Not much time for posting these days. Too much teaching and grading and dealing with the situation at school which only seems to be getting worse. Right now, it appears as if the administration has used the pretext of a criminal investigation into the alleged abuse of our college email system, specifically involving the college-wide listserv that we use to communicate with the entire campus, to impose a pre-screening of any email that anyone wants to send to the entire campus; and it is very clear that the result of this pre-screening, even if it is not the intent, has been to censor certain communications that are critical of the administration. It’s not a free speech violation, apparently, since they have not closed off all avenues of communication–though this situation does make it more difficult to get information out to the entire campus in an efficient manner–but it does raise serious questions about the administration’s commitment to academic freedom. And it is depressing.
But it is also Chanukah, and I want to share with you this video that my wife shared with me on Facebook. It’s just plain fun and it lifted my spirits. I hope it does something similar for you:
I remember seeing this video last Chanukah. It is adorable, and it has probably taught a lot of people exactly what Chanukah is about; I’m not Jewish, and I didn’t know in any great detail what the holiday was about, just that it was really kind of a lesser holiday compared to, say, Purim or Rosh Hashanah, but it gets a lot of press in the modern world due to occurring near Christmas. So I learned something in addition to being entertained and rather tickled by the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOybylO9BhU
Love this video!
On a related note, one of my good friends Jeffrey Paul Bobrick created a Chanukah campaign on kickstarter – so he can actually studio record and distribute a Chanukah song. It’s for next year’s holiday season, but the fundraising ends this month. The video is pretty funny – here’s the link, let me know what you think!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/85423862/its-chanukah-song-and-music-video