Interesting Posts and Articles #321

1. At Hebrew Books, Kuntres Techeles veArgaman, by Menachem Adler, 1999. This is presumably against the identification of the murex trunculus as the chilazon.
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2. In the Journal of the AMA, a piece by Harvard researchers suggesting to take overly obese children away from their parents. As a parent of naturally skinny kids, who was exceedingly thin as well in my youth, I can see just where this sort of overreach may end.
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3. At Blog In Dm:
   

   A Personal Plea About the Boro Park Tragedy!

   Please, guys! Can we, just this once, not write a song/capitalize on this? Thank you!
   
   At a blog at the Forward, a claim that chassidic musicians are doing just that. So too at DovBear, regarding this Lipa Schmeltzer video / unfinished song:
   
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   I am not so sure about Lipa, at least. I regard him as a sort of blogger, in that people are looking at him to comment on various events of Jewish interest. Or some sort of pop-Rebbe. Thus, his visit to Aron Rottenberg. And he communicated in song. Still, this is something to watch out about.
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4. So too, DovBear notes, is this initiative by Guard Your Eyes. Besides using it to promote their agenda, they are using it to raise money. So too this. What about Misaskim, with their sefer Torah campaign? I understand that they were involved in the search and kevurah, but still. I see that the parents have established a memorial fund. That is different. 

   The Leiby Kletzky Memorial Fund is the only effort specifically established and authorized by the Kletzky family. It will be administered by the Kletzky family and their rabbi, Rabbi Binyomin Eisenberger.

   Perhaps I am over-reading into this, but maybe they disliked how others were grabbing their child's name and their tragedy to advance various agendas and to collect money.
   
   
5. Another thing which bothered me is that the public does not know where to stop. 'Achdus' is great, and it was certainly in play in the search for Leiby. And the public is certainly sad. But there is an idea of letting a family mourn. Ten thousand attended the funeral. But the family itself did not attend because it was too painful. Perhaps if it had not been made into such a massive (and overwrought) event, they could have managed to attend. And I wonder how many strangers overwhelmed them with visits during shiva, and whether that detracted from being able to be with people that actually know them / are friends of the family.

   Those making shiva calls said the visits are brief, no more than three minutes long. It is all the family can bear. The small apartment can only hold about 15 people at one time.

   Bach, who spent 12 years on the beat in Borough Park, said he is haunted by Leiby’s father’s anguish.

   “You can see the pain on the gentleman’s face. It’s hard to describe,” said Bach. “Only he can feel the pain. You know, it’s tough.”

   Binyomin Ginsberg came all the way from Minneapolis, Minn.

   “Such a tragedy,” said Ginsberg. “How could I not show support?”

   Ginsberg had never met the Kletzkys until now.

   “We’re supposed to comfort the mourners, but in a sense, everybody coming is a mourner,” said Ginsberg. “We’re all mourning this child.”

   A community of mourners, thousands of them, are coming from far and wide because they couldn’t stay away.

   Perhaps the visits could be more than three minutes long if thousands who don't know them at all would not be coming to visit in this intensely personal time. There should have been a way of turning off the spigot.
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6. Others using the tragedy to advance their agendas are the people who exploit autistics. See Wolfish Musings' complaint about this explanation for the tragedy, from 'Moisheleh':
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7. At Life In Israel, yeshivas putting down revolutions.
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8. A blog dedicated to exposing gypsies posing as Jews, in Kew Gardens Hills, in order to collect tzedaka.