OOM: Sign me up! Is it free to find somewhere? I don’t have any money ::(…

Just read Neverwhere and Good Omens over Pesach. Considering I’m NOT a fantasy person, Neverwhere was MUCH better than I thought it would be, and I was allowing space as I really liked Good Omens and I knew it would probably be good anyway.

But it was, like I said, much better than however good I thought it might be.

Tiffany Aching’s for younger readers- I stopped by like the second one. They were pretty blah (though ironically I think I was part of their intended audience at the time…). But the Nec Mac Feegle WERE very funny.

Actually, though, one of my favorite Pratchett quotes is from there. It expresses a lot of my feelings a lot of the time VERY well:

OOM: Just took Neverwhere out of the library for Pesach and looked at the flap, so I actually know what you’re talking about! Cool! That furthers my and my friend’s idea that there’s a whole fraternity of sci-fi-fantasy authors who meet in a smoke-filled room and plan Doctor Who episodes :).

But they’re not elliptical either, they’re sort of roundy-bendy-with-little-jaggedy-burnt-edge-thingies.

I happen to love those, and we use them for the seder and lechem mishneh. But for matza and cream cheese sandwiches, give me square. Then we use the leftover round matzah to snack on Friday night at the meal. Mmmmmmmmmmm….

While it is the responsibility of the teacher to tie shoes if necessary, it’s still the kind of skill parents should at least try to teach their kids at least by the time they start pre1A.

BUT. I still want to take the opportunity to vent that after two summers of being a counselor for two and three year olds, I am fed up with Converse. And Lelli Kellies. Look, moms, you might have time to put your little angel into her shoes every morning and take them off at night, but I don’t have time to do it if the other sixteen kids are jumping off the walls waiting for me to take THEIRS off to go swimming. You KNOW I have more campers than just you cutie pie, though you may not fully want to realize it. I’m already changing sixteen kids with diapers and Pull-Ups and Gucci bathing suits that aren’t allowed to get dirty (TRUE STORY). I have NO problem whatsoever with laces, though I think that seichel over cuteness should really be used when it comes to toddler shoes. But if I need to use a shoehorn to get your kid’s shoes on, it’s time to do like the poorer but definitely smarter mom does- send your kids in crocs.

/endrant. Though I’m not doing it again this year- I just want to raise awareness for the benefit of my fellow preschool counselors.

An archaeology student on a dig in Gaza runs into his professor’s office jumping and screaming. “Professor! Guess what I found? It’s a 3,000 year old skeleton of a man who died of heart failure!”

The professor inspects the skeleton and says, “Congratulations! You dated the skeleton accurately! But tell me- how do you know he died of heart failure?”

The student pulls a piece of paper out of his pocket. “I found this in the skeleton’s hand,” he said.

It said “100:1 on Goliath.”

ONE MORE THING: Even if you’re SO smart and you know- I mean, like, DUH- that the animal food is chametz, that does NOT mean that the animals would like a nice heimishe snack of shmurah matzah. It’s astonishing how many times I’ve seen that, and it’s really bad for the animals (I mean, let’s face it, it’s not exactly kind to us…).

Health: I’m going to go teenagerish right now, and be, like, well DUH, you SO don’t need my permission to have whatever kind of crackpot theory you’d like about giving Israel to Turkey. After all, it only “officially” became an enemy of Israel two years go- that’s like it’s not an enemy at all, no?

I was merely mentioning that I did remember your view from a past thread and that I personally disagreed with it, just like you disagree with all of the invisible evil-Zionist-stereotypes you’re arguing with on here. That’s all.

I actually happened to back you up on some of your points (though by NO means on all. No waaaaaay). You don’t need to return it by reading nastiness into everything I say when it’s not intended and not necessary.

To be honest, while I do NOT think that Zionism is the main cause of hatred toward Jews in the world, there IS historical evidence pointing to the declaration of the State as a trigger for anti-Jewish rioting in Arab lands. For example, there’s an excellent chapter in Matti Friedman’s awesome book on the Aleppo Codex which talks about the instigation of the riot in which the shul containing the codex was destroyed, along with much of the Aleppan community- the riot began as a direct result of the 1947 UN recognition of Israel in Flushing Meadow. Admit that it can’t be pleasant to see you not exactly best buddies getting land that you thought your coreligionists were supposed to get. That’s not to say that relationships between the Arabs and Jewis in Syria before the riot were all that rosy, but increased aggression DID result from the declaration of the State.

However, personally, looking at patterns in history, I would say (and this is just my opinion from observation and a LOT of obsessive reading- this is just my thing 🙂 ) that while the State might have instigated anti-Jewish feeling, so did pretty much every good thing that ever happened to the Jews or any bad thing that ever happened to the non-Jews. Think about the Black Death. A third to a half of the European population is dying painfully. Not as many Jews seem to be dying (whether it’s because they really did have better hygiene and it helped or whether their deaths just weren’t as noticeable in the scheme of things due to heir small numbers), so what happens? A wave of pogroms. Communities were decimated as a result.

Either way- no matter what, whether Israel’s creation did aggravate the Arabs and cause them to turn against us more (though they definitely weren’t strting from scratch, even if that’s so) or not, right now we’ve got a state, and there’s nothing we can do about it except for support it and make sure that our 6 million acheinu kol beis Yisrael living there are supported and not harmed. (And yes, Health, I’ve heard about your plan to turn the State over to Turkey, and a while back I already told you what I thought about it.)

OOM: Don’t misunderstand me- I thought the writing was great. I just wasn’t obsessed with the story. I’ll check those out! (I get this feeling that I started American Gods once- I don’t know what happened.)

We’re not that many people, and we’re only home half of yom tov- actually, what I do is make two in a double batch, mess it up somehow so it’s not how it’s supposed to be but it’s still good, then oh no! we have to make some more! 🙂

Actually, maybe that’s just me being a bad baker. I love to rationalize.

Anyway, don’t worry- there’s no shortage of dessert in MY house. I think we’re up to three types of cake, two types of cookies, and ice cream and ices- besides for whatever my aunt is bringing :).

Not sure, but someone I know who did sherut le’umi (though it was a WHILE back) only needed to do it for a year (she- yes, she- actually CHOSE to do it for two years, but that’s another story).

Yserbius: THANK YOU. You put it much better than I did.

Anyone?

And just for the record, abra cadabra, sherut le’umi is in place of army. After, you CAN work.

ETA: Just looked it up. Sherut le’umi is 12-24 months. There are multiple forms, and, according to Wikpedia, offers work in “special education, administration, hospitals, law, geriatrics, nursing homes, health clinics, teens at risk, internal security, disadvantaged communities, immigrant assistance, and many other organizations.”

“Money as we know it didn’t exist 1000 years ago. They bartered using commodities, goods, and pieces of rare metals (gold, silver and copper in particular- which are really just commodities). “

Ohhh, yes it did. The first metal coins were minted in Lydia (in modern Turkey) in about 640 BCE according to most historians and numismatists (though I wonder about it, because it doesn’t take the machatzis hashekel into account) and they were minted, they had set values, and they were NOT traded as commodities (they weren’t even considered bullion- even though they had precious metals, there was less of it in each coin than the value of each coin) but as actual money. The Greeks and Romans indisputably had coins (you can buy them cheap on Amazon, they’re that plentiful) and I have no idea what kind of currency the Arabs used at that time, but money was NOT a foreign concept.

Money, of course, when it’s not based on a bullion-coin system (as very few civilizations have ever had), is pretty subjective- perhaps today more so, but it’s really a difference of degrees.

All of which is just the response of an amateur numismatist who got riled up. My real question: SO WHAT? Does the fact that money can be moved from one person to another without a single coin, bill or chicken being transferred, just a bunch of signals on the internet, mean that money doesn’t have the same purpose and that a handout is a handout and a salary is a salary? What exactly is the Rambam saying that can’t be applied today? There may be something, but the currency and definition of money is NOT it- as he’s not talking about money, he’s talking about the means to live, which is relevant whether you’re trading gold, beads or credit card information.

Of course the Rambam says that one who can should learn- but is his definition of who can the same as ours?

abra cadabra: You miss the OP’s point. Let’s say there’s a guy who wants to stop learning and go to work. Right now, if he wants to work without having been in the army he has to work under the table, he can’t get job training, etc. Why is it that when such a guy is finished learning- because he WANTS to start working- he can’t do a year of national service?

And to piggyback on the OP’s question- I know the Chazon Ish said that sherut le’umi is yehareig ve’al yaavor, but did he give a reason? It would seem that, say, going to visit soldiers in the hospital would be a chesed, which is a mitzvah just like limud Torah is a mitzvah (no idea if they’re on the same caliber in the rankings, but it’s not like you’re not doing anything worthwhile in that time). If everyone thought one particular aspect of it was a problem, then start a Nachal Charedi of sherut le’umi?

Another point people don’t bring up: NOT ALL PEOPLE WHO GO TO HOTELS ARE GVIRIM.

You don’t believe me, but it’s true- I know because I’m one of them.

People don’t only go to Florida or Cancun with every single singer there and prime rib every night, and even those who do don’t necessarily go because they’re too lazy to make their own Pesach.

My family goes to a hotel for part of Pesach. It is not at all fancy- on a scale of one to ten, it’d average about a 3 or 4. It’s a wonderful place to be, the food’s great, it has nice grounds, but it’s NOT “Pesach in Hawaii!!!” in the least. We also don’t pay for it- my grandparents do, as the yearly family reunion in the one place where we can all fit at once without tripping over each other.

The point is, if someone came over to my dad and was like, “Hey, I hear you’re going to a hotel, why are you paying for a gashmiyusdikke fake Pesach experience instead of giving me ten thousand dollars for aniyim?”, then a) he wouldn’t HAVE the ten thou and b) believe it or not, you can have just as much of a fun, authentic, spirited, spiritual and amazing Pesach in a hotel as you can at home. And I know that bcause the rest of my Pesach IS spent at home.

This may sound like a random, apologist rant, but I’m detecting somewhat of a disdain toward people who go to hotels in the above comments, and I don’t think it’s necessarily justified. And it doesn’t matter if the person you know is going to Pesach in the Local Motel or Pesach in Italy- being dan lekaf zechus, or better yet getting rid of some of the negative opinions about hotels, and just remember that wherever you are, it’s a real, sincere, fantastic PESACH.

5. Does it grow from the ground?

Shnitzy: NO!

I wrote a whole long post about this, which apparently did not make it through, but Discworld is not a traditional series, as in it does not go in a continuous stream from the first book to the last. There are a bunch of individual streams within the greater series, and I recommend, as above, that you start with the Watch arc, with Men at Arms, as the first couple books (like Colour) can seem kind of slow to first-timers.

You’ll never understand ’til you start reading!

Where do you folks recommend arifree starts? I personally think he should start with the Watch arc, as it’s pretty all-inclusive and starts from the very beginning.

Wow, did I enter? I didn’t know that…

AND I DIDN’T WIN?!?!?

Hey! Someone remembers me!

You’re awesome, OneOfMany!

I actually wasn’t a Discworlder when I was on here last- I only really got into them this year. I read Hitchhiker’s and my friend was like, you like Hitchhhiker’s, you’ll like this. And so it began.

I really don’t know why I don’t like the Rincewind books. Maybe that’s part of Pratchett’s genius, that he makesa useless character and we all feel like he’s useless. I just feel like he’s a lot more flat than some other characters, like even the other wizards, who are also pretty useless but at least are funnier in the process. I dunno, that’s just me.

Just finished The Truth- I love the word —-ing. I think I’m going to start using it. Good ol’ Mr Tulip.

Wow… I never thought I’d find a thread to bring me back… but when I find a Terry Pratchett fanclub on YWN, boy am I here!

(Anyone remember me? No? That’s okay… I’ll just go away and cry a bit…)

Anywho, I’ve read 31 of them and am a founding co-member of the (unfortunately two-member) [CENSORED NAME OF SCHOOL] Pratchettism Club. My favorite books are Going Postal (not so much Making Money), Hogfather and all of the Susan/Death books (including Mort), Moving Pictures, Reaper Man (which is a Death book but deserves its own listing), The Truth and anything with the Watch in it. And anything with an Igor in it. I’m not always enthused with the witches, though I did love Maskerade.

Looking back at that list, I feel like the only ones I left out were the Rincewind ones, which I admittedly never got into.

30-90%?

Um… where did you get your numbers? Because that doesn’t make sense, unless someone decided to be lazy.

apushatayid: ‘”Because that wasn’t the moral of the story.” Actually, the case he references, it WAS and IS the moral of the story. For obvious reasons, he could not disclose all that happened, how it happened, and what led up to it. Suffice to say social media sites such as Facebook can be way more problematic than sitting and watching adult rated movies.’

Did you read what I wrote? My entire post was about the problems with people chatting each other about social media when they don’t know each other. NOTHING about movies. My point was that the moral wasn’t get off the internet, because that’s like saying that if people get hit by cars, we shouldn’t drive. Instead, we should look before we cross, and likewise, know who we are chatting with on the internet.

MusicMan: You sesquipedalian!

My dad didn’t go— he watched online (from the “illegal” streaming) and from what he said (and yes, he understands Yiddish) it’s the same thing our shul’s rav says every shabbos at the drasha.

So what’s the chiddush?