Bircas hachamah is a Jewish prayer which comes around once every 28 years. If you’re like me, you probably don’t remember the last time it happened. So I started doing some research. If anyone else wants, here’s some good background information, the wikipedia page, and a good article about whether we really do it on the right day. (Summary: we don’t, but it’s tradition). My appetite whetted, I ordered Rabbi Bleich’s book, Bircas Hachammah, published by some small Jewish publishing house. The first 133 pages of the book are exclusively in English, with English footnotes. The next 60 pageshave the actual service in Hebrew with its English transation, and about half the page covered with English footnotes. There are then another 50 pages of notes, charts, and other eppendices, almost all in English. For some reason, the book opens the Hebrew direction. Guh?!

This attitude nicely expresses everything that is wrong with how content producers view new technology:

But people who want to keep on doing creative things for a living must be duly vigilant about any new means of transmitting their work.

Being “duly vigilant” is the same attitude that led to Sony trying to block the VCR, that led the RIAA to try and stop the MP3 player, (and even, once, the MP3 format itself). It’s the same resistance to change that has always seemed so good in the short run, and failed so miserably in the long run.The script is always the same – groups like the Author’s guild, the RIAA, and the MPAA always fight tooth and nail against any new technology that could change the status quo. However standing in the way of progress only works for so long – they eventually lose. Once the courts finally tell them to accept the new reality, they embrace the new technology, only to discover that by working with it and using it they can gain more reward than they could have without it. (Think how much money the film industry has made over the years from the sales of VHS tapes and DVDs). It would be nice if just once someone would skip the initial step and go straight to the end-game.

I just started reading Freakonomics this week. Although almost all of it could reasonably be defined as “cool enough to be blog-worthy”, one thing stands out. After WWII, reporter and activist Stetson Kennedy infiltrated the KKK with the intention of ultimately doing them some harm. (And perhaps getting a book deal). He managed to join the klan and learn their secrets. He wanted to find some way to use that information against them that would do more than a little harm. He ultimately contacted the people who made the then popular superman radio program and leaked all the KKK’s secrets to them. They had a multi part series where Superman fought the KKK, using real KKK political structures, secrets, code names, hierarchies, etc. – right down to the secret klan handshake. The klansmen felt humiliated. When the klan tried to change their secret passwords, Stetson just leaked the new information. Ultimately, as described by Kennedy, attendance at meetings dropped precipitously, and the klan began to crumble. I guess it’s hard to be badass when 10 year olds are acting out your secret activities in playgrounds all across the country wearing their mothers pillowcases as klan robes.

The moral of the story? Superman always wins in the end.

Riffi (my little brother) got married yesterday. All the usual jokes and stereotypes aside, there’s something about watching your little brother – your only brother – get married, which I can’t really put into words. Watching Rav. Aharon Feldman (Rosh Yeshiva, Ner Yisroel), put ashes on his forehead before the chupah aged him about 5 years in my eyes in about 5 seconds. I guess that’s what makes younger sibling life events such a shock – you’re forced to update your mental image of them in a very short period of time.

Pretty much the entire upper echelon of the Baltimore rabbinic scene was there, which is a polite way of pointing out that me and my kippah sruga were in a severe minority. A couple of random things:

• An outdoor chupah in Baltimore in February – what could go wrong? The weather warmed up to a balmy 35 degrees by chupah time. They managed to have the seating done inside, with the chupah outside, and the guests watched through the glass wall. They also propped open a door so they could hear. It actually wasn’t bad. I decided I wasn’t going to watch my own brother’s wedding through glass though, so I stood outside with a bunch of his friends who had the same feeling. The cold wasn’t so bad, but the wind was. Right around then I really wished I was wearing a hat. All the other people outside had these very stylish fedoras – if only I had thought to get one too.
• I was more impressed with this wedding photographer than any other wedding photographer ever. He was polite, he didn’t bark at people, and he managed to get good photographs of the dancing without getting in the way of the guests. He had ladders, but they were all placed far enough away from the dancing so as to be completely unobtrusive. (Also, he placed them near walls – smart move). For formal photographs he gave good instructions, stayed on focus, and didn’t get angry when the subjects (meaning the bride, groom, and their families) wanted to do things like talk to each other. His assistant got little children to smile at him, and rather than yelling out nameless orders (“uncle, uncle, turn outward! No! other way!”), he learned people’s names, and used them to talk politely and instruct effectively. He also left enough time to get all the photos in so we weren’t scrambling at the end or starting the wedding late for him. In other words – he acted like a decent human being. How sad that this is cause for notice in his profession.
• No matter how hard I try, there is no way still photography can capture the frenetic energy, the simultaneous chaos and order, that is Jewish simcha dancing at a frum wedding. I’ve tried many many times, and failed an equal number of times. That’s why I brought my camcorder this time.
• Camcorders, unlike still cameras, are too small to tuck into your pocket while dancing or dong something else.



• My cousin has a child one month older than Aliza. Last Thanksgiving we tried to get a picture of the two of them, but Logan (her son) cried through the whole thing. We tried again after the wedding. I put Aliza down on the floor and smiled at her. Joey put Logan down and he promptly burst into tears.
• We had the photographer take one big giant family picture with all of us. I had a friend video tape the process of all of us getting into position for the photo. The first picture is finally taken at 4:15 into the clip. We are not a fast group. (My aunt once said that getting the Elias clan anywhere is like herding cats with ADD. Add in the Bachrachs and it’s even worse).

Pearls before swine has revealed to the rest of the world what Yiddish speakers and Jews have known all along, but never really wanted to admit.

Yeah, I pretty much knew this already. (Fall housing prices! fall already!)

Seen on ESPN – who is that man and what is he doing with my head on his body? Seriously – this is just creepy. Those of you using RSS readers should visit the site and click the image for the full pic.

Update: It looks like it’s Ron Hextall. I can neither confirm nor deny that I look like Hextall, because I don’t think anyone has ever photographed him before without his trademark 70’s porn mustache.

Below is a list of every MLB MVP award winner for the past 20 years. The ones in red and bold are the ones we know were using some sort of performance enhancing drugs, usually from their own admission. The ones in bold text are the ones where there is reasonable suspicion of PEDs (for example, Juan Gonzalex was accused by Canseco, but Canseco lies so much he should be in politics, or Sammy Sosa, who suddenly went from a skinny guy to a 250lb monster in an awful hurry, and then lost his power when MLB instituted a drug testing program. Hmmmm….). It is, overall, a very sad list.

Nerds will once again save the planet. (When they’re done though, some b-schooler will make all the money off of it and take all the credit).

Paul Wilmott has a little though experiment in the NY Times that shows why there is so little diversification on wall street. Essentially the problem is this – if everyone in your company is making the same decisions, it is in your best interest to do the same. If those decisions pay off, you all win. If they don’t, you all fail. However if you try to blaze your own trail, then it won’t matter if your decisions are better – if everyone else fails then your company goes down and it doesn’t matter if you were the one trader on your floor that came out ahead this year. (I’m sure there are some Lehman traders somewhere who made money this past year still cursing out their bad luck). If everyone does well, you’ve gained nothing, and if everyone else does well but you do poorly, you probably lose your job. In other words – being a renegade will never work to your benefit, so follow the rest of the herd and buy some more CDOs.

If anyone who lives near me is going to be in New York during the month of February, and is stopping by the YU book sale, and doesn’t mind picking up one (really, just one) book for me, please let me know.

On Monday we found ourselves driving home to DC from NY. It’s about a 5 hour trip, and by the time we got close to Baltimore we were hungry and Aliza has complaining about having spent several hours cramped in her car seat. Since it was also the start of rush hour, we decided to stop in Baltimore for dinner before continuing home. A quick search of google maps later and we decided on Kosher-Bite. They claimed to be family friendly, had a wide variety of food, and having eaten pizza for 2 of the last 3 meals, we were in the mood for something different.

When a restaurant claims to offer four different cuisines, you don’t expect them to do most of them well, but you at least expect them to be honest about it. When we got inside we discovered that half the things on the website (including the Chinese and Russian food) were simply not there. All they had was fast food, deli, some Israeli food, and sushi that looked like it had been sitting there for far too long. Well no matter, we really weren’t in the mood to be picky, we we ordered a shwarma in a lafa for me, and a felafel platter for Rebecca. The way it works is you place your order and pay, and then someone who barely speaks English comes to actually assemble your food for you. He pulled out a plate and said “what do you want”. (Meaning which salads). I told him I wanted to start with the shwarma (because I didn’t want to order for Rebecca). He said okay. I explained that the shwarma was supposed to be in the lafa, not the platter. He said okay. I clarified again that this was not a platter (he was still holding the plate). He acknowledged me. I eventually guessed that he was just putting the foods on the plate first, before transferring them to the lafa. I ordered what I wanted. When he was done, he added felafel balls to the plate, put it on a tray, picked up a lafa, and said “now, what do you want on the shwarma?” I could have strangled him. I ordered the same things again, he put them in the lafa. When it came time to add the meat, I noticed he didn’t cut the meat off the spit (as is normal), but had the meat in a container on the side. I assumed he had simply cut off the meat while I hadn’t been looking and promptly forgot about it.

Until Tuesday that is. I don’t want to go into graphic details, but let’s just say I spent a lot of time praying to the porcelain goddess.

On the plus side, we were looking for a restaurant which wouldn’t mind if we had a 1 year old who occasionally dropped food on the floor. I can assure you that they didn’t mind, notice, or care about the cleanliness of their floors, so I guess that’s a good thing.

Anyway, that’s my story about how kosher-bite gave me food poisoning. This is ironic because it’s apparently tradition for someone to get food poisoning on super bowl weekend, so having missed it last year, I guess it was my turn this year.

Update: It turns out that others agree that Kosher bite gives you food poisoning.