Wikipedia, gone bad

So I subscribe to a lot of news rss feeds (for those of you who don't know what those are, think of them as custom made newspapers). One of the newspapers that I've found to give an interesting and refreshing perspective on Israel is the UK's Independent. The writings of one of their middle east columnists, Robert Fisk, have grabbed my interest particularly - from what I've been able to say hes got his head screwed on the right way, one smart cookie.

Recently I read one of his articles that was not actually about Israel, but was still intensely interesting and bothersome to me. In this article Fisk tells the story of one Professor Taner Akçam, a Turkish historian known for being the first to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide - "the deliberate mass murder of up to a million and a half Armenians by the Ottoman Turkish authorities in 1915" (cited from the above mentioned article). He is also the author of a book which proves the existence of the genocide using Turkish documents and archives. This has (not surprisingly) earned him a great deal of persecution, both from Turkish authorities and from Turkish American groups. He fled Turkey to escape this and was granted asylum in Germany, and in 1976 he was adopted as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International.

Why did Fisk choose to write about this seemingly dated piece of news? Well recently this case has taken a twisted turn for the worse. On February 16th, 2007 Akçam was detained by Canadian immigration while flying into Montreal for a lecture. The reason? A vandalized Wikipedia biography of him, labeling him as a terrorist. This occurrence was repeated on his attempt to return home, only there it was U.S. Homeland Security officers who detained him.

Putting aside how ridiculous the idea that the way our country gathers intelligence on potential terrorists is from Wikipedia. Putting aside even how insane it is that Homeland Security recommended that Akçam hire lawyers to get this information removed from his files in Washington, or that he was detained twice to what amounts to an unsubstantiated rumor.

Does it scare anybody else that Wikipedia is being used by oppressive governments to punish those who criticize them?

I have no more to say on this, other than I will never again cite Wikipedia in any meaningful context. Anyone who wishes to know more about these things should check out the following linked articles:

Robert Fisk's article from the Independent, where I first learned of these happenings
An article by Akçam himself, where he tells of the incident from his point of view. This article has been published in many different sources, and I'm not sure which is the original or if Mr. Akçam submitted the article to several different sources.

Happenings of late

Nothing so amazingly momentous to report, just wanted to assure you all I'm not dead. So school is basically over (20 days left!!!), and guess what? It's taken them 4 years but they've FINALLY fixed the leaks on the girls' floor! It's crazy, I expected it to be all mildewed and stuff but it was bone dry. Even the chem lab had no puddles. Things are really changing now that we're leaving.

Along the same lines as that, some shocking (and reliable) gossip floated down to Mayhs today - apparently Mr. Bauer isn't coming back next year. I have some fond (and not so fond - freshman year was bad) memories of freshman bio with him - while not the best teacher IMO, he was always there for whomever needs it. It won't be the same place without him.

Other random news - driving in lots of water isn't fun. And... Englishtown Latte and Learning is amazing, they get sooooo many kids there, it's crazy! And seeing Jonah standing on a chair preaching to the masses with his sefirah beard was highly... inspirational. We love you Jonah Learner, oh giver of caffeine and wisdom.

Well, that's all for now folks. I'll update later, either after the lock-in this Saturday night or after the Mayhs Senior trip next week.

Israel revisited

One of the most exciting things to me about the first Seder this year was when we said "בשנה הבא בירושלים" - the thought that I actually will be in Jerusalem next year, albeit probably not a rebuilt one, filled me with an excitement that I could barely express. At the same time however, I felt a slight dread that had been growing in me for some time now get just that much larger. For as I sat at the table with my uncle and aunt, my frum cousin and his wife and kids, and my own family, I foresaw that next year the Seder I attended would be very different from the one I was at then. I thought then about how recently I've begun looking more into Judaism, and liking what I'd found. Workshop, the program I was planning on going to Israel with next year, is not very religious to tell the truth - in fact Habonim Dror is for the most part a spiritual wasteland as far as I'm concerned. I began wondering then whether I had made the right decision when I told my Rebbe that Yeshiva was not for me.

Workshop is something that I've looked forward to since last summer. Although I have always been more religious than the majority of the people in Machaneh, I didn't really think that it would be a problem on Workshop. Now I'm no longer so sure - I'm beginning to think that I want to explore myself in a different direction than Workshop and Habonim can take me. Hopefully I will be talking to Rebbe tonight after Yom Tov is over, and hopefully I'll arrange to meet with him on Friday before Shabbat starts. We'll see then what happens - if I decide to go to Yeshiva my life will almost certainly be getting interesting pretty soon. Between finding a place that's both good for me and willing to take me despite the late date, and convincing my parents to let me go, I think I can safely say that I will be far from bored over the next few weeks.

I'll keep you posted. All 5 or so of you that read this, anyway ;-)