Monday, October 31, 2005

Lost souls

Poignant wail of a ‘Jew who changed his mind.’

Related

And a recommended book that follows up on the impact felt by the off-spring of most confused Jewish parents.

As Karl Shapiro wrote in the introduction to Poems of a Jew:
No one has been able to define Jew, and in essence this defiance of definition is the central meaning of Jewish consciousness. For to be a Jew is to be in a certain state of consciousness which is inescapable. As everyone knows, a Jew who becomes an atheist remains a Jew. A Jew who becomes a Catholic remains a Jew. Being a Jew is the consciousness of being a Jew, and the Jewish identity, with or without religion, with or without history, is the significant fact.

Sunday, October 30, 2005

"Sitting Down to Stand Up"





Time Photo Essay

In commemoration of she who clearly found purpose in life and had the courage to follow it through...

a taste of Italy (or so I'm told)

Well done, humorous cartoon of Europe and Italy using only basic graphics and sound.

Record Report from the National Weather Service:

RECORD EVENT REPORT NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE TAUNTON MA 1045 AM EST SUN OCT 30 2005

...YESTERDAYS SNOWFALL AT THE GREAT BLUE HILL IN MILTON MASSACHUSETTS WAS A RECORD FOR THE DATE...

THE 1.5 INCHES OF SNOW ON OCTOBER 29TH 2005 AS RECORDED AT THE 635 FOOT ELEVATION OF THE BLUE HILL OBSERVATORY...LOCATED IN MILTON MASSACHUSETTS...ABOUT 11 MILES SOUTHWEST OF BOSTON...WAS A RECORD FOR THE DATE AND THE 6TH HIGHEST DAILY SNOWFALL FOR OCTOBER.

THE ALL TIME OCTOBER RECORD THERE STILL STANDS AT 6.8 INCHES... OCCURRING OCTOBER 10TH 1979.

Saturday, October 29, 2005

another anti-feminst feminst

Maureen Dowd spells out her view in What's a Modern Girl to Do? She mostly focuses on how feminism affected the interaction between men and women, and while I believe that's just one of the negative impacts of feminism, she makes good points (depressing as they may). It's seven pages, so here are some of the highlights:
"Women can stand on the Empire State Building and scream to the heavens that they are equal to men and liberated, but until they have the same anatomy, it's a lie. It's more of a man's world today than ever. Men can eat their cake in unlimited bakeries."

The feminist revolution would have the unexpected consequence of intensifying the confusion between the sexes, leaving women in a tangle of dependence and independence as they entered the 21st century.

The way to approach men, we reasoned, was forthrightly and without games, artifice or frills. Unfortunately, history has shown this to be a misguided notion.

Women in their 20's think old-school feminists looked for equality in all the wrong places, that instead of fighting battles about whether women should pay for dinner or wear padded bras they should have focused only on big economic issues.

Men, he explained, prefer women who seem malleable and awed. He predicted that I would never find a mate because if there's one thing men fear, it's a woman who uses her critical faculties.

He had hit on a primal fear of single successful women: that the aroma of male power is an aphrodisiac for women, but the perfume of female power is a turnoff for men. It took women a few decades to realize that everything they were doing to advance themselves in the boardroom could be sabotaging their chances in the bedroom, that evolution was lagging behind equality.

So was the feminist movement some sort of cruel hoax? Do women get less desirable as they get more successful?

Or as Bill Maher more crudely but usefully summed it up to Craig Ferguson on the "Late Late Show" on CBS: "Women get in relationships because they want somebody to talk to. Men want women to shut up."

"Nowadays," she said, "the rule of thumb seems to be that the more successful the woman, the less likely it is she will find a husband or bear a child. For men, the reverse is true."

Art is imitating life, turning women who seek equality into selfish narcissists and objects of rejection rather than of affection.

Forty years after the dawn of feminism, the ideal of feminine beauty is more rigid and unnatural than ever.

Friday, October 28, 2005

negative publicity

M.I.T. Dismisses a Researcher, Saying He Fabricated Some Data

technically speaking

"There is still a difference between something and nothing, but it is purely geometrical and there is nothing behind the geometry."

~ Martin Gardner, "The Mathematical Magic Show"

Thursday, October 27, 2005

beats Rosie O'Donnel playing Golde on Fiddler on the Roof...

A. O. SCOTT pokes fun at Streep's attempt to come off as a Yiddishe Mama in her latest film, "Prime:"
Ms. Streep shows her fondness for Yiddish inflections and polite ethnic shtick. To which I can only say: Meryl, enough already! So you can say tuchis and nosh on some pastrami. Mazel tov! Jackie Mason you're not.
At least Streep has distant Sephardic Jewish roots...Although that doesn't really give her much more credibility since Sephardic Jews don't speak Yiddish...

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

take back your time

Meant to post this on Monday, but didn't find the time:

October 24 was TAKE BACK YOUR TIME DAY:
TAKE BACK YOUR TIME is a major U.S./Canadian initiative to challenge the epidemic of overwork, over-scheduling and time famine that now threatens our health, our families and relationships, our communities and our environment.

October 24 was chosen for TAKE BACK YOUR TIME DAY because by this date the average American has already worked as much as the average European works in an entire year.

Sunday, October 23, 2005

nerd supremacy

  • Mechanical engineers at MIT make the NYtimes with a hundred or so mirrors and a theatre prop.
  • Mathematical photography is great, but given that it's so easily replicable (all you need is Microsoft word, a printer, and a frame), I can't imainge how it would sell...(check out Aleph One, and one that appeals to the nerd's sense of humor, Surrealism).