Private space, like the telephone booth, has become extinct. People now carry on their private lives as if they were on a public stage. And, most interestingly, they don’t care who hears their phone conversations. This was the genesis of The Theatre of the Barely Socially Acceptable. You might enjoy past acts of drama, culled from Washington, DC’s Metro and other street level amphitheaters.

A hard day at the office, I had a half hour ride home on the Metro before I began my hard night at home (two teenagers, need I say more?). As the train went above ground, the woman to my left immediately dialed her friend.

Yeah, I’m coming for a visit. My grandfather died last week and they’re having a “Celebration of Life” on Saturday. I’m going to buy my ticket as soon as I get home. Yeah, really.

That was sad. I felt sympathetic. My day wasn’t as hard as I thought. She continued.

Oh, guess what? Remember my dad had three strikes? Well, after nineteen years he got out of prison last Thursday. Yeah, he missed his dad’s death by three days.

That’s when I noticed she was talking really loud, like she was in her own house. Most people who exhibit barely socially acceptable tendencies do. That’s when I pulled out my iPhone to begin writing this all down. Despite my proximity to the perpetrator in these cases, they never notice I am hanging on their every word. Usually, I look around to see if I’m the only passenger who’s noticing. Sometimes I make eye contact with others and shrug. Sometimes I say to my fellow observers “She probably doesn’t realize she’s in a public space.” When I do, the person in question never takes note, they are so focused on broadcasting their own lives. She continued.

My family doesn’t understand. They want me to hang out with them after granddad’s funeral. But I wanna go see my dad.

What’s to understand? It’s my dad and he’s been in jail.

Okay, as soon as I buy my ticket I’ll call you. Yeah, bye.

I wonder what my daughters say about me. How many strikes do you think I have? Whatever they say, I hope they say it quietly.

The last two weeks have been filled with enough “shock and awe” to last me for a while: the bombing in Boston and the chase for its perpetrators, the explosion in West, Texas, and, finally, the Senate vote on gun background checks. Despite my horror, I haven’t commented much on the first two. They’ve been covered in great detail by the media. In fact, the television “talking heads,” having to fill hours with endless chit chat during lulls in the action, became a major distraction. However, I felt compelled to say something about the Senate vote.

Most polls indicate at least 90% of Americans support gun background checks (80% of gun owners!), including a Quinnipiac University poll conducted at the beginning of April. So, it was shocking to hear of the bill’s defeat. One of the problems is that national issues like this are highly skewed by regional interests: both chambers of Congress are elected by small districts or states, not the country as a whole. These polls were based on a national sampling.

So, I spent much of my free time this week crafting my statement, voicing my opinion in a way for which I’m best suited: visually. Here is my op-ed piece and my latest poster from the Chamomile Tea Party:

Senator’s, you failed your background checks.

Interestingly, when I put the poster out there on the net, many took it as an indictment against the 2nd Amendment. But this wasn’t the genesis for this poster at all. Yes, I am a fervent gun control advocate —within certain contexts. However, this is about the power of money and of Washington lobbyists, including the National Rifle Association.

From the Supreme Court’s ruling that corporations are essentially people who can contribute humongous amounts of money to influence our politicians to the results of this vote, I am indeed shocked. But I’m not surprised.

Background Note: For those of you who are followers of the Chamomile Tea Party posters, this one is not based on a World War II propaganda poster. This propaganda is all mine.

Peter Sprigg doesn't believe that same-sex marriage is as good for children as a heterosexual marriage. To him the biological trumps everything.

As I walked home from work the other day I listened to NPR’s All Things Considered. This is my “me” time.

Gay marriage is a trending topic these days and that day the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) had just endorsed same-sex marriage. The data, over sixty studies, showed no difference in the well-being of children raised by gay and lesbian couples than of children of heterosexual couples. You would think the studies, covering a wide breath of childhood metrics from emotional well-being to academic achievement, would prove the point nicely. But, of course, not to everyone.

As part of NPR’s “balanced” approach to reporting, commentator Alix Spiegel interviewed, not only a pediatrician who helped craft the Academy’s review, but Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow at the conservative Christian public policy organization, the Family Research Council. He reviewed the same studies but came to a very different conclusion. Here is the transcript of his interview (emphasis mine):

PETER SPRIGG: I think it reflects more political correctness than it does any actual findings of the research in terms of the well-being of children.

SPIEGEL: Peter Sprigg, a senior fellow at the conservative Christian public policy organization, the Family Research Council, says he has reviewed much of the same research, but not surprisingly has come to a very different conclusion. Sprigg says that the AAP is right that marriage is advantageous, but wrong about the cause of that advantage.

SPRIGG: The demonstrable benefits of being raised by married parents relate in large part to the benefits of being bonded to the mother and father whose union created you, who gave you life.

SPIEGEL: In other words, the advantage comes from the biological bond between the two parents and their child.

SPRIGG: And so it’s not valid to assume that homosexual couples who are allowed to legally marry would be able to transmit the same benefits to their children.

SPIEGEL: The AAP, though, isn’t alone in asserting that the children of gay parents seem to fare just as well as the children of heterosexual parents. In 2005, the American Psychological Association reviewed the research and came to the same conclusion.

If the biological bond is so critical to the well-being of children, Mr. Sprigg, why are my adopted girls so well-adjusted, good students, and critical thinkers? And I’m in a “traditional” marriage. Nature can be important, but love is pure nurture. And you don’t have to be straight to experience that!

Mr. Sprigg, you’re more than misguided. Your religious beliefs have blinded you to the facts. And my family and the families of my gay and lesbian friends and relatives are the facts.

Related: Read or listen to the entire story on NPR.

The woman in the next aisle had eaten her hamentashen before she got to the cashier!

I live in both a very Jewish and a very Latino suburb of DC. It’s an interesting mix: wonderful ethnic restaurants and a multicultural place for my multicultural family.

Last night I paid an inaugural visit to our new kosher supermarket. It recently opened in a space previously inhabited by one of the grocery chains. I’ve been a bit outta sorts of late (nothing major) but suddenly I felt right at home. Now, I’m not a religious Jew. Not even close (okay, except for my obligatory attendance at Kol Nidre services every Yom Kipper—I like to hedge my bets). But, I find there’s something deeply comforting about being around other Jews. I really can’t explain it. It’s not like I attend synagogue. And I certainly don’t agree with orthodoxy or blind support for Israel. But seeing men walking to schul with their wide-brimmed fur hats and Orthodox women, hair covered and pushing a stroller, all set for Shabbat, is simply comforting. I was surprised. But the feeling came from down deep.

The fruit and veggie guy was restocking (and wearing a yarmelke). I noticed that the plastic bags for your vegetables were the same horrible ones the last market had. They are simply impossible to open. I had mentioned this to the prior big chain manager with no success. So, of course, I approached this new guy. Why not? It was a new regime. He immediately said “I KNOW! They’re horrible. I hate them too. We are getting new ones.” Ahh, so comforting. There’s nothing like a Jew agreeing with another Jew. (Of course, there’s also nothing like a Jew disagreeing with another Jew too, but more on that in a minute.)

I had a short list of things to get. The place looks virtually the same as it did when it was a regular grocery store. But as I went up and down the aisles I noticed a few things were different. Where was my Progresso Soup?? And when I went to get cat food, there was a miniscule selection of Bella’s preferred brand.

Just then another clerk walked by asking if I needed help. “Yes,” I said. “I think you need a greater selection of Fancy Feast.” “No problem,” he said. Feeling very good, I went on: “And where’s my Progresso Soup?” He grimaced and said “Sorry, it’s not kosher.” Ah, I remembered. I’m in a kosher grocery store. The store looked so “normal” I’d forgotten. “So, is Fancy Feast cat food kosher?” “Cat and dog food doesn’t have to be kosher,” he replied. Oh. This Jew learns something new every day.

Now, there’s a gray side to my Jewish connection: it’s the religious side. While there’s room for contemporary thought within the religion as a whole, the Orthodox have a narrower range of acceptance. Those Orthodox women I mentioned above? They are sequestered in separate sections of the synagogue. And then there are the “Ultra Orthodox.” Last year religious extremists attacked Jewish women who were thought to be dressing immodestly.

A crowd of ultra-Orthodox men jumped on 27-year-old Natali Mashiah’s car in the Haredi Ramat Beit Shemet Bet neighborhood, she said. Members of the crowd smashed her car windows and punctured her four tires before spilling bleach on the inside of her car, said the Beit Shemesh resident, adding that she believed the men were going to set her on fire. As she fled the car, she said she was hit on the head by a rock thrown from very close range.

—Haaretz

In the land of orthodoxy, men are the rulers. So it is written.

Just this week, New York Times Op-Ed columnist, David Brooks, also took a look into a local kosher market in Brooklyn. The Orthodox, Brooks writes, seem, on the surface, quite modern as they place their groceries into their minivans. However, he says, they represent a counterculture. My decision to be a secular Jew, to mix and match parts of my culture and religion, is a choice I’ve made. To the Orthodox “obligations precede choices.”

As I was checking out I was thinking about this as I loaded my groceries onto the belt. An elderly woman in the next checkout line was saying to the cashier, “I bought three hamentaschen but they were so good I ate them all.” Her words and intonation: so, so, comforting. “Bubbe? Grandma?” As I reached for one of those rubber dividers used to separate your groceries from the next person’s in line, I read the ad printed on it: “Why don’t you have gefilte fish for supper tonight?” Suddenly, I was in my bubbe’s house. It felt good to be Jewish. And that was a choice I happily embraced.

The Chamomile Tea Party’s First Ad in Washington, DC’s Metro (click image for larger view)

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything on Life Outtacontext. But I’ve been busy.

With the upcoming election, there is more food for fodder than ever for my Chamomile Tea Party posters (and I have some new ones, so take a look). While I have my personal political beliefs, it’s interesting to step back and dissect this year’s political process. If you’re disgusted or scratching your head, you might want to take a look at an article in today’s Washington Post which sheds some light on why this (or any other) campaign is so negative.

I’ve been making these posters for just over two years. And while I’ve had some success in getting them out into the world (seen at rallies, and written about, I wanted to find another way of bringing the issues the “Party” stands for to the public.

So I thought BIG. I bought ad space in Washington, DC’s Metro, at one of the busiest stops in the system, Gallery Place. And the first of two ads went up this week.

If you’re in DC or know someone who is coming the Nation’s Capital, tell them they can find the poster on the Red Line platform at Gallery Place. And, feel free to pass this on to your friends, even if they aren’t nearby. They can stay in touch by “Liking” the Chamomile Tea Party on Facebook.

And, one more thing: from the beginning, I’ve given digital copies of my posters away for free. I want people to use them. But I’ve also had many ask if hardcopies are for sale. Well, now they are. If you feel so inclined, peruse the Chamomile Tea Party shop. They’re inexpensive and make great gifts!

The latest poster from the Chamomile Tea Party. Click on image for larger view. (Not only is this a remix of a World War II-era poster this is a remix of my first Chamomile Tea Party poster. And aside from the text, I’ve made some subtle changes in this new one. Can you see them?)

Pulling this country out of the Wall Street-induced recession has been glacial. To a great extent it’s because the Republicans aren’t that interested in solving America’s problems as much as making sure that Barack Obama is a one-term president. This is Republican Senate Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell’s stated goal.

He’s not alone. Recently, GOP Senator, Mike Lee, of Utah said he would obstruct all of President Obama’s judicial and government agency nominees in the Senate, even though these nominees have bipartisan support.

This behavior is unconscionable. We must move forward to help Americans in need and to compete in the global economy. We need to elect people from both parties who will work together towards these ends. Extreme ideology and obstruction have no place in American government now. Vote out the obstructionists!

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