Category: education

  • The One-State (final) Solution

    The One-State (final) Solution

    I wrote the below as a comment on a FB post, which I imagine will only get m more engagement from awful content like it, but I was somehow inspired and I’m pretty satisfied with what came out extemporaneously: ** The fact that this showed up in my Facebook feed is the strongest evidence yet…

  • Israel activity on and off campus

    This is an eventful time in Israel-related activity in San Diego and beyond, and I wanted to get some of my thoughts and resources in one place for my own and others’ edification. In no particular order, most people know that US President Barack Obama visited Israel this past week for the first time since…

  • Forty kilometers (25 miles) from the border

    To make it easier to imagine yourself in southern Israel over the last several days (not to mention the last 10 years or so), as Palestinian terrorists fire dozens of deadly rockets every day on civilian population centers, here’s a handy little map. If Gaza was Tijuana, this is the area of San Diego county…

  • Count your blessings

    Tonight I get to go to sleep in my own bed, next to my wife, my only concern being how soon one of my children will wake up and need some attention (at worst, we’re talking a couple of times overnight, none of which are likely to kill me). Meanwhile, at MD Anderson Cancer Center…

  • Pre-school profundity

    I had a profound, important conversation with my three-and-a-half-year-old daughter Sunday evening. We were visiting the home of a congregant from our synagogue for shiva minyan, the service held in a house of mourning. The friend (T), himself well past middle age, had just lost his mother (she was in her 90s). Since we had…

  • I love it when a plan comes together

    I just successfully upgraded my WordPress installation, which powers this blog, to the latest version (3.0, called Thelonius – see the complete list of major WP releases, all named for jazz musicians). I did this with nary a bump, very few changes in settings, and everything seems to be right. My first activities with the…

  • Shabbat shalom x2

    Starting off the weekend right with a couple of outstanding drashot from two of my favorite rabbis: First, again, is Rabbi David Wolpe from Sinai Temple in LA, whose weekly Off The Pulpit I’ve mentioned before – it’s consistently inspirational and thought-provoking (I’m including the sign-up information at he bottom so you can subscribe too):…

  • The Drop-out agenda

    Having read the text of President Obama’s speech to the nation’s schoolchildren, I am all set to listen to it (streaming live behind me at my desk on a secondary workstation). I am also all set to hear someone – anyone – lay out a rational, reasonable argument for why the POTUS shouldn’t be able…

  • Our civilization is doomed, reason #128,212

    I know I need to fix some stuff with my blog (apparently the comments link is broken, and I need to spiff up my theme and do a bunch of other things, like, you know, post and stuff), but sometimes stories jump out at me so much that I have to post them immediately. Linked…

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