Jon's Random Links

Judaism

Yes, it's possible to be a Jewish atheist. I don't believe it is possible to be an atheist and accept the Jewish religion, but a Jewish atheist can accept or even relish being one of the Jewish people and being a part of the Jewish culture. An atheist is liberated from the religious commandments that don't have a humanistic basis, but nevertheless can embrace those traditions that are meaningful or useful.

Personally, I celebrate a few of the holidays, fast on Yom Kippur, and rarely eat anything called "bread" on Passover. I try to leave some raspberries in my raspberry patch for my neighbors. My rabbi has encouraged me to consider finding a way to keep the Sabbath. While I would not consider keeping it in the traditional way, I'm thinking about it! Certainly the idea of having one day a week that's somewhat special is appealing.

• Kahal B'raira Congregation for Humanistic Judaism
• Temple Shir Tikvah

• Open Source Software in Education
• Robocode: Learn Java by building violent robots.
• StarLogo
• BlueJ, a nice Java development environment designed for teaching Java

Lexington, MA

• The Lexington List
• Official town site
• Minuteman Library Network
• Minuteman
• weather
• Lexington Symphony
• Lexington C.A.R.E.S.

Charitable Organizations I Like

• Asian American Civic Association
• Vermont Jazz Center
• JazzBoston
• Americans United for Separation of Church and State
• Planned Parenthood Federation of America: It's way more humane, and way cheaper, to help someone prevent an unwanted child than to accept the consequences of an unwanted child.
• Rails-To-Trails Conservancy: Help convert abandoned railroad beds into bike trails, resulting in less pollution, more exercise, and more beauty.
• Seeds of Peace: Help Israeli and Palestinian kids break the cycle of violence. Donate in memory of Philip Rosenzweig, who was on American Airlines flight 11 on Sept 11, 2001.
• WBUR
• WGBH

Random Businesses I Like

• The Art of Roasting, a coffee roastery that roasts delicious coffee in small batches, run by a friend/coworker/all-around cool guy
• Multicultural Book World, Bob Romanow's inner city book business
• Theatre Pharmacy in Lexington Center. Helpful, consistent and very present staff. Still a good old fashioned drug store (though without a soda fountain) in these days of McDrug stores.
• Bollywood Cafe in East Lexington. An easy walk from my house and great Indian food.
• Southeast Asian Restaurant in downtown Lowell. Delicious, cheap, and (optionally) really hot lunch buffet.
• CedarWorks, maker of very high quality natural cedar swingsets. They really stand behind their work!
• East Hill Farm, Troy, NH (weather)
• Vicki Blier Window Treatments/Design. Okay, I wouldn't know a window treatment if it sat on me, but Vicki Blier is a very cool person with integrity and good taste.

Really Random

• Dates specified in the form YYYY-MM-DD (e.g. 1999-11-10) are unambiguous, international, lexically sortable, y2k-compliant, and complies with ISO standard 8601.
• McMaster-Carr catalog.These guys have everything.