 took me out of my home.
A monday night in Arizona finds me writing on the steps alone.
The vivid desert sky brings no chill for the night, as I sit, candidly swimming in halogen light.
It’s surreal here.
Ironic is the reflection of a palm tree in a puddle.
The rain doesn’t understand, the ‘art of subtle’.
Time stays stagnant, without the changing of the season.
The warm banisters and sidewalks are a special kind treason.
The kind only a foreigner can see.
Summer is winter holding it’s breath.
And here it suffocates, me.
Joshua Ziering

(I wrote this whole entry as if I were Frank (my roomate)… fuck I’m bored.)

I swear to God I have the weirdest roomate ever. He just does weird shit, at weird times. The other day, all of a sudden this fucking box appeared. I don’t know what he had in it, maybe airplane stuff or something, but it just suddenly appeared. This isn’t like a small box, this is like a HUGE box. Maybe 3 feet by 1 foot. This is a lot when you consider how small a room we live in. Sure, he keeps his ‘box’ on his side of the room or whatever, but still, it’s fucking unsightly. I knew if this thing stuck around it would be a magnet. I was right. The other night, he decided to use the box as a makeshift table to eat his Wendy’s on. He’s going to die an early fucking death always eating that shit and sucking Coke.

Speaking of Coke. He always comes home with a fountain drink. I don’t know where he is getting these things, but they’re always huge, and he can’t manage to throw any of them away. So they sit. Like little time bombs. And then they explode, and leak soda everywhere. And then of course, he’s never around for me to be like … hey your cup is bleeding. He’s off doing weird shit. Sometimes he doesn’t come back for days at a time. Then he’ll come in at like 1 in the morning, with like 3 planes, some of them with lights on them, throw them under his bed, and crawl on top of his little pile and under his sheets. He’ll be unconcious for the next 16 hours.

When he gets up, he’ll wrap himself in his skanky ass sheet, and sit at the computer for the next hour mumbling about how he gets so much spam email, and how Gmail manages to catch everything but one or two. Or how he hates this stupid ass 14 year old on Ezone named Thomas Manson or something.

Then he’ll take a shower and run out the door. Something that’s becoming increasingly frequent. And I won’t see him again until it’s late and he walks in with a ton of planes.

Joshua Ziering

I went to go vote this morning. I looked up where I was supposed to go vote at MyPollingPlace.com and set off at Half past noon. I met a really nice girl in front of me in the HUGE line. She was a republican, and from Cali. It’s kind of cool I’m getting to meet all of these different people. On the other hand, I’d trade it for what I had 6 months ago in a second.

It took me two and a half hours to go through the line. It took me all of two minutes to cast my vote. I got a cool sticker after they ran it through the scanner machine.

I’m kind of upset at a lot of people in my hall. They’ve decided that they don’t want to vote. On one hand, I can understand why they feel like their vote doesn’t matter, and they don’t care who wins because it won’t affect them. In my mind, this is the wost kind of ‘America Hating’. I thought about this, and I came to this conclusion: Their are votes that don’t matter. However, the problem is that nobody will know which ones don’t matter until it’s over. So, that makes it more important than ever to cast your vote. Who knows? Maybe Arizona will be the next Florida, and the election will hinge on this state. In that case, You’re goddamn right I want my vote counted. It seems that nobody cares who wins until the person they didn’t want to win wins.

Joshua Ziering