EZ Reads 2/18/11

Today's links are mostly fun as opposed to serious, so have a good time and a great Shabbos!

• R' Gil caps the symposium he's held on his blog about the ethics of brain death and organ donation with Part X and gives a closing statement. Excerpt:

  This symposium was not a dialogue. Such a conversation is extremely desirable. Until that happens, the warnings offered by many participants to proceed with respect and caution are worth heeding. ... Until we are able to listen to each other, we will never be able to talk. We did not solve this dilemma here but we can at least leave knowing where the problem lies.

• R' Moshe Grylak in Mishpacha (hat tip: Chana):

  We met in a certain shul. And this is what he reported: “What can I tell you? I’m a kollel man, I learn well; I even enjoy my learning, and I stick to a regular schedule. But I’ll be honest with you — I don’t believe in G‑d. Everything I do is just a sham.”

• Chana writes a difficult piece on Why We Cut.
• Via Diana, there are some nice pictures as CrownHeights.info highlights Cleveland's Friendship Circle which held a dinner for 120+ people for the volunteer-based organization, which works with children with special needs.
• Via Ariella, Divrei Chaim rants about ads promoting luxurious trips... to kevarim.
• Really cool: Wires transform objects from inanimate to hilarious pieces of art.
• Doghouse (cartoon) explains how to explain things to teens these days.
• Why patience matters when selling something online (Lifehacker).
• And finally, xkcd does it again in Let Go (wish I could do what he does in the scroll over text):
  

EZ Reads 2/17/11

There was just about nothing that looked very interesting today until an hour ago or so, and now there's a whole bunch; gotta love the blogosphere. Here's some good stuff:

• My favorite blog Lifehacker posted a while ago How to Hack Your Brain. As one commenter put it, "Your personality and identity ARE significantly more malleable than you realize." Some of the tips are quite good and have worked for myself or others I know.
• They also are asking people What Made You Laugh Today - apparently, it's useful psychologically to pause during your day (great or horrible) and think about what made you laugh recently. Interesting. 
• As someone who had a similar note left on our car recently, after someone smashed our bumper and drove away, I know what this is like. Sick.
• Chana is happy that Mishpacha has a very good piece on self-injury, an excerpt of which is available online.
• What the Jeff Koons lawsuit (which had no merit) teaches us about the chilling effect of copyright law - and lawsuits. (Freakonomics)
• Really? Holy dove drives yeshiva wild:

  Several weeks ago, during a Torah lesson in the Jerusalem yeshiva, a white dove entered the house of study, sat on the window sill and flew out at the end of the lesson.
  The following days, the bird would arrive at the yeshiva and stand in the corner for the entire lesson – prompting the excited yeshiva students to view it as a sign from God.
  They created a "studying circle" around the bird and began reading Talmud verses and begging forgiveness from the soul which they believed "wandered" into the dove.

EZ Reads 5/18/09: Mental Illness

• An interesting piece in the Forward on the battle against eating disorders and the like in the Orthodox Jewish community, talking a little about Renfrew and the OU-sponsored upcoming day-long conference featuring their documentary "Hungry to be Heard".
• A father calls for his son's suicide to be an appeal for awareness regarding mental illnesses.
• An xckd titled "Helping" that serves as a good reminder to help people find professional help:
  

Hungry To Be Heard Eating Disorders Event

For all those of you who noticed that we covered the "Hungry To Be Heard" documentary on eating disorders and were interested in seeing the film...which is, in case you did not know, specifically geared to the Orthodox Jewish community and a project of the Youth Leadership Cabinet of the OU...

Tomorrow, February 24, Active Minds is hosting an event entitled "Celebrating the Survivors: Eating Disorders Explained." It is open to the public.

It will be at 9:00 PM at Furst 501. (Furst is located on the Wilf Campus at 500 West 185th Street, near Amsterdam Avenue.)

"Hungry To Be Heard" will be screened at the event, and we will also hear from Aliza Stareshefsky, who is featured in the documentary. Aliza will also be reading a poem by a male YU student who suffered from bulimia and who is also featured in the documentary. He will be present at the event, but will probably not speak.

Ezzie's Blog Roundup, 12/17: Humbling, Hilarious, and Horrible

Before the other links... that documentary series in Britian on SkyNews about Jews in the Manchester community mentioned earlier is truly riveting. I watched Episodes I and II earlier, and they were rather well done, mostly letting the people speak and describe in their view what they're doing. I is mostly about Kashrus and kind of sets a tone; II is about Shabbos, Pesach, niddah/sex, shidduchim, and more.

• Interesting article about a video on eating disorders in the Orthodox community.
• Imagine being told you've been accepted to graduate school... then finding out the acceptance letter was a mistake. Ouch.
  
• Wolf's posting good stuff as always, but check out the first comment on this post. It's freaking amazing.
• Sephardi Lady reprints a great comment from her blog.
  
• Scraps has the mark of an out-of-towner. I love it.
  

Enjoy!

Airbrushing Problems

R' Horowitz has an excellent piece on how to tackle problems - applicable from personal issues to communal ones. Excerpt from the communal side:

When a girl becomes very ill or worse as a result of anorexia, chas v’shalom, parents of teenage girls in that community who suspect that their daughter is anorexic reach out for help. A percentage of the girls will actually have eating disorders – upping the numbers of reported kids with such conditions. (This does not mean that more girls came down with eating disorders, only that the awareness caused more of them to reach out for help.)

But, then good things start happening. Schools bring in specialists to speak to the kids. Girls become more self-aware of their own eating habits. Peers eventually become informed enough that they can help their friends who are bingeing and purging. Eventually, eating disorder rates drop significantly, as the short-term publicity results in the long-term benefit of awareness and the creation of solution-oriented programs, that remain in place as the pain of the publicity subsides.

Starving in the Land of Plenty

It seems SerandEz isn't the only site discussing eating disorders. Aish currently features 2 articles relating to anorexia. The first offers a heart-wrenching story with a message of hope and also promotes awareness of EDs.

The second is a excellent piece on the tension between the body and the soul.

THIN

As a follow-up to the discussion about eating disorders and self-image a couple weeks ago, I was just informed of a new documentary that has been filmed showcasing girls in an eating disorders clinic and their struggle with weight and self-esteem, filmed by Lauren Greenfield.

Check it out.

Are you prepared to lie to the Shadchan about....

After some very interesting Shabbos table discussions, I'm left trying to formulate an opinion on what seems to be a big issue. So I turn to those faithful SerandEz readers for your thoughts, in the hope that someone inspires me.

The question: How should issues like eating disorders and depression be treated in the Shidduch-world? If a "teenage problem" is "solved" by the time a girl or boy returns from his/her year in israel, does a prospective spouse need to know about it?
(notice the strategic placement of quotation marks; hamayvin yavin.)