short (and medium) takes

[cellio]

Yesterday I heard two songs (one from a psalm) from a group with the unlikely name "Ooolites" (or perhaps technically "Malcolm Dalglish and the..."). Very skilled singers (no vibrato! do you know how hard that is?!), nice harmonies, pleasant sound. They seem to have two albums. I don't know how representative these two tracks are of the albums, but I think I'm going to have to find out.

From Slashdot by way of siderea: the "why your anti-spam proposal won't work" form letter.

At last night's board meeting I had a wording quibble (a matter of precision and clarity) over a proposed bylaws change. One of the other board members suggested that I was being overly picky because I'm a technical writer. Hello? This is a matter of law. Law should be precise and clear. I happen to be in a profession that emphasizes that; this is an asset. (We have a couple lawyers on the board; I'm surprised one of them didn't speak up.) Sheesh -- amateurs. :-)

Speaking of law, I'm reading from Mishpatim tomorrow morning -- the "eye for eye, tooth for tooth" section. We are used to thinking of this as being harsh (sharia, anyone? no thanks), which is why the rabbis reinterpreted it to monetary damages. But with that interpretation, I wonder if this is actually lenient. Consider civil damages today in the US, where payments sometimes seem to be way out of proportion to actual damage, and are wildly inconsistent. And we distinguish based on who the victim is; the torah does not.

Twice within the past couple weeks I've been approached by people on the streets selling raffle tickets. Both conversations began with "would you like to buy a raffle ticket?" and "what for?"; then they diverged. One said "for Hillel Academy"; the other said "for a $5000 drawing". (The latter was from a veterans' group.) I knew intellectually that Judaism (and hence, Jewish culture) approaches charity differently from the world at large (or at least its US instantiation), but it's been a while since the difference has been that obvious. In the Jewish world (at least the parts I've seen), the cause is the important thing. In fact, the word usually translated as "charity" -- "tzedakah" -- doesn't really mean that; it's closer to "justice". I actually haven't even looked to see what the prize is for the Hillel raffle ticket I bought. In the broader culture, though, you have to sell the prize; it's assumed, I guess, that people won't just buy a ticket to support a good cause and you have to make it worth their while. Which partially explains the deluge of mailing labels, calendars, stuffed animals, umbrellas, and such that appear in my mailbox (and serve as anti-motivators).

I particularly like this take on the rainbow meme, shamelessly stolen from xiphias:

My God says "Justice, justice shall you pursue", wants people to work toward a fair and equitable world, and believes in love, honor, and respect. Sorry about yours.

Comments

Re:

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Well, the McD's thing actually isn't all that one-sided -- when you hear the whole case, it makes a lot more sense.

But the other thing is that the Talmud has a principle, "You shall not favor the poor over the rich in a court of law." It's one of those things that struck me as really weird and kinda unfair as a kid, but I think I sort of get it now.

Re:

[cellio]

"You shall not favor the poor over the rich in a court of law."

That sounds unbalanced taken in isolation, but doesn't the gemara provide the context that of course we shouldn't favor the rich over the poor, so we only need to talk about this case? In other words, wealth is to have no influence.