Yesh Li Blog: Featured Blog: Cognitive Dissonance

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Featured Blog: Cognitive Dissonance

I discovered this most excellent blog when I reconnected with a friend from many years ago. I had the pleasure of working with Mike Kubat when we were both stationed in Rota, Spain. Although his self-description below is of a grump, I remember him as a courteous, pleasant, intelligent, well-spoken naval officer, for whom I had the utmost respect.

The writing on his blog, Cognitive Dissonance, reinforces those impressions from so many years ago. I commend the entire blog as a source of "real help when things simply make no sense," but in particuluar, I consider his recent article concerning global warming/climate change/climate disruption to be one of the most articulate, clear, well reasoned, and adequately documented I have encountered.

His writing style is not only cogent but engaging and often entertaining. Check it out. You'll be glad you did.

Cognitive Dissonance

real help when things simply make no sense...

About Michael J. Kubat

I'm a grumpy Czech-born clinical social worker who is vitally interested in the survival

of the United States as a viable democracy and a beacon of hope for the rest of the world.

Go to Michael's blog.

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Why Yesh Li Blog?

Why do I have a blog? Quite simply, I have a blog to share my favorite things with others. The right side of the blog has a long list of links to some of the places on the Internet that I visit often. In addition to sharing those with others, I often come here myself to find a quick link to where I am going.

Bonnie, our eldest, led the way into blogging with her Simple Beauty Blog, and later with her extremely popular Beans Blog. I decided I would give blogging a try and thought "I have a blog" might be a clever name, but in English it sounded rather lame, so I did it in Hebrew, a language I love more and more the more I learn it.

What does Yesh Li Blog mean?

We would translate (i.e. interpret) yesh li blog to mean "I have a blog" in English, but the literal Hebrew means "There is for (or to) me a blog." You cannot literally say "I have" something or other in Hebrew. It is always "there is for me," or "there is for you," or "there is for us," etc. Hebrew, the language of the Bible, is showing us that we are really stewards of what has been provided for us and for our use. Rather than private ownership, perhaps a better term for what we "own" would be private stewardship.

Languages have been my passion since at least the fourth grade, when I studied Spanish from a library book called Fun with Spanish. In high school, I was the rara avis that became enamored of Latin. In later U.S. Navy tours of duty in Spain, Italy, and Japan, we did our best to learn the local languages. Along the way, I studied some Russian and picked up some Greek by studying etymologies and some Chinese by studying Japanese writing systems.

My first introduction to Hebrew was in the early 1980s, when I took a correspondence course, but it was not until the past decade that my primary focus has been on this wondrous language. It has been deeply rewarding, and especially in the past few years since we met Ori, an amazing Israeli woman, who has become not only my primary Hebrew mentor but also our good friend. Moreover, the small group of people who meet weekly to study Torah in Hebrew in Boulder have become dear to us and enriched our lives greatly. Further, reading Jewish commentaries on the Web of the weekly Torah portions has deepened my own faith and opened up new understandings of the scriptures we share and of Christian writings based on those scriptures.

The pursuit of words has been an essential part of my life for many years (since birth?). Many things have changed in my life, but I don't see that part of it changing any time soon (until death?). Lehitraot! Shalom, Chaverim!