Archive for March, 2011

Erich Fromm and the Tzedakah

The psychoanalyst Erich Fromm was an atheist who had been brought up in an Orthodox Jewish environment, and it is traditional Judaism which has shaped his secular humanistic values throughout life. One such factor involves the psychology of poverty, that what makes being poor so ruinous isn’t simply not being able to afford the luxuries of life or even the basic necessities, bad as that is; being poor is particularly bad because one cannot even help others.

Being poor almost means that one can, by definition, only take, not give. Yet giving is a great joy in itself; in giving we share of ourselves, of our own happiness, of our own power. One who is not able to give – a poor person, for instance – is deprived of a fundamental human faculty or ability, akin to not being able to laugh or sing or dance. Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much.

Thus it is that Judaism, Reform, Conservative, Orthodox, or Ultra-Orthodox, acknowledges a religious responsibility towards philanthropy. Even secular Jews, people not typically observant but who are otherwise steeped in the rich intellectual culture of the larger Jewish tradition, tend to be concerned with social justice to some extent. And so it is no coincidence that the Hebrew word for this sort of religiously motivated charitable giving, “tzedakah,” literally means “fairness” or “justice” – “righteousness.” Part of what the rabbis believe God to conceive of as being righteous is to be fair, to be just – to one’s fellow man.

And because an act of tzedakah is a moral duty, and not only philanthropy of the sort in which one indulges as one is moved (moreover, the rabbis teach that even the money for tzedakah is not to be regarded as one’s own – and therefore should be properly disbursed, wisely doled with recipients exhaustively scrutinized) – even the poor are obligated to participate.

And here is the most amazing thing of all: even the poor can give – even they are called to give, to take part, just as even the most prominent members of the community do. One need not be a Robert Toussie to give; one only has to give as one is able to give. An act of tzedakah therefore restores to the poor person an important aspect of his or her humanity – the ability to share.

 

Shopping for Unlocked Cell Phones

What people love about unlocked cell phones is that they do not restrict you to just one carrier. Many handsets are available in this manner, and though people often normally prefer the most recent releases, it often pays to bear in mind older offerings in addition. For example, unlocked cell phones such as the Nokia Surge make terrific second handsets for folks who find it necessary or more convenient to have two separate contact numbers. It looks like a T-Mobile Sidekick but being unlocked means that you aren’t restricted to just AT&T in the United States. It’s got the same form factor as the best-selling Sidekick, only instead of swiveling it slides to expose the keyboard underneath. Packing this smartphone with text messaging and social media capabilities makes it clear that Nokia is focusing on the young with this model.

You can’t do much better when it comes to unlocked cell phones for second or third “lines.” But just what is the Surge? What’s it like? Well, it’s a 3G phone offering 2.4 inches of screen real estate at 320×240 TFT pixels and 16 million colors. The 2 megapixel camera is inferior when compared to the over-3 megapixel version on the related 6760 Slide model available in the rest of the world (which phone, incidentally, isn’t carrier-exclusive), but the Surge did debut earlier, after all. Video recording is done at the standard QVGA resolution.

It uses the Symbian Series 60 multi-tasking platform, nicely complementing the provided feature-set, making this model a mid-level offering. The Surge works with Bluetooth 2.0, and A2DP support, and offers microUSB connectivity as well. Audio is delivered by a typical 2.5mm jack. In common with most Nokia products at the moment, the Surge comes with a built-in stereo FM radio player. MicroSD cards are supported for close to a maximum of 8GB of additional storage space, in addition to the 2GB card included. This phone is available in black, white, or red color schemes. Talk-time is scored for respectable five hours, and standby is a wholesome five hundred.

Best of all, being unlocked means not having to deal with AT&T and their long two-year contract with mandatory voice and data plans that could conceivably result in an average of a thousand dollars a year for even a rather casual user! And naturally the Surge is designed for those who are constantly texting, chatting, e-mailing, or using the internet. Such folks could very quickly wind up with over two thousand dollars a year!

 

Proven Steps To Achieve Better Results with Video Marketing

Video marketing has become much more prevalent in online marketing and especially in the IM niche market. There are so many markets that respond well to video marketing, but be aware that not all of them do and it will depend on many variables. We tend to feel that markets with a very high education level may not be attracted to videos. But there is a huge audience on the net that really seems to love videos, and so web businesses are smart to recognize that and give them what they want. Keep in mind that you can use video to your advantage because it gives you greater ability to engage your audience. Obviously when people see and hear you, that can add a powerful social aspect.

You always want to provide a mixture of content in your videos so people will not become bored. Just as an example, consider putting your own self in some of your videos. Needless to say we have all observed this done, and we do think it has a greater result. Yet we do know that many internet marketers are not absolutely confident with being in videos. So just fully understand that you could be reducing the overall relationship strengthening ability that is readily available to you. What you can attain, though, is building a more significant connection with your market if you are in several videos. There is something entirely unique about the dynamics when people can hear and see you. That is really superb stuff to do, and you can forge a better relationship with them.

For many years now, it has been acknowledged that online reading practices are not very good, to say the least. We all recognize that online readers, commonly speaking, tend to skim and scan all they read. What occurs is if they like what they are skimming, then they are going to slow it down and read through the material. In some ways, video basically serves to fill in several of the voids there with the way people read. Many of us know that online readers will enjoy a short two or three minute video as opposed to read something long. It is challenging to speak in generalities because there are different situations, plus people will spend some time to read something lengthy, too. On the other hand, we do absolutely feel that you can have a better time commanding focus with the help of a fantastic video.

But video is simply not the cure for every thing, and you can surely make mistakes with it. One example is, we advise you stay away from the auto-play function for your videos. With that one, simply contemplate what it is like if you have other sorts of text on the site. It has probably happened to you when the video auto started while you were reading the copy. Avoid discussing topics that really are of no interest at all to the viewer. So include video controls so people can pause, stop it, or watch it again.

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Yeshiva Ateres Yisroel

A yeshiva is a religious school devoted to the learning of Biblical and Talmudic texts. These schools serve the Jewish community and are quite often strongly backed by the community above and beyond the tuition and other such fees. Typically, leading businessmen will undertake to support these establishments, particularly those attended by their children or which they themselves have attended while children. For example, Yeshiva Ateret Torah in New York’s Kings County is a distinct favorite of local success story Robert Toussie, who also supports the adjacent Yeshiva Ateres Yisroel, two day-schools that ready children for university in the secular world along with a parochial training.

Without a doubt, Yeshiva Ateret Torah has been able to pull in the charitable largesse of many a local businessman because of its stellar track record, with eighty-seven percent of its students proceeding to post-secondary education, many times above the general statewide numbers of only half of all secondary school students doing the same. Budgetary funding allows the school to engage in extracurricular programs such as forming partnerships with like-minded organizations around the world, organizations such as Oorah that seeks to help Jewish families attend yeshivas by setting aside some or even all of the expenses concerned.

Like many such schools, Yeshiva Ateret Torah offers instruction from pre-kindergarten through high school. While different grades are often to be found on the same campus, if not within the same building as well, the more religious the yeshiva the more likely it is that boys and girls will be separated for most or even all of the day. And as the religious schools serve a comparatively narrow demographic, especially when one considers sectarian preferences (that is, Reform versus Conservative versus Orthodox versus Ultra-Orthodox – with even further distinctions available), tuition and fees are likely to be high, which is why the charity of community businessmen and women are so important.

 

What Grocery Coupons Can Do For You

With the price of food rising, grocery coupons have finally become one of the most well-known reasons for people to log online and rummage through the search engines.
Certainly, many informed observers predict that food protection will become one of the most hotly contested issues around the world as we approach the middle years of the 21st Century.

Food security is not quite the same thing as hunger.
One can be food-insecure without actually being among the hordes of growing hungry.
Food security indicates having a reliable source of good food.
By the year 2050, there will be a projected seven billion people on the planet, ever more of whom will be profitable enough to afford a middle-class diet that consists of more and more animal protein.
Grocery coupons are marketing ploys by manufacturers to get consumers to try new products, but with ever dwindling food supplies it is improbable that such gimmicks must be employed in the future.

After all, we could well wind up with a feast-or-famine/winner-takes-all kind of society where anyone who’s worried about the price of things probably cannot afford it anyway!
Sounds cynical, but it may simply become the case in even a realistic worst-case scenario.

Thanks to globalization, no one is immune from a bad crop any longer.
Russian forest fires last year forced Moscow to halt all wheat exports, driving up prices on the world market.
This year’s harvest in China is anticipated to be terrible on account of a local drought, which will mean even higher prices.
Yes, grocery coupons will be more required than ever – and yet their availability may decrease drastically as manufacturers increase prices to reflect the much diminished supply.

What is going to happen to us?
Everything hangs off the thinnest of threads.
All it takes is a perfect storm of concurring elements and everyone will end up in dire straits.

 

A Trip Down Memory Lane with On Off Digital World

I went by On Off Digital World yesterday and out of nowhere my memory was flooded with the sights and sounds of years — decades — long gone.. That is, that store reminded me of those “mom-and-pop” kind of joints from my childhood, when a personal computer for most people meant the best-selling Commodore 64. I can still recall the ad for one of them C-64 system bundles in computer magazines of the time, bargains that contained peripherals and software. Those were the days! Big five-inch-plus floppy diskettes, big disk drives, clunky box-like CRTs that weighed about forty pounds at least with small fifteen-inch screens! Really interesting software in the past, too — and I mean really amazing, considering all the programmers had to work with was a mere 64KB! The ’80s were really something in every way, but especially as regards matters of personal computing!

 

Of DC Electric Motor Repair Language and Human Consciousness

Because of our language – which must be to say, thanks to the very nature of our minds, of which our language is but a reflection – we are required to imagine an agent behind every action.
With that same token of our human psychology, we are also just as compelled to think about a motive behind every occasion.
Hence the belief in the supernatural, whether gods or ghosts or, for that matter, UFOs from other planets (or, even, from within the earth’s core itself, as hollow-earth theorists would have it!).

Now what would we make of an easy mechanic working on DC electric motor repair who took a unexpected spark or the discovery of a mysteriously crushed bearing to be an omen of divine discomfort?
We would rightly laugh her or him out of a job – laugh first, then seriously consider getting rid of the person for the good of the public in addition to his or her own security, even.
Yet we consistently humor even the most wild-eyed of so-called religious leaders who ascribe any number of natural phenomena to a supernatural agency.
Why is this?

Now why should we ridicule a DC electric motor repair mechanic who equally mistook easy naturally occuring occasions but not these religious people who take themselves and their delusions so severely – so seriously, in reality, as to prescribe it for everyone else, generally on pain of death and more intense?
Moreover, what is it about the human being that seems to rather require such beliefs, such that our very psychology definitely seems to be nothing more than a mechanism eminently hospitable to them?

Our need to make sense of our world.
That’s the answer.
And until we can mature to the point where we are relaxed with – though not necessarily accepting of – the lack of an answer, we will most likely continue to manufacture much mischief for ourselves in, as per Goethe’s warning, shrugging off the meaningful as chance while assigning intent to what is random.
Just as a mechanic engaged in DC electric motor repair does not mistake anything for something other than what it is, so too we must learn as a species to use our imagination while not confusing it with reality.

 

Solitude is Not the Answer to Weight Loss

So many people who want to lose weight are embarrassed about the numbers they see on the scale. They don’t want other people to know what they weigh. Most of the people out there who want to lose weight are trying to do it alone. They really don’t tell others when they get out there and diet because they don’t want to deal with the judgment (or un-asked for suggestions). It’s easy to see why you may want to keep your ambitions to yourself. In present day society people that don’t match the pages of a fashion magazine are frowned on. Still-you may find success if you work with another person or ask a professional for support.

You ought to, anyway, talk to your main care doctor before you start any diet-no matter how popular that diet may be. A physician will be informed on your history. Your physician is able to help you figure out an effective way to go at your chosen weight loss program. Together the pair of you can figure out the very best diet and goals for your calorie ingestion. He or she will make it easier to build a health plan that should meet any existing health conditions you might have. He or she can make it easier to keep track of any medical issues while you work to lose weight. This is just about the greatest ways to catch any likely issues as they come about.

It a very good idea to join groups like Weight Watchers because they may help raise your self worth and keep you operating toward your goals. When you work with a buddy or class on your fat reduction it is far easier to hold yourself accountable for any progress you are or aren’t making. Your confidence can be better maintained here. When people join a group you will see that you are not on your own in your health and weight battles. Individuals who are endeavoring to shed extra pounds will be going through the same things you are. It can be very helpful to have someone who is on your side.

If you cannot face the idea of joining a group and sitting in a room with a bunch of other people, look online. There are a lot of different weight loss communities on the internet that you can join. This will help you get the social encouragement that you need while not forcing you to deal with people face to face. If you have a hard time leaving the house or live somewhere that doesn’t have a weight loss group you can join this is the best option. Before you start actively participating in any group, however, make sure you spend some time lurking and exploring. This is the best way to figure out if you will fit in well with the group.

Finding a weight loss friend is a good idea for lots of reasons. If you really want to stay on track, it is easier to do that when you know that you aren’t alone.

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On Off Digital World in the Capital of the World

It’s among the safest places in Manhattan, or, moreover, all of New York City. But the situation wasn’t always this way. Just ask the regulars, retailers like a On Off Digital World or one of them few mom-and-pop operations still around. They’ve seen everything, and it wasn’t always pretty. Then again, there’s a particular type of person, and a particular type of New Yorker, one that genuinely misses the bad ol’ days. Such folks claim that the city was authentic then; it had its challenges but it also had a lot of heart, as well, plenty of spirit. Nowadays, they grumble, midtown Manhattan is only an internationally flavored version of most any outdoor mall in America.

 

It Is Not All About Saving Money

When you happen to be developing your enterprise there is a lot to think about. One of your most significant concerns is the amount of money everything is going to cost you. Your web page will probably come with a price. Promotion will take dollars from you too. Finding somebody that will help you with things will cost lots of money. It is often incredibly tempting to cut corners. The very simple fact is that, while it is vital to figure out some ways that you could save some profit, sometimes this kind of thing can even hurt you. It could damage you a lot. The largest thing you can do that can put yourself at an increased risk is to violate copyright and intellectual property laws. Here are a number of good examples.

Stealing internet site models. It’s one thing to obtain a free style for your internet site or to make use of one of the free website builders out there. It is completely different to outright duplicate another person’s design. Obviously the net is a giant place and it isn’t very likely that the original developer is ever going to learn about your theft but that doesn’t mean that you should take the chance. If you’re keen on the design and want to use it for your own site, have you thought to contact the designer and site owner and ask for permission to either use the same design for your own site or to ask the designer how much to design something for you?

Using a photo or an image before obtaining permission. Just because the photograph or image arises on a Google image search does not mean that the image or photo is public domain. Google indexes images and links back to the original website that displays it. There’s no problem with this. Using the graphic or photo on your site without getting permission from the creator or owner, however, is a violation of copyright law. If the owner discovers this, you might get sued. You should always get permission to use the image before you actually put it up. You might be charged some money but it is bound to be less than you would have to pay after getting sued. If your funds are low, you can always search for free images or images released with the Creative Commons licenses that allow people to use images commercially. Those are fine for public use.

Stealing another person’s authored written content. If you would like to use another person’s content on your own internet site, it is crucial that you give credit to the original author. If you duplicate the content from another internet site, just be sure you link back to that site. This will let you get the primary writer to like you. If you never put up links or offer credit to the original creator, you will get in big trouble for copyright infringement as well as intellectual property theft. It will cost far more to fund the infringement than it would run you to just give proper credit or to hire someone to create something new for you.

When you are building your company, it is usually better to be cautious. Saving money is naturally something you wish to do but just be sure that you save it legally. When you don’t, the cost you may be experiencing will be much more than it would have been otherwise.

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