Rachel Ford is a programmer, and since 8:00 to 5:00 doesn't provide enough opportunity to bask in screen glare, she writes in her spare time. She was raised a very fundamentalist Christian, but eventually "saw the light." Rachel's personal blog is Rachel's Hobbit Hole, where she discusses everything from Tolkien to state politics.
This past Sunday, Indian model, reality TV star, and actress Gauhar Khan (below) was taping the finale for the show Raw Star (a reality TV singing contest), when a member of the audience took umbrage with her outfit. It was, in his opinion, too revealing for a Muslim woman to wear. The BBC reports that this moral champion subsequently spent some time harassing the star; and, when that didn’t produce the desired effect, he attacked her. After slapping Khan, the unnamed assailant was overpowered by security and arrested. Read more
Last month I wrote about some interesting comments made by Exodus: Gods and Kings star Christian Bale (below), who plays Moses in the film. At the time, Bale had said of Moses that he was “likely schizophrenic and was one of the most barbaric individuals that I ever read about in my life.” In recent interviews, Bale has been expounding on those thoughts. In an interview with Nightline, he noted that Moses was … absolutely seen as a freedom fighter for the Hebrews, but a terrorist in terms of the Egyptian empire. Read more
A piece in the New York Times examines the work of Yeshiva graduate Naftuli Moster, in highlighting the educational shortcomings of many Hasidic schools in New York and pushing for enforcement of existing law regarding the curriculum requirements of non-profit schools. Some New York City Jewish schools offer a full range of educational topics, secular as well as religious, but many of these schools keep non-religious studies to a bare minimum, particularly for boys (who are often pushed toward eventual Talmud study after graduation). Sometimes secular studies comprise less than two hours in a school-day: Read more
