After the fall of the USSR,  most young people went for business degrees and basically got worthless pieces of paper. To my mind real world skills are all that matters. Computers, Engineering, Mathematics Physics.

One friend a Serge here went to work for a company in Canada and all they do is find talent for engineering companies. What  matters most are hard core skills that people will pay hard cold cash for. 

The main thing with Reb Israel Salanter is his disciples. He did not write much but the Igeret HaMusar and letters he sent to his disciples. The main thing is the books of his direct disciples.

The basic idea of Reb Israel is divided into two parts, one was midot (to work on having good character traits) and the other was fear of God. But in each one of his disciples some other basic aspect of Musar becomes apparent.
To me it seem that the whole set should be taken as one whole set. That would be the two book by Isaac Blazzer the Light of Israel and the other one just printed recently. The Madragat HaAdam, Or Zfun by the Altar of Slobodka, the letters of Simcha Zisel from Kelm. [I myself did not get through it all. The letters of Reb Simcha Zisel I found incomprehensible. The later books of the Musar movement seemed to get off track however. They became "frum" and crazy eyed fanatic.] So to get to the idea of Reb Israel of fulfilling the ideal of the Torah it is not possible except on an individual basis or being part of one of the few authentic Litvak Yeshivas like Ponovitch or Brisk.  

the Left will do everything possible to keep power

I have believed for a long time and that the Left will do everything possible to keep power. They will rig the machines so that every vote for Trump will register as for Hillary. They will stop at nothing. The reason is sad and simple. To the Right things like personal responsibility and paying bills matter. That is personal life and morality matters. That is why they are right wing. To the Left only one thing matters: Power. It is deeper and more intense than anything else in their lives. And they will stop at nothing in order to get it.

I had some explanation for this a while back but I forget it. Mainly it is that the Left's two gods are the "State" and Power. The main explanation from what I recall were that the Left's ideology is based on Rousseau. [But it is a ideology that also has elements from Marx, Hegel, Sartre, and ironically enough Nietzsche.] That is to say the Left is not secular. Rather they have endowed the State with all the significance of what God used to mean to people. Nowadays the God himself means little to most people---even believers.  But the State and power means everything.

r75 mp3 r75 midi  r75 nwc

My comment on Dalrock:

My impression is that when a woman says, “It is over,” there is nothing more one can do.

And his response:

This is nearly always the case. The exception that comes to mind (and proves the rule) is if the woman decides divorce would be harmful to her personally. One of the patterns my wife has commented on is she has never caused a divorcing woman to reconsider by explaining how much this will harm her children. However, if the woman becomes convinced that divorce will harm her personally, suddenly she will have a change of heart “for the children”.

But the husband is in a poor position to deliver the message that divorce will harm the woman. Another relative might be able to, as might another woman. The most effective focus is generally on the woman’s realistic dating/remarriage prospects. This is most easily framed as “You know how men are. They are too selfish to commit to an older woman/woman with children!” This, along with pointing out the real life results of the divorcées the woman knows (not the marketing job, but the details of the real replacement man).

There seems to be a kind of contradiction in the Rambam. How much of the Law of Moses is natural Law and how much is only because of revelation? In the Guide you see two different things. One is that the laws of the ancient Greeks natural law [as known by Abraham the patriarch] was necessary step towards Matan Torah [giving of the Torah]. So they are different in essence. Yet the Rambam also gives natural reasons for the laws. Maybe he thought the reasons were a necessary, but not sufficient condition?
That is reason that would create conditions for the mitzvot but not the entire cause.

English Literature in high school and college is depressing

Instead of the greats Chaucer, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Sophocles, they force people to learn stupid books by blacks


The issue is the quality of the thought of the great writers, not their color, nor sex. This is why English Literature in high school and college is so depressing. They force you to learn second rate hacks just because of their race or sex. Just see an average anthology of English Lit. what garbage they are forcing down people's throats.


But philosophy might be a good idea, or music and art courses. First year Philosophy usually deals with Plato and Aristotle which are in fact important.
The Rambam and Saadia Gaon both wrote books describing the world view of Torah and their books are not possible to understand without background in Plato and Aristotle.