Worst week of the year

Just because you're reading this doesn't mean you use the Hebrew calendar. (In fact, I can't assume anything of the reader, can I?)

But those of us who do use it, believe that the calendar isn't just a habit of cavemen become literate, an observed pattern of stars migrating across the sky every year, with historical and mythological events tacked on to certain dates. That would be the American calendar. I grew up in a world that felt especially lovey-dovey around mid-February, grateful for nationalistic war achievements in the early summer, contemplative and gift-giving during the dark days at the end of the calendar year, and all white and springy and new-birthy around March or April. But those are all pretty arbitrarily chosen times, aren't they?

The Judaic view is that the calendar can truly indicate some real-life patterns in human existence that happen every year. And we believe that the lunar-solar calendar, with its self-correcting mechanisms, is the most accurate way to pinpoint these times, since the calendars solely based on the solar cycle or the lunar cycle are constantly getting off track. On the night of the full moon in the month of Nissan, for example, we don't just reenact, but actually experience freedom from slavery. And at the beginning of Tishri, the details of the year to come are planned out.

Well, according to this calendar, this is the worst week in the year. The culminating day for outstanding rottenness is tomorrow; and the three weeks leading up to it have been increasingly harsh.

I won't go into the details here (those articles say it better than I can), just emphasise the point that I'm not talking about "commemoration" or "observance" of a historical event, but a concentrated period of what would be called on the street bad luck. A cursory glance at the past month's news should demonstrate this. I personally am sure that I am experiencing a lot of negativity. And I've learned that in most cases, if you don't have something good to say, don't say anything. So I hope that my lack of postings this week can be excused. I just can't wait until this is over.

NPR announces a new web[space]site

Call me sentimental (et l'on m'appelle l'oriental...), but I just get weepy-eyed with nostalgia and giddiness when I get an announcement like this.

The last time it happened was on 27 May, when NPR rocked my proverbial world with this announcement:

Download Your Favorite NPR Stories

Today we added a new feature to npr.org that has been at the top of the request list for many of you -- the ability to download audio for individual stories right from the story page.

If you only knew how much that changed for me — or would have, if I had still been producing transcripts for them, as I did until March.

As anyone who may have worked with me on Project NPR (first at IDT Global, then at Azpiko, Ltd., both in Jerusalem) knows well, recording their broadcast streams live were the backbone of our operation. Obtaining mp3 files of their news segments, as a backup, was often a time-consuming and labour-intensive project. This would happen whenever something went wrong with the live audio.

But personally, even after the project was over, I would use the same equipment to record programs from the NPR media player, just for pleasure listening later on. The mp3 download feature saves me potentially hours of re-recording.

NPR and I have had a long and rocky relationship. I learned everything I knew about classical music and radio professionalism by listening to NPR member stations from my mid teens. In my earliest web page, circa 1996, I linked to their site, for some reason (take a tour here, although I remember it being earlier than the first date listed, and in a retina-burning red or orange background — anyone know what I'm talking about?).

Today, this is what they announced:

NEW!
The New NPR.org
A new NPR.org is coming on July 27th. The new site will be brighter, lighter, faster, easier to use, easier to search and more fun to surf. Our editors promise!

Please join Scott Simon for a brief tour of the new site. And when the new NPR.org is up and running we'll be sure to let you know.
Video Tour »

Scott Simon and an unidentified staffer narrates this tour of the new website (that's "web site" according to the AP style guide, which is de rigueur in transcripts, as is "email" without a hyphen). One detail that caught my attention: many transcripts will be available for free.

As of now, all transcripts about news in the Middle East are free, as well as the on-air stories that reporters have written up as print articles (not exactly transcripts, but from the source nonetheless).

NPR believes in the same principles of generosity and idealism that I detailed in this article, on my other blog. If you are producing content of some sort that can be reproduced digitally, and if you care enough about that you want the world to know about it, you should give it away for free. I no longer have the privilege of working with them, but my heart is still with them, and I salute them for that policy.

Scenes from the corner of Ben Yehudah & Ben Hillel, downtown Jerusalem

I can personally vouch for at least four years that this "prophet" has been in the Midreḥov (Ben Yehudah) because I used to watch him when I worked in a jewelry and judaica store there in 2005.

He has a sermon, as does any ordinary preacher. He preaches Jesus, as do thousands of street-corner and public-square preachers from the Bible belt. He wears some kind of tunic, which is a bit stranger ― but hey, he's sporting a backpack and trousers, which brings him back to this century. THE DIFFERENCE IS THAT HE SPEAKS FOR GOD IN THE FIRST PERSON, e.g. "I will send you a sign..." and "I sent my son Jesus, but you rejected him..."

I do not believe I have witnessed anyone else being the personal mouthpiece of the Almighty, to that degree. I saw a guy take him on verbally once, and he came back with "You WILL be destroyed!", repeated several times for rhetorical effect.

Other than that, the white eyebrows just make his presentation.

I've seen him in the company of others, having a non-prophetic conversation over a burger or whatever, and he seems to be sane. This is not Jerusalem syndrome.

Oh, and he prophecies in U.S. English. You won't find a precedent for that in the Old Testament.

(If anyone knows any more about this dude, please let me know. I'm morbidly curious as to how he makes a living, what he does in his off time, etc.)



Same location, but this girl is in a different universe, genre-wise.

I've seen her act (from my job) three times, and still don't completely understand it. But she's basically a mime accompanied by music from the 30s, her sole prop being a coat rack that holds a coat and top hat. Every few moments she changes poses. And what her story is just eludes me, but she sure draws a crowd.



Opposite corner, same location.

I'm just picturing this dog asking people as they enter the Bank HaMizraḥi, "Yesh nesekh?" [Are you carrying a firearm?]

Bonus points for you if you've ever envisioned "Eshet Ḥayil" as a woman on the flying trapeze. (You have to click on the photo to see that part.)

The Day Job I'm Not Quitting

Today I'm working in a factory. I'm making insulated water bottle carriers and backpacks. I get the canvas shell, already sewn together by someone else, inside-out. I pull the outside out, making sure the corners are in good shape, place the foam padding inside, thread the straps, and in the case of the backpacks crush them neatly to be stacked.

I wasn't hired to make backpacks, but I'm doing it, and you know what? I'm enjoying it.

Another part of my job: working in a store on Ben Hillel / Ben Yehuda (a.k.a. the Midereḥov), selling backpacks and other gear to shoppers of the pedestrian mall. That's not the job I applied for. In fact, it's not the job that was advertised.

Originally, I applied for a job in management in this company, coming right off of another management job that was outsourced to the Philippines. I also explained at length to the company owner that I could help him in some other ways, using some other skills and ideas I'd picked up in the previous months.

It turned out that I was not right for the management position he was trying to fill, but he liked my other ideas. And he need someone to work in the store, starting immediately. Could we make a synergy? Yes, we could. We did. And now I'm working, enjoying it, learning new skills, and pursuing the project that I recommended to him in the first place.

I also have more freedom than in my previous job to pursue some side projects that I've dearly been wanting to do ― the kind of projects for which you are advised, "Don't quit your day job".

The moral of this story is something like this. There is a tough job market right now, perhaps especially for Anglo Israelis with limited Hebrew. I'm guessing that it is always tough for ’olim who come with some professional training or experience in a field that may have been viable in the old country, but which is little more than useless here (let's just use “professor of French” as a random example). That can be pretty discouraging. I've spent too much time since my aliyah being unemployed, faced with the perplexing problem of job listings not lining up with my chosen career.

Thanks to a little bit more open mind, I've been a sous-chef for a gourmet kosher caterer, ridden around North New Zealand with milk tank truck drivers, and helped build a store on Ben Yehudah street, working side-by-side with Arabic-speaking construction workers. I'm not saying I'd want to carry on with these jobs in the long term, but I'm glad I did them. I don't care anymore when people ask me, "Is that why you spent six years in grad school?" Each one gave me some experiential knowledge that I carried into the next job.

What I'm experiencing right now is a providential kick in the pants. It's the opposite of the mentality (such as mine was) that says: "What did I major in? What experience do I have? Okay, now let's see what job listings correspond to that."


I began writing this posting during lunch, and went back to work after a couple of paragraphs. While finishing backpacks I started chatting with the foreman of the operation, who was using a jigsaw to cut bolts of canvas in order to make new backpacks. Mahmoud has 30 years of experience, 14 years in this company, and has the disposition of a artist in his workshop. Sensing an interest, he asked me if this was a skill I'd like to learn. "And then you can work here, and I can go off to the beach?"

Sure, he was joking, but as we kept chatting for the rest of the afternoon, I could see this wasn't a 100% pointless conversation. It could turn into something bigger. Or not. The important point for me was that this was not a job that was listed, and even if it were, I would have never have given it a second's thought. But I'm working.

bizarro playground

On a normal weekday afternoon, some "city workers" are driving heavy machinery around in a neighbourhood playground where children are playing.

My first reaction was, "This would seem perfectly normal, if there were not already two terror attacks in the past year and a half involving 'city workers' going postal while driving heavy machinery in public places."

I mean, they plowed into buses, flipped cars over, etc. These were called terrorist attacks.

On the other hand, if we most accept our fellow human beings as being basically decent folk, maybe the normal thing to do is to let our children play in the same place that bulldozers are zipping around.

But then, the litigious American side of me shrieked, no way! This is crazy!

I could be wrong. What do you think?

We left right after I snapped a couple of pictures.


This sign says that if you see someone cloaked in a black fedora and trenchcoat, he's a spy, and is not allowed in the playground. Alternatively, he's a cast member of of the "Drama in the Park" summer series.

Under that: if you bring your gigantic dog into the park and he jumps on children as they shriek in horror, and you insult them by shouting, "Why are you afraid? Poopie can't possibly hurt anyone", residents have the right to make Poopie ownerless.

Take a look at this URL. (A website for a playground: isn't that cool? We're one step closer to getting everything interconnected! Before you know it, your children will have a chip in their head, and you can just watch them play on Google Earth 4D.)



Now compare it with this alternative URL.



Which is apparently for the version of the site run by Al-Aqsa.

the iron self-discipline of a monk

Now, I love Cory Doctorow as much as ― no, more than ― the next guy. Don't get me started, lest I count the ways. The guy is just producing bushels of awesomesauce on a daily basis, and if he sold it on the street he could have a corner market. But guess what: he gives it away for free, which means even over here in the Second World, I can partake of the same quotidian helps of genius that everyone else gets.

But he's (probably) not 100% right about everything. I don't quite base my life on all his teachings, as Bart Simpson famously once said about Krusty. About copyright law, technology, the future, art, etc.: yep, I'm his evangelist. But there are some vibes concerning religion and philosophy that I've picked up on that I'm not entirely comfortable with. (Don't know if he's Jewish. This would seem to indicate that he is. Or not. To confuse matters, he had the poem "Jabberwocky" read at his wedding.)


Anyway, last weekend he dropped a five-part ResonanceFM interview into his podcast feed. Great stuff overall, but when asked about the future of ebook reading devices and when something like the Kindle will become more popular outside the publishing industry, Cory said something that I'm having a hard time believing he actually meant.

...For one thing it's going to have to be a lot cheaper. And I don't think it's going to get cheaper because of fundamental reductions in the cost of the materials. I think it'll get cheaper only in scale. And reading isn't widespread enough to reach that scale. And so what you'd have to do to bring that scale up, I think, would be to introduce other features, right? Like a Kindle that could also be a great iPod and a great Nintendo DS and a great phone, at that price point, would make a lot more sense.

As soon as it does all that stuff, I don't think that it'll be very good for reading because you think about ― every time you hit a paragraph that your eyes slightly glaze over on, it'll be, ‘I wonder if there's anything in my e-mail...’. Which is why no one reads books off-screen. You need the iron self-discipline of a monk to accomplish it.

Does he mean that nobody reads books on paper? That would hardly make sense, but it would seem to be the meaning of the word 'off-screen'.

It seems a bit more probable that he meant 'off the screen', i.e. while sitting at a computer, paging through a PDF, for example. But still: really? Even with all the distractions, no one can get through a book this way?

Personally, I believe ebooks are our biggest hope for the future availability of non-Hebrew literature here in Israel. The market just doesn't support Barnes & Nobles or Borders and the likes, to my great dismay. We can order from abroad (England seems to be a popular choice) or try our luck at many second-hand shops such as these. While they may have a big selection, they are not suited for the ongoing production of all books. And we deserve no less than that. Getting there is going to require a mentality of abundance, which you should read about in this article by Chris Anderson.

...Plus the capability, not to mention the iron self-discipline, to read books off of a screen.

[Update: the Jewish question is answered, for the record.]

How To Win Friends and Influence People

Whoever posted this sign is a marketing genius.


"Internet causes cancer," it says. If you count the numerical value of the letters of the word "internet" and the numerical value of the letters of the word "cancer", in Hebrew, you get the same number.

"It's not a coincidence, it's just from God." (The words "coincidence" and "just from God" are a play on words in Hebrew, since one is scrambled letters of the other.) "160,000 persons are sick with cancer in Israel. How are you not afraid?"

That has got to be the cleverist campaign slogan I've ever read.

Of course, I don't have to tell you that everyone who died of cancer before 1988, such as my grandfather, did so without the benefit of the internet. That little fact isn't mentioned in this sign, but since space was limited, we can draw our own conclusions.



We know it's true because the signs are many.

Needing more information on this "movement", I looked for their website, or at least their contact e-mail or Facebook fan page, but couldn't find them. Hurmm.

My guess is that last year's mobile phone that can send and receive SMSs is this year's internet. Well, good luck to them, and may they be always afraid.

When not to give tsedakah

Gil Student on Hirhurim recently had this post about giving tsedakah (~charity) to somebody who could otherwise be working.

I'm proud, first of all, to be part of a religion that doesn't just yell, "Get a job!" but first asks a question and examines the subject.

It reminds me of an ongoing problem I have determining which street beggars to give money to.

My understanding of the subject, dating back to 10 years or more, is that on Purim we are required to give to anyone who puts out their hand (or alternatively, we fulfill our responsibility to give charity on that day by giving to the first one who asks for it, and by giving them at least enough to get a meal), without checking out whether they are a worthy recipient. From here we see that during the rest of the year, not on Purim, we are required to check out whether the person is a worthy recipient.

I could be wrong, and welcome correction if I am.

Since coming to Israel I've had to make thousands of judgment calls about collectors ranging from street beggars to synagogue visitors to proven legit organisations such as Yad l'Aḥim. While working on my own personal trait of generosity vs. selfishness, I've tended to give more to the latter than to the former.

There may be something to the basic gut belief that a miserable creature on the street deserves some change, by virtue of the fact that they are spending their day on the street begging. May be. I have become familiar with a good dozen or so of them here in the city, and I'm not saying their daily life is enjoyable.

But one must admit that, in Jerusalem especially, street tsedakah can be lucrative business. I've heard enough trustworthy accounts of collectors driving luxury cars and living in swank apartments with large-screen home theatres. And I've been in non-charity business long enough to know that human nature will find a way to channel a proven cash flow, no matter how "noble" or "charitable" the religious act of giving tsedakah may seem to be from the outside.

For example, let's say bar minan that a guy can't afford to pay the medical bills for his child's surgery, so he takes to the street. Let's give the story a happy outcome and say that he collects the needed amount. The child heals, and grows up to be stronger and healthier than ever. Meantime, the father has discovered that he makes 5 times as much by collecting tsedakah than he'd made in any job before. He's pulling in more daily than a Persian shop owner in Geulah makes in profit weekly. And he's gotten past the initial feelings of shame and self-pity that may have plagued him at the beginning of his begging.

You tell me: why would he ever quit?

Give to whomever you want; I'm not telling anyone to do anything. But six years of street experience in the capital of Israel has led me to formulate the following informal list, for what it's worth.

I will not give tsedakah to:

• Anyone collecting on Ben Yehuda or adjoining streets (i.e. the Midereḥov) or on the steps leading to the Kotel


• Anyone offering a red thread


• Anyone who bullies me (blocks my path, yells at me threateningly, etc.)


• Anyone who appears to be under 40 and in great health, with no further explanation


• Anyone who is chain smoking


• Attractive young women wearing peot (i.e. sheitels), jean skirts, and Gucci bags (even knock-off Gucci bags) (Okay, I may be exaggerating about this profile, since I've only seen it once, and it fits in the third criterion above.)


• Anyone dressed as a ḥaredi whom I've observed "off the job" and found to be a fake.

Finally, if you do decide to give tsedakah to the first person who appears worthy, make sure he's actually collecting tsedakah. I know a woman who travelled from B'nei Beraq to the Kotel plaza with the intention of giving tsedakah to the first person whom she saw begging. Spotting an old man sitting on a bench with his cup extended, she dropped her money in. Only then did she discover that she had just ruined his cup of coffee.

For the record, I highly recommend Yad l'Aḥim: here in English and here in Hebrew.

An Open Letter to the Google Development Team

Dear Google:

Here is my brain stem. I believe you will find I have kept it in good order.

Please plug me in. I am convinced this arrangement will be mutually beneficial.

Love eternally,
Michael

Turkish coffee = more oils = better taste?

Lifehacker offered a few days ago 10 Tips and Tricks for Better Coffee. They recommended using a French press both for its price and its superior brew. Quoth Lifehacker:

One of the primary benefits of making coffee in a French press over a standard drip pot is that more of the coffee oils end up in your cup instead of in the machine's filter. More oils means better taste!

Following this logic, the Turkish coffee (or "mud", בוץ) that is commonly prepared and consumed here in Israel should be even better. The grounds stay immersed in the coffee at all times, and there's no pesky separation between them, even as you drink it, so theoretically your get all the oils that can possibly be extracted.

As a bonus, you're left with a cold coffee mudpie in the bottom of your cup in which to extinguish a cigarette. If you prepare your Turkish coffee in one or two plastic disposable cups and leave your cigarette inserted in the middle, you're left with the unofficial national symbol of Israel, one embraced by both Jews and Muslims.

Well, I don't buy it. It may be darn convenient, but it isn't delicious. I think there is something intrinsically correct about using a paper or fine wire mesh filter, whether it's for espresso or drip brew (which, by the way, doesn't have to be weak, counter to the stereotype that American coffee can't be good). Put the other way, I think there is something in those coffee oils — not sure what, but something — that doesn't belong in the cup. If you think otherwise, feel free to debate that.

[NB: I didn't mention the Israeli drink "נס" here, because this is about coffee.]

your name, your brand, your future shame

Wikipedia registration offers this grim warning:

You should strongly consider choosing a username that is not connected to you. All edits to the encyclopedia are permanently recorded and publicly visible in the history of any page that you edit, as well as on discussion pages. If you use your real name or a username that you go by elsewhere, people seeking information about you online may see your username and others' comments on your editing. If your editing happens to cause concern, there may be discussion linked to your username.

Frightened enough? Why stop there? By extension, the whole internet could be viewed as a giant Repository of Potential Future Embarrassment. You don't need to be a resigning state governor or a well-known, yet shunned author to know that a Twitter rampage is not the ephemeral moment of relief that it feels like.

You may not be able to delete those blog comments you left while under the influence, so Google Alerts will always remind you of that special moment. And if you think your "25 Things" note on Facebook is a wee bit embarrassing now, keep in mind that the Wayback Machine will preserve it for all of your future employers, your descendants, and all of their potential spouses and employers, for the rest of the life of the internet. (Actually, I don't know if that's true. At the time of this writing, Facebook still doesn't allow access to most of the content of your account to people outside your friends or your region. But I have heard talk that Facebook will be removing that "walled garden" paradigm someday. And Facebook already has a long memory. Don't expect it to hide the old stuff, just because it was better guarded in the past.)

I've started a few blogs since moving to Israel, but under various noms de plume that allowed me some plausible deniability. As a result, I spent so much time and effort trying to mask my identity and that of everyone I wrote about, the places I had lived, and the careers of my family members, that I abandoned them.

Obviously, that's not going to work here. This is my real (albeit Israelified) name. The name of my other blog is also my Twitter handle, my Google profile, and Facebook URL.

In other words, once I've goofed up, written a passage of substandard prose, it's done. I'm handing a loaded gun to all my future prospective employers, partners, and clients. I haven't even published this post yet, and I can already feel the eyes of my unborn children, mortified with embarrassment.

So, (he said, as if reaching a conclusion) I've decided that the only remedy is to go with it, concentrating on the journey rather than the destination, on the process rather than the product. Maybe the good posts will dilute the stinkers.

What about my personal brand and the shame of my progeny? Not to worry. My Wikipedia editor name will never, ever be associated with all this.

Celebrating 20 years of... something

14 July 1989 was a watershed day in my life.

When I consider trying to describe what it was that had such a huge influence on me on that day, it is hard to see it, in retrospect, as much more than the drama of making and losing new friends, confused teenage emotions, and the desire to reach outside of my small world and be part of something bigger than myself.

I had just finished a week of summer camp as a junior counsellor: not quite a camper, not quite an adult leadership figure. During that week, I had developed a benign crush on another junior counsellor, one that was a little bit outside of my reach. She lived in Paris, France.

I had already gotten the bug to learn a foreign language, and French was my language of choice (for whatever reason a 14-year-old boy in the U.S., completely surrounded by English, might make that choice). I hadn't gotten far in teaching it to myself because the only language offered in school was Spanish, so after a couple of weeks of confusion I had to drop the French and go with the one that was being graded. But I'd learned a little from cassettes.

And now, here was a real-life ambassador of that language, and she was my friend. And she was amazingly cute, besides.

I knew that nothing like a serious relationship would become of it, but I was suddenly in turmoil on the day we had to part ways, with nothing but a snail-mail address to hint at future communication (e-mail was a few years away).

14 July 1989 was the day that happened. Funny coincidence.

I made a couple of big decisions on that day. One was that I was going to learn French for real, beginning as soon as possible.

The other was a stab at dealing with my "problems" that evening, back at home from the exhausting week at camp and emotion overload. I began keeping a hand-written journal. And I've kept that hand-written journal, off an on, to this day.

The journal has been threatened by technology, codependent relationships, attempts at blogging, and more, but I've always picked it back up and continued. Now there are something like 30 volumes (I'll verify that number later), some of them packed in storage in the U.S., and some in my home here in Israel. The most recent one is in the messenger bag I carry with me every day, ready for the next entry.

If you think I'm crazy, see this bit of biographical information on author Herman Wouk.

Why do I say it was a "funny coincidence"? Because for those who don't recognise it yet, that happened to be the French bicentennial: le quatorze juillet, 200th anniversary.

Now I ask you: what is a naïve ("naïf" would be more correct, but...) 17-year-old boy supposed to make of that information? On the day that my world had just gotten bigger, there was this coincidence, somehow reinforcing its importance. And not just in my imagination — I actually pursued my desires on that day, and that pursuit really did change my life.

And today I begin this blog, whose major purpose is to let me write all the content that doesn't neatly fit into my other blog, The Mishnayic Hacker. Not to replace the handwritten journals; I plan to write about their humongous usefulness at some point, but this blog serves another purpose, twenty years to the date.

Almost makes you believe in the Gregorian calendar.