molly.com » faith(less)

Sing Along: Common People

Molly — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 19:13:36 +0000

I’m losing all my teeth USA
you forgot to get the dentist on my union plan
despite the begging of the common man

Sure he’s limping after years of cutting hay
you forgot to tell him to keep his ankle out of the way
despite what the common people had to say.

Ain’t a Capitalist
Ain’t a Communist
Believe in Conversations
Without the Altercations

Jewish Milestones Along my Way

Molly — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 08:45:23 +0000

So in the basement of the Ala Moana hotel, owned by Outrigger, there is a storefront where each morning 3 Jewish men daven.

It was a completely unexpected view of Orthodox Judaism in practice. I asked a hotel staff member and she told me that the Outrigger chain is owned, at least in significant part, by Jews. I’ve been to Honolulu SEVEN times and this is the first time I saw religious Judaism in Hawaii.

Then, on a shuttle bus at LAX from overseas back to mainland I met a young woman with a Hebrew saying and a star of David tattooed on her arm. Of course I had to ask. She was with her Mother and half sister, and said it was in honor and remembrance of her Jewish father, passed.

She told me she works at Trader Joe’s and gets asked the same question a lot. Many older women tell her, apparently, “your grandmother is rolling in her grave!” (That was my first thought, To Be Honest. )

I wonder sometimes what truth the “faith” I was born into holds for me. I know this: I love that Judaism has no mediator between the self and G-D. I also love the idea that G-D does indeed watch my every step.

Travel. Live. Talk to people. It doesn’t make you smarter, just more aware of milestones along the wayl

The Frightening Reality of Who You Are

Molly — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 12:02:12 +0000

I will never understand why people think I’m “Too Intense.”

What’s that about?

I live and walk through this world, and there are two responses always:

1). Go Away
or
2) Talk to ME!

I have this thing where I want to be hospitable to everyone

And yes, I prefer talking to real people. I always learn something that I hope makes me a better person.

Including the frightening reality of who you are, whoever you are.

To Challenge and Frighten

Molly — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 09:44:10 +0000

Challenge and sometimes frighten people.

Love and Hate

Molly — Wed, 28 May 2008 06:00:56 +0000

A long time ago someone told me it was impossible to know love without knowing hate. Is that true?

For the Love of Maps (where to go from here)

Molly — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:32:45 +0000

Since childhood, maps have captured me. It’s not a unique conquest – many of us love to study maps.

Maybe it was my father beside me, driving along and asking where next? I was always the best at maps, and my dad liked me for it.

It could be that travel is so important to me for my love of maps, but I know so many other people who’ve expressed this same passion.

For the Love of Maps!

Now we should figure out where we go from here.

Your Best Pop, Your Worst

Molly — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 02:23:47 +0000

NEEDING TO GET AWAY FROM STANDARDS and browsers and conferences, I’m interested in a conversation about the best and worst pop culture right now.

Whether journalism, fiction, television, film, photography, illustration, diaries or mixes thereof, I really need your help expanding my horizons.

It can only help!

I’ve been watching “Ashes to Ashes” and waiting for a new episode of the “Big Bang Theory.”

What are you following? Reading? Watching? Doing?

Share your worst, your best!

A Jewish Girl’s Thoughts on The Seven Deadly Sins

Molly — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 05:49:02 +0000

Lust: Not a sin.
Gluttony: Not a sin. Unless you don’t share what you have!
Greed: A sin.
Sloth: Rest only when weary.
Wrath: It happens sometimes.
Envy: Only that the health of our youth is not equivalent to the wisdom of a greater age.
Pride: a sin only if truly misplaced.

The Word “Jew” is Considered an Offensive Google Search

Molly — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 06:00:41 +0000

I saw something I’ve never seen on Google tonight.

Friends and I were hanging out talking about this and that, and the topic turned to New Mexico. I brought up the “Crypto-Jews” which are an unusual sect of the Jewish culture that was given a choice by Spanish and other legislation to either be exiled or to embrace Catholicism at least as early as Columbus sailed the ocean blue, in 1492.

Encouraged by friends to Google for more detail on how a branch of the Crypto Jews wound up in the U.S., much less the dramatic environment of New Mexico, I used this search query:

jew new mexico

I was surprisingly greeted by Google with a rather cautious explanation:

“If you recently used Google to search for the word “Jew,” you may have seen results that were very disturbing.”

Google continues:

” . . . why is a search for “Jew” different? One reason is that the word “Jew” is often used in an anti-Semitic context. Jewish organizations are more likely to use the word “Jewish” when talking about members of their faith. The word has become somewhat charged linguistically.”

Ashkenazim and Sephardim

I am what is known as an Ashkenazi Jew. Easily explained, this means my heritage is Eastern European, and the unique language of my people is the more commonly known language, Yiddish. If you know Jews personally outside of Spain and nearby countries, you are most likely to know Ashkenazi Jews exclusively.

There are, however, quite a fair number of Spanish Jews, known as “Sephardim” who have settled the world. Though a smaller sect, the Sephardic Jews continue to follow their unique language and cultural versions of Judaic belief.

Historically, many of the Sephardic Jews who were unwilling to give up their rituals and beliefs chose to emigrate to other countries around the world. Many have come here to the U.S., but a unique group settled in New Mexico.

Isolated and very much to themselves these Sephardic nomads have hung on to their faith and, most notably, their language, Ladino.

Ladino, Zionists and The Proper Jew

Ladino, as it’s known, is the Sephardic equivalent to Yiddish – at least conceptually. Ladino has Spanish, Arabic, Hebrew, Italian, German, Turkish and even more exotic languages mixed in! Alas, it is mostly a lost language due to the ousting or conversion of Jews during the time of the Crusades.

Jews in the U.S. are facing a lot of challenges, particularly if they take a Zionistic viewpoint. As a Jew I have a spiritual but not necessarily religious relationship to my Judaism. I embrace my heritage with the love of a poet who hears the cadence in the words as they are written. I also have enjoyed the great glory of a strong soprano who has been humbled by the more ancient and holy; more haunting harmonies of a heritage thousands of years old.

What I am today is not a Zionist, nor a religious Jew. By the judgement of some, that’s not a proper Jew at all. But I am the culmination of those thousands of years, and proper or not, as a student of life but most especially words, for me, the word “Jew” isn’t offensive. Rather, descriptive as an ethnographic identity.

And Google . . .

So my question, at the end of all this soul searching, is: Is it up to Google to be a purveyor of political correctness?

Who at Google determined what my ethnicity, heritage and terminology therein means?

My Judaic and history as a U.S. born American has shaped me and made me the person that I am and for that I am very proud.

Maybe Google isn’t as emotionally secure?

Redesign or FAIL?

Molly — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 09:04:10 +0000

Since about six months ago I’ve been talking about a rebrand/redesign.

I had some exceptional work presented to me, and I also had really great input from a variety of web leaders.

But you know what? As flawed as it might be (like me putting inline style everywhere, LazyMols) I really still am attached to this design. Patrick Lauke worked on it with me.

I’ve asked some of our top designers including Bryan Veloso, Dan Rubin, Christopher Schmitt and Andy Clarke to weigh in on my rebrand.

Nothing inspires me. Patrick was the original genius, and I still look at this web site, despite its flaws, as exactly what and who I am. I think Patrick really captured me, and now I need to think about next redesign steps.

What do you thinik?