Dan Harmon Poops: HEY, DID I MISS ANYTHING?
There are no injustices in this world greater than what has just been done to Community.
Kids:
A few hours ago, I landed in Los Angeles, turned on my phone, and confirmed what you already know. Sony Pictures Television is replacing me as showrunner on Community, with two seasoned fellows that I’m sure are quite nice - actually, I have it on good authority they’re quite nice, because…
Heartbreaking Tearjerker of the Day: In 1988, Nicholas Winton’s wife revealed to the BBC his long-kept secret: He’d saved 669 children from the Nazis at the dawn of World War II through his organization of the Czech Kindertransport. (This clip is from a BBC program that honored the “British Schindler” by inviting some 80 of the children he saved to surprise him in the audience.) In all, more than 5,000 people owe their lives to Winton.
In the more than two decades since the media got wind of his humanitarian exploits, Winton has been knighted, had a minor planet named after him, been commemorated by two statues — one each in Prague and London — and been the subject of three films and a play.
Winton still wears a ring given to him by some of the children he saved. It is inscribed with a line from the Talmud, the book of Jewish law: “Save one life, save the world.” He celebrates his 103rd birthday this week.
[reddit]
Reflections while studying for Biblical Archaeology Final
Today’s New York Times report about the Haredis who don’t report sexual abuse was disturbing (had to stop in the middle) but far from surprising. It’s a shame our decision to be observant lets ignorant people reduce us to simply “Orthodox” just like the ultras. But in all honesty our Judaism is nothing like theirs, and just because the origin is the same, once we move on past the 19th century we simply can’t say we have much in common beyond our ethnicity and tradition. And that’s why the article wasn’t embarrassing to us personally.
It kind of comes down to the archaeological evidence of how we became a nation. We have verrrrry little evidence that supports David’s or Solomon’s existence, and don’t even get started on anything before those guys. Still, the magic of the Torah is that its fables are the most genius attempt at historical fiction ever written. The factual foundations of Joseph’s story, and Jacob’s family settling in Egypt, Abraham’s migration patterns, the flood story, even Creation if you interpret it the right way — it’s just so clear that the Biblical authors made a really admirable effort at recording the history of the world as they knew it (albeit from a more personal perspective, which makes it that much cooler to us Israelites). We need to acknowledge that we didn’t ever mean to be a religion, just a nation, and that somehow our insistence on attaching value to our nationhood allowed our rituals to stick around too once we started getting exiled. And heck if we really want to say that hallachic/Rabbinic Judaism is really what this religion was intended to be at its founding (it wasn’t), at the very least can we acknowledge that this derivation is a totally valid way to interpret the original text without forcing it to match up precisely (aka brainwashing our kids)?
Jesus had a legitimate beef with the religion he knew so he tried to change it; same goes for Chasidim. Christianity is a farce (still well-meaning at times), but are we going to ignore that in some ways Jesus’s movement was identical to Chasidism? Look, if we’re going to identify as monotheist, and argue that religion is valuable, then Modern Orthodoxy is a really fantastic compromise of tradition, secularism, ritual, and [sensible] law, because otherwise we wouldn’t be observant at all.
But that does not disqualify all of these offshoots of Judaism, whether they be Christian, Reform, or Haredi from being legitimate in the eyes of those who believe in them. Because Orthodoxy is not the purest form of Judaism, or the most correct, as much as our “holy” Rabbis insist we believe it. The Beit Hamiqdash was identical to every other Eastern Mediterranean temple in its era. There were freaking cherubim in it. We killed animals because we thought that brought us closer to god. And “Hezekiah’s reform” was simply a biased author deciding that now it was time to be monotheistic (which is valid because this is a slightly more philosophically logical belief!) So why does this mean we have to believe someone’s going to come riding in on a donkey saying the world is suddenly perfect again because we are returning to the days when we can display large sphinxes and sacrifice animals? Can’t we just continue to allow hallacha to evolve so that our traditions are meaningful and rational? The best we can do is to adhere to our Judaism in a way that makes us better, respects other people, and maintains our values. Because, seriously, evolution is how the Orthodox form of Judaism came to eventually exist in the first place.
So to conclude…. KEFIRA!!!!!
And also a democratic nation of Israel is unnecessary and nonsensical. Now, back to the books.
![“You got to fight… for your flight… to depaaaaaarty!”
thedailywhat:
Lunchtime Links:
Today on The Daily What Geek: A real-life hovercraft can be yours for only $190,000
Elsewhere on the Internets:
Worrisome: SNL‘s Will Farrell promos
Found: Gun parts, by the TSA, in a Mickey Mouse stuffed animal
Questioned: Whether too-small airplane seats are unsafe for obese Americans
Transgender: Tom Gabel, the frontman for punk rock band Against Me!
Needed: $3 million, to capture Joseph Kony
Created: A Facebook game in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week
Lunchtime Leisure: Wolfenstein 3DLunchtime List: 10 Things You Might Not Know About Maurice Sendak
[image: reddit]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m3rthuDboG1qzpwi0o1_500.jpg)
“You got to fight… for your flight… to depaaaaaarty!”
Lunchtime Links:
Today on The Daily What Geek: A real-life hovercraft can be yours for only $190,000
Elsewhere on the Internets:
- Worrisome: SNL‘s Will Farrell promos
- Found: Gun parts, by the TSA, in a Mickey Mouse stuffed animal
- Questioned: Whether too-small airplane seats are unsafe for obese Americans
- Transgender: Tom Gabel, the frontman for punk rock band Against Me!
- Needed: $3 million, to capture Joseph Kony
- Created: A Facebook game in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week
Lunchtime Leisure: Wolfenstein 3D
Lunchtime List: 10 Things You Might Not Know About Maurice Sendak[image: reddit]
New Trailer: HBO & Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom | THR
It’s great when they make excuses for their singing in the description! Notice how not a single girl can get through her first verse without fixing her hair.
Anyways.. loving the falsetto.
Our next selection comes from the “emo” community, and oh how fortuitous that we found a Fall Out Boy fan. She has her own demons to work out before she starts singing, but the best part of her performance is the unbridled enthusiasm… is it exhaustion or is apathy part of the goth “thing”?
No hate comments, guys.
Not sure people know what a treasure trove YouTube search can be, so we’re hereby starting a singing competition called “Sort By Recent Upload.”
Our first contestant makes some interesting vocal decisions on the choruses
Dave Holmes’ Vulture American Idol recaps continue to be the most profound thing on the Internet
Also : “Do a lot of people claim to have discovered music? I’m skeptical of your claim, Colton. And also, if the music that finds you is Lifehouse, you might want to be less passive in this area of your life.”
“Pro tip: If Jason DeRulo is injured, you could literally pull anyone off the street and call them Jason DeRulo and nobody would know the difference.”
(Source: vulture.com)
What could beat am awesome comedian putting together GIFs of the most awesome drama?
BREAKING BAD + GIFs = AWESOME
I’m dedicated my life to a new endeavor.
Wait, so Anchorman IS getting a sequel? Can’t wait to see which comes out first ever: Arrested Development, Party Down, Wet Hot American Summer, or Anchorman
Ron Burgundy’s “Anchorman” Announcement - CONAN on TBS (by teamcoco)
YES!!!
“Modern party-dance is simply writhing to suggestive music. It is ridiculous, silly to watch and excruciatingly embarrassing to perform. It is ridiculous, and yet absolutely everyone does it, so that it is the person who does not want to do the ridiculous thing who feels out of place and uncomfortable and self-conscious.”
― David Foster Wallace, The Broom of the System
The Life and Death of Words
Words, like plants and animals, fight for survival and an international group of scientists studying English, Spanish and Hebrew believe that many — in general — are dying off.
Their killer? Editors.
Via Statistical Laws Governing Fluctuations in Word Use from Word Birth to Word Death (PDF):
The modern era of publishing, which is characterized by more strict editing procedures at publishing houses, computerized word editing and automatic spell-checking technology, shows a drastic increase in the death rate of words. Using visual inspection we verify most changes to the vocabulary in the last 10–20 years are due to the extinction of misspelled words and nonsensical print errors, and to the decreased birth rate of new misspelled variations and genuinely new words.
The Guardian clarifies this a bit by killing off some difficult words of their own and getting straight to the point about how words live and how words die:
But it is not only “defective” words that die: sometimes words are driven to extinction by aggressive competitors. The word “Roentgenogram”, for example, deriving from the discoverer of the x-ray, William Röntgen, was widely used for several decades in the 20th century, but, challenged by “x-ray” and “radiogram”, has now fallen out of use entirely. X-ray had beaten off its synonyms by 1980, speculate the academics, owing to its “efficient short word length” and since the English language is generally used for scientific publication. “Each of the words is competing to be a monopoly on who gets to be the name,” [Joel] Tenenbaum told the American Physical Society.
The phrase “the great war”, meanwhile, used for a period to describe the first world war, fell out of use around 1939 when another war of equal proportions hit the world.
Takeaway: Language is a giant Darwinian battle for linguistic supremacy. Choose yours selectively.
Video: MIT’s Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel illustrate what we can learn from analyzing 500 billion words via Google Books and its related Ngram Viewer which gives us the ability to enter words and phrases into a search engine in order to view their frequency over time.
Would consider buying if I hadn’t already seen the material live. Twice.
Hi. I just released my brand new standup special “Dangerously Delicious.” Click here download/stream it at azizansari.com for only $5! The above clip is a free preview. Thanks.
FAQ:
What is this?
I did a standup tour called Dangerously Delicious. Then I filmed it at the Warner Theatre in DC in June of 2011. I paid for the production myself and wanted to release it online. While I was trying to figure out the proper method of release, my friend and hilarious comedian Louis CK did his whole thing and it seemed to me that people really liked that model, so that was the route I decided to go.
Is the same material on your new tour?
No. The material on my upcoming Buried Alive tour is totally different. None of this material was on Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening (my last special) either. Click here for tickets to the Buried Alive tour.
I tried to get it, but something happened and its not working?
Don’t worry. Email support@azizansari.com or tweet at @azizsupport and someone will help you.
Do you like fish tacos?
Of course I do!
Chasid Avalanche!
