Honesty & Common Sense

This Sunday was my grandmother Hilda Goldish's a'h stone setting in Cleveland. I wasn't able to attend, but I did enjoy the two brief speeches from R' Naphtali Burnstein (YI of Greater Cleveland) and my father, particularly when my father discussed what my grandmother was all about - and when listening to it, it's striking how it's so simple in so many ways. 'If only!' people would just use (/would have just used) their common sense, then most everything would work out - remembering, of course, that "timing is everything".

Most of all, it's hard not to notice that so much in life comes down to what each of them stood for and what is said so beautifully on each of their headstones: Honesty and Common Sense.

Dad Life (Father's Day Opening 2010)

Absurd Tweet

Take a look at this tweet, and, for a second, marvel at the absurdity of it.

To all my christian brothers and sisters, especially catholics - before u condemn muslims for violence, remember the crusades....study them

This is on par with the stupid comment Tavis Smiley made regarding the Columbine Murderers being Christians. Doesn't this just typify the left? Is it something reflexive to the left to defend Islam or is it more to condemn those that dare to condemn Islam?

Yellow Card for Yarmulke

Interesting story via Deadspin:



During a game against Austrian club FC Red Bull Salzburg, Hapoel Tel Aviv's Itay Shechter scored after a very nice run, proceeded to pull a yarmulke out of his sock, (apparently) said a prayer—and was immediately given a yellow card.
Update: Per commenter OutKukoced:

According to this article in the Israeli newspaper Maariv (in Hebrew), people were chanting "Go to the gas chambers" in the first half (as heard by one of the team owners). [www.nrg.co.il]
According to this interview (sorry, it's in Hebrew) with Schechter [www.haaretz.co.il] the celebration was, however, not a reaction to anti-Semitic chants, as he did not hear any by that point in the game. He says, however, that afterward (unclear if he means after the game or celebration), he was made aware of the anti-Semitic insults from the stands. According to him, he was given the kipa by a fan for good luck at the airport, and decided right before the game started to keep it in his sock and take it out if he scored.
So, yes, there were anti-Semitic chants going on (par for the course at European soccer games), but no, the celebration was not a reaction to the fans.
And thus ends Kipa-gate.

Emerging Adulthood

The NY Times Magazine last week had a very interesting article about 20-somethings and why they take so long to grow up. The basis is that there is a newly recognized stage in life called 'emerging adults', where they make some of their own decisions but defer others to parents or society. It is long but worth the 30 minutes it may take you to read it (that's how long it took me).
Here are some points I liked:

If society decides to protect these young people or treat them differently from fully grown adults, how can we do this without becoming all the things that grown children resist — controlling, moralizing, paternalistic? Young people spend their lives lumped into age-related clusters — that’s the basis of K-12 schooling — but as they move through their 20s, they diverge. Some 25-year-olds are married homeowners with good jobs and a couple of kids; others are still living with their parents and working at transient jobs, or not working at all. Does that mean we extend some of the protections and special status of adolescence to all people in their 20s? To some of them? Which ones? Decisions like this matter, because failing to protect and support vulnerable young people can lead them down the wrong path at a critical moment, the one that can determine all subsequent paths. But overprotecting and oversupporting them can sometimes make matters worse, turning the “changing timetable of adulthood” into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

 [A 25 year old commenting] “to think about all the things I’m supposed to be doing in order to ‘get somewhere’ successful: ‘Follow your passions, live your dreams, take risks, network with the right people, find mentors, be financially responsible, volunteer, work, think about or go to grad school, fall in love and maintain personal well-being, mental health and nutrition.’ When is there time to just be and enjoy?” 

And in case you thought Kollel support only exists by frum Jews:

[..] asked parents of grown children whether they provided significant assistance to their sons or daughters. Assistance included giving their children money or help with everyday tasks (practical assistance) as well as advice, companionship and an attentive ear. Eighty-six percent said they had provided advice in the previous month; less than half had done so in 1988. Two out of three parents had given a son or daughter practical assistance in the previous month; in 1988, only one in three had. 

For a comforting conclusion:

Arnett would like to see us choose a middle course. “To be a young American today is to experience both excitement and uncertainty, wide-open possibility and confusion, new freedoms and new fears,” he writes in “Emerging Adulthood.” During the timeout they are granted from nonstop, often tedious and dispiriting responsibilities, “emerging adults develop skills for daily living, gain a better understanding of who they are and what they want from life and begin to build a foundation for their adult lives.” If it really works that way, if this longer road to adulthood really leads to more insight and better choices, then Arnett’s vision of an insightful, sensitive, thoughtful, content, well-honed, self-actualizing crop of grown-ups would indeed be something worth waiting for.

I could only theorize about this impact on our community, but you are free to make your own conclusions; recognizing that singles may actually want to be that way a little longer, that they want to develop themselves and careers before a family. Of course that we as a community would have to recognize a developmental stage between adolescence and ready to get married, would really wreak havoc with our  understanding of Jewish life as it is. It would mean accepting a single and not treating them as second class citizens, something that people like Bad4 only theorize about.

 

L'Shana HaBa (1992 HAC Version)

Hat tip: Buda. There are a few videos from this performance - this one is apropos, after seeing my sister, brother-in-law, three nieces and a nephew off to make aliyah today. This is from the 1992 Hebrew Academy of Cleveland boys choir (I don't see myself, and I can't remember if I was in it or not, but a large number of my classmates and people from the grades just above mine are). I believe Yudi S. is the videographer and the one who posted them to YouTube - thanks!

For everyone else - enjoy, and admit it - those glasses were Awesome.

So, My Sister is Making Aliyah Today...

...that's pretty crazy. Vervel and BIL and their four kids are on today's Nefesh B'Nefesh flight as they make their way to their new home in Rechovot from Baltimore (they took a bus with 4 other families this morning from Baltimore to JFK. My parents are in from Cleveland, and we're all headed to the airport now to see them off.

They'll be reading this later, so feel free to send your good wishes/advice/welcome them to Israel in the comments!

How Language Affects Thought

(Hat tip: Mom and the "most e-mailed" feature on the WSJ.com site)

There is an absolutely fantastic article in the Wall Street Journal about how language affects our lives - from cultures to how we act to how we think about things. Some choice excerpts that were really cool:

So if Pormpuraawans think differently about space, do they also think differently about other things, like time?

To find out, my colleague Alice Gaby and I traveled to Australia and gave Pormpuraawans sets of pictures that showed temporal progressions (for example, pictures of a man at different ages, or a crocodile growing, or a banana being eaten). Their job was to arrange the shuffled photos on the ground to show the correct temporal order. We tested each person in two separate sittings, each time facing in a different cardinal direction. When asked to do this, English speakers arrange time from left to right. Hebrew speakers do it from right to left (because Hebrew is written from right to left).

Pormpuraawans, we found, arranged time from east to west. That is, seated facing south, time went left to right. When facing north, right to left. When facing east, toward the body, and so on. Of course, we never told any of our participants which direction they faced. The Pormpuraawans not only knew that already, but they also spontaneously used this spatial orientation to construct their representations of time.

Meanwhile, the way events are re-told in various cultures affects how people remember them:

In studies conducted by Caitlin Fausey at Stanford, speakers of English, Spanish and Japanese watched videos of two people popping balloons, breaking eggs and spilling drinks either intentionally or accidentally. Later everyone got a surprise memory test: For each event, can you remember who did it? She discovered a striking cross-linguistic difference in eyewitness memory. Spanish and Japanese speakers did not remember the agents of accidental events as well as did English speakers. Mind you, they remembered the agents of intentional events (for which their language would mention the agent) just fine. But for accidental events, when one wouldn't normally mention the agent in Spanish or Japanese, they didn't encode or remember the agent as well. 

 Meanwhile, I couldn't help but somewhat cringe at a note that I've often discussed with friends, co-workers, and the like about how the way they put things affects the way people think about those things/people. I recall one co-worker consistently making jokes about others - completely joking, but I noted to him that by doing so, he is slowly creating perceptions about people, much as media does when and how they discuss various subjects or people as well. People shrug off media bias by suggesting the word differences are innocuous, but what and how we say things does matter:

In another study, English speakers watched the video of Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction" (a wonderful nonagentive coinage introduced into the English language by Justin Timberlake), accompanied by one of two written reports. The reports were identical except in the last sentence where one used the agentive phrase "ripped the costume" while the other said "the costume ripped." Even though everyone watched the same video and witnessed the ripping with their own eyes, language mattered. Not only did people who read "ripped the costume" blame Justin Timberlake more, they also levied a whopping 53% more in fines.

Read the whole piece, it's really just fascinating.

Side note: In Judaism, a basic concept is that what sets us apart from animals is language; in addition, particular note and honor is given to the use of lashon HaKodesh, which is Biblical Hebrew, over other languages, establishing that there is something special about language and that language in particular.

The Triatholon Conspiracy

A great post by Lulei Demistafina on crying antisemitism

Tisha B'av next year is on a Tuesday. The NYC Tri is the Sunday prior. Again.

I checked the dates for previous triathlons, and to my surprise and dismay, in four of the past five years, the NYC Tri always fell out the Sunday before Tisha B'av. The English dates were in a broad range; but on the Hebrew Calendar the dates were eerily consistent. What could account for that? Even I, a red-white-and-blue blooded American Jew, was beginning to wonder: Was it actually possible that the organizers of this event were discouraging Orthodox Jews from participating? What else could it possibly be?

So I emailed one of the organizers of the event. Why were the dates of the Tri so varied?, I asked. Her answer surprised me. The currents, she wrote back, have to be favorable between 6 and 9 in the morning. And you know this so far in advance? I asked. Years in advance, she responded.

It turns out that calculating the currents has a lot to do with the lunar cycle, the same lunar cycle that sets the Jewish calendar. So the organizers can not create the event around a certain date on the Gregorian calendar—as they do for the New York City Marathon and the U.S. Open tennis tournament; they have to take into account the moon’s position. Nothing to do with Jews.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

There is a tendency among some Jews to suspect anti-Semitism at the first whiff of anything that remotely interferes with, or even inconveniences, the Jewish community, a feeling that anything that can be chalked up to anti-Semitism should be chalked up to anti-Semitism. This mistrust is misguided—and potentially dangerous.

Read the full article here.

Nasty Knuckler... 13-Year Old Girl

This is a cool story (and really great video work).s

PLANT CITY, Fla. -- She registered another perfect pitching record this year, 12-0, for her Little League team.
She threw her second perfect game -- and predicted this one just hours before she did it.
Her fastball hits the mid-60s, and she can send opponents to the bench in tears, embarrassing them with a knuckleball she learned from former major league knuckleball legend Joe Niekro.
Meet Chelsea Baker, a girl pitcher in a boys' league.

The best player on the Plant City Little League Team, is a 13- year-old girl named Chelsea Baker. Taught the knuckleball by Joe Niekro, Chelsea has not lost a sanctioned game in four years.

And of course, who does she face in the city championship, but Niekro's grandson and her friend, JJ Niekro.

Anyway - well worth the watch and read. It would be cool to see how far she can progress in professional baseball.

Let Us Pray...

...for an especially horrible hurricane season this coming year.

Mom, Dad

Board up your doors and windows. I think Cleveland just broke.

Let Us Pray...

A psalm of James

1. LeBron is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
2. He makes to throw down in crowded lanes
He leads the break with the ease of still waters
3. He restores my franchise;
He leads me in the paths of playoff wins
For his game's sake.
4. Yea, though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of Jordan,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your size and Your quickness,
they comfort me.
5. You prepare a winner before me in the
presence of my enemies;
You anoint your head with headbands;
Our attendance runeth over
6. Surely goodness and mercy shall
follow you
All the days of your life;
If you will dwell in the house
of The Q
FOREVER.

**SCHEDULE CHANGE**SCHEDULE CHANGE**SCHEDULE CHANGE**

Please be aware that the reading of Megillas Eicha has been moved up to tomorrow evening, Thursday, at 9 PM...in addition please pay attention for notices of a possible krias Hallel at 10 PM.

Thank you, that is all.

1948 Israel - in Color

(Hat tip: Corner Point)

This is absolutely amazing. A wealthy American businessman in the 40s and 50s filmed everything that was happening in Israel - in color. The footage was just found in his attic.

Storm Before The Calm

"Keep calm and carry on" - from a friend's g-chat status.

The past few months have been tumultuous, to say the least. While I was feeling a bit stressed out after coming home from work for this extended weekend, it was a perfect reminder at the perfect time to log onto my e-mail and see that line sitting there.

A year ago yesterday, I started what was to be a dream job, of sorts - a start-up company, with a successful CEO who had already built a company from nothing into a nationally recognized success, the ability to raise capital easily, and an expansive, exciting idea. The difficult piece would be creating a strong business or finding a successful product that we could market, but with the cushion of capital and the experience available to us, we would be able to pull it off.

Or so it seemed. As the months went by, projects would be started - but not fully funded. Money wasn't available when it needed to be. Employees became cynical as rumors started to circulate, and slowly, things seemed to head downhill, though we would seem to get "saved" just as we were on the brink of complete frustration each time.

And then, we stopped getting saved. Shortly thereafter, we discovered that the prior "success" of our CEO was questionable at best, at worst, criminal. (He immediately became our ex-CEO.) Money we had raised was gone, likely never to be recovered. Suddenly, we were all living on a prayer.

After a couple of days of feeling bad for ourselves, we had to refocus and move forward - or shut down. And the decision was extremely difficult: Our money was gone, and the constant promises to pay us back the money we were owed were completely empty. On the other hand, while originally we had looked to find a product to sell, now we had created a product (actually a service) that was not just successful - but replicable, and viable for sale. We had lost our cushion, but we had something real.

We decided to move forward anyway. We had to make the extremely difficult decision to cut all non-essential personnel - resulting in the layoffs of about twenty-five people, including some very close friends (one sang me down at my wedding, another was in my class in high school and was my roommate at one point in Israel) and all of them good people. We were able to raise just enough money and work hard enough to get out our corporate filing just in time, put together a fantastic business plan, and have recently started presenting it to potential investors, with even more positive feedback than we'd hoped. (In a funny twist, one commented almost angrily that our projections were "too conservative" and that we should "up them". On a similar parenthetical note, every single one of the vendors whom we work with on our branding, technology, software integration - and so on - have expressed their belief that not only will we raise the money, but that we have a "tremendous business model" and will be "a great success". Their patience and support has been incredibly encouraging and nothing short of astounding.)

Raising capital is possibly one of the most stressful activities a person can do. Even when you know (as well as anyone can "know" anything) that what you have will be successful, getting others to believe the same is difficult in a world where people are raised to be rightfully skeptical. Thankfully, our model is clear and straightforward, and we were in a way surprised at just how many people who are investors, even those not in our field, who came over to us at a conference to congratulate us on what they believed to be a strong model and wishing us luck moving forward. We are now in the midst of discussing potential deals with investors of all different backgrounds, each bringing different structures and different potential assets, whether franchising experience (we're developing a franchise), chemical background (tying into a proprietary product of ours), financial experience (for advisory purposes), or other skills to the table which can work strongly to our advantage, and hopefully we'll either combine pick the ones that work the best for us both in the long-term and for now.

Until it happens, though, it's quite stressful - as one of our partnering vendors said, "I've had to raise capital before - it always takes just a little bit longer than you want it to." Amen.

Keep calm and carry on - or as my sister-in-law likes to say, "Let go and let God." Good advice.

Time to have a relaxing Shabbos.

More Than A Player

A Goldish Touch in Brooklyn (Headbands, Tichels)

Serach will be selling her tichels (Serach's Scarves) and headbands (A Goldish Touch) at the Kings Bay Y Israel celebration on Sunday, June 13 from 11-3. There will be rides (for the kids), face painting, a petting zoo and food. The address is 3495 Nostrand Avenue (between Avenue U and V). We went last year, too, and had a lot of fun - bring your kids and have a blast!

EZ Reads 6/10/10

Happy 37th Anniversary to Mom & Dad!!

In their honor, here's some great pieces my Mom forwarded to me the last couple of days:

This video may be the best 10 minutes you spend today (via Freakonomics):

It's psychologist Philip Zimbardo lecturing on the six different ways people perceive time, takes about 10 minutes to watch. Depending on your time orientation, it might seem to take far longer, or seem to rush by. Understanding which “time zone” we inhabit, Zimbardo says, has profound effects on every aspect of life.

If you haven't yet read this fantastic Wired piece by Nicholas Carr on "Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains", you must. It will profoundly change the way you think, even if you already knew much of what it says. A number of friends - all of whom are bright, technology-focused people, were nodding all the way through the piece.

The NYTimes has a related piece on being hooked to technology, plus another one on how it affects parenting. What's especially interesting about the parenting piece is that the examples are not typically "extreme", which are easy to dismiss, and that children are perfectly aware of the issue:

Laura Scott Wade, the director of ethics for a national medical organization in Chicago, said that six months ago her son, Lincoln, then 3 1/2, got so tired of her promises to get off the computer in “just one more minute” that he resorted to the kind of tactic parents typically use.
“He makes me set the timer on the microwave,” Ms. Wade said. “And when it dings he’ll say, ‘Come on,’ and he’ll say, ‘Don’t bring your phone.’ ”

(What's scary is that even as I wrote this section, I had to force myself to stop to play catch with Kayla and avoid being hypocritical. Oy. She has a great arm, though!) All in all, this is obviously the Times' new obsessive topic, as they've followed up with Technology's Toll: Impatience & Forgetfulness and an interesting study where the younger generation actually views technology as a larger problem than the older generation in terms of how it affects people. [I assume this is because the younger generation is caught up deeply in technology, while the older generation is only knowledgeable to a smaller extent and use it in more limited fashions.]

A really interesting pair of tests is up on the NYTimes' website, here. The timing on the second one is very interesting. (For what it's worth, Mom, I placed better than even low multi-taskers, so :-P to you!)

Elsewhere:

• NYTimes: Studies show Jews' genetic similarities (Ashkenaz and Sephardim). 

• Interesting piece on  Obama in the White House in the Wall Street Journal.

Orthodox Childhood Study

A good friend and former roommate of mine is conducting an interesting research study for his Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program. If you have a few minutes please take the time to participate here: http://tinyurl.com/ODQStudy

About the study:

You are being asked to participate in a research study conducted by Sruly Bomzer, M.S., doctoral candidate, C.W. Post Clinical Psychology Doctoral Program, under the supervision of Jill Rathus, Ph.D. The purpose of this study is to examine common childhood experiences of Jews raised in the Orthodox tradition. If you were raised in an Orthodox Jewish family, regardless of your current affiliation, you are eligible and encouraged to participate in this study.

Please note that for the purposes of this study, "childhood" is defined as any time prior to the completion of high school (around age 17).

If you have any questions about the research, you may contact the investigator, Sruly Bomzer, at SrulyStudy@gmail.com, or the faculty supervisor, Dr. Jill Rathus, at Jill.Rathus@liu.edu. If you have questions concerning your rights as a subject, you may contact the Executive Secretary of the Institutional Review Board, Ms. Kathryn Rockett at (516) 299-2523.