Random, day-to-day reflections of what it means to live as a member of the human race on a planet which has become as vulnerable as a human body. Cecile Pineda's books are available from Independent Publishers Group.
Sunday, December 11, 2022
Cecile Pineda Memorial - October 1st 2022
"Tombeaux and Other Delights" for Cecile Pineda and Her Friends
—Cecile Pineda. Devil’s Tango
I do not think anymore that writing—mine or another’s—can change the world... Perhaps in their small way, writers can answer for those who are voiceless in their extreme deprivation and suffering. But at best, in the very smallest scheme, writing can provide a moment of grace, both for her who writes and him who reads, in a very dark world.
—Cecile Pineda, The Bloomsbury Review, 2004.
Following Roger's introduction a photo slideshow of Cecile was shown while the Barefoot All-stars performed.
Below is Roger Herried's Introduction
I first met Cecile Pineda in December 2011 at an anti-nuclear conference concerning the Fukushima meltdowns. I'm fortunate to have been one of her many friends. She accomplished much with her books, theatrical work, teaching, activism, and blogging.
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| One of her favorite spots: Fern Ravine |
She also saved my life back in 2016 when I needed emergency surgery. She obtained a referral for a surgeon after I lost my medical insurance, getting into surgery in weeks rather than months.
Cecile had a stroke in late February of 2022 just days after the US government announced plans to withhold Afghanistan's assets, endangering the country's struggling people. This broke her heart as she sought ways to help the Afghan people. The stroke damaged her ability to talk and write, but by June, she was back at the computer and talking to us again. She even planned a trip to Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. She also maintained her fierce independence, living by herself, and doing gardening at the Dana Street coop. Then she suffered a series of falls in July that resulted in her rapid decline and passing on August 11th with her sons at her side.
I'd like to share the story I told Cecile a fortnight before her passing.
We had just finished lunch, and I was ready to leave when to my surprise, she asked if I would tell her a story!
So I told her about the life of a Chickasaw woman named Mary Francis Thompson, based on a movie I'd seen.
In 1895, Mary Francis was born in Oklahoma where she grew up exploring the plains and traditional Chickasaw community. She adored listening to her father's traditional native American stories. At the age of ten, Mary Francis was finally allowed to go to a tribal Chickasaw stomp dance. During the dance, she ran into the inner circle of elders which wasn't allowed, so her dad Thomas had to catch her and pull her back to the outer circle. While herding her back to the outer circle, the medicine man spoke to him briefly in Chickasaw, which I will share with you at the end of this story.
Mary Francis would grow up wanting to be an actress, against her father's wishes. She was the first Native American to attend Oklahoma's women's college. Her drama professor and mentor, Frances Dinsmore Davis, accidentally heard her perform a Chickasaw story in Mary's dorm room at one point. She suggested that Mary Francis do one of her tribe's stories rather than the usual Shakespearean piece for her final graduation. It was a big hit as most white people had never heard of or seen anything like it before. Mary Frances performed her tribe's songs and danced using both English and her own language.
Upon graduation, Ms. Davis gave Mary Francis a referral to the country's top acting school (Carnegie acting school in Pittsburgh) at that time and urged Mary Francis to seek a career as an actress. She also referred her to Thurlow Lieurance who was in charge of a Chautauqua tour across the Midwest. Thurlow offered Mary Francis a paying job that covered the rest of her college tuition!
After graduating from the two-year college, she told her dad about continuing with her education. Thomas demanded that she come home and become a teacher. Mary Frances refused. When Thomas realized he couldn't stop her, he suggested that she take a stage name. The movie took a bit of license from the historic account, with her father suggesting that she take the stage name of Te Ata or bearer of the Morning.
Mary France's performances during the Chautauqua turned her into the event's top draw. Tribal people from across the region came to watch and asked if she might perform their songs and stories. After the Chautauqua finished, to her father's delight, she was refused by Carnegie. But she refused to accept their denial and instead traveled to Pittsburgh and won admission after doing an audition of her skills. After finishing her studies at Carnegie she went to Broadway.
Getting a Broadway acting job wasn't easy as it took her over a year to finally land a part. She started performing her traditional stories at private parties to pay for room and board. During one performance, she was introduced to Eleanor Roosevelt and Dr. George Fisher. She and George, a New York City professor, struck up a romantic relationship.
He proposed to her after Mary Francis' first successful stage play. She informed George they'd have to travel back to Oklahoma to get her father's blessing.
Upon their arrival back in Oklahoma, George requested Mary Francis's hand to Thomas. But he refused to give his permission unless the two of them came back to Oklahoma. Knowing that Mary Francis would never accept such a demand, George prepared to go back to New York. As word got out about her success, she agreed to perform in her hometown before going back east. Her father refused to attend. But he did sneak in near the very end and watched her perform one of the stories he once told her as a child. He left without her family seeing him, going back to bed as he wasn't feeling well.
Afterward, she drove George to the train station, as he needed to get back to New York. Just before hopping onto the train, he handed her a batch of letters that he'd forgotten to give to her. To her astonishment, one of the letters was from Eleanor Roosevelt who asked if she would perform at FDR's 1933 inaugural white-house celebration!
She immediately went into her father's bedroom and told him that if he wouldn't die (which she thought he was on his deathbed) that she would instead stay home and take care of him as long as necessary!
At this point, her father opened up to her, telling her as she knew very well that he had been opposed to her plan to go to college, become an actress, or perform. He apologized for his behavior, claiming that he was afraid that going out into the white man's world might endanger her life. But then he divulged to her what the Chickasaw elder told him back when she was ten. The elder told him that she was destined to become a storyteller for her people. It was this statement that had made him fearful, resulting in his attempts to hold her back.
After telling her this, Thomas gave permission to perform at the white-house and marry George.
Just as I reached this point in telling the story, Cecile burst out crying for many minutes. I was taken aback by her emotional response! After regaining composure, she said this was her story and helped her come to terms with her father.
Te Ata was the premiere First Nation storyteller of the 20th Century, receiving many accolades. She passed away barely 25 days before her 100th birthday, exactly what Cecile did before her 90th!
You can see the movie "Te Ata" on Netflix or read her biography here.
Cecile hiking in the Redwoods
In Memoriam: Cecile Pineda: 1932-2022
Cecile received a number of prominent obituaries from the NY Times and the Washington Post (papers she hated), besides many others including one in Spanish. Cecile passed her political commentary work to Lisa Savage who wrote this memorial for her.
For more about her, she has a Wikipedia page, besides her original webpage. Or you can see some of her video's online, for example this interview with Cecile that Anke Burger did in 2021... There are other videos of her if you google her.
This blog is the best online source for her writings going back to 2013. The last few years are also mirrored over at Medium.com. This blog has her extensive writings that go back nine years. Her papers are housed at Stanford.
Besides her books which are here on the sidebar that can still be purchased (please don't get them from Amazon but from the links here)
Cecile suffered a Stroke in late February 2022 which resulted in her ability to speak or work at the computer. She recovered in just a few months. Nearly two years prior, her doctor gave her a year to live following the horrific fires that impacted her heart. She made it nearly twice that.
Cecile's Passing and Memorial - Part 1
Apologies to those of you who would like to have attended, but it took this long to gain access to her mail chimp account. I'm hoping that you will join me for an extended memorial that will go up on her blog.
Thanks to her son David Leneman for letting me announce her passing to you. Please note that her regular email account has been closed.
I'm requesting that you send me any photos of Cecile you would like to share. I will incorporate them into the slideshow that was shown during the memorial. Please send them to dwbrah "at" comcast "dot" net.
The slideshow (or a link to it) will be posted on her blog, along with other appropriate items and stories you are welcome to add. The Slideshow will also include a number of Tombeaux that the Barefoot All-Stars: Viol players Peter Hallifax and Julie Jeffrey performed.
I saw her a just a few more times but had the good fortune of taking the last photos before she passed on. I'm hoping that you had the best memories with her!
Roger Herried
Sunday, June 12, 2022
What India Can Teach Us About Homelessness
by Cecile Pineda
(Fact checking by Srinivas Reddy)
I arrived in India in 1988 after a 16-hour flight, my body so allergic to aniline dye, it had broken out in hives. I was met at 2 AM by a turbaned taxist who attempted to take me to my “hotel.”
I was not too tired, and my body not too riddled with hives that I couldn’t keep my eyes open. We must have travelled many miles on the approach to Bombay proper. They were all lined with shanty towns, “towns” people had cobbled together from corrugated roofing plastic, corrugated cardboard, and wooden planks that had seen much better wear. I asked my taxist about them.
Welcome to India
My taxist replied that they were bull dosed at regular intervals, turned to dust essentially, although the people living there had nowhere left to go. Within less than a day, my well-meaning taxist assured me, they would be rebuilt and life there would go on.
By now it was close to 3 AM. My “hotel” (which turned out to be something of a flop house although the people there would take good care of me, as my friend Pearl, an actress with the Bombay Talkies, would assure me) was off Ashoke Kumar in a little side street which for one block only had been whimsically named Jump Rope Walk. After multiple tries not finding it, my taxist took me to the middle class hotel district where at that hour every doorman was sleeping on the threshold and didn’t want to be disturbed. We tried several threshold-sleeping doormen before I began wondering why I let myself be pushed about by this upstart taxist of 25. “Take me to the Taj,” I said. Replied he, ”you can’t afford the Taj.” I summoned my most persuasive tone, “take me to the Taj, there’s eight rupees in it for you.”
Although by then it was approaching 4 AM, at the Taj I knew there’d be a telephone. I phoned. “Oh, Madam, we have been waiting for you. Just lift the corrugated iron door,” and the voice described how Jump Rope Walk was to be found. “It’s just off Ashoke Kumar.”
When I lifted that impossibly heavy door, I found a dhoti- clad boy waiting for me. The foyer was without light of any kind but he didn’t seem to care. He disdained carrying my bags so, flashlight held securely in my mouth, we started the ascent of what turned out to be seven floors of factories before reaching the “hotel.” On the first riser, I felt the stair move. Someone was sleeping there. The “rent” was one ana a night. Each sleeping person had paid one ana to sleep on those stairs, all seven flights, every single riser occupied.
While I waited for USIA to make ready to have me read from my newly Viking-published novel, Frieze, I made the short trip to Aurangabad (site of the Buddhist Ajanta caves, and the Hindu Ellora Caves). There was only one train, and it left late at night. Arrived on the platform, I had to step over hundreds if not thousands of sleeping bodies wrapped in burlap all huddled together as I imagine a Middle Passage tight-pack to have been.
The “Golden” Age of The Maharajas
Even before the Age of the Maharajahs, the 9th century Cholas of South India would think nothing of gifting a human being who happened to be a skilled stone carver to the Sanjaya dynast to decorate his harem in what is now known as Java. Frieze, my second published novel, chronicles the story of one such carver.
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| Regional Aristocractic Palaces Lining Holy River Ganga |
By the Age of the Maharajas (17th century to the end of the Raj in 1947) with the collusion of the British and Dutch East India Company, stealing from the common people had become predictably routine. Maharajas made war against other Maharajahs for territorial gains, kept entire stables just for housing war elephants, erected forts, temples and palaces, harems for wives and concubines, sometimes as many as 1000 (according to rumor they kept them all satisfied, each and every one) and established foundations to benefit widows and orphans.
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| Jantar Mantar Staircases in Jaipur |
In the 18th century Rajput King Sawal Jai Singh even built the Jantar Mantar, an observatory located in the Rajasthan city of Jaipur. Some Maharajas built multiple royal cities. Akbar built Agra Fort and the royal city of Fatepur Sikri
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| Inner Courtyard of Fatepur Sikri |
based on a saint’s guarantee that he would sire a desired male heir.
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| Inner Coridor at Fatepur Sikri |
The city would run out of water ten years later, but it was Akbar’s grandson, Shah Jahan, who took his erection complex to a whole new level, but building the Taj beggared his treasury so Aurangzeb, s]shah Jahan son after declaring his father incompetent, had him imprisoned in Agra Fort. He made sure there would be no more erection complex as long as his father lived. On a clear day Shah Jahan could still admire the Taj from its distant view across the Yamuna River till eight years later when he died.
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| Paddeling along the Yamuma at dawn |
By the 19th century India had sunk into a state of gothic decay. When the Maharajah of Bangalore built his palace, its walls were studded with precious stones and in vile Trumpian style, he had it fitted it with solid gold furniture.
In cahoots with the British, all the wealth the Maharajas managed to accumulate they did by stealing from the common people. Which is why after 300 years of stealing, you feel stairs that move in the dark, you step over people wrapped in burlap sleeping in tight-pack formation along railway station platforms, and you see miles and miles of cobbled together shanty towns piling up along the highways in all of India’s big cities, of which Bombay is but one example.
What Three Hundred Years of Stealing from the American Taxpayer by a Congress Held Captive by the Pentagon Will Look Like
The Pentagon is not interested in building temples or palaces, some in far better taste than Bangalore’s. It isn’t interested in founding institutions to benefit all the widows and orphans it immiserates throughout the world. It’s only interested in more silos from which to launch intercontinental missiles, more bunker busters, more supersonic bombers, more drones, more trident-armed nuclear submarines, more tanks, more weapons of mass destruction, more nuclear bombs, more ordnance to use to contaminate Basra, Fallujah and other areas with nuclear dust in its covert nuclear wars.
Which is why people stateside still wait for state-subsidized child care, why people have yet to see the dawn of state-subsidized Medicare-for-All, why the rights of women to make their own decisions about the use of contraception and abortion is still being contested (where else would the Pentagon get the cannon fodder manpower for operating all that military hardware), why people are forced to live in tents all along the highways and railway rights of way of the world’s Number One nation, why incarcerated people are forced to work for slave wages for major corporations (Victoria’s Secrets, Aunt Jemima, Tampax Tampons, Crest Toothpaste, and Angel Soft Toilet Paper to name but a few of hundreds) and what in true slave patrol style, mostly Black, Brown, Asian and trans people are routinely sacrificed by municipal police trained in Israel.
Just imagine what 300 more years of stealing by a Congress held captive by the Pentagon might look like. But as it stands immiseration and homelessness in the U. S. of A., despite their swelling numbers, remain in their infancy.
Homelessness by the numbers
By Lisa Savage
(Lisa was chosen by Cecile as her successor blog writer.)
The United States is believed to have more than half a million people unhoused. Accurately counting people experiencing homelessness is challenging, and the most recent effort at the national level dates back to January 2020. The SARS-COV-2 pandemic that followed complicated counting, resulted in innovative shelter arrangements using vacant hotel rooms, and may have lowered the actual number unhoused in part due to a moratorium on evictions, increased unemployment compensation, and limited cash subsidies.
“Over a period lasting more than a decade, the nation has not made any real progress in reducing the number of Americans at risk of homelessness.”
State of Homelessness: 2021 Edition
But it’s likely that the dip in total numbers unhoused was temporary. Evictions and foreclosures resumed and cash subsidies dried up under the Biden administration, and medical debt in the absence of universal health care continues as the leading cause of default on homeowner mortgages. Housing costs, both rent and purchase prices, are now skyrocketing, pricing people out of housing they have relied upon for years. As of March 2020 home prices in the U.S. had risen 21% over the previous year.
“A clear question is whether or not it should take a public health emergency to galvanise governments and support systems into making an intense effort to end street homelessness.”
Homelessness and the pandemic (March 2022)
Now that inflation is galloping while wages fail to keep up, we can expect even more people will be unable to obtain housing they can afford in the coming years.
Who can afford housing?
The uber wealthy and those who serve them in government seem to have no difficulty supporting several mansions in different locations.
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| Obama's $12 million Home on Martha’s Vineyard |
The increase in net worth of the 1% has skyrocketed during the pandemic.
“As the U.S. crosses the grim milestone of 1 million deaths from Covid-19, U.S. billionaires have seen their combined wealth rise over $1.7 trillion, a gain of over 58 percent during the pandemic.”
And specifically the war in Ukraine has proven highly profitable for big weapons manufacturers, with most posting record profits. This should surprise no one paying attention to their having been called to the White House for a classified planning session and the U.S. sending roughly $53 billion of U.S. public funds for “aid” to Ukraine, i.e. mostly weapon systems.
Meanwhile President Biden tweets every day that the U.S. economy has never been better (and is ratioed daily on Twitter for these absurd claims).
Most of us have anecdotal experience of the burgeoning tents and encampments of people who are unhoused in cities across the nation. From Oakland, California to Portland, Maine those who work with the unhoused say their numbers are increasing rapidly.
Much has been made of Russian oligarchs and, particularly, their yachts. What of U.S. oligarchs? Senator Joe Manchin has a houseboat so lavish it might reasonably be considered a home, and it’s hard to determine how many other mansions Manchin owns.
Will the oligarchs of the U.S. go the way of the Maharajas of India? Stay tuned.
Housing the Houseless
by Mimi German
(I first met Mimi at an anti-nuclear conference in San Lius Obispo, the site of the Diablo Canyon NPP bordering the Pacific. Her recently published chapbook,
https://thepoetrybox.com/bookstore/beneath-stars Beneath the Gavel Weight of Stars, is dedicated to restoring dignity to the persons she helps on the steet.)
As a volunteer advocate for unhoused people and a co-founder of Jason Barns Landing, a transitional community for unhoused people, I think we can help the “homeless two ways: first, house people, second love more.
We know that we can house people if we choose to house people. Inventory is available if you know where to look and you understand how to use money in a way that actually benefits those who are its intended population.
We can do even better by placing people “in already-built motels and existing housing, which can be quickly converted into the supported permanent housing that people need and want.”
Many people think that building more shelters is the answer. Shelters do absolutely nothing about getting people into housing and off the streets. They are overcrowded, prey to theft, have addiction barriers, are dangerous places for women, lack support services, have rules about leavng from early morning to late at night, and open-and-close times that do not work for everyone.
Support the Efforts of the Unhoused Instead of Disrupting or Ignoring Them
A further response is to “recognize the leadership of autonomous villages governed by people experiencing homelessness,” outreach to organized villages and camps working on their autonomous structure to facilitate toilets, dumpsters and trash hauling, food support, and medical services along with housing advocacy.
In the recent past, we've built "tarpees" for folks to live in. Designed by Paul Paul Cheyok'ten Wagner — a member of the Saanich First Nations of Vancouver Island, an artist and inventor whom we met at Standing Rock—he has designed a contemporary teepee that costs thousands of dollars less than a traditional teepee and uses materials found in any hardware store.
Because we deeply respected the Sioux and other First Nations people who were there, we first discussed the tarpee idea with them. We agreed that no money would ever be exchanged for the
tarpees and that we would make every concerted effort to house BIPOC houseless people first. Under those conditions they agreed to let us build them where back home in Portland where I live.
It is because the HIC makes so much money off the unhoused that we have homeless folks still living on the street. It’s cheaper to let the unhoused live in the street and simply pay for emergency room visits when people get sick.
In Portland, Rapid Response is the largest contractor conducting "sweeps" within the city. It employs people who have just been released from the Prison Industrial Complex to do the dirty work of "sweeping" people and stealing their meager belongings. But without the existence of the unhoused, the "sweeps" companies would be out of hundreds of millions of dollars. The Houseless Industrial Complex (HIC) needs to be stomped and booted from having anything to do with the homeless.
The Joint Office of Houseless Services (JOHS), the parnership pairing
the County and City ‘efforts’ to house people makes billions of dollars to make sure houseless people
continue to be homeless instead of housing them. It exists only if houseless people
exist.
Mitigation starts with love and a true understanding of what is needed by unhoused people. How do we get to that understanding? By listening to the people who are in need of housing. We can house everyone over a relatively short period of time. From there, we can bring in the support needed. We need transitional housing that leads directly to permanent housing. The steps are clear. The money is there and has been voted on, at least in Portland, Oregon where I live. We can move forward with the 3000 Challenge or just follow its guidelines. Or we can do nothing and perpetuate the inhumanity of local and State governments across the U.S. Which is it going to be? I choose housing. I choose love.
Wednesday, April 13, 2022
Retirement and Passing the Baton
"Here's the awful truth: even if every person, every automobile, and every factory suddenly emitted zero emissions, the Earth would still be headen full speed towards total disaster for one major reason: The military produces enough greenhouse gases, by itself, to place the entire globe, with all of its inhabitants large and small, in the most imminent danger of extinction." Barry Saunders, The Green Zone
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| The author forest graziing |
Here to take my place is Lisa Savage. Lisa Savage is a retired educator, published author, and antiwar activist. She led the national Bring Our War $$ Home campaign during the Obama administration, and subsequently founded the Maine Natural Guard to connect the dots between climate crisis and the Pentagon's enormous carbon bootprint. In 2020 she ran for the U.S. Senate under ranked choice voting in Maine and earned 5% of votes cast. She describes the purpose of her popular blog Went 2 the Bridge, as: Organizing and actions to resist the moral, environmental, and financial bankrupting of the U.S. through wars against the poor, at home and abroad.
ARTICLES on THE WAR In UKRAINE
ESSENTIAL READING
What You Should You Really Know About Ukaine
A Conversation with Scott Ritter
The Pentagon Drops Truth Bombs
Former NATO Military Analyst Blows the Whistle on West’s Ukraine Invasion Narrative
Organizing Notes: Interview: War in Urkaine is Really About U.S. Pursuing Regime Change in Russia
Average U.S. Taxpayer Gave $900 to Military Contractors Last Year
FUTURE READING
Siding with Ukraine's far right, U.S.sabotaged Zelenskys historic mandate for peace
The Red Scare
Portside: Delusion and The U.S. Foreign Policy
Is the U.S Fighting for Democracy in Ukraine
NATO's Global History of Reaction
NATO's 300 Delivery to Ukraine
MILITARY SPENDING and PROFIT
Pentagon Convenes U.S. Weapons Makers to Increase Supply for Urkaine War
Biden Answers Zelensky's Plea to Arm Ukraine Now with $800 Millions in Weapons
What Would it Take for Military Spending to Do Down
Is the U.S. Hindering Much Needed Diplomatic Efforts
THE MAIN STREAM MEDIA REPORTING
Nonstop Corporate News of Ukraine is Fueling Support for Unchecked U.S. Militarism
The Weapons Industry Sees the War in Ukraine as a Goldmine
“I do think this is a very protracted conflict and I think it’s at least measured in years. I don’t know about decades, but at least years for sure,” said Milley. “I think that NATO, the United States, Ukraine and all of the allies and partners that are supporting Ukraine are going to be involved in this for quite some time.”
LA Progressive: The Media in the U.S. Mainstream Media and War
New Reporting Details Corporate Media's War Industry Pundits
The West Ukraine Invasion Narrative
United States Admits To Spreading Lies About Ukraine War -
ATROCITIES: WHOSE SIDE ARE WE ON?
Questions Abound About the Bucha Massacre
Ukriane tochka-U Missile killed Dozens at Kramatorsk Train Station
New Witness Testimony About Mariupol Maternity Hopistal "Airstrike"
Eva Bartlett in Ukraine Tells A Very Different Factual Story that is Opposite from the Official Narrative - Mark Taliano
PEACE MOVEMENT IN SERIOUS TROUBLE
Ukraine Crisis Splitting the Peace Movement When It's Needed Most
PEACE
U.S. PEACE COUNCIL STATEMENT ON RUSSIA'S WAR IN UKRAINE
AND AT HOME:
Merrrick Garland Doesn"t want to bring criminal charges against #45. Why Not?
"A Plot to Destroy Demacracy": Civil Rights Group Raises Alarm at Threats to U.S. Elections
TELL congress war is not green:
TELL Lockheed Martin to begin conversion to peaceful industries.
DONATE to help the intercept uncover how companies llke Facebook and Google are controlling what people around the world see and hear about the war in Ukraine.
STOP #45 from interfering in future elections: Louis Dejoy must go. Demand Progress is helping make that possible.
Stop war proteers by banning members of Congress from Trading Defense Contractor stock now.
DO NOT DUMP Radioactive Water Into the Ocean
LISTEN: April 21, 5 PM Pacific Time
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At last: some rare good news in a ravaged world: a truce in Yemen
Ecuador grants wild animals legal rights in a world first
Texas DA Gocha Allen Ramirez has elected to release Lizette Herrera and drop the criminal charges against her-including murder-after she was accused of preforming a self-induced abortion
Venezuela's great housing mission achieves major milestone with the four millionth house
Democrats introduce bill guaranteeing workers paid time off to vote
U.S’s flaunting of diplomatic immunity challenged in court in the trial of Alex Saab, Venezuela‘s diplomat
In the UK, Palestine Action Activists Deface and Blockade London HQ of Elbit Systems
Confrontng the Israeli Service Servce, 76 Israeli Anti-Aparthied activists declare refusal to cooperate wth the Israeli legal system, in solidarity with Palestinian administative detainees.
Activists celebrate after Biden grants TPS ststatus to Cameroonian immigrants.
Top signs you could be a Repubican at a passover dinner
1. They refuse to answer the four questions without a subpoena.
2. They demand a recount of the ten plagues.
3. They defend not increasing the minimum wage on the grounds that according to Chad Gadya it still costs only two zuzzim to buy a goat.
4. The afikomen is hidden in the Cayman Islands.
5. They refuse to open the door for Elijah until they see his immigration papers.
6. They attack Moses for negotiating a deal with Pharoah because why would we negotiate with our enemies?
7. They don't understand why the Egyptians didn’t cure the plagues with hydroxychloroquine.
8. They omit the parts about slavery from the Haggadah because it reminds them of Critical Race Theory.
9. They keep saying “when do we get to the miracle
of the Jewish space lasers?”
10. They end the Passover Dinner by singing "Next year in Mar-a-Lago."