The new mob lynchings

I didn't go to SXSW Interactive due to my honeymoon, which was a much better conference with more interesting participants and panels. I did pay attention to some extent to panel write ups, and some of the backchannel communications via Twitter. They often annoyed me, sine I wasn't there but most of my Twitter pals were.

I have followed the Zuckerberg/Lacey story (too many links to bother finding the best one here, sorry) with avid interest. It has seemed more and more clear to me that SXSW played host to a lynching via social media. I am worried about lynchings of public women (I cannot find the Slate - or was it Salon - story about how the public fascination with Britney/Paris/Lindsay amounts to child abuse). This lynching in particular was awful because the woman in question isn't even setting herself up as an object. She's just a mediocre business journalist.

Here's a great statistical analysis of the Zuckerberg/Lacey interview that really adds something to this conversation and gives us reasons to worry about social neworking and backchannels. I really, really recommend that you read it, as it has something important to say about mob behavior. We online elites are not immune to it. I wish I had time to write a feature length magazine article about the new mob lynchings, maybe Kee Hinckley does. This is a major piece of thinking - my congrats.

Matthue's toast

Dan Sieradski read this on behalf of Matthue at my wedding, and I thought everyone should get a chance to read it...it was so special to us.

Hey, Bill and Sarah!

Right now I'm sitting at my desk at home, beaming the message to Dan -- thank you, Dan -- and the only reason in the world I wouldn't come to your wedding is on my lap. She is 20 inches long, drooling something white, and has the most amazing glass-blue eyes in the world -- and her name is Yalta, and one day you're gonna see her.

Not to sound like too much of a traditionalist, but dudes, this is why people get married. Not to have babies -- although, hey, bring it on -- but because we're going about our lives, doing our little writing and printing up our little t-shirts and learning about medieval rabbis arguing, we lose sight of the reason we're doing it. Because there's a planet that's bigger than we are, and there's a whole future beyond what we can see, and, one way or another, we're going to be a part of it.

It might be the big things we do -- starting minyans, putting on plays -- but it's also the small ones. The conversations we share. The people we inspire.

This Shabbos was Parshas Titsaveh. It's the only parsha since Moses's birth that his name's not mentioned, and it's one of the more halachically tedious ones -- it deals with the priests' service in the Tabernacle, how they're supposed to get dressed, the order of the stones on the breastplate. These are the things that deal with the smallest details, the intermediary things, and the everyday rituals that lead up to the important stuff -- the metaphysical paperwork, I guess, before we get to talk to God.

Marriage is a lot like that. There are the big times -- you're in the middle of one of the biggest times right now, and, G*d willing, you're going to get a lot more big times soon. But it's the small times, the looks that you give each other, the way you say "good morning" or "you're wearing THAT to synagogue?", that end up being the biggest parts of marriage. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. Both of you helped me through difficult parts in my life, and gave me this exact same advice, but better. I'm sure a lot of people in the room can say the same thing.

But remind each other. Talk to each other as much as you can. Keep the little things going, and the big ones will grow out of them. You guys are the most giving, creative and wonderful people that Itta and I have had the privilege of kicking it with. Hopefully, what we've already experienced is nothing compared to the future.

So keep it coming, guys. And mazel fricking tov.

CBS thanks me (and you)

In 2007, I basically saved Jericho for a living. CBS sent a shout out. And some of the guys are wearing my shirt in it. Cool!

Thanks from the CBS Jericho team

My wedding cake

Bill and Sarah's deconstructed cake
Originally uploaded by rennemy

All hail Tim, king of the bakeries...