Brian Betts, however, was a very stark exception. I remember him at Redland Middle School in the early 1990s as a pretty decent guy, as a good enough teacher and as someone who proved that middle school gym teachers are not all scum.

Evidently, someone else recognized his virtues and his potential, because he was made into a principal and put in charge of a school in the District some time later.

Then Brian Betts was murdered, in a way that’s confusing and shocking and totally not right.

I hadn’t thought of him in at least a decade and a half, but I am sure thinking about him now.

Brian Betts is a post from Lines Writing Lines.

I wasn’t so keen on the idea of regional networks when they implemented it a few years ago. I thought Facebook was better when used only by people with access to university email addresses (in practice, only by students and recent alumni). There’s something to be said for creating an online social network that my parents can’t access because they haven’t been in a university for 30 years.

But when they started workplace networks and regional networks, I went along with it and joined the Israel network. Because of my privacy settings, this meant that anyone could theoretically sign up for the Facebook, join the Israel network, and see my home address and phone number. But I didn’t worry about that happening because I couldn’t think of anyone who would actually choose to contact me that way instead of googling me and contacting me through my website.

Over time, the Facebook people have tried really hard to shift the users’ focus away from networks and toward groups, and then away from groups and toward pages. I think the pages are dumb and I haven’t joined any. There’s no reason to have pages if there are already groups, except that pages duplicate a crappy MySpace feature. Why would anyone want the Facebook to be more like the MySpace?

The elimination of regional networks is a transparent attempt to get people to share more data with more people, and eventually for the Facebook to become an even more important location for sharing content online. I don’t oppose this in principle. Until now, I allowed access to most of my information by people in the NYU network, the IDC network and the Israel network, and anyone could hypothetically join the Israel network with no verification. The Facebook people evidently think I’m going to allow my privacy settings to show my information to “everyone,” because that will apparently be the default setting. They are dead wrong. Not only am I not going to allow everyone to see me, but this change has made me re-think the whole network concept. Everyone I know or knew at NYU or IDC is already my friend, so there’s no real reason to keep access by those networks to my information either. So I’m changing almost all of my privacy settings from “my networks and friends” to “friends of friends.”

I imagine I’m not the only person who will end up sharing less with fewer people instead of sharing more with more people. I understand where the Facebook is going and how it’s growing, but it’s also about time to accept that its days are numbered now that many of my friends’ parents are members. One of the lamest things about the Friendster was its permission for everyone to access everyone’s stuff, and that opened it up to all sorts of Indonesians and Filipina stalkers. The Facebook has avoided a lot of Friendster’s mistakes until now, so I hope they’ll steer a smart course in the future.

The Friendsterization of The Facebook is a post from Lines Writing Lines.

I’ve been having a problem with it recently – for some reason, it’s not letting me use my Gallery account, giving me the following error message: “No Privileges: The Gallery account for [my username] does not appear to have any albums available with privileges for upload. Resolve this then come back to PictureSync, or change your user login in the account settings.”

I tried googling for people experiencing similar problems, but couldn’t find any online. Then I went to the company’s site, but their FAQ and support documents were entirely unhelpful. Then I posted about the problem in their recommended online forum, hoping someone would see it, but it’s obviously not a well-trafficked place. After waiting a while, I went back to the company’s site and realized that I should send them feedback through the program’s Help menu. I tried that, but the feedback option was grayed out. So I tried emailing the company. A few hours later, I got a very excellent first response, full of possible explanations for the problem and some corresponding solutions to try. I tried them, but none worked, so I replied to the email, answering various questions and adding several attachments – but I haven’t heard back since then.

I don’t often pay for a license to use software, and usually reserve it for the best of the best. PictureSync worked great when I first got it, doing just what it was supposed to do, and I didn’t mind paying for it. But I’m of the opinion that if a company is big enough to charge money for their product, they’re also big enough to provide their own support for that product.

I hope someone from the company that makes PictureSync will see this and contact me to help me out, or give refund my money, or both.

Update: problem solved.

PictureSync problem is a post from Lines Writing Lines.

For travel between Israel and America: I endorse Continental airlines, specifically the CO84/CO85 flights. I traveled this time with Delta on a 767 via JFK because it was about $400 cheaper than the comparable Continental flights, and it wasn’t anywhere near as good as my experience with Continental in the past. This is mainly because Delta uses JFK, a crappy airport, and Continental uses Liberty, a wonderful and lovely airport that’s accessible by Amtrak and also makes me want to take out my pocket Constitution/Declaration and wave it around at people; also, Delta’s flights have no in flight entertainment, while Continental’s have the screens in front of every seat with about 1000 movies and television programs to watch, far more than I could ever hope to consume in 10 or 11 hours. Fortunately, because of the snow and skilled negotiating with Delta, I convinced them to book me on the Continental flight for my trip home!

For inexpensive eyewear: I endorse 39dollarglasses. I bought my last pair of glasses on Thanksgiving weekend in 2000, after Abbey Wilson picked out the frames for me at Lenscrafters of Lakeforest Mall. That they lasted this long is a testament to the quality frames that Lenscrafters offers, and that my eyes have stopped getting worse and worse, no longer requiring stronger and stronger prescriptions all the time. Abbey’s taste in frames was perfect and I wanted to get the exact same pair, but when I tried to find a replacement pair, I was completely and totally unable to find them anywhere. Then I read Farhad Manjoo’s article in Slate about buying glasses online and from it discovered the Glassy Eyes community. 39dollarglasses had frames for sale that were almost exactly like my eight year old designer frames. With an updated prescription from the optometrist in Lenscrafters of White Flint Mall, I got them, with the ultra-thin and super-coated lenses. The total cost, including expedited shipping, came to just over $100. Note: the glasses did arrive bent out of shape, requiring a trip to Lenscrafters of the Upper East Side for some adjustments.

For an American SIM card: I endorse T-Mobile. I first tried using an AT&T SIM, even though I didn’t think it would work, because my father has a relationship with AT&T and because AT&T has a relationship with the company that made my iPhone. The long and the short of it is that AT&T doesn’t want you to use any kind of temporary or prepaid plan with an iPhone because they negotiated with Apple to have all of the iPhone users in America locked into long contracts and paying them exclusively. Even though I did have a data plan, AT&T charged me some extreme amount for using the data, like a dollar per small unit of bandwidth. This necessitated an astonishing number of trips to the local AT&T and T-Mobile branches before switching to a one-month T-Mobile plan for calls, SMS and data. It wasn’t cheap, but it was reasonable, and it’s hard to ask for more.

America, part 2: endorsements is a post from Lines Writing Lines.

To address some of them:

People on the bus who put their feet up on the seat.

On many of the buses, there are actually posted signs that specifically tell people to keep their feet off the seats. I’m less literate in Hebrew than the average Israeli, and I have no problem figuring out the signs, so this behavior is obviously one of contempt and not of ignorance. Kind of like on the day I made Aliyah, in the airport hangar where we were being fêted, there was a giant NO SMOKING sign with a group of idiot soldiers smoking directly under it.

Dog shit.

Not much to say, except that I always pick up Sharav’s. I hadn’t noticed a discrepancy in the above- and below-Rothschild dog shit distribution, though I guess spending 99.9% of my time above Rothschild could have contributed to that. What I have noticed is that plenty of dog owners in central and northern neighborhoods have a lot of trouble cleaning up after their dogs. Should I assume they’re just visiting Florentians?

People reserving their spot at the supermarket.

I don’t tolerate this practice; nor do I tolerate those who tolerate it. If I ever see a checkout line at the supermarket with an unmanned cart or basket at the end, I take the cart or basket, move it somewhere else, and then get in that line. Sometimes the owner protests, and I just explain how shopping in a supermarket works – First we choose what to buy, then we stand in line, then we pay – as if to a child. Occasionally they’ll curse me vehemently for my chutzpah, but then I suddenly forget how to understand Hebrew.

The absolutely ridiculous public transportation system.

Right! There’s no bus from the beach to my house.

Also, there’s absolutely no indication at bus stops as to when the fucking bus may arrive or the frequency with which it runs, all you get is a map and a timetable that says the bus runs from 5AM to midnight.

Correction: sometimes you get a map at the bus stop, but you almost never get one on the bus. Imagine trying to maneuver the subway in New York, a much simpler system than the buses in Tel Aviv, without maps on the trains. When you call the bus company here to ask for information about a bus route or how to get from one place to another, you find that their hours are something ridiculous like 7 am to 7 pm. The buses run until midnight … so what are we supposed to do if we need information in the evenings?

People on scooters who think it’s perfectly acceptable to use the pavement when the road is clogged.

People on scooters, period. Everything is wrong about them. Everything they do is wrong. Also people on bicycles, except the ones who wear helmets, ride in the street (or in designated bike lanes) and follow traffic regulations.

The amount of Hummers in the city.

I also don’t understand this. To be a driver in the army – that is, to drive a Hummer – is not considered desirable or interesting. So how is it that people leave the army, travel in Thailand or South America, come back to Israel and suddenly, in their civilian lives, want to be seen driving a Hummer?

The penis building off the Ayalon.

I wish I didn’t know what building she’s talking about. But I do. And that really bothers me.

Shutterfool's Urban Annoyances is a post from Lines Writing Lines.

There are situations, however, when honking is very, very underused. For example: at an intersection near my parents’ home, there’s a right turn-only lane that, after the light, is continued by a left-merge lane. The idea is that one lane of traffic only will line up and go straight through the intersection. During rush hour, this situation is regularly abused by a small group of assholes who go straight in the right-only lane, cutting in front of the civilized people who played fair and followed the rules. Then they get into the left-merge lane and easily pass by 50 people waiting in line. The worst part is that the maneuver is only visible to very few drivers at the front of the line; almost everyone who’s been victimized is way too far back to see it. Whenever, from the back of the line, I used to see someone pull into the right-only lane and pull this sneaky trick, I would honk. But I’d not only honk, I’d do it loud and hard, and most importantly, I’d point a finger directly at the offender, so that all the other drivers could see who was getting chastised. I like to believe I helped to slow the decivilizing trend of traffic abuses in this way, and wished that other drivers had joined me in socially ostracizing the cheaters. Unfortunately, very few did.

Part of this, and part of the reason why a lot of people don’t honk when they should, is that honking is actually neutral. There are a lot of different causes for honking: honking to prevent a collision; honking to express general dissatisfaction that traffic isn’t moving; honking to express direct dissatisfaction with a particular driver’s behavior; honking to thank another driver for a favor; honking at friends in another car; and rhythmic honking.

What, you may ask, is rhythmic honking? It’s my name for this: honk, honk, honk-honk-honk, honk-honk-honk-honk, honk-honk. This practice is usually done immediately after a major sporting event, by men in their 20s or 30s who are too drunk or too stupid to be driving anyway, in a vain attempt to extend to the street the great feeling they experienced in the stadium while their team was winning. Rhythmic honking is so annoying, and the people who do it are so antisocial, that I think rhythmic honkers should all probably be castrated.

Anyway, back to the inherent neutrality of the honk. Honking isn’t always good or always bad. It’s almost always impossible to tell right away who honked at whom, and why. Moreover, a honk lasts less than a second, so a driver who’s just cut off 30 people and gotten honked at 30 times for it only has to drive another block to escape the unpleasant feeling of everyone else’s angry glares. That’s why, even though I think a car horn is a good evolutionary step away from actual violence and towards solving problems nonviolently, I think cars should have their horns removed and replaced with paint ball guns.

How would paint ball guns be better than horns? Mostly for two reasons:

1. A paint ball stain lasts far longer than the sound of a horn. So if you’ve been paint balled for being a bad driver, everyone is going to know it for at least as long as it takes for you to apply a new paint job.
2. A hit with a paint ball causes actual cosmetic damage to a car, which translates to money. This means that, if you want to keep a nice paint job on your mobile investment, you’d be wise not to treat other drivers poorly.

Obviously there are plenty of reasons why paint ball would be problematic, but I’m confident that they could be deployed safely and fairly, and that they’d be far more effective than horns.

Of course, all of the above should be applied only to societies that are basically civilized and not to a place where, perversely, drivers actually want to be honked at. What? Is there such a place? Yes, and I live in it. Here in Israel, the main aim of every person, at all times, is not to be made into a frayer. Because the only way to be sure that you’re not the frayer is to make sure that someone else is the frayer, it’s customary for average people to treat each other like trash and not to feel bad about it at all. This is why, as Ari, my first roommate in Jerusalem, explained to me, honking in Israel is never a good idea: bad drivers who elicit honks from other people are proud of it instead of ashamed. This is also why replacing horns with paint ball guns would be an even worse idea here. And … I have no solution for this problem.

On Honking is a post from Lines Writing Lines.

If you’re one of the many people who are perturbed that I don’t want to set foot in the United States in the months of October, November or December, please read this Consumerist nightmare post-Thanksgiving Day shopping scenario and ask yourself if, perhaps, you wouldn’t also avoid America at this time of year, if you could.

I like Thanksgiving, but… is a post from Lines Writing Lines.

Worse (so much worse that it makes me vomit): cyclists and scooterists turn sidewalks into another lane of traffic, except with even fewer rules than the normal lanes. No Tel Aviv pedestrian is immune from the danger and the fear of a mounted maniac’s unpredictable careening. This sort of behavior is totally uncivilized and the offenders should be held accountable.

Tel Aviv sidewalks is a post from Lines Writing Lines.

2008: Man Held Daughter Captive In Cellar

Guys, I think the Ramones were on to something!

Hey Daddy-o is a post from Lines Writing Lines.

What I do know is that he lived in Paris, his adopted city, and presumably died there, because that’s where I’ve heard that his funeral is either taking place tomorrow or already took place a few days ago. And I know that he was a world class poet.

To get a little taste of Cousin Bruce’s poetry, I invite all my readers to visit poetry.com and do a search there for firstname bruce and lastname nurock. There you will be introduced to some of the finest literary gems ever composed in the English language, from the classics “Bad AOL” and “Cheesecake” to the stirringly patriotic “September 11, 2001″ and “Operation Enduring Freedom” to the introspective “My Writing.”

Bruce will be missed and his absence will be felt by all those who loved him, and by those who loved those who loved him, and also by those who loved them, as well as by those of us who never got to meet him because he lived on a different continent, in a country that we don’t really ever want to visit. I think it’s also fair to say that the poetry-loving world will never be quite the same.

RIP Cousin Bruce 19??-2008

RIP Cousin Bruce 19??-2008 is a post from Lines Writing Lines.