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I grew up in South Texas where the three main religions are Baptist, Catholic and other. So it took me quite a long time after moving to New York to grasp the entire “kosher” thing. Before I thought kosher meant a brand of pickle.
Over the years, I’ve had some wonderful discussions about what is, and is not, kosher. Like most gentiles, and I’ve got to think more than a few Jews, I don’t get it. Seems to every rule there is a conflicting counter rule and then there is the exception, and the translation error, and so on and so forth.
But for the chosen ones, it is important to know what you can, and cannot eat, even if it means confronting animals that may only live in the world of imagination.
Enter into the maw, Evil Monkey’s Guide to Kosher Imaginary Animals.
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I just came across an article I missed from the middle of September. Newsweek reported on a website called MarryOurDaughter.com. The site appears to be under construction right about now, but here is what it had offered (according to Newsweek): “a matching service for followers of ‘the Biblical tradition’ of arranged marriages.” It allowed people to look through profiles of girls… and when I say girls, I mean girls, the majority were apparently around 15… whose parents wanted to marry them off and were asking for a price for their hand in marriage, a dowry if you will, usually something in the low to mid- 5 digit range.
Seems like an obvious choice for Newsweek to write about. Mail-order brides are not a new thing to the internet, but usually hey are from foreign countries and they are not underage girls. The thing is, Newsweek was not ‘exposing’ this site and telling us about the dangers of the internet, instead they were discussing the true mission behind the site.
According to MarryOurDaughter.com the site was not exactly a hoax, but rather an attempt to educate folks through something they call ‘viral politics’:
Call it an experiment an experiment in Viral Politics. That children can marry down to twelve years old in America, which they can do, is Not Right. That the age of consent is higher than the age of marriage is Not Right. That parents can marry off their children for money or for any other reason is Not Right. Railing about it on the web, as many do, wasn’t making a difference. Thinking outside the box led us to marryourdaughter.com.
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I just discovered the Museum of Hoaxes, a blog dedicated to “Examining dubious-sounding claims and mischief of all kinds”
It is a fun little site where you can test yor knowledge of hoaxes, read up on some old urban legends and find out just how misguided and gullible you actually are. There are a lot of fun hoaxes and mythes to explore and read about here. Just a fun little time waster to check out. And if you think you are up to it, take the 15 question Historical Hoaxes and Fallacies quiz over at About.com (I got an 11 out of 15).
