I haven’t been following the election Ukraine so much, but check out the picture in this MSNBC article.
While I’m happy that democracy is winning out there, is that really any excuse for an accordion?
Thesis is coming along, slower than I’d like, but progress is progress. Meantime, I’m getting into Shabbat mode which means I can ignore things for at least one day It’s a shame I’m too behind to weigh in on the Rubashkin’s scandal, but I’m sure other people are taking care of it. If you’re interested, you can listen to an interview with new OU President Stephen Savitsky and Rabbi Weinreb.
‘Roid Rage
Next up is the whole Barry Bonds taking steroids (“unknowingly” of course). Yeah, everyone seems to be talking about it as well, and not surprisingly, everyone is missing the real point.
Why is it so important if Bonds – or anyone else – took steroids? The simple answer is steriods violate “the integrity of the game.” The logic is that when players take these illegal steroids, they give themselves an unfair advantage over the other players. This of course shatters the romantic illusion of legitimate athletic competition. In addition to the player’s tainting their own acheivements, the entire institution of sport is now called into question.
This spirit of competitiveness cannot simply be dismissed. Sports can unify communities, but only through the drama of succeeding against all odds. We like replaying the myths of the weak beating the strong because it reminds us that we can suceed against adversities if we try hard enough.1
The problem is that this message can be found almost anywhere in society. For some trite examples from Bruce Almighty, “a single mom who works two full-time jobs, and still finds the time to pick up her kid at soccer practice, that’s a miracle. A teenager that says “no” to drugs and “yes” to an education, that’s a miracle.”
However, unlike the mother or teenager whose struggles produce something, sports cannot claim any instrinsic value. What does it really give back to society? Does it give kids something to shoot for? Unquestionably. Does it help pull people off of the streets? Yes. But so can other things as well. Sports offers the millions of contracts and the attitude that if you’re rich you can get away anything including murder.
Once the myth of competition is tarnished, there really isn’t anything left.
It’s also why people are so up in arms about Barry Bonds, arguably the “best” player of his generation. Suddenly, he has nothing left. All his accomplishments are fraudulant. He might have donated some of his millions, but who really cares about that? He’s known for his stats, not for being a hummanitarian. Like most athletes, his only lasting legacy was on the field.
Without his numbers, Bond’s legacy might as well be buried undreneath it.
1. Or have divine assistance.
Now that the evil preceptor is out of the way, I hope to have a thesis draft done by the end of the week. Although there’s much I’d like to write about now, expect blogging to be anywhere from “slow” to “non-existent” until the draft is completed.
I have to say I’ve missed reading my weekly e-mail updates from Dei’ah vdDibur. Today I found out that “content cell phones” are “wreaking spiritual havoc.” Apparently, the dangers cell phone are so great, that even the public announcement doesn’t say what they are. At any rate, the Hareidi community is implored to safeguard their children’s purity and of course, “the deference to gedolei Yisroel shlita.”
So basically, the “Torah TrueTM” Hareidi educational system itself isn’t enough to instill the appropriate values such that the bochrim themselves cannot be trusted with temptation and the only solution is to ban anything that might cause “agmas nefesh.”
Who knew Hareidim were closet Democrats?
Also, it seems that there was a scandal in which a government report claimed that Hareidi schools received two or three times the amount of their secular counterparts. It also seems that this report was flawed in several ways. DvD Editor Mordechai Plaut recaps the hows and why of the mistakes, and even appeals to “the first rule that beginning students of statistics learn.”
Plaut’s argument implies that math might actually be important. However, we know from his newsletter that teaching math and all of its subversiveness will ultimately destroy the Hareidi community.
Does this mean it’s now assur to read his column?
What if I get it on my cell phone?
My mother came back from x-rays on her knee and it seems as though the broken kneecap is fixed. This has several positive implications. Not only does she not have to wear the brace anymore, she can now bend her knee (though not completely yet) and even start putting pressure on it. This means she can also start doing weight-bearing exercises and start rehabbing the hip.
Yay Imma!
She also told me that Sunday night was Kushner’s fundraising concert featuring Neil Sedaka. This would explain why so many teenagers were unsupervised and open to mischief.
Actually it does give me an idea. As a nice middah k’negged middah punishment, how about forcing the students to go to another Sedaka concert?
Or would that constitute cruel and unusual punishment?
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.
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?”
“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”
“I know you are, but what am I?”
Long before Freud gave it a spiffy name, many cultures and people have addressed or acknowledged the concept of Psychological Projection. The basic theory is that instead of dealing with your own faults, you “project” them on to other people by holding them accountable for your own shortcomings or by screwing around with their heads such that they’re as messed up as you are. Though not always intentional, projection can still be harmful. Not only does it make insecure people feel even worse, it may also make satisfied people start to question themselves.
We’ve all had such experiences, and for me this has been an especially busy week.
Just found this CNN article:
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.
Introduction
Anyone part of a “single’s scene” knows how difficult it is to find that special someone with whom you can spend the rest of your life. Bars and mixers might help put similar people in the same room, but such forums rarely result in successful relationships. To help narrow down the field of compatible singles, some entrepreneurs took advantage of the Internet, resulting in sites like Match.com or E-Harmony.
Jewish dating is perhaps even more difficult for a myriad of reasons which won’t be discussed here. Still, there are some Internet dating sites created specifically for the Jewish community, such as JDate, Jewish Caf?, Future Simchas and Frumster.
Like many other on-line dating services, singles complete profiles which contain generic information as well as some space for the individuals to elaborate. When singles search for other singles, they do so on specialized fields – each depending on the particular site. For example, Frumster allows one to search based on such fields as education, height, body type, and religious observance. However, with Frumster one can be certain of a minimum degree of observance, as it is the only one which serves the Orthodox community exclusively.
During one of my random Frumster searches I noticed that there were more women in my results page who were divorced. I found this odd since the age range for which I was searching was up until 30 years old. What bothered me wasn’t that divorce’s were suggested. I don’t believe that someone divorced should be any less of an option than anyone else. Furthermore, there are cases such as abuse where divorce would be the obviously preferable option – the sooner the better. However, there is an unfortunate stigma against being divorced, and for divorce’s Frumster might be the only option. There are many questions which need to be asked to interpret the meaning of any phenomenon.
What occurred to me that Frumster could be a useful resource for obtaining Orthodox Jewish sociological data, necessary to at least begin to understand what is happening within our community.
A few months ago, I switched from Mozilla to Firefox as my primary browser. You might have seen some news coverage about its latest release, and could contemplate the switch. Aside from being secure and stable, there are several useful plugins to make browsing easier. Some of my favorites:
And there are loads more from which to chose. Now that I can do blog spell checking1 from Firefox, I officially have no more use for Internet Explorer other than to handle MS’s own websites.
Vive la revolucion revolution!
1. Yes, I do that occasionally.
