Weekly Roundup: Passover Edition
I don't celebrate Christmas and my own birthday is more of a sorrowful occasional than a cheerful one but you can bet I will turn out for National Filet Day, which is easily the most legitimate holiday in post-collapse America. There's a new Ruth's Chris here in Columbus. It's not nearly as good as the old one for several reasons, one of them being its relocation from a quiet and anonymous suburban mall outlot to a cramped corner facing the downtown convention center. This means I can either let the valets play Ferris Bueller's Day Off with my car or I can park it somewhere on the street and cross my fingers. That's what I did yesterday. On the way to the restaurant, I passed this mini-mural. What does it mean?
Downtown Columbus got pretty well trashed during the peaceful protests several weeks ago. A number of the businesses were Black-owned, but there's been a distinct lack of thoughtfulness in these protests. This building had been a Japanese steakhouse for a while before closing and being offered for lease. It's owned by "473-479 N HIGH LLC", which does not care to disclose its ownership and which appears to always be represented solely by counsel in various government actions concerning the property. At some point the property got its windows knocked out and got boarded up.
There are two spray-painted messages on the plywood: a while "BLM" with a heart, and "I Love You, Black Man", again with a heart. How'd they get there? Did the same person do both, perhaps a few days apart? Was the first one a casual tagging, and the second one a response from the mysterious owner? If so, what's the purpose of that? Heartfelt support? A change of heart regarding a previously-held position? Why "Black Man"? Riding around downtown and the OSU campus, my son and I have seen a lot of these hasty testaments to Black power on expensive homes and commercial real estate. There's no real debate going on here: nobody is putting up any signs even suggesting the hated and proscribed-by-decree "all lives matter", or the horrifying, FBI-investigated "it's OK to be white". As previously noted in these pages, this is a protest with no apparent opposition. Yet it continues.
Anyway, let's assume this is a heartfelt message from a mysterious group of property owners. In the meantime, let's go through a passage from an old book:
And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months: it shall be the first month of the year to you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house: And if the household be too little for the lamb, let him and his neighbour next unto his house take it according to the number of the souls; every man according to his eating shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year: ye shall take it out from the sheep, or from the goats: And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. . And they shall take of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts and on the upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and unleavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Eat not of it raw, nor sodden at all with water, but roast with fire; his head with his legs, and with the purtenance thereof. And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire. And thus shall ye eat it; with your loins girded, your shoes on your feet, and your staff in your hand; and ye shall eat it in haste: it is the Lord's passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt this night, and will smite all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment: I am the Lord. And the blood shall be to you for a token upon the houses where ye are: and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt. . And this day shall be unto you for a memorial; and ye shall keep it a feast to the Lord throughout your generations; ye shall keep it a feast by an ordinance for ever. Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel. And in the first day there shall be an holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall be an holy convocation to you; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you. And ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread; for in this selfsame day have I brought your armies out of the land of Egypt: therefore shall ye observe this day in your generations by an ordinance for ever. . In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at even, ye shall eat unleavened bread, until the one and twentieth day of the month at even. Seven days shall there be no leaven found in your houses: for whosoever eateth that which is leavened, even that soul shall be cut off from the congregation of Israel, whether he be a stranger, or born in the land. Ye shall eat nothing leavened; in all your habitations shall ye eat unleavened bread. Then Moses called for all the elders of Israel, and said unto them, Draw out and take you a lamb according to your families, and kill the passover. And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip it in the blood that is in the bason, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that is in the bason; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning. For the Lord will pass through to smite the Egyptians; and when he seeth the blood upon the lintel, and on the two side posts, the Lord will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.
There you go.
* * *
This week, at Hagerty, we ran my long magazine piece on the cars of 1994. I reviewed the new 2021 Tahoe. My son and I continued our two-week trip. Our What If? series considered the idea of a 4WD hachi-roku.