Breakfast for dinner–a new tradition

From Raising Hellions: Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year… or not if that’s your cup of tea…. Their oldest is trying to solve The Santa Mystery. And is fascinated by the solstice. Which is where the new tradition comes in.

Why are women more religious?

Are women more religious? It seems so, but perhaps they have just learned to give conventional answers to conventional questions. I ruminated elsewhere…

It has been suggested in the past that women are more religious because they depend more on luck for the outcome of their lives, e.g. the real personality of whomever they marry. They are more rewarded for being conventional. They are more punished for speaking up. They are busier with household and childrearing responsibilities. They make less money and cannot buy free time in the form of services such as laundry, take-out food, or housekeeping. They’ve learned to keep their heads down and not volunteer opinions that might be shot down.

For many women, especially in small communities, the church is their social life and their only source of authority or autonomy outside the home. And they are appreciated, at least by the other women in the group. Churches would dry up and blow away without the Women’s Auxiliary.

I think that’s enough to explain the gap. If you want to find the women, look at volunteer positions, clinic defences, etc.

Cofounder of Bick’s Pickles dies

Walter and Jeanny Bick

Story here: Walter Bick was a Jewish coat-maker at a time when Canada wanted Christian farmers. Sadly, there was once a time when, even with Hitler rattling sabres and spewing anti-Semitism, Canada could get away with denying entrance to Jews because of their religion.

Walter Bick’s only ticket into Canada was as a Christian farmer.

A lifelong pragmatist, he didn’t let the minor details — his Jewish faith, his occupation in the woman’s coat industry — get him down.

So in 1939, the Bick family — Walter, Thomas and their parents — left an increasingly hostile Europe behind, posing as a family of farmers who believed in the New Testament.

Before they left Amsterdam, they purchased the farm. While other faux-farming Jewish families sold the farms upon arrival, the Bicks made good on the lie, learning to farm and eventually creating a pickle empire.

They ended up farming in Scarborough, Ontario, which I guess is why the Bick’s Pickle factory is still there on Progress Road.

He also helped found the Jewish Vocational Services, an organization that helped Jewish people find jobs, which, he later remarked, was a lot harder than selling pickles.

The secret of Narnia

Michael Ward

New from the world of literature: Michael Ward has detected the organizing principle behind the Narnia books by C.S. Lewis: each of the seven books evokes the mood of one of the seven medieval heavens: Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Sol, Luna, Mars, and Saturn. At first glance it makes sense. That’s why the Christian theme is a minor one and why there’s a Father Christmas but no Nativity.

He has two books that analyze the parallels between medieval cosmology and the seven volumes. There’s a more scholarly critique called Planet Narnia and a more popular book called The Narnia Code. They came out a couple of years ago so you may have heard of them. You can read about them at Planet Narnia.

Hat tip to Jeffrey D. Koonistra, the book reviewer at Analog. He gets a point deducted, though for referring to representative people of their day as Medieval Man and Twenty-first-Century Man.

The hobo code of conduct

PZ Myers on Pharyngula pointed out that the hobo ethical code forbids molesting children or letting others get away with it. That puts them one up on the practices of the Roman Catholic Church.

13. Do not allow other hobos to molest children, expose all molesters to authorities, they are the worst garbage to infest any society.

In memoriam: Hazel Dickens

Songwriter and singer Hazel Dickens has died at the age of 75. Here’s her song, “Black Lung.”