commentary in the zOhn

On my honor, they were listed just like this on Yahoo’s news page (not that I don’t notice a particular bias in the articles chosen in the first place):

Police officer deaths drop in 2008

Study: Murders among black youths on rise

Mashal Calls for Third Intifada

(IsraelNN.com)
Hamas’ top terrorist Khaled Mashal on Saturday night called for Arabs to open a third intifada against Israel. In a message aimed at Arabs in Judea and Samaria, Mashal said that “the intifada should be peaceful among Palestinians, and military against the Zionist enemy. This will save Gaza and protect the West Bank,” he said.

Mashal also promised that Hamas would respond to Israel’s attacks. He accused Israel of mass murder, saying “the world has not been witness to an uglier massacre.” He said that 205 Gaza Arabs had been killed, and 750 injured.

i’m pretty sure that 6 million was an uglier massacre.
yhc 

White Supremacists Do the Funniest Things

ShopRite says that their policy prohibits inappropriate messages on cakes, and that this one was pretty clearly inappropriate. Adolf’s parents refused the store’s compromise offer to make them a cake with space on it to write their own message, and are bewailing a world in which their little boy cannot even have his own name on his birthday cake.

The Campbells, of Holland Township, New Jersey, were eventually able to get the cake they wanted at a nearby WalMart.

Enmeshed in this tempest in a teacup are some delicate civil rights questions. The deluge of comments which greeted the story’s appearance included the inevitable ones wondering why on earth anyone would saddle their offspring with the name of history’s most notorious genocidal maniac, but also others echoing the Campbells’ dismay that the supermarket would penalize an innocent child because of his ‘inappropriate’ name. Both opinions have weight, but they run up against some strong and valid objections. Read the rest of this entry »

Excerpted from:  Youth: Reality TV Bad for Us

(IsraelNN.com) In a recent survey of youth, 96% said they watch reality TV and 42% think that it has a negative influence on them. The survey was conducted by the Israeli Zionist Council.

yes, yes, yes!  but wait; if 96% watch, and only 42%  . . . which leaves 54% . . . but still, 96% continue to watch . . .

yhc

For me, one of the greatest joys of living Israel is watching Judaism happen all around me.  On the first night of Hanukah, I was blessed to make it happen for someone else.

I live in Shuk Mahane Yehuda, the Jerusalem Open Market.  Actually, I live in an upper level of a building that is part of the structure of the Market; my balcony and living room window look directly onto its major thoroughfare.

It is traditional to light the Hanukkiah (usually called a Menorah) where it can be easily seen by passersby, and so I put mine in the most visible window where  I lighted it, made the brachot, and settled it where it wouldn’t burn the curtain.   As I glanced down onto the street, two young women glanced up at me, and became happily excited, pointing at the lights.  We waved at each other, and then one took a picture, and I realized that they were tourists.  I realized that I had allowed them to participate in my experience, enriching all of us, because I chose to be part of this capital-T Tradition.  Because of me, it endures for a little longer.

B”H, and Hag sameach.

yhc

Does atheism make you mean?
by Paul Bloom
Posted Friday, Nov. 7, 2008, at 7:05 AM ET

Many Americans doubt the morality of atheists. According to a 2007 Gallup poll, a majority of Americans say that they would not vote for an otherwise qualified atheist as president, meaning a nonbeliever would have a harder time getting elected than a Muslim, a homosexual, or a Jew. Many would go further and agree with conservative commentator Laura Schlessinger that morality requires a belief in God—otherwise, all we have is our selfish desires. In The Ten Commandments, she approvingly quotes Dostoyevsky: “Where there is no God, all is permitted.” The opposing view, held by a small minority of secularists, such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, is that belief in God makes us worse. As Hitchens puts it, “Religion poisons everything.”

Arguments about the merits of religions are often battled out with reference to history, by comparing the sins of theists and atheists. (I see your Crusades and raise you Stalin!) But a more promising approach is to look at empirical research that directly addresses the effects of religion on how people behave.

In a review published in Science last month, psychologists Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff discuss several experiments that lean pro-Schlessinger. In one of their own studies, they primed half the participants with a spirituality-themed word jumble (including the words divine and God) and gave the other half the same task with nonspiritual words. Then, they gave all the participants $10 each and told them that they could either keep it or share their cash reward with another (anonymous) subject. Ultimately, the spiritual-jumble group parted with more than twice as much money as the control. Norenzayan and Shariff suggest that this lopsided outcome is the result of an evolutionary imperative to care about one’s reputation. If you think about God, you believe someone is watching. This argument is bolstered by other research that they review showing that people are more generous and less likely to cheat when others are around. More surprisingly, people also behave better when exposed to posters with eyes on them. Read the rest of this entry »