Hiphop Holocaust
With the 71st anniversary of Kristallnacht upon us (we have a special commemoration planned for this Friday at Congregation Adas Emuno, for example), the question of how to communicate the Holocaust would be a timely one.  Simply put, the magnitude of the event seems to go beyond our meager abilities to express it, that any attempt to put it into words or any other type of symbol system cannot help but fall short, and thereby trivialize it.  And yet, at the same time, we feel an obligation not to remain silent, and more importantly, an obligation to remember, to keep the memory alive in the hopes that such an event might nev

Television in Time
Here are a couple of videos that friends from the virtual world have brought to my attention.  First is a YouTube remix/mashup video entitled The Golden Age of Video - By Ricardo Autobahn, which is an amazing bit of editing work.  Here it is:The lyrics are listed on the YouTube page, so here they are:1,2,1,2,3,4We accept her, one of us, we accept her, one of us!Gooble gobble gooble gobble!We accept her, we accept her!We accept her, one of us, we accept her, one of us!Gooble gobble gooble gobble!We accept her, we accept her!

Shockingly, The Future Ain't What It Used To Be
The future ain't what it used to be, or so Marshall McLuhan quipped. Traditionally, the future seemed remote, a distant, undiscovered country, be it the afterlife, or a return to Eden, or some utopia or dystopia or time of wonders.Modernity brought the future closer and closer, and we can actually study the history of the future, that is, the history of conceptions of the future, which would include assorted science fiction scenarios.During the sixties, things seemed to be changing so rapidly that there was a sense that the future was collapsing in upon the present.  Alvin Toffler famously wrote about "future shock," which took the concept

Back in the Land of Baseball
So, I just got back from a week in India, where cricket is all the rage, as their national team was doing well against Australia.  I watched a little bit of it, having no idea of what was going on, and I have to say that it is good to be back in the land of baseball, even though this was a disastrous season for my New York Mets.I'm not a Yankee hater, I just hate how the local media fawns over them and doesn't give my team equal coverage, even when they're doing well.  But I do think the Mets need a change in their minayacal front office.  Without really good pitching, in what sense is this a New Yor

My Yom Kippur Appeal
As a member of the Board of Trustees of Congregation Adas Emuno, I was called upon to deliver this year's Yom Kippur appeal.  For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, it's an appeal made to the members of the congregation for donations, and also for volunteers, but mainly for financial support to help make ends meet.It's done of Yom Kippur because that's when the most people are in attendance, people who don't go to services all year come for Yom Kippur.  It's the big one in our religion.I found it very gratifying to be able to put my experience as a writer, public speaker, and communication scholar as the service of my congregation in this way.