"אם תלכו ממול תקבלו שלשול" - האשם תמיד
In case you are not completely fed up with it yet, my friend Or Cohen made a Harlem Shake for your Twitter feed. It's an early version, might get upgraded, might get ported to facebook. If you port it, let us know and I'll add it here…
My Spidey Sense (actually a Google alert) notified me that a photo I took was used and credited with my name. It's an article talking about African migrants collectively declared criminals by Eli Yishai.
I just had to reply. Sadly the reply was over twice the length limit allowed. Instead of posting it split three ways, I'll just post it here.
Thanks for the photo credit, but I wish the report was a bit more complete.
1. Some of the Africans are Sudanese and some are not, it's true. some are was refugees and others are climate refugees.
2. Israel refuses to review their cases, and so none of them is declared a refugee and treated according to international refugee treaties, instead they are vilified and attacked. see the Molotov bottles thrown into houses where they live reported in the last few weeks, right after our local holocaust memorial day.
3. up until this last bust, the police and human rights organizations where actually in agreement – the refugee population is actually a very decent bunch and does not break any laws…
4. …other than crossing the border illegally of course, but do you know what's waiting for them in Sinai? Rapes and murders by Bedouins are abundant. The stories collected by our local social workers are truly horrible.
In sum, the migrants' problem is a global one. whether they are escaping the climate changes or turf wars for mineral mining, I blame the developed world for abusing the locals, and Israel should ask for help from the UN or at least the EU. either way, the Passover Haggadah tells us that in every generation Jews must see themselves as if they were the refugee, running from Egypt and looking for sanctuary. Eli Yishai should be ashamed for this racist, unethical and un-Jewish decision to declare them all criminals and make all Israelis accomplices to the injustice, rather than use help from the world to take care of this problem the humane way.
A week ago a story broke – RMS would not be talking at Israeli universities while in Israel, since the sponsors of his visit in the West Bank (soon to be a democratic Palestine inshallah) are adamant about this boycott. The odd thing is that the University of Haifa is the Alma Mater of many Arabs, some told me that maybe most of the students currently enrolled are non-Jews. It's also a pretty petty demand that he is allowed to speak in Israel but not in a university building. It made absolutely no sense to me.
Some people offered to share the costs of take on the sponsorship altogether, but as this idea didn't come from RMS, there were many on HaMakor's mailing list who preferred to interpret his original reply as a hint of support of the BDS movement, who asks people not only to boycott Israel financially, but also academically.
I have written RMS to get his unfiltered remarks on the uproar:
"What I said in my message is the story. There is nothing else except some details. Palestinians invited me and offered to buy my tickets. When they saw I had offered to give talks at Israeli universities, they said they would not support it."
When you refer to your Palestinian hosts who dictated this ban on talks in Israel, is this an independent group, or part of the PA?
"I didn't ask. They asked me to come and give some talks about free software at universities in the West Bank, and I was glad to accept. I also looked forward to the opportunity to see friends and relatives in Israel and to give talks there. So I set up several tasks, not realising that universities as venues would create a conflict.
The Palestinians did not convince me it is wrong to give a speech about freedom issues in a hall of an Israeli university, but I see no reason to go to the wire to do talks in Israel in universities. I have one planned talk in Israel which is not at a university, and we could set up more."
Israelis produce many (if not the most) patches for right-to-left support in FS projects, and have been known to happily collaborate with developers in Iran and Arab countries. Could you and would you use this to build a narrative for the aid of para-political collaborations?
"I would love to do that. I tried to encourage such cooperation in my previous visit too, but I don't think it got very far."
Could you help the readers understand what led to this decision? Is is that your Palestinian hosts "were there first" or are the subjects of your talks there more important for your agendas? In a other words, what caused the sudden attack of pragmatism in the man who quipped that ideology is the best tool to achieve change?
"That contrast is only apparent. The free software movement is a campaign for freedom and community. That's a goal based on principle.
I wouldn't normally call that "ideology", since that word carries negative spin, and tends to imply a broad stand that applies to all aspects of life rather than a specific stand on a specific issue.
I've always been pragmatic about achieving this goal. See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/pragmatic.html, which I wrote at least 20 years ago. Part of being pragmatic about achieving a goal of social change is talking about the goal so we don't forget it.
I personally had hoped that your talks in Israel would have some political edge to them. I have heard too many times people calling your views Anti-Israeli where I correct them each time that you are, like most of us on the Israeli left, fighting against the oppression and denial of liberty.The Palestinians are oppressed both by the Hammas and by Israel, and the PA is far from being clean of corruption.
"That is true, but of these oppressions the occupation is clearly the worst. The PA is corrupt, but it held an honest election which handed power to a different party, and that's the first milestone of a democracy. I would hate to live in a country ruled by Hamas, but the Republican Party is pushing hard to rival it and the Democratic Party follows behind on the same route. If we let Palestinian democracy develop, I think it would adopt democratic and liberal ideals from the Egyptians."
I must admit though, that my defence of your choices has been severely discredited once this item was published:
I don't advocate a blanket boycott of Israeli universities. (If I did, I would not have offered in the first place to give speeches in them.) But I am not going to campaign against it either.
I myself haven't picked sides on the economic boycott actions of BDS, I can see why it's actually legitimate and maybe even effective, but an academic boycott goes against my beliefs, and frankly I was quite disappointed you took such an ambiguous stand on the matter.
"I am surprised it had that effect, since I said I do not advocate the boycott. But what can you do?"
Well, be unambiguous. Take a clear stand against academic boycotts and refusal to communicate between thinking people. This boycott on the University of Haifa is especially odd since a lot of the students there, possibly even the majority, are Arabs.
"That is not what my views are. As I've said, I do not advocate the boycott but I am not going to campaign against it either. I decided to follow the policy of the organisers of the trip.
I hope to give a talk at another venue in Haifa and speak to the same people."
I can not really see a perfect way out of this at the moment. If your first response would have been to go against the boycott and ask the Israelis to try and fund the trip instead (and still visit the west bank), it would have been the perfect course of action – win-win for all but the perpetrators of the boycott. But now I'm not sure if it is not too late. Since the idea for asking for unconditional funding did not come from you on that first letter to Mr. Aronovich, people interpreted it for the worse and decided you have chosen to take a side in favour of the boycott, which was in turn seen as breaking away from your principles, etc.
"Quite the contrary. I am doing my best to act on my various principles in a complex situation. I think that they may have taken some of my real principles and reinterpreted them in a way that doesn't come from me."
After this email exchange, RMS' latest letter to Eddie had reached the paper, the original Email read thus:
I don't advocate a blanket boycott of Israeli universities, but I am not going to campaign against it either. I see where they are coming from: Israel's occupation policies are horrible. Non-violent protests are crushed with persistent brutality. (See http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Columnists/Article.aspx?id=221897.)
Palestinians who are against violence are looking desperately for some method of non-violent resistance. I can't blame them for it even if I don't agree entirely with the details. Thus, I decided to follow their policies in the trip they organised.
I wish I had discussed the issue in advance and avoided having to cancel a plan I had agreed to.
I will give at least one talk in Israel, at a non-university venue, and I am hoping more can be arranged.
To me, it is clear that RMS has indeed attempted to make the best of a very problematic situation. He decided to circumvent the boycott without supporting it nor strongly opposing it, because coming here and talking about what's important to him is more important than taking sides on the academic boycott issue. I must confess I am not entirely happy with that myself, and I have advocated the community not to cancel the bookings, but use them instead to invite Palestinians and talk about keeping academic communications free from boycotts and gags, or there really will be no civilised way of keeping open channels of hope for peace and collaboration. I hope this does happen after all. The idea of Freedom of expression and information, including that of knowledge exchange in the shape of free content and software, are in my eyes all facets of the same set of tools and goals.
If people are still disappointed with RMS I can't say I don't understand them. Just remember that the ideas are more important than this persona or the other. The man is not the issue, keep the ideals alive though, if you agree with them.
Shai Tubali is a some-what familiar name in the media, because unlike other nutty cult leaders, he published a successful book, and his name is also known from the time he served in Galey Tzahal almost two decades ago. His cult is quite small, reported to be under 30 followers these days, but several news sources (Yediot, Channel 2) have published worrying stories about the way he abuses his flock. One of the people who also wrote about him several times is reporter, blogger and newage academic Tomer Persico. Of all the publications, Tubali decided to skip the national media and pick on Persico and hit him with a 220K NIS libel suit. More Info (also in Hebrew) in NRG.
I myself have been threatened to be sued three different times after posts in this blog, and by lawyers, no less. All for legitimate criticism, and in all three cases I managed to shut them up with an email or two. Two other friends of mine (Guy and Hetz) are awaiting trials and have spent thousands of Shekels on attorneys. This is becoming a serious threat to freedom of speech in Israel, and specifically for bloggers. I find this very worrying.
I would appreciate your thoughts on the matter, and if you're finding this latest story important enough to support, please hit the link to read further, and maybe pledge a few NIS for Persico's defense
(No, I don't know him personally, I don't even read his blog regularly, and this post is unsolicited)
This just sent via email to Better Place:
Dear Sir/Madam
I would venture a guess that many of your early adopters (or switch-registrants for now) are also gadget lovers or at least tech savvy. Most of them walk around with a smartphone with a GPS or at least have a GPS in their cars. The idea is that by submitting you their GPS data from driving their gas cars they could get your estimates on car usage and maintenance patterns, and have a better idea on the EV experience ahead. Better Place can use this as a market research as well as active marketing tool, of course.
The problem: many would-be early adopters wonder what is the real range of your EV. With rush hours being as bad as they are in Israel, and the heat rising every summer, some people fear that changing battery packs every 80 KM is inevitable. This software tool will allow them to have a better idea about the severity of the problem, and help them decide before making the switch.
As for Better Place – I have no doubt that you are already equipping people with recording equipment to learn their driving habits, but you can always use more data.
The basic idea: owners of popular platforms like Android and iPhone already like to run apps like Waze, that record and report their speed and location. Better Place can be using that software (it's Open source) or offering the service via the existing Waze platform:
If a user chooses to participate, Better place would get details of time on the road, parking locations, speed and location, which can then be crossed with GIS data (or free via Google Earth) to get elevation data, producing very good estimates of energy use, battery drain and recharge based on speed and road inclines.
Better place benefits by getting the usage pattern data of drivers who are eager to try the new system, and the users will receive signals emulating their experiance, such as SMS reports with "if you had an EV, your battery would have finished recharging about now", or more importantly "If you had an EV, you would have had to make a battery change stop about now". Naturally, a cost calculator comparing the gas-vs-EV costs along the way will be an excellent feedback.
Variations: Waze is an Israeli company and I have no idea if it's popular enough abroad, also for people like me who own an unsupported smartphone (Linux-based Nokia N900) Waze is not an option. Still I can record my travels and produce a GPX file and submit it. Ideally you could spare some change on porting the application to Maemo and Meego and make a few more people happy 🙂
Ideally: I am also a privacy minded guy, I would prefer if there was an option of getting estimates on usage and costs by calculating them locally on my smartphone or PC, without submitting the data to your servers. And yes, I AM aware that by driving your cars this privacy would probably not be an option (though I'd be very happy to know if it were!).
Thanks,
Ira.Copies: My Blog
The idea, as you see, is a boon for both Better Place and the would-be switchers. I have no idea what's going on on Facebook, but I have a feeling Better Place could start some more "social media" buzz to help their goals. I guess if people are buying into foursquare silliness, they must buy into an application that will actually give them useful information.
This post is in English for several reasons. Mostly it's because it was originally posted in English on "Metacognition: Learning to Learn" on Linked-in and I care not retype the whole thing, much less translate it (most of it was pasted without editing). For more about English posts in my predominantly Hebrew blog see my new page about this.
I'm a beginner in the field of education, but I want to become a better teacher. Here's one of the issues that bugs me the most – Is there a widely agreed-upon taxonomy of teaching/learning styles, accompanied by tools to figure out which approach is needed by each student?
Quoting from Debra Franciosi on another thread in that forum:
This worked in my classroom, and now I incorporate it into my adult training activities:
Provide learners with opportunities to learn in different modes — so they can work from their strengths, shore up weaker areas, and possibly discover new areas of strength. Once they have had this introduction, if you clearly identify your learning goals, then give the learners a menu of choices — how they get there CAN be up to them — as long as they get there. In K-12 classroom situations, it can take a while (months) to train them in the different options. I found that they were much more willing to try things when they understood the master plan — they would get to choose the best methods for their learning styles once everyone tried everything.
So there it is. One student gets confused or shut off if you show them the target before you embark on the journey. Others need to know that goal, so it's easier for them to put the stepping stones in place (putting the information available in context, if you will, to build it into knowledge at their own pace). Another class of learners can't grasp new ideas if you don't keep relating it to a subject they already know – throwing the burdain of finding parables for every unit of the subject. Other students will find it key to figure out those connections themselves and not have them spoon-fed.
The problem is that many of these approaches might contradict, most learners use more than one technique to handle different types of knowledge buildings (One example of the difference was given in the "Metacognition" forum by JM Ivler: "Math: Hierarchy ; Science: Helix ; Languages: Immersion"). I suggest that we try Franciosi's suggestion at some age (10-13, depending on the learner's levels of "self awareness", if you could suggest a test for evaluating that). At that point, somewhere at the upper two classes of elementary, we tell the kids – "these are the 6 common learning styles we see, there are also these other 4 ((I'm not sure if there's an official taxonomy of 4 or 6 or 10 learning styles, this is just an uneducated guess)). Do you recognize yourself in 2 or more of these categories? maybe try to think about this during classes and see which is your style in terms of liking/comfort or efficiency of understanding the information. Can you recognize the different teaching styles and be able to figure out if you prefer subjects because the teachers that teach them are conforming with the ways you are most likely to learn better or be more engaged? do you think you'd like lit/math/history/whatnot better if it was taught in a style more like that of that teacher or another?
Someone asked how is metacognition related to "learning to learn", so there's metacognition in the learning process for you. Sadly nobody ever approached me to give me this choice. In highschool we were grouped for certain subjects like math and physics based on our grades, which determined whether we would be taking 3, 4 or 5 unit matriculation tests come senior year.
I'm thinking: If a certain teacher simply can't give all the students what they need in a specific class, maybe it's time for students to pick the teacher by style and not have the school pick one for them by grades? How much better of a student could I be if at the 5th or 6th grade I was given to the tools to figure out what learning styles are better or worse for me and allow me to try the adjustments and be able to give feedback on what's not working right. rather than just thinking I hate the subject or the teacher or both without having the vocabulary to explain why.
A moment of metacognition then: As any of you can read from this post, I'm the kind of person who needs to understand the goal, try to break down its meaning to the needed secondary goals, and then attempt to plot the shortest "route" of stepping stones to reach them all with efficiency. not sure it's a good strategy, pretty sure most students don't try to get down this kind of a road at all, and most teachers thought I was a pain in the #$%, which in turn caused my school years to seem mostly as an attempt to pull the breaks rather than try to keep up with the teacher. I hope to start a project where learners of all ages and styles could find their path to learning even when sharing the same environment. More on that in a different post.