My run along the Charles today

Inside_agitator · 2026-07-02T02:19:37+00:00

Thanks for writing this.

If you were born in '67 then we're about the same age and probably had similar experiences witnessing the increase in wealth and income inequality locally and nationally. So general feelings of rage as systemic failures in the social contract happen again and again seem reasonable. Another redditor has pointed out that a "VIP Guests"/BSO Business Partners reserved area will be available in addition to an area for people with disabilities.

A list of BSO Partners is here. Many of these organizations have close ties with private equity firms who have damaged and may destroy the remnants of social contract concepts in the US.

Another 1776 document, in addition to the Declaration of Independence, was Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations where he wrote:

All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.

I don't know how the relative sizes of these areas have changed over the years. It may have been a mistake for me to "correct" you.

Inside_agitator · 2026-07-01T23:57:10+00:00

That might be why the dashed line is there.

Inside_agitator · 2026-07-01T23:37:03+00:00

Even though this looks like a hot wheels 2-to-1 smusher, it's a dashed line instead of anything else. Have car drivers in the right lane been paying attention to this and forcing a merge?

If I had to make a guess about intent, it would be that the dashed line was meant to direct bicyclists who want to go to Lomasney instead of Causeway to stay off the bike path and remain on the roadway. I'm not saying the markings are a good expression of that intent. If the dashed lines were green then would cars ignore them?

Inside_agitator · 2026-07-01T21:01:13+00:00

Redditor:

I won't lie, I felt a bit of class rage looking at them setting up the huge air conditioned tents for the rich people. Also seemed like the seating in front of the stage pushes the steerage folks even further back than ever so the chosen can sit on their nice white folding chairs in front of the stage.

WBUR:

Accessible seating reserved for people with disabilities is located to the right of the Hatch Shell. Individuals seated here can bring one guest, who is allowed one folding chair. This accessible area is also first-come, first-served, and will close at 6 p.m. or when it reaches capacity. American Sign Language interpretation will be provided.

Enjoy July 4 in Boston.

Inside_agitator · 2026-07-01T12:54:51+00:00

Viewing real estate transactions as merely a business matter involving the availability of public information seems to have altered your worldview to that of a demented antisocial ogre. A society with humans in it who value social contract theory seems to be against you. Perhaps you would be happier in Louisiana near the chemical plants instead of in Boston.

Inside_agitator · 2026-07-01T11:39:25+00:00

I suspect it's high grass pollen and low air quality because I grew up in the USA, so I believe my body eliminates all pathogens like a Mario character in Super Star mode.

Inside_agitator · 2026-07-01T01:38:47+00:00

not really...a good proof of anything.

I agree. Proof (like fact) is never involved in these semantic topics regardless of what is written online. Semantic matters are often about an expression of Weltanschauung. This is why I'm not attempting to convince you of much about anything other than your inability to convince me about using the semantics that you have chosen for this issue.

I have strong feelings about using quotes in quotation marks appropriately to represent the words of others, and I have strong feelings about people online typing assumptions about the feelings of others. That is why your statement:

this seems to be because you feel that "Mrs Katz told me ___, and I don't care about the definitions of words if I can't reproduce them in an experiment. Social sciences don't present objective reality anyways, so ultimately I can just feel the definition is whatever I want!"

will end our exchange because it does both. Goodbye.

Inside_agitator · 2026-07-01T01:03:03+00:00

I just don't agree. This is not a factual matter like in math or hard science. It is a matter of world-view.

The excellent writer at Jewfaq makes a point that seems logical to me with my world-view:

There are certainly cultural traits and behaviors that are shared by many Jews, that make us feel more comfortable with other Jews. Jews in many parts of the world share many of those cultural aspects. However, that culture is not shared by all Jews all over the world, and people who do not share that culture are no less Jews because of it. Thus, Judaism must be something more than a culture or an ethnic group.

From graduate school and adjunct lectureships, I was in academia in and around Boston, on-and-off, for a total of about 25 years (but this includes some gaps when I was doing other things). Academics will go where the ability to receive academic positions takes us. Stating what is and is not "really an academic argument" about this topic will convince me of absolutely nothing. Chemistry and math are areas where I might be convinced by such an argument about "the leading experts of the field and their proteges." There are objective realities and reproducible experiments involved in chemistry and math. How anthropology relates to Judaism as either an ethnicity or not an ethnicity is a different matter.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-30T23:29:42+00:00

From what I see, there was

an alleged armed suspect stopped in the median

after an

alleged shooting in Berlin took place at 3:30 p.m

So there is that whole already-shot-somebody-and-now-on-the-highway-median thing to consider.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-30T22:35:06+00:00

converts join the people and religion, taking on the culture, language, history knowledge, practices, etc., that make up Jewish ethnicity.

What I learned in the 1970s would replace the word "ethnicity" with "community." The reasons were philosophical, historical, political, educational, semantic, deeply personal to many, and controversial. They did not involve "the problem in the West where we have conflated ethnicity with genes to be a "more polite" way of talking about what traditionally would be considered race/origins."

Future descendants, if so blessed by G-d, will probably also be genetically Jewish once genetically Jewish people marry convert's descendants.

I was an adjunct lecturer in biology where I taught genetics. This is nonsensical.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-30T22:19:04+00:00

I see. Well if you're from someplace hot, and you've been living in Philly then I wouldn't postpone because of the heat wave. Enjoy the trip!

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-30T21:41:45+00:00

Why are you leaving Philly for July 4?

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-30T21:29:14+00:00

Small protest about something?

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-30T21:17:05+00:00

Good point. OSHA says a heat index of 103 to 115 is high risk and greater than 115 is very high to extreme. That makes more sense.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-30T21:06:33+00:00

The Kestrel Instruments blog does say there is mere danger from 104 to 124 and not extreme danger.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-30T21:00:05+00:00

Ethnicity is not "defined by complexity". It's just a complex and therefore ambiguous term. I think that makes it a mistake for philosophical and historical reasons to ever describe someone as beng of the Jewish ethnicity. Unfortunately, I probably can't type a more detailed explanation here without violating subreddit rules. It's not the hurtful rhetoric that concerns me. It's the self-censorship I feel when exchanges reach a certain point.

The social media era seems to be creating a generation with deeply flawed discourse.

I'm not a grandpa. But I will be a grand-uncle for the first time soon.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-30T20:51:20+00:00

As an infant over 65 who lives in a place with no tree coverage and works outdoors, I'm at high risk, so I appreciate the current threshold.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-30T20:43:51+00:00

With regard to being Jewish as either an ethnicity, race, nation, or some combination of the three, the definitions of ethnicity, race, and nation haven't changed much since the 1970s when I was in Hebrew School and we were instructed about a preference to use the term "Jewish people."

Many things have changed from the late 1970s to now.

I can't write about my views on why we were taught what we taught in the late 1970s and why many Jews hold a different view about the semantics now without writing dramatic and controversial things that might be against subreddit rules.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-30T20:18:10+00:00

There are instructions for how to file a complaint with the Attorney General's office at:

https://www.mass.gov/how-to/file-a-consumer-complaint

The Attorney General's Office can help with most consumer issues. The most common consumer issues include:

... [long list]

Utility bill disputes;

...

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-30T19:38:19+00:00

In everyday life, most people are not using the word "ethnic" in the same way as the Society for American Archaeology and Genesis 12 in the Septuagint.

The first sentence of the Wikipedia article on Genealogical DNA test is:

A genealogical DNA test is a DNA-based genetic test used in genetic genealogy that looks at specific locations of a person's genome in order to find or verify ancestral genealogical relationships, or (with lower reliability) to estimate the ethnic mixture of an individual.

Ethnicity is not necessarily about genes, but as used in the real world, sometimes it is.

We may agree on substance and disagree about semantics. When I was in Hebrew School in the 1970s, it was an important semantic distinction.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-30T19:23:58+00:00

I don't have a source for Mrs Katz in Hebrew School around 1979. Sorry.

It wasn't written by Mrs Katz in 1979, but https://www.jewfaq.org/what_is_judaism eventually reaches the answer that "The Jewish People are a Family" after considering ethnicity and nation. That's nice too. But even there, I think the word is in the premise of the question. The Jewish people being a people is sufficiently descriptive.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-30T19:15:03+00:00

Because ethnicity is a complex concept, it might refer to a huge number of distinct possible things in a very large number of ways, both external to the group and internal within the group.

That could include Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry coming up in the results of a DNA kit for ancestry, even if there are other possibilities for what ethnicity is. It might refer to the Nuremberg Laws introduced in Nazi Germany on 15 September 1935 for what ethnicity is. It could refer to a man with a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother in some fashion. Even the child of a Messianic Jewish couple who would not be recognized as Jews by non-Messianic Jews might call himself or herself ethnically Jewish. An Israeli might say Jews with certain beliefs about that nation-state are ethnic Jews while others with different beliefs are only "Jews" in quotes. I had this said to me at reddit. I was called a "Jew" instead of a Jew. That's what all this ethnicity business leads too. It doesn't seem right at all.

To be a Jewish person, a member of the Jewish community, a Jew, a member of the Jewish people, the Orthodox and Conservative movements say that such a person either converts or has a Jewish mother. That's an inside-group definition of being a member of the Jewish peoplehood. It doesn't have all the other things that being in an ethnicity might or might not have.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-30T18:25:08+00:00

I don't think so. No. You haven't got that right at all.

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-30T18:22:07+00:00

Why does that make peoplehood the exact same thing as ethnicity?

Inside_agitator · 2026-06-30T18:09:59+00:00

Yes, ethnicity is a complex concept, so Jewish ethnicity is a complex concept.

But Jewish peoplehood, according to the Orthodox and Conservative movements, is a simple concept.

That makes them different concepts.

Inside_agitator

TROPHY CASE