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Feb 25: What happened to the blog? I'm still here, just in a different state of mind. I hate February. It's such a dull month, especially if winter sports aren't your thing. Honestly, I haven't felt like writing, or reading, or much of anything. It takes discipline to sit at a desk and type something of merit every week. There are many distractions like bird watching, surfing the Internet, playing video games, etc., that make it hard for someone with an incredibly short attention span to stay focused. The brain hasn't been completely turned off, it's just working quietly.
One positive about February is baseball's start of spring training. Entries have been infrequent because there aren't many special events or movies to draw Sandra and I out. For every Lost in Translation there are a dozen Mooseports, and not everybody loves Raymond; we really detest him. Maybe the mild weekend weather will cheer me up.
On a pro-Israel site I visit often, there was a long discussion about Noam Chomsky writing as a New York Times op-ed columnist. In school, I read little of his work, but am bothered by how many people vehemently hate him. Chomsky, like Kissinger, Michael Moore, and others, have many detractors, but you can't deny they are at least provocative. Disagreement is fine, but outright dismissal, based solely on the source, is a disservice to all. This leads to an event my lovely girlfriend and I attended last night at Holy Blossom Temple called My Story for Generation Aleph. A Panel of Journalists "discuss[ed] what draws them to print media and how Judaism influences their search for truth and meaning." The panelists and moderator, Evan Solomon of CBC News, dealt with criticism about their respective media organizations and the perceived bias each is forced to carry. The last question came from an older woman who asked Solomon how he could sleep at night working for the anti-Israel CBC. The public broadcaster has a mandate to serve as many Canadians as possible--there is no core demographic or target audience. In other words, reporting abuses by the Israeli military should be balanced by stories about Palestinian terrorism. The bias of the writer is reflected in whatever medium is used, the medium itself is merely the conduit for that message. Even the scales of justice are not balanced.
Linkroll:My web host, Netfirms, has been very good to me. Reliable, fast and free. Recently, I've noticed they changed the banner above to use Google's Adsense. It's interesting to see how well the advertisements match the different pages of my site. I have no control over the ads themselves and hope that nothing offensive, other than my writing, is placed here.
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