iVOTE by Zizox

Go to Zizox's Flickr page and tell her how much you support her and encourage her to keep taking photos and expressing her art at this momentous time.

Here you can watch: #IranElection at search.twitter.com.

If you have a Twitter account, you can "Retweet" messages that you think are of particular value. You can turn your profile pic green. You can spread the word to others that you know.

Even if you don't feel comfortable participating, it's really worth watching first hand to see how Twitter can be used for this kind of thing... even if you are just trying to figure it all out.

Another place to "watch" and send people to is Flickr... Just search on Iran Election.

Browsing my Twitter feed tonight I saw Rabbi Oren Hayon's plea, "Searching fruitlessly for a good online translation of "An'im Z'mirot". Anyone have one you can point me toward?"

I couldn't find ANY translation. So, with chutzpadic humility, I've decided to begin taking a crack at it.

I remember a wonderful shi-ur (class) that Art Green gave on Anim Zmirot at Adina, Norman, and Noga Newberg's house in the early 90's. I think it was a tikkun leyl Shavuot (a Shavuot night study intensive).

Ever since that class at the Newbergs, I'm always moved by Anim Zmirot. The poem is attributed to Judah the Hasid of Regensburg (1150 - 1217 C.E.). Joel Rosenberg writes in the introduction to his translation in the Reconstructionist Kol Haneshama Shabbat Ve'Hagim prayer book (p. 453)

Shir Hakavod is simultaneously our tradition's most unabashedly anthropomorphic depiction of God and its most eloquent refutation of a purely anthropomorphic conception of divinity.

Liel Leibovitz' March 18, 2009 critique of microblogging, called "Communication Breakdown" is inaccurate often, but always clueless. Here is my retelling of his article in the form of a recipe:

• Take 10 pounds of: the new-media-will-lead-to-the-end-of-culture doomsday analysis,
• Add a dash of anti-Semitism,
• Sprinkle in a bit of: maybe-the-People-of-the-Book-can-save-us-all triumphalist nostalgia,
• Finally throw in just a dash of venom against the computer "dorks" who got us into this mess.

The result is a disaster of an article. But I must say I've had lot of fun ranting against it. Thanks Liel!

I've recently started writing short (133 character) Torah commentaries using the Twitter platform. It's been fun. Yesterday I blogged about it at the JPS Interactive (aka Yavnet) site:#Torah: Using Twitter to Comment on Torah.

In trying to convince my Reconstructionist colleagues to jump on board and write their own Torah Tweets, one asked why on earth one would want to limit oneself to 140 words when writing about Torah. She had actually misread my explanation that one is limited to 140 characters. She asks a great question,

Aren't there more meaningful ways of using email/computers, etc. to engage in divrei Torah with people who have intelligent things to say on a topic we all care about?

My first response is that the idea of writing microblog posts using the Twitter platform and then categorizing them with #Torah is in no way meant to discredit any other form of writing about Torah.

Here are six answers I came up with. If you have more answers, do comment, or also any reasons why you think it is a bad idea.

Oost-Vlaanderen nuclear power plant near Gent, Belgium: photo by Koert Michiels and displayed under a Creative Commons license.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is warning Iran about its nuclear program at the same time that he's proclaiming that we won't be able to solve global warming without it:

However we look at it, we will not secure the supply of sustainable energy on which the planet depends, without a role for nuclear power.

Brown beseeches Iran to "work with us" and promises to support Iran's civilian nuclear power program if Iran "cooperates."

Drupal Crowd in Boston, 2008

Check out a blog post I just made on JPS' "Yavnet" site: What Non-Profits Can Learn from an Open Source Software Project

I've been starting to put together my thoughts about how what I've learned from open source can apply to non-profits. I'd love you to comment on the post at the Yavnet web site.

In a great post on Techstew called It's Friendship, Friendship, Just a Perfect Blendship, Caren Levine asks a littany of great questions about how teachers, youth works and other professionals in mentoring roles or other roles of authority should be using Facebook.

Here is my answer:

Facebook is powerful and flexible. It can be used, appropriately, in many different ways. The more you know about how Facebooks works (which has changed significantly in the last 10 months - especially regarding privacy settings), the more useful and successful you will be.

Whether or not their organizations have set out policies, anyone in the position of teacher, youth-group leader, rabbi, community organizer, non-profit leader, should have a written statement on how they use Facebook including a summary of how they have set up their privacy settings and under what circumstance they friend someone or accept another's friend request.

You can do a lot on Facebook without being someone's "friend."

An example: given how bad most school homework sites are, a teacher could actually use Facebook for that purpose, creating an invitation only "group" (e.g. Mrs. Cohen's homework Facebook group). In this example, the teacher wouldn't even have to be "friends" with his/her students in order to pull that off. The teacher is leveraging the fact that the kids are already "there" (spending lots of time on Facebook) -- and are more likely to read a "notification" that comes from a posting to the homework "group" than they are to read an email the teacher sends out.

I think it is better for teachers to not friend their students or accept friend requests from them. It's important to have a policy that you share with all your students, such as: "I ignore friend requests from all my students." If you want, you can add, "When you are in college, I'll accept your friend request."

Teachers are in an easier situation than organizational and youth group folks because teachers have great access to their students and have the leverage of grades to motivate their students. Conversely, organizers and youth group leaders are always trying to get access to the eyeballs of the people that they are trying to bring to their events. So these folks have a lot more to lose by not "friending" their constituents (they lose opportunities to project information onto their friends "feeds" -- and the chance to know their constituents better by viewing their profiles.)

So then you think..., "As a youth group leader/Hillel director/rabbi..., where is the separation between my private life and my professional life? I want to use Facebook as a way for me to connect with my friends without having my youth group members, synagogue members see it all."

Here is where becoming a power user of Facebook can really pay off. Facebook has revamped its privacy settings and its implementation of a concept initially dubbed, "Limited Profile." In short, you have precise control over who can see information you post for each content category (in the case of photos, you can decide on a per "album" basis, but for other content, it is for the whole category --e.g. status updates, wall, notes).

For example, I might decide as a youth group leader that I'm going to use "update status" and "notes" as a way to communicate with my "real" friends and use "wall" and "photos" for use with my youth group constituents. With the new "friend lists" and privacy settings, this easy to do.

However, there are some hazards with slicing and dicing of Facebook content dependant on friend lists. One challenge is that you have to remember what scheme you've concocted and/or recheck your privacy settings regularly.

Another problem with targeting certain content for specific friends is that content spheres may not always be as separate as you'd want them to be. For example, a "real" friend might comment on your "update status" (set to "real" friends only) by writing on your "wall" (set to "readable by all friends") -- in which case you'd have to delete the comment from wall in order to keep theses spheres separated. Doable... but this requires a full understanding of Facebook and a lot of attention to it.

In short:

1. Learn how Facebook works—especially its privacy settings
2. Have a strategy that addresses personal and professional needs
3. Create and share a personal policy of how you'll use Facebook

Here are some relevant pages from the Facebook blog and help pages:

• Facebook help page on privacy settings
• Facebook help page about "Friend Lists" functionality.

Taken by Shai Gluskin July 7, 2008 in Mount Airy, Philadelphia, PA.
About ten years ago we planted a linden tree (its trunk is shown up close in the photo) to replace a dead oak. Actually, two trees replaced the dead oak. The oak grew right on the property line. Our neighbors Curt Senie (since deceased) and Penny Venet shared the cost of removing the maple. We decided we'd take the opportunity to increase the number of trees on our block by replacing it with two, one on our property and one on his.

The first tree we planted died in the first year. This linden was our second try and has been a great success. The trunk is now about 10 inches in diameter. I like the "etchings" on the bark. I like the shadow created by the tree and how it accentuates the six p.m. summer light/shadow.

There's that story in Talmud about planting a carob tree that will only bear fruit in 70 years, long after the planter is gone. What is the motivation for the planter? Someone now deceased had planted trees for him. He's returning the favor.

Planting this linden required less patience, though certainly some. And just like parenting, there are gratifications at every step in the development. My ten-year old son already hangs off its branches. Our Dog Boaz urinates on it. I lean on it and take photos of it.

But even without these interactions, or especially without these interactions, this linden is growing, leafing, dropping its leaves, budding -- and generally taking its place in the neighborhood, all on its own.

I'm sure Curt would be pleased to know of the success of this linden and the maple that he planted.

Here is the latest set of images I've added to my Flickr account. This is my first test of the Drupal (Drupal is the software I use to run this site) Flickr integration module. If you click on one of the image, it will take you to a set of photos I've created on the Flickr site itself.

I took these picture in a small part of our next door neighbor's Pam's garden.

The new banner of this site now uses a portion of one of those pics.

Here in this set is a combined effort of: nature, a gardener, and a photographer.