![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Odds and Ends
Aug. 6th, 2003 11:24 am- Tomorrow is Tisha B'Av, the most solemn day on the Jewish calendar, which is a fast marking the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem, and to some degree also marking all other tragic events in Jewish history. I have always approached this day with a degree of ambivalence, as it is difficult to mourn specifically for something which was lost 2,000 years and which was the center of a sacrficial mode of service I cannot say I wish to see reinstituted the way it was. In addition, is it a day we mourn our lost nationhood, and I do wonder sometimes how we can continue to mourn in the same way we did before 1948 or 1967. (Not that we shouldn't mourn great loss, but things have changed.)
I observe Tisha B'Av in my own way, focusing on two things. First, I accept it and not the "official" Yom HaShoah as the day we mourn the Holocaust and all other tragedies. If nothing else, this gives it more meaning. To do this, I always read a book on the topic during this time. This year, I am reading about the special death squads trained to only to kill Jews. Harsh, painful stuff, but necessary reading to understand what happened.
Second, I recall the reason for the destruction of the second Temple as fiven in the Talmud, baseless hatred between Jews. Alas. this is something I can understand too easily. So I think about how to rectify this. It is not enough to mourn. We do not mourn now just to remember, but to learn from the past and fix what went wrong. Sadly, we've been trying for 2,000 years to fix it, with little luck. But we must try.
- Let's shift to something slightly less depressing. I get vulgar spam at work. Usually, I just delete it. But today's spam was for a kiddie site. Never got a spam for something so blatant and so illegal before. So I took action as best as possible. I did a Googlesearch and was guided to www.missingkids.org, the Web site of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. They have a place were you can notify them about such spam (as well as anything else that sexually exploits children). I don't know if there is much they can do with the info I passed on to them, but I could not ignore something like this.
- Typo of the month: We get a magazine at work called In New York. It's a publication for upscale tourists, and it lists things going on in New York. Their calendar for August and September offers something I think will come as a surprise to New York, and also the Republican Party. For it lists the Republican convention as taking place THIS month in New York. I know that the GOP nominee is already set, but this seems a bit hasty. :)
It's a little hard to take a magazine seriously if it can make such a silly blunder. A sign not only of bad proofreading but of not paying attention in general. I used to hate getting phone calls from proofreaders, who would take 10 minutes going over every detail. Now I appreciate it when a proofreader calls, as I have seen far too many dumb mistakes.
- Movie of the week: Oh Brother Where Art Thou. Not the best Coen Brothers film - to me, that's Barton Fink - but a very entertaining, very well-made comedy with a fine cast. Obstensibly inspired by Homer's Odyssey, the film reminds me of the adventures of Homer Simpson as well, being more a series of loosely connected but funny scenes punctuated by oddball characters and musical interludes. The cast includes George Clooney, showing a gift for screwball comedy; and Coen veterans John Goodman, John Tuturro, Holly Hunter and Charles Durning (playing a character reminsicent of the villain he played in The Muppet Movie). The music, much which didn't impress me as a CD, works much better in the context of the film. If you are fan of the Coen Brothers' surreal worldview, you will most likely enjoy this, though I think that they can be hit and miss. (I never cared for Fargo; and the only good thing about Miller's Crossing is the bit part Batya's grandfather plays as a rabbi late in the film.)
I observe Tisha B'Av in my own way, focusing on two things. First, I accept it and not the "official" Yom HaShoah as the day we mourn the Holocaust and all other tragedies. If nothing else, this gives it more meaning. To do this, I always read a book on the topic during this time. This year, I am reading about the special death squads trained to only to kill Jews. Harsh, painful stuff, but necessary reading to understand what happened.
Second, I recall the reason for the destruction of the second Temple as fiven in the Talmud, baseless hatred between Jews. Alas. this is something I can understand too easily. So I think about how to rectify this. It is not enough to mourn. We do not mourn now just to remember, but to learn from the past and fix what went wrong. Sadly, we've been trying for 2,000 years to fix it, with little luck. But we must try.
- Let's shift to something slightly less depressing. I get vulgar spam at work. Usually, I just delete it. But today's spam was for a kiddie site. Never got a spam for something so blatant and so illegal before. So I took action as best as possible. I did a Googlesearch and was guided to www.missingkids.org, the Web site of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. They have a place were you can notify them about such spam (as well as anything else that sexually exploits children). I don't know if there is much they can do with the info I passed on to them, but I could not ignore something like this.
- Typo of the month: We get a magazine at work called In New York. It's a publication for upscale tourists, and it lists things going on in New York. Their calendar for August and September offers something I think will come as a surprise to New York, and also the Republican Party. For it lists the Republican convention as taking place THIS month in New York. I know that the GOP nominee is already set, but this seems a bit hasty. :)
It's a little hard to take a magazine seriously if it can make such a silly blunder. A sign not only of bad proofreading but of not paying attention in general. I used to hate getting phone calls from proofreaders, who would take 10 minutes going over every detail. Now I appreciate it when a proofreader calls, as I have seen far too many dumb mistakes.
- Movie of the week: Oh Brother Where Art Thou. Not the best Coen Brothers film - to me, that's Barton Fink - but a very entertaining, very well-made comedy with a fine cast. Obstensibly inspired by Homer's Odyssey, the film reminds me of the adventures of Homer Simpson as well, being more a series of loosely connected but funny scenes punctuated by oddball characters and musical interludes. The cast includes George Clooney, showing a gift for screwball comedy; and Coen veterans John Goodman, John Tuturro, Holly Hunter and Charles Durning (playing a character reminsicent of the villain he played in The Muppet Movie). The music, much which didn't impress me as a CD, works much better in the context of the film. If you are fan of the Coen Brothers' surreal worldview, you will most likely enjoy this, though I think that they can be hit and miss. (I never cared for Fargo; and the only good thing about Miller's Crossing is the bit part Batya's grandfather plays as a rabbi late in the film.)
