WSJ: Kindle is Bombing in Campus Trials

We returned our Kindle DX to Amazon. We felt immediately that it was a throwback to an ancient technology even with its sleek form factor and its readability. The awkwardness of the interace was overwhelming to us. Accordingly, we are not surprised to read that the Kindle is as WSJ puts it gingerly, "Not Yet a Hit...."

Amazon’s Kindle DX: Not Yet a Hit on Campus
Students are testing out Amazon.com’s Kindle DX e-book reader device as part of a pilot-program taking place at seven campuses nationwide this fall. But already, some students are expressing their discomfort with the gadgets.

“I’m not a huge fan of it yet,” said Aaron Horvath, a 21-year-old senior at Princeton University, who is among 50 students in three different courses at the Ivy League university testing the devices. He saved his harshest criticism for the device for the pages of The Daily Princetonian saying, “I hate to sound like a Luddite, but this technology is a poor excuse of an academic tool.” He said the device doesn’t allow people to flip through pages easily, and adds that it’s cumbersome to text and type notes.

Horvath acknowledged he’s only been using the Kindle DX for about two weeks. “I’m still adapting to it, although I don’t know if I’ll ever adapt,” he said.

Administrators and professors also say the jury is still out on the device’s academic applications.

“This is very, very early,” said Serge Goldstein, Princeton’s associate chief information officer and director of academic services. “We expected the devices to have plusses and minuses, no surprises there.”

Amazon didn’t immediately return phone calls and an email requesting comment.

Students at Reed College in Portland, Ore., have also had about four weeks to spend with the Kindles. Now some of them have come up with a list of about 10 improvements for the device, including the need for page numbers and easier way for note taking and highlighting, said Martin Ringle, Reed’s chief technology officer.

Still, Ringle said, “the pilot is going really well because this is precisely the kind of information we were hoping to ascertain.”

New Upload of an Old Paper: The Shema' and now the Inner Jewish Scribe

We've uploaded a new copy of an old paper:

Tzvee Zahavy, "Political and Social Dimensions in the Formation of Early Jewish Prayer: the Case of the Shema`," from the Proceedings of the Tenth World Congress of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, Division C, Vol. 1, pp. 33-40, Jerusalem, 1990.

We still agree with our old hypothesis, evidence and conclusions, but now with a shift from the outside to the inside.

In our current writing project, we are seeking after, not history, but the archetypes that comprise the Jewish soul. We've found the scribe at the center of the crowd of the inner master personalities of the Jew.

We haven't yet tightly construed just what the scribe represents. Some canned definitions go like this, "Scribes in Ancient Israel, as in most of the ancient world, were distinguished professionals who could exercise functions we would associate with lawyers, government ministers, judges, or even financiers. Some scribes copied documents, but this was not necessarily part of their job" (from Bruce Metzger and Michael Coogan, eds., The Oxford Companion to the Bible, via Wikipedia).

We'd like to call the scribe the professional of the book for the people of the book. Scribes authored and or copied the Tanakh. the Mishnah, Midrash and Talmud. By later times they morphed into rabbis. They wrote and promoted the mitzvot of tefillin and mezzuzot, other amulets, marriage and divorce documents and more.

Keep in mind that scribes are archetypically distinct from priests and patriarchs (and the other characters that we shall describe). And here is how we began our story at a conference in Jerusalem in the old paradigm, now posted for your reading pleasure, and soon to be superseded by the new model:

Prayer services do not emerge spontaneously or arbitrarily in a vacuum. They are the public pronouncements of the central values and concepts of the religious leaders who initially propounded them and are social rituals that often emerge out of intense conflict and hard-fought compromise. Once established as standard within a given community, prayers are not easily changed because their rituals must be accountable on a regular basis to a community of pious devotees.

Specific historical, social and political conditions contributed to the distinct origin of two major rabbinic services. In the crucial transitional period after the destruction of the Temple, the Shema` emerged as the primary ritual of the scribal profession and its proponents. The Amidah at this formative time was a ritual sponsored mainly by the patriarchal families and their priestly adherents...

Times' Ethicist: Is Harvard a Good University Investment?

The Times' ethicist, Randy Cohen, takes up the question of whether it is more ethical to give your donation to Harvard or the Borough of Manhattan Community College.

We thought he'd focus on the practical issue of whether it's just a bad investment to send money to Harvard, given the poor performance of Harvard's endowment funds this past year, which some estimate have lost half of their value. If you gave a dollar to Harvard a year ago, they'd have made it into 50 cents now. Doesn't sound like a good idea.

But that's not what Randy inquires about. His concern appears to be framed as: where can you do the most good with money donated to educating our youth?

That expression of the issue seems to miss the major point, namely that research universities do not exist primarily to educate students. They are there to assemble faculty to create new knowledge through research.

We waited for years at Minnesota before we heard the "S" word come up in a faculty senate meeting or any other administrative setting. Students simply don't rate much attention at big schools.

I think what Randy means to say is if you want to affect students' futures, give to a school where the money collected from donations goes more directly to students and not to basic research.

We agree that the question raised is legitimate grist for the ethicist and for opinion mills in general. But the analysis offered in the Times falls short. See the discussion online for some additional insights into why.

Should You Give to Harvard?
Randy Cohen

The Issue
The fiscal year for major university endowments ended June 30, and schools have been reporting their results: not good. In the Harvard-Yale portfolio game, the latter was down 24.6 percent, while its rival lost even more, 27.3 percent. If you are an Ivy alum, this might seem a good moment to donate to your alma mater, to help rebuild its battered portfolio. But should you, given the power of education to improve people’s lives?

The Argument
Do not donate to Harvard. To do so is to offer more pie to a portly fellow while the gaunt and hungry press their faces to the window (at some sort of metaphoric college cafeteria, anyway). Even after last year’s losses, Harvard’s endowment exceeds $26 billion, the largest of any American university, greater than the G.D.P. of Estonia. By contrast, among historically black colleges and universities, Howard has the largest endowment, about $500 million, a mere 1.4 percent the size of Harvard’s. (Donors gave Harvard more than $600 million just this fiscal year.) The best-endowed community college, Valencia, in Orlando, Fla., has around $67 million, or 0.18 percent of Harvard’s wealth. This is not to deny that Harvard does fine work or could find ways to spend the money but to assert that other schools have a greater need and a greater moral claim to your benevolence.

Consider the students served by the two sorts of schools. An applicant who falls just shy of getting into Harvard is likely to go elsewhere. He or she will endure little suffering for having to muddle along at Brown or U.N.C. But for many other students, it is community college or nothing. At the Borough of Manhattan Community College, for example, a high percentage of those enrolled are the first in their families to attend college. Eighty percent of them work while going to school; 78 percent of them come from households with incomes of $25,000 or less. A lack of financing for these schools means higher tuition and fewer scholarships, which are serious obstacles to potential students. And while the Ivies do reach out to low-income students, Harvard’s sliding scale for tuition includes a bracket for families earning $120,000 to $180,000 a year, something that doesn’t come up much at B.M.C.C. It is fair to say that these schools enroll different constituencies.

And the well endowed serve a smaller constituency: nearly half of all college students attend community colleges, institutions that help keep alive the American promise of economic opportunity. On average, a male college graduate will earn significantly more in his lifetime than a nongraduate, a big thing to most families. Indeed, for many young people, community college is what stands between them and a life spent working a minimum-wage job or something not much better. Acknowledging the value of such schools, President Obama has proposed a community-college initiative. Support them, and you change people’s lives.

Support Harvard? The student paper, the Crimson, reported that in 2008 40 percent of the college’s graduates flocked “to lucrative jobs in business, consulting and finance.” For those who go on to Harvard Business School, the future is even rosier. Or at least greener. The median base salary for the B-school’s class of 2009 is currently $115,000; the median signing bonus adds another $20,000. These are starting salaries, during an economic downturn, for people who have never had an adult job (As some earlybird readers pointed out, B-school students do have work experience before enrolling.) Thus begins the next generation of wealthy alums with the wherewithal to give generously, perpetuating the status quo. Which might not be a bad slogan for the next fund drive. If you favor truth in advertising. And unsuccessful fund drives.

If we esteem higher education as a source of national prosperity, we should regard it as a public expense, like roads or national parks or the U.S.S. George H. W. Bush, the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier. (Cost: $6.2 billion. With a slight up-tick in the stock market, Harvard can buy four. And pay cash. And take no guff from Yale.) Many countries do just that. France has 81 universities that charge very little tuition. Some Belgian universities are setting tuition at 500 euros.

Until that happy day, private donors will play their part, but they need not make the rich schools richer, the poor (comparatively) poorer. Instead, we could continue to encourage individual generosity with approbation and tax breaks, but add this stricture: only a portion of any donation may be earmarked for a particular school; the remainder will be distributed to needier institutions. That is, half of your donation could be pledged to Harvard, the rest would go to Howard and Valencia and the like. We’ll experiment with the proportions to find the sweet spot that aids the most students while discouraging the fewest donors. This reform need not be written into law. It should be accepted voluntarily by every donor and embraced by every university with a substantial endowment and a concern for an egalitarian society.

There is no imperative to shut down Harvard until B.M.C.C. matches its endowment; after all, we don’t ban donations to orchestras or animal shelters until all human disease has been eradicated. There are many kinds of good to be done in the world. But if you wish to promote education as a force for social justice, there are better and worse ways to do it. Ethics is not just intentions; it’s also effectiveness. We can frame the question as a conflict between two goods: donate to Harvard or donate elsewhere? Under the current circumstances, the more honorable course is to write that check to a community college or a historically black college or a small Catholic college or other modest institution that genuinely and profoundly transforms the lives of its graduates.

Video: Monty Python's Classic Dead Parrot Skit

We were pondering what the Republicans and other opponents say about the reform of our nightmare called health care insurance in this country and for some reason our thoughts drifted to this classic Dead Parrot skit from Monty Python... enjoy.

Sex rabbi Shmuley Boteach to Britney Spears in 2007: this racy photo will scar your children

On the eve of Yom Kippur it is inspiring to see how a Hasidic Lubavitch celebrity kosher sex rabbi recently encouraged another celebrity (not Jewish) to repent of her sins.

According to the rabbi, this racy picture of Britney Spears getting out of a car (right) will scar her children for life. He wrote her an open letter to tell her so.

Is there a book in the works on how Shmuley saved Britney?

Note the inspired way that the Sage of Englewood quoted in 2007 from the well known rabbinic Tractate "Life Gets Serious":

Rabbi asks Britney Spears to cover up and spend more time with her boys

American radio TV host Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has sent a letter to pop singer Britney Spears calling her a ‘bad mother’.

Washington, Feb 13: American radio TV host Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has sent a letter to pop singer Britney Spears calling her a ‘bad mother’.

The 40-year-old has imparted some rabbinic lessons to the ‘Toxic’ singer and said that according to rabbis once a person becomes a parent, life gets very serious.

“Allow me to share with you a teaching of the ancient Rabbis. Once you become a parent, Britney, life gets really serious,” Page Six quoted him, as writing to Spears.

Rabbi said that her kids are watching her in a degraded state- drunk and hardly spending time with them, which will permanently scar them.

"We can all pretend that life is one big party devoid of responsibility. And rarely being home, or coming home drunk, or letting your kids see you in a degraded state, will permanently scar your kids,” he said.

The author of the famous ‘Kosher Sex’ added that her two sons will soon start surfing the net and might come across the scandalous photos of their mother.

"Soon your boys will be surfing the internet. They'll see a lot of photos of you in poses that no son should ever see their own mother,” he added.

Rabbi suggested that she ought to spend the maximum time with her little ones and abandon her feral lifestyle.

“Try and be home with your kids. Cover up. Limit the visits to the nightclubs,” he said. (ANI)

[repost from 2007]

Pay to Pray does not work for Synagogues

Ynet reported in 2007 that a synagogue think tank group in Minnesota had come up with a startling conclusion. High synagogue dues may be the reason that fewer Jews affiliate. Well!

Synagogues are hurting Judaism in America: Obligation to pay high synagogue dues in US contributing to decline of American Jewry
Rabbi Levi Brackman

...As a former congregational rabbi I can understand why synagogue membership in America as it currently stands is in decline. In the UK, most synagogues membership comes together with Jewish burial rights. So although people may attend only once a year, they nonetheless feel that their payments are going towards something tangible. In the United States, however, it is a different story.

Not only does synagogue membership not come with burial rights, but the dues are also generally much higher than those in the UK. Whereas dues at the synagogue in London of which I was the rabbi were equivalent to $600 a year for a couple, most synagogues in the US have yearly memberships which start at about $1,200 dollars per annum.

For a club which is used only once or twice a year that is a lot of money to pay. Yom Kippur is a time for introspection, not just on the part of laypeople but on the part of communal leaders as well.

Congregational leaders and rabbis have a tendency to demand that their congregants and members make more commitments to the synagogue, and they are right to do so. At the same time, however, they must ask themselves whether these financial demands are not preventing people from joining a synagogue.

VIN and Israeli News 2: Charedi Rabbis Ban the Dangerous Internet - Much Worse than TV

If you are reading this, you may be violating rabbinic edicts against the Internet and you may be subject to punishment.

We are tempted to mock this new rabbinic ban with sarcasm. But we resist. Instead we opine.

Bans and dividing walls (mechitzas) do not make a moral person. Morality comes from within. Rabbis need to teach their followers that they can indeed concentrate and pray properly when sitting next to a woman in synagogue. They can indeed control their emotions and have pure thoughts, even when sitting next to a woman on a bus. They can indeed use the Internet to communicate and to learn and not to seek or view objectionable content.

Rabbis here is how we see it. If you are so sure that your followers need porn filters on their Internet connections, if you are so sure they need segregation from women on buses and in shuls, then you have failed to inculcate in them proper conduct, proper attitudes and basic self-control and maturity.

From Chadoshot 2 vie VIN news:

Jerusalem - Rabbonim in Beitar Illit announced all residents must sign an agreement not to be connected to unfiltered Internet, according to a report on Hebrew-language website Haredim.

At a central gathering held in the city this week it was also decided that “all Torah and education institutions and school principals must see to it that every student at their institutions comes from a home free of [unfiltered] Internet.”

HaRav Dovid Tzvi Ordentlich said, “This is a thousand times more dangerous than the threats Am Yisroel faces from without and from within. The Internet is like a tidal wave threatening to swallow up and endanger the entire edifice of charedi Jewry that has been built in this generation through so much hard work. The issue must not be taken off the agenda. The warning must be sounded all the time and everywhere.”

According to HaRav Tzvi Braverman, “Fifty percent of the problems in the city – sholom bayis and chinuch habonim – stem from the Internet. There is a hidden blaze in the city. An atom bomb underneath the city. We cannot have a situation here in Beitar in which an ehrlicht Yid sends his children to Torah-based institutions and there’s something worse than television. This is the battle of the generation.”
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Almost all of the city’s rabbonim took part in the gathering, which was initiated by the beis din headed by HaRav Ordenlich. “Those who are compelled to be hooked up to the Internet for parnossoh reasons, etc., must be linked to the filtered, controlled Internet,” the rabbonim announced, adding that on Shabbos Shuvoh the rabbonim at every shul would discuss these takonos.

New Yorker:3 Jewish Stories - Dreyfus Affair; Bored to Death; The Retributionists

BOOKS Adam Gopnik: Revisiting the Dreyfus affair. The Dreyfus affair never goes away. It shows that hatred and bigotry are not a vestige of the superstitious past but a living fire…

Gopnick reviews and praises the new book by novelist and lawyer Louis Begley, “Why the Dreyfus Affair Matters.”

He calls it, "Brave because Begley wants to use the occasion not for French-bashing, or for reciting the enduring history of European anti-Semitism, bleak as it is, but as a pointed warning and reminder of how fragile the standards of civilized conduct prove in moments of national panic. The Dreyfus affair matters, he believes, because we have, in the past decade, made our own Devil’s Island and hundreds of new Dreyfuses—the Dreyfus affair matters because we’re still in the middle of it."

ART Peter Schjeldahl: Kandinsky at the Guggenheim. We thought if Wassily Kandinsky was Jewish we'd have four Jewish themed stories in a row, impressive even for the New Yorker. But it turns out that he was not a Jew but a Theosophist and maybe a bit of an antiSemite.

TELEVISION Nancy Franklin: HBO’s new comedy about a writer turned private eye. We enjoyed the first show because the main characters were vivid confused Jewish guy types from Brooklyn, where the series was shot.

THE THEATER Hilton Als: Daniel Goldfarb on a postwar revenge plot. The review of "The Retributionists" points out that this show would have had a greater impact if not for the more dramatic release of Tarantino's film, "Inglorious Basterds" with a strikingly similar Jewish revenge on Nazis theme. Als likes Goldfarb, but not this play.

Satirical MoveOn.org Hollywood Video for Health Insurance Reform

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Hat tip to Henry.

Glenn Beck Declares Yom Kippur a Day of Fasting and Prayer

Gee thanks Glenn. You are a piece of work.

We get referred to with a link on Huff Post by Aaron Keyak but he forgets to mention us by name ("a blogger"). Hard to bear.

Glenn Beck: The Grinch Who Stole Yom Kippur

Last April, a blogger asked if Glenn Beck is Jewish. If there were any doubt, Beck's tweet from Rosh Hashanah morning (last Saturday and the start of the Jewish New Year) puts that to rest. At 10:37 a.m. on September 19th @GlennBeck tweeted:

Sept 28. Lets make it a day of Fast and Prayer for the Republic. Spread the word. Let us walk in the founders steps.

Instituting "a day of Fast and Prayer for the Republic" may not exceed Beck's capacity as a Fox News talk show host, but co-opting Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, may be beyond even Beck's highest powers.

In the spirit of Rosh Hashanah, I've sought to understand the thinking behind Beck's decision and I have come up with three possible explanations.

First, perhaps this is an attempt by Beck to connect with his Jewish brethren. In this scenario Beck sees a parallel between the greatest day of atonement for the Jewish people and his newly invented holiday. In fact, Beck may borrow from the Yom Kippur liturgy:

When the High Priest emerged from the Holy of Holies unharmed, having successfully achieved atonement for the people, he would offer a moving prayer for them. ... [L]ater he would prepare a celebration to thank the Almighty for allowing him to complete his monumental task.

Of course, as the founder of this new holiday, Beck would fill the airwaves in the role as High Priest of Fox News, in all of his greatness.... more...

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aaron-keyak/glenn-beck-the-grinch-who_b_293792.html