Interesting Posts and Articles #76

1. At Nanach.net, American NaNach says we should not argue whether it is better to stay in Yerushalayim or go to Uman for Rosh HaShanah. Bolding my own:
   

   Let's try working hard on loving and understanding each other for our decisions of going to UMAN or staying in YERUSHALAYIM. I am confident that we are all just trying to do the will of the Tzadik because we want the complete TIKUN so we can speed the GEULAH, and if by trying to do so we like some of us accuse the others hold back the GEULAH with our mistaken actions, fighting about it will definitely not fix the problem. To all I wish A KESIVA VACHASIMA TOVA.
   NA NACH NACHMA NACHMAN MEUMAN

2. A new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy book, although Douglas Adams is deceased. From the author of the Artemis Fowl series.
   
   
3. Avakesh reposts kapparot guidelines from the Kashrus Information Center.
   
   Generally good suggestions. Kudos to Rabbi Weiner. One other suggestion would be to use money instead, or to avoid the problematic ritual altogether. But assuming people are going to do this, good suggestions. I just wonder, are the tznius concerns really that serious?
   
   "Yes, I met Chanie while doing kapparot, so naturally, we had a 'fling'."
   "Wow, that chick is hot!"
   "Check out Shprintza! Just like Sarah Imeinu, she not only is as pretty as a 20 year-old (corrected girsa), but she is free of sin!"
   
   Add your suggestions in the comment section, if you want. Maybe I'll post the winner in a subsequent post.
   
   
4. A Metro State English professor assigns an essay to contradict what he called "the fairy tale image of Palin." And he also cusses out Republican students. In terms of the former without the latter, I can actually see the value in that -- the ability to come up with a structured argument for a position you do not believe in, as an exercise in critical thinking. If so, though, the Democrats in the class should have written a similar article about Obama.
   
   
5. Life In Israel has Rav Chaim Soleveitchik on local sexual molestation/abuse against children.
   
   
6. At Emes veEmunah, a post, and comment section, about certain Jewish newspapers not printing pictures of women. Hamodiah is refusing to even write her first name, Tzipi, since it is too familiar.
   
   
7. Gilui notes that the source which stands behind some of the recent predictions that Bush will visit Jerusalem three times, and between the second and third times, is not the Zohar, but rather Ramchal's Tikkunim Chadashim. He has a post translating it here, and does not believe that this reading is truly readable into the text. Rather, as he develops in his series on the subject of Gog and Magog, Ramchal is expanding on, and "giving detail to, the mesorah that Gog uMagog is a 3-part war."
   
   
8. Two recent posts of mine are attracting some attention: Are there credible news reports that Bush will cancel US elections because of the economy, and Is bowing to the Rebbe OK because Jews at large say Barchuni Leshalom?