Reuters reports that an Israeli girl has been married and divorced — all at the young age of 14.
It began as a joke at school, where a 17-year-old declared the girl his wife by reciting a Jewish ritual vow before witnesses. In response, she received his ring.
The Rabbinical Courts of Israel indicated that this was the consummation of marriage for the two of them and that they were man and wife.
Later, the couple was granted a rabbinical divorce.
That is following “the letter of the law.”
I recently was reminded of a book by Neil Postman that I read a dozen years ago. The forward is here:
We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn’t, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.
But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell’s dark vision, there was another – slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions”. In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us.
This book is about the possibility that Huxley, not Orwell, was right.
Turn on the television and you’ll see Postman was right. Our appetite for distraction knows no bounds.
The book is Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. I may post a couple more quotes from the book here in the hopes it gets a read from others.
~Steve
Today I watched a video on the WTAJ TV-10 News website concerning the availability of E-85 in State College, PA. The video is here.
It looks really good — like it’s a good thing to go buy a flexible-fuel vehicle and save some cash at the pump at the same time. But is it? Let’s do some math.
A gallon of regular fuel at the station is $3.35. E-85 is $2.99. That’s a savings of 11% at the pump. But everyone agrees that E-85 is not as efficient as gasoline. The good people at WTAJ note that when they say, “…vehicles using the special fuel will get poorer gas mileage.” How much poorer?
Wikipedia notes that a Fuel-flex Chevy Tahoe averaging 18 MPG on gasoline will average 13 MPG on E-85. That’s a decrease in efficiency of 28%. So let’s imagine that we put 1,000 miles on our Fuel-Flex Tahoe. Here’s what the math says:
| Fuel Cost | MPG | Miles Driven | Total Spent | |
| Gasoline | $3.35 | 18 | 1000 | $58.91 |
| E-85 | $2.99 | 13 | 1000 | $79.91 |
In this scenario, using E-85 instead of gasoline will actually cost an additional $21 per thousand miles driven. That may be good for the environment, but until the price is closer to 30% less than gasoline it’s not a financial advantage to the consumer.
So buy it if you want to reduce your petroleum consumption and emissions, but don’t fool yourself that you’re saving money. Kermit was right.