Ruthlessly lavish in his lifetime and a villain of Jewish and Christian narratives alike, the biblical King Herod has captured the world\’s imagination anew with the discovery of his tomb outside Jerusalem.
We\’re told, these days, that the situation in Darfur is not as simple as we supposed a year or two ago. There, too, ambiguity. But it is not acceptable to be immobilized by ambiguity, not when women are being raped, children starved, people driven from their homes, routinely slaughtered. Much of life is inherently ambiguous. Yet, if not now, when? Else it will never end.
A force of nature named Michael Weinstein swept into my office and set about trying to convince me this country is in much bigger trouble than I can imagine. According to Weinstein, the U.S. military \”has just been completely infused by premillennial, dispensational, reconstructionist, dominionist, evangelical, fundamentalist Christians who want to spread a weaponized version of the gospel of Jesus Christ.\”\n
\”Ladies and gentlemen, Rabbi Aryeh Pamensky holds the secret to your incredible, unbelievable and unparalleled happiness,\” announces the emcee in a dimly lit nightspot where hundreds of Jews are gathered, each hoping to attain what half of Americans find unattainable: a happy marriage.\”
But unlike Rosh Hashanah — which has the irresistible attraction of a new year and a new beginning — and other holidays that have their own attractions, Shavuot seems to miss that special sizzle that could engage mainstream Judaism.
Interview with Jerome Groopman, a physician and clinical scientist at Harvard University, a specialist in AIDS and cancer. He\’s also a writer for The New Yorker, with a successful and thought-provoking series of books on such topics as the intersection of spirituality and medicine and the importance of a physician\’s intuition.
One and a half years later, a team of doctoral students under Roi Friedman\’s guidance has developed WiPeer. The new software enables mobile and desktop computers to communicate directly with one another in a local area without any mediating factor, such as an Internet server. The software, which is available free on the Net, enables users to send messages, pictures, files, movies and games to one another wirelessly within a 100- to 300-meter radius.
The greenhouses are only a small part of Professor Alexander Vainstein\’s work, however. Back in the lab, he and other researchers on the agricultural, food and environmental quality sciences faculty have discovered how to insert the scent of flowers into different foods, how to intensify the smell of perfumes and creams and how to create a natural scent with nothing more than a petri dish.
I-Mature, which has offices in Los Angeles and Rishon LeZion, has developed the Age-Group Recognition (AGR) security system that can accurately recognize the age of children and adults on the Internet, allowing parents to control their child\’s access to restricted Web sites, and at the same time prevent pedophiles from accessing children\’s and teen\’s chat rooms.
Kristof knows that one way to change government policy is through an outraged public, but getting the American public to care about millions of nameless genocide victims in faraway Africa is no easy task. \”What we need,\” he proposes, \”is more troubled consciences — pricked, perhaps, by a Darfur puppy with big eyes and floppy ears.\”
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