Regardless of what your mother said, we all believe we have to be doing a thing everybody else is doing. Moms don’t really get peer pressure; when she calls you out on something and you tell her that “everybody’s” doing it, she, of course, throws this snappy comeback at you: “And if everybody jumps off the top of building, should you do that too?” Gotcha!
Regardless, though, “everybody’s doing it” is hard for many of us to argue with. If everybody’s involved in something, there must be something to it! Of …

Milk in a bag? Okay, we learned how to handle that. Chocolate on bread? Yeah, we grok that, even though it seems strange. And the same goes for all the rest of the cultural shocks folks that move to these parts experience; slowly but surely, the changes become “normal.” Except for Newsweek. The organizations that help new olim prepare them well for life in Israel. But somehow, olim who read Newsweek (or Time) in the U.S. get a real shock when they pick up a copy of the …

Where does the time go? Heavy question, that one is. I suppose only someone like Dr. Who would be able to give us a satisfactory answer, since he seems to have a knack for time travel (http://www.bbc.co.uk/doctorwho/). But he’s kind of hard to get hold of, gallivanting around the space/time continuum as he does. But for the rest of us mere mortals who aren’t able to control time – the universe’s, or our own – time has a nasty of habit of slipping away. It’s only when much of …

What Chanukah means to me (besides candles, miracles, etc.): Spending money on outings, spending money on gifts, spending money on days at the mall. What Chanukah means to the kids: Writing cards to their grandparents. Notice a theme here? We love holidays, but they can be expensive – and who’s got money to spare this year? The kids are wonderful, and we want them to have a good time. But with the way reality is biting these days, it pays to be prudent. So, we’re looking to cut costs …

Elections are breaking out all over – there’s one in the U.S. next week, and now that the campaigning is over, our own politicians are busy analyzing the tactics used by Obama and McCain. It turns out that Youtube and other video sites were important forums for the candidates. Both sides produced slick-looking videos that were watched by millions, and supporters of each posted thousands of others. While any schnook can post anything on Youtube, the official videos for both campaigns were slick – just like their …