Daniel Lubetzky

by Adeena Schlussel on behalf of Daniel Lubetzky

Smirnoff Ice, a sugary alcoholic beverage, has become the key ingredient to the latest popular drinking game known as “icing.”  When approached with a Smirnoff Ice, the recipient is required to get down on one knee and chug the whole bottle (unless of course he is armed with the same drink, in which case his benefactor is required to drink both). While Smirnoff denies any association with the drinking game that has created amazing free advertising to their benefit, it is possible that a tiny group of consumers truly started it, but then the company discreetly buttressed it.  As the New York Times put it, “[t]he game has exposed the mercurial line between guerrilla advertising and genuine social media trends, raising questions about how young consumers can know when they have co-opted a brand for their own purposes, and when that brand has co-opted them.”

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by Adeena Schlussel on behalf of Daniel Lubetzky

According to a new report, it is believed that if you were to eat foods promoted in advertisements, your nutrition would suffer. The New York Times quotes says that people who abide by advertisement suggestions “consume 25 times the recommended amount of sugar and 20 times the amount of fat they need, but less than half the dairy, fiber and fruits and vegetables”. Read more about the study later this month when it is published in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

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"He is a bastard.  But now he is our bastard!"

- From a friend who shared how they had recruited a controversial  mega-star to their circle.

Lev Grossman wrote an excellent article in TIME on how recommendation engines work (ie, for Netflix movie selection, and for Pandora radio selection) and how they can start turning us into boringly homogenous & predictive blockbuster consumers of the same stuff within one safe space.

Alas, when it comes to movie choices, the options and parameters are so many, that suggestions I get are often unreliable.

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by Adeena Schlussel on behalf of Daniel Lubetzky

Check out this clip in which Dr. David Katz highlights the health benefits of eating two KIND bars a day, stating that “we asked a sample population to actually ADD two KIND fruit & nut bars to their diet every day for two months, and we saw NO weight gain whatsoever.” The trick that Dr. Katz discovered in the Yale Study, is that KIND bars are satiating and curb mindless snacking, ultimately saving calories for those who are counting.

by Adeena Schlussel on behalf of Daniel Lubetzky

This article explains the many values of sardines.  Sardines are a plentiful and sustainable fish, but aside from being healthy for our environment, they are good for our bodies as well.  Unfortunately, except for some brands like BELA (a high quality Portuguese brand of Sardines built by my friend Joshua Scherz), most sardine brands are floundering due to their fishiness.  This is why the Sardinistas are trying to “reinvent the sardine” and earn it a spot on the American mainstream palate.  Hopefully their saintly marketing effort will be successful because it is too bad that they are unpopular today.

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by Adeena Schlussel on behalf of Daniel Lubetzky

Security sources report that Syria has been delivering arms from clandestine depots in Syria to bases in Lebanon. This accusation heightens fears that Syria’s President Bashar Assad is becoming close with Hizbollah, and by extension, its friend, Iran. As part of this concern, some worry that should a clash erupt between Lebanon and Israel, Syria would be entered into the fighting. The UN Security Council Resolution 1701 bans providing arms to Hizbollah and many Western leaders are pressing President Assad to stop undermining this provision.

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In a prior blog entry here, I shared an insight from Linda Gallanter, that your goal when raising children should be to give them purpose, rather than for them to be "happy." If they find purpose, they will find happiness.  If you obsess with their immediate happiness as a goal, they may just end up spoiled or feeling self-entitled.

But in reading an excellent article from Andrea Elliot, The Jihadist Next Door, and in remembering some concepts from a novel (OD&H) I started trying to write a decade ago but never finished, one should remember that "purpose" is a double-edged sword.  A lot of the most dangerous people find purpose alright – to destroy or vanquish or eliminate. 

So the caveat should be that Purpose needs to be Positive.  And since Positive is a normative word whose definition may be in the eye of the beholder (ie, for Omar Hammami, killing infidels in Somalia is a Positive act), I would define Positive as rooted in TOLERANCE AND RESPECT TOWARDS OTHER HUMAN BEINGS – or the golden rule of doing onto others as you would want to be done on to you.

Elliot’s article also highlights that the same attributes of leaders in society – being smart, curious, introspective, analytical, charismatic, determined – can be dangerous if not rooted in tolerance.

Ironically, Omar Hammami was brought up by a Muslim Dad and Christian Mom.  So you would think that environment can foster diversity and respect (as it has in countless of PeaceWorks and OneVoice team members I have met over the years whose parents come from different backgrounds.  Alas, in this case, the teachings that Hammami got from Islam and from Christianity were exclusionary and rooted in intolerance.  He would be warned by his Mom’s family and church in Alabama that he would go to hell unless he accepted Christianity.  And he would be warned by his Father’s family in Syria that he would be cursed if he didn’t accept Islam.  Repressive religious upbringings can boomerang and catch up with your offspring.

Elliot’s article also points how "a constant in Hammami’s life [is] his striving for another place and purpose."

The zeal to transcend one’s life in this world – the search for purpose and posterity – can be the greatest inspiration for good or evil.

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by Adeena Schlussel on behalf of Daniel Lubetzky

In 1947, Fred Monosson and his color video camera captured some of the earliest color images of Israel.  His son almost threw the reel of film away, after recently finding it in the attic, but the treasure was saved after he mentioned it to an Israeli film director.  This is the only color film from this era that we are aware of.