Culture: November 2004 Archives

First there was that whole messiness with McGreevey donations and witness tampering. Now, the school named after Charles Kushner's family has over 40 students busted for drugs and alcohol.

I have several friends who teach there, my father contributed to the curriculum when it first started, and I'm sure there are many positive things to say about the school. Still, I know this school has had such problems and it's been going on for years.

But now, not only does this happen, but I first hear of it from FARK of all places.

Hopefully this will be embarrassing enough to the school, the board, and the students to actually effect some change.

I can't say I'm terribly optimistic, but that's for another time.

Just found this CNN article:

A federal jury awarded as much as $434,000 to a Ukrainian woman who sued the Internet matchmaking service that set her up with the man who allegedly abused her after they wed.

Nataliya Fox accused Encounters International of fraud and negligence, saying it should have screened its male clients and told her about a law that helps foreign nationals escape abusive relationships without fear of automatic deportation.

Instead, Fox testified, agency owner Natasha Spivack told her to endure the alleged abuse or return to Ukraine.

I can't say if I'd hold the agency responsible for background checks, since its relatively easy to lie on these things. However, the response to "endure" the abuse - especially when they could have easily provided her wth a way out - is so intolerable that I can't disagree with the judgement.

I had some of these in an update of the last post, but I'm seeing some really good articles on Arafat. Here are some of the better ones I've seen thus far (might add more).

• Honest Reporting
• Opinion Journal
• Arthur Hertzberg
• Barry Rubin
• Daniel Pipes
• Mitzpor

Thanks Zev

Finally, according to all shittot, Arafat is dead. Check out this Hallmark tribute picture on CNN:

Kind of makes you forget about the few thousand Jews he's responsible for murdering.

At risk of losing my blogger's license, today's discussion is on politics. I'm not going to discuss whether or not the results are "good" or "bad" on any level, but I did notice two ironic results. The first was picked up by The Daily Show in their election recap. The Bush camp claimed that John Kerry was soft on terrorism and would be too weak of a leader. Despite these accusations, Kerry easily carried New York, the state most directly affected by the 9/11 attacks.

Similarly, Kerry attacked Bush's economic policies which supposedly cost jobs while giving tax breaks to the wealthy. However, as Nicholas Kristoff mourns, Bush carried all the "middle America" hard working states.

It could be that the candidate's directed their messages to the wrong people - in the sense that they weren't able to change the people's minds. Or, you could say that they simply sold their positions to whomever wished to hear them.

Anyway, I'm also interested in the role religion played in people's decisions. Between the left-leaning liberal Jews and R. Eliyashiv's pesak to vote for Bush, I've gotten several IM's asking for my opinions. Maybe for when I get back to Chicago.