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May 20, 2013

Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?

Hannan Adely: Town raises Palestinian flag at City Hall

Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Morgan Housel: When smart investors do stupid things

Sharon Saloman, M.S., R.D.: Hunger games: Eat more, weigh less, without starving

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation

David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church

Emily Alpert: Recession dragged down birth rates for less-educated women
Morgan Housel: The deep downside of home ownership

Peter Teffer: Will Dutch police soon be stalking cybercriminals on your computer?

Heidi McIndoo, M.S., R.D.: Meatless 'meat' can have its own set of problems

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Celebrate! This must-try appetizer is delicate yet has depth of flavor: Corn-Leek Cakes with Caviar, Smoked Salmon and Creme Fraiche

May 10, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be

Caroline B. Glick: The dirty little secret about Israel's Arabs

Mona Charen: Hawking's Moral Calculus: The man and the movement he embraces
Morgan Housel: The biggest retirement myth ever told

Sandi Doughton: Eyes may provide new insight into brain problems

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : The Great Gatsby's Jewish Ties; Jews in the "Time 100 list" List; People's Most Beautiful Women

The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer: A sweet-hot meal: Pear salsa spices up salmon

May 8, 2013

Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas

Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate

Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
Amanda Paulson: Study reveals sad truths about community colleges

Harvard Health Letters: Evidence weak that zinc, echinacea are beneficial

The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility

May 6, 2013

Edmund Sanders and Patrick J. McDonnell: Think Israel's objective in Syria is to weaken Assad or embolden the rebels? Think again

Brian Bennett: Israeli airstrikes may show weakness in Syrian defense

Michael Ollove: Millions of ex-felons, parolees and those on probation are about to be entitled to tax-payer paid health coverage
Karen Kaplan: Most men can skip PSA test for prostate cancer, urologists say

Kimberly Lankford: How to track down a lost life insurance policy

Dream of Mars exploration achievable, experts say

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan M. Selasky: EGGPLANT WRAPS are an easy, sumptuous and scrumptious meal

May 3, 2013

Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Human Courage and the Unavoidable, Disturbing Text

Steven Emerson: Attorney General Fights CAIR in Court, Lauds it in Public

Mediterranean diet helps beat dementia: study
Harvard Health Letters: When to be screened for a hearing problem

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Iron Man's Jewish Connections; Marc Maron's New TV Show; Martin Landau Grows Up with Israel; Shalom, Allan Arbus

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: A sweet surprise for Mother's Day dessert

May 1, 2013

Jonathan Rosenblum: An Improbable Journey to Orthodoxy

Jonathan Tobin: Blame Obama, Not Israel for Syria Push

Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Halena M. Gazelka, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: What you need to know about implanted pain relief devices

Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine

Jessica Shugart: When it comes to math, MRIs may be better than IQs

The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: The celebrated chef on how high-maintenance ASPARAGUS RISOTTO need not be

April 29, 2013

Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust

Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?

Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Morgan Housel: He's rich, smart and old: Listen to him

Thomas Salinas, D.D.S.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: The safety of amalgam fillings

Harvard Health Letters: Tomatoes and stroke protection

Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA

The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington: Swing into spring with lemon cream pie

April 26, 2013

Rabbi Abraham J. Twerski: The world is a mirror

Caroline B. Glick: Time to confront Obama

Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Kimberly Lankford: New strategies ease pain of paying for long-term care insurance

Howard LeWine, M.D.: Ask the Harvard Experts: Too much ibuprofen?

Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jewish Major Leaguers, 2013; New Movies and Comedy Show; Shalom, 'Lumpy' (Leave it to Beaver)

The Kosher Gourmet by Emily Ho : A bright and cheerful salad to herald the warmer months ahead

April 24, 2013

Steven Emerson: Boston Bomber Exposes Islamist Secret

Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
Harvard Health Letters: Can you get headaches from headache medication?

Kerri-Ann Jennings, M.S., R.D.: How to easily get more Omega-3s in your diet

Melissa Healy: Pot in a pill: All the pain relief without the smoke

The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: Chipotle Chili Butternut Squash Soup is bold, zesty, hot

April 22, 2013

Ken Dilanian: Counterterrorism's future is unclear

US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer

P.J. Skerrett, M.D.: How to recognize a good whole grain product

Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Teen actor Jonah Bobo in New Flick: Hunky James Wolk on Mad Men; Erich Segal's Daughter Writes Prize-Winning Jewish Novel


Jewish World Review July 17, 2009 25 Tamuz 5769

When a Tweet Is Not Enough

By Suzanne Fields




http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | WOODS HOLE, Mass. — All politics may not be loco, as one famous pundit (Michael Barone) puts it, but the ancient maxim that all politics is local is demonstrably true. Consider a feature called "Obama Watch" in the Cape Cod Times. There's nothing in it about the rising unemployment figures, the crash of the president's teleprompter, his health-care legislation or the latest on whether his diplomatic offensive is cooling fanatic fervor in the Middle East.


The big question for the president on Cape Cod is whether Barack, Michelle and the girls will follow the example of Ulysses S. Grant and Bill Clinton to Martha's Vineyard for a vacation in August. How you stand depends on where you're sitting, as a wise man I once knew was fond of saying, and that goes double for an economic stimulus.


The natives, as a summer visitor quickly learns, are eager to be stimulated, and an invasion of the Secret Service, snarling traffic jams and attracting landlubbing gawkers is regarded as a small price to pay to lift all the boats at the docks along the Massachusetts coastline. It's a needed reminder to the hundreds of politicians, policy wonks, academics, journalists, bureaucrats and other refugees from Washington that intelligent life thrives beyond the Beltway.


For example, the residents of Woods Hole are more fascinated by what's going on fathoms below the surface of the Atlantic, as discovered by a robot called Nereus, which has gone deeper than any deep-sea vehicle before it. Engineers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution began working on Nereus nine years ago, and early this summer Nereus successfully reached unexplored depths in the Marianas Trench in the western Pacific.


The dimensions of the trench are mysterious and breathtaking — it's nearly seven miles deep, the deepest indentation of Earth's crust (the SS Titanic sank to a depth of "only" two and a half miles). Few sea creatures live there, and Nereus, designed to withstand pressure a thousand times greater than the pressure at the surface of the sea, is expected to find them. At that depth, a day without methane is like a day without sunshine topside.


Impressive as all the science and technology is, I'm equally impressed that Nereus, a mythical Greek god with a man's torso and the tail of a fish, was named in a nationwide contest open to students in junior high schools, high schools and colleges. A generation of text-messaging and Twittering has reduced the young to a language of "words" for messages of only 140 characters. The Greek myths could never have been told in such a language, and it's an unexpected blessing that there's such a relatively large audience of literate young people who can draw on Greek mythology in the service of science.


Many Twitterers (Twitterists? Tweetists?) insist that the Twittering ubiquitous at the beach, in the woods, on bike paths, in sidewalk cafes (and even in church and lecture hall) is simply for fun, idle thoughts expressed in real time. But reducing thoughts to 140 characters may exert a psychological and educational impact more serious than that, determining not only how we speak, but how we listen. Words shortened to the point of illiteracy — a new survey reveals that nearly half of all college freshmen must take a course in remedial spelling — and shortcuts to nonsense pass for information. Twittering keeps the focus narrow and imparts new meaning to "tunnel vision."


George Orwell, an earlier generation's touchstone for clarity, observed that "good prose is like a window pane." President Obama's eloquence, which so mesmerized the world only yesterday, may not be sound and fury signifying not very much, but nevertheless it may be something less than meets the ear. Liam Julian writes in Policy Review magazine that the president's speeches have become "loopy, lofty and often lubricious."


Vagueness tempts others to fill in meanings they want to hear; the presidential language becomes a Rorschach test of attitudes. When the secretary of homeland security refers to terrorism as "man-caused disasters," she's playing a mind game. "Such phraseology," Orwell observed of similar silliness, "is needed if one wants to name things without calling up pictures of them."


Bad language has always reflected bad thinking just as good language delivered with precision forces us to see more clearly. When one of the president's famous teleprompters crashed to the floor during his defense of the economic stimulus package, the irony was writ large for both Woods Hole and Washington. It was a picture worth a thousand words.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.


Comment on JWR contributor Suzanne Fields' column by clicking here.

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