Excerpts of Interest

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“The sour effect in many wild ales is usually a combination of lactic, malic, and acetic acids produced by the bacteria lactobacillus and pediococcus”

Posted on September 30, 2016 8:57 am by Drew Kaplan

The sour effect in many wild ales is usually a combination of lactic, malic, and acetic acids produced by the bacteria lactobacillus and pediococcus. Historically it has been common to measure a beer’s acidity by its ph; the lower the ph, the more acidic the beer. The problem is, ph doesn’t indicate acidity strength or sour flavor reliably. Ph simply reports the ratio of hydrogen (H+) ions to hydroxide ions (OH-) within a solution. Much in the way IBUs fail to accurately describe bitterness with relation to the balance of body and sweetness, ph fails to describe how sour a beer will taste. Fortunately for us all, the mad scientists at Firestone Barrelworks have been developing a system that describes the acidic nature of wild ales in terms of titratable acidity or “T.A.” Because this method of measuring acidity actually describes how much acid is in a beer, it is a much more accurate description of how sour a beer can be predicted to taste.

Brendan Megowan, “Wild Style”, Beer Paper LA (July 2016), 19.

📂This entry was posted in Beer 📎and tagged ale beer Sour Beer wild ale
“It also seems clear that Trump has a weird problem with admitting error”

Posted on September 29, 2016 3:01 pm by Drew Kaplan

It also seems clear that Trump has a weird problem with admitting error. Confronted with his past statements about climate and debt, Trump just pretended he never said them. Confronted with his lack of past statements opposing the invasion of Iraq, he concocted a bizarre story about having opposed the war in secret phone conversations with the conservative pundit Sean Hannity. He admitted no error in the Obama birth certificate imbroglio and closed the debate pursuing a years-old feud with comedian Rosie O’Donnell rather than apologizing for past intemperate language about women.

Matthew Yglesias, “Donald Trump’s first presidential debate confirmed he has no idea what he’s talking about”, Vox (27 September 2016) [http://www.vox.com/2016/9/26/13066698/trump-debate-trade-fact-check]

📂This entry was posted in Politics in America 📎and tagged Donald Trump Politics in America Presidential Debate Presidential Debate 2016 Presidential Election Presidential Election 2016 Presidential Race
“We can push and tinker around the edges, but as an Orthodox community, we cannot simply change Orthodoxy”

Posted on September 29, 2016 8:54 am by Drew Kaplan

Ultimately, we will not succeed in satisfying the full range of expectations of every LGBT advocate. Even as we move the ball forward, some will claim that we’ve still fallen short. We can push and tinker around the edges, but as an Orthodox community, we cannot simply change Orthodoxy. Our attempts in the margins will invariably paint us “not Orthodox enough” on the one hand and “not pro-gay enough” on the other. As so often is the case, we find ourselves stuck in the middle. But we cannot allow that purgatory-like status to stop us from making the changes that we feel are appropriate.

Rabbi Ari Segal, “The Biggest Challenge to ’Emunah’ of our Time”, The Boiling Point (14 September 2016) [http://www.shalhevetboilingpoint.com/opinion/2016/09/14/the-biggest-challenge-to-emunah-of-our-time/]

📂This entry was posted in Homosexuality Modern Orthodoxy Orthodoxy 📎and tagged Homosexuality Modern Orthodoxy Orthodoxy
“Rhetorically, Trump drove a high-speed train filled with fireworks into a nuclear power plant”

Posted on September 28, 2016 3:05 pm by Drew Kaplan

Rhetorically, Trump drove a high-speed train filled with fireworks into a nuclear power plant. He was self-absorbed, prickly, defensive, interrupting, baited by every charge yet unprepared to refute them. During his share of a 90-minute debate, he was horribly out of his depth, incapable of stringing together a coherent three-sentence case. The postmodern quality of Trump’s appeal culminated in an unbalanced rant claiming, “I also have a much better temperament than she has” — an assertion greeted by audience laughter. And Trump concluded his performance by praising himself for his own grace and restraint, during an evening that showed him to be nasty, witless and deceptive.

Michael Gerson, “Out of his depth, Donald Trump clings to deception”, The Washington Post (27 September 2016) [https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/out-of-his-depth-donald-trump-clings-to-deception/2016/09/27/070feda6-84ca-11e6-a3ef-f35afb41797f_story.html]

📂This entry was posted in Politics in America 📎and tagged Donald Trump Politics in America Presidential Debate Presidential Debate 2016 Presidential Election Presidential Election 2016 Presidential Race
“…for many of those sympathetic to Israel, the indifference to terror when it takes place in Israel indicates that a higher standard applies compared to other countries”

Posted on September 28, 2016 8:50 am by Drew Kaplan

…for many of those sympathetic to Israel, the indifference to terror when it takes place in Israel indicates that a higher standard applies compared to other countries. Unlike the “Je suis (fill-in “Charlie,” “Belge,” etc.) campaigns in other terror incidents, no “I am Tel Aviv” demonstrations are likely anywhere other than among those already pro-Israel. The terror of the rest of world is seen as such, and the terror in Israel is just seen differently. And that annoys many pro-Israel activists.

But while different acts of terror use the same means, not all terror is directed at the same ends. Although the world may unfairly hold Israel to a different standard, the terror in Europe is not the same as the terror in Israel, and most understand it that way. Islamists want the world and care little about Palestinians. Palestinians, for the most part, want Palestine and care little about the world.

Irwin J. Mansdorf, “Why Israel Gets Little Sympathy When Terrorists Strike”, The Jewish Week (17 June 2016), 19.

📂This entry was posted in Europe Israel 📎and tagged Europe Israel Terrorism
“Racism ceased to be a matter of systems and policy and became a referendum on the rot of the individual soul”

Posted on September 27, 2016 3:48 pm by Drew Kaplan

Racism ceased to be a matter of systems and policy and became a referendum on the rot of the individual soul. Calling people racist was no longer a matter of evaluating their opinions; it was an accusation of being irrevocably warped at the very core. We can see how this plays out in news coverage of things that are, in fact, racist. “Racist” is seen as such a deep personal attack that it’s safer and more civil — particularly in the eyes of mainstream media organizations — to refer to things as racially charged, or tinged, or explosive, or divisive, or (when all else fails) just plain racial.

Greg Howard, “Bias Charge”, The New York Times Magazine (21 August 2016), 12.

📂This entry was posted in Races in America 📎and tagged races in America Racism
“The Republicans nominated someone who doesn’t know anything about his signature issue”

Posted on September 27, 2016 8:46 am by Drew Kaplan

The Republicans nominated someone who doesn’t know anything about his signature issue. Trump lambasted Clinton for her involvement in NAFTA, which he said had devastated American manufacturing, but US manufacturing output has risen about 50 percent since NAFTA passed. And while it’s not true that the world’s biggest factories are opening in Mexico, it is absolutely true that both the Boeing factory and the Mitsubishi factory depend critically on international trade for their viability.

What’s particularly odd about this is that while Trump doesn’t know anything about trade policy and isn’t in possession of any relevant facts about American manufacturing, he seems to see trade policy as the only economic issue worth discussing. You would never know from Trump’s discourse that the vast majority of Americans work in jobs related to domestic service provision — they work in hospitals and restaurants and schools and stores working with nearby customers, not internationally traded manufacturing.

A particularly vexing aspect of this is that the GOP nominee’s core business expertise is in real estate development. Under the circumstances, you might think he would have something useful and insightful to say about house building or some other adjacent sector of the economy. But he no more talked about construction than he talked about health care.

He did briefly mention that “our energy policies are a disaster,” but energy prices have been falling for years. The brief digression into being wrong about energy was immediately followed by a repetition of the idea that the country is suffering a disastrous outflow of jobs to foreign countries. “All you have to do is look at Michigan and look at Ohio,” he said, “and look at all of these places where so many of their jobs and their companies are just leaving.”

Ohio has a 4.7 percent unemployment rate, and in Michigan it’s 4.5 percent. These states have problems, no doubt, but they are strange examples of the economic devastation wrought by trade.

Matthew Yglesias “Donald Trump’s first presidential debate confirmed he has no idea what he’s talking about”, Vox (27 September 2016) [http://www.vox.com/2016/9/26/13066698/trump-debate-trade-fact-check]

📂This entry was posted in Politics in America 📎and tagged Donald Trump Politics Politics in America Presidential Debate Presidential Debate 2016 Presidential Election 2016 Presidential Race 2016
“While the Internet has become a global phenomenon, the American Jewish community is specifically finding its own ways to interact with technology in order to gain access to people and ideas beyond a local region”

Posted on September 26, 2016 3:46 pm by Drew Kaplan

When one thinks about Judaism, the computer does not come to the forefront of one’s mind. It seems like an odd pairing. This oddity is actually a pairing that is reshaping the way the Jewish American population views community. The Internet is redefining community in the 21st century in ways never before possible. American Jews are using the Internet to connect to one another on various levels. While the Internet has become a global phenomenon, the American Jewish community is specifically finding its own ways to interact with technology in order to gain access to people and ideas beyond a local region.

Rachel Schiff, “Jewish Subcultures Online: Outreach, Dating, and Marginalized Communities” (Master’s thesis, California State University, Fullerton, 2016), 1.

📂This entry was posted in Internet Jewish Community Jews in America 📎and tagged American Jewish Community Internet Jewish Subcultures Online masters thesis
“Steering away from the issue might feel safe, but that avoidance is detrimental and dangerous”

Posted on September 26, 2016 8:42 am by Drew Kaplan

In my experience, many, if not most, 20 to 40-year olds in the modern Orthodox world struggle with the issue of homosexuality and the divinity of the Torah. They believe in a kind and just God and they want to believe in the divinity of the Torah. But at the same time they feel fairly certain that being gay is not a matter of choice. In the apparent conflict of these ideas, the first two premises seem to be losing ground. Students today do not find solace in the argument that the issue mirrors other questions of theodicy – children born with severe disabilities, tsunamis or other natural disasters, or the proliferation of cancer, for example. This generation by-and-large views this particular challenge to faith as irreconcilable.

Steering away from the issue might feel safe, but that avoidance is detrimental and dangerous. Rather than avoid, we must actively and thoughtfully engage. Even just taking those initial steps, I believe, will alleviate the burden of this theological struggle, and will help prevent those tempted to throw in the theological towel to circumvent the tension altogether. In other words, I believe that putting this issue front and center will, in the long run, bring our young people closer to Torah and halacha—not further away.

Rabbi Ari Segal, “The Biggest Challenge to ’Emunah’ of our Time”, The Boiling Point (14 September 2016) [http://www.shalhevetboilingpoint.com/opinion/2016/09/14/the-biggest-challenge-to-emunah-of-our-time/]

📂This entry was posted in Homosexuality Modern Orthodoxy 📎and tagged Homosexuality Modern Orthodoxy
“…the concept of the ben sorer umoreh raises essential questions for parents who strive to build loving relationships with their children”

Posted on September 25, 2016 3:26 pm by Drew Kaplan

The law, as defined by the Talmud, ensures that it is virtually impossible for such a case to ever be prosecuted, and the Talmud includes the opinion that there never has been and never will be an actual case. Nonetheless, the concept of the ben sorer umoreh raises essential questions for parents who strive to build loving relationships with their children.

The conceptual basis of a ben sorer umoreh is “nidon al shem sofo” (he is judged based on his end), that is, his future actions. Commentaries struggle with the conflict between the premise of “nidon al shem sofo” and the principle that every individual has the ability to do teshuva, choosing new paths in life. Ironically, the contradiction between these two ideas is particularly sharp if we accept that the halacha of ben sorer umoreh will never be applied practically but exists in order to impart lessons to us. What message are we meant to derive from an area of halacha that seems to undermine the belief in free choice?

Rivka Kahan, “Judging the Rebellious Child”, The Jewish Week (28 August 2015), 30.

📂This entry was posted in Bible 📎and tagged ben sorer umoreh Halakhah Torah