14 November 2007...12:56 pm

Nativity Fast - safe for now!

Jump to Comments

Today Orthodox Christians begin the Nativity Fast, or at least those on the new calendar do.For forty days we prepare for the feast of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ by abstaining from meat and dairy products, fish, wine and oil (though on certain days wine and oil are OK).

In some places this might lead to an increase in sales of things like falafel, but Orthodox Christians on the West Coast of the USA are safe from being fingered as terrorists — for now.

clipped from blog.wired.com
tahini bombsBay Area FBI agents wanting to find Iranian secret agents data-mined�grocery store records in 2005 and 2006, hoping that�tahini purchases would lead them to�domestic terrorists, according to Congressional Quarterly’s Jeff Stein. The head of the FBI’s criminal investigations unit - Michael Mason -�shut down the Total Falafel Awareness program, arguing it would be illegal to put someone on a terrorist watch list for simply sticking skewers into lamb, Stein reports.
The idea was that a spike in, say, falafel sales, combined with other data, would lead to Iranian secret agents in the south San Francisco-San Jose area.
The brainchild of top FBI counterterrorism officials Phil Mudd and Willie T. Hulon, according to well-informed sources, the project didn’t last long. It was torpedoed by the head of the FBI’s criminal investigations division, Michael A. Mason, who argued that putting somebody on a terrorist list for what they ate was ridiculous — and possibly illegal.

  blog it

2 Comments

Filed under Christianity, Orthodoxy, religion

Tags: , , , , ,

2 Comments

  • Mary Sue
    14 November 2007 at 7:49 pm

    Hee, I read that article last night and had a laugh, having lived in the SF area during that time period. About an hour later I wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge for a snack and discovered there were seven different kinds of hummus in there.

    P.S. It’s not just the Orthodox who do the Nativity Fast, some of us other Christians do also, especially those who call on St. Francis of Assisi as their patron (he being the guy who invented the Christmas Crib/Nativity Scene). It starts on Nov. 3rd.

  • Jean-Michel
    14 November 2007 at 7:55 pm

    well, only Eastern Orthodox do use tahini.. and as sesam seed not growing in our country, it involves transport over wide distance, pollutions, and so on. All things not really nice to the Creation.
    So with the costs of freight, it is a lux product for here. Is it then really a Fasting food, something luxuous? Or isn’t it simply the confusion between Faith and culture that makes the promotion of luxuous food for us Orthodox here a “forced choice”?

    our equivalent of the FBI will never track me for using tahini, even if I do like it (I have been working one year in a Libanese restaurant, in my deep green Ardens). During Fasting time, luxuous food is not welcome at home..

    Jean-Michel

Leave a Reply