Today’s Jewcy

The Jewcer

Dress up. Jewcy editorial assistant Amy Odell gives her lowdown on Halloween costuming in the increasingly popular “Wanderlust and Gastronomica” forum: “5. Evening of: Dress and style using 40% of purchased items 6. Two weeks after: Lose money when it's too late to return unworn items.” [Forums]

Stop whining and blog for us. We’re looking for a fourth Dating Blogger. Must be male, though not necessarily born that way. Inquire within. [The Shvitz]

What to do this weekend: "YK5767" Yom Kippur, Oct 1: “Multi-Media Exploration of "The Jazz Singer," 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM. Rediscover "The Jazz Singer" and unearth the timeless struggle between the ancient and contemporary.” [Events]

Your take? Jewcy is currently working on integrating “collateral content” within the site. Sort of a cross-pollination between and among all the various sections of the magazine and user community, what this does is provide a list of “Related” links. Here’s how I’ve currently got it set up on Jeff Koyen’s “Why Israelis Are Pricks” piece (did I mention I love the art for that?) Leave your feedback in the Comments section of this “Today’s Jewcy” Shvitz post and let me know how it looks.

The World

Good Riddance: Lead Al Qaeda operative Omar al-Faruq was killed in Iraq by British forces yesterday. Interesting side note: “More is known about Mr. Faruq’s life than about those of many other insurgent leaders, though much of the information has come from the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, a senior Qaeda operative in American custody.” Abu Zubaydah is the allegedly mentally imbalanced operative whom Ron Suskind cites as a perfect example of hemorrhaged bad intel on Al Qaeda in The One Percent Doctrine. No mention here of Zubaydah’s skinny on al-Faruq having been proven unreliable or misleading. [NYT]

A New Algeria? Islamists in Somalia are becoming trigger-happy in fear that Ethiopian forces in country to restrain them. “UIC [Union of Islamic Courts] fighters captured the strategic southern port of Kismayo on Sunday, where they fired at demonstrators, reportedly killing three people.” [BBC]

Actually, not a bad idea, save for one thing. The al-Manar, which is owned by Hezbollah, is looking to broaden its transmission range… into Israel: “The network, which offers 40 percent news programmes, managed to broadcast almost uninterrupted from a secret location. But now that there is a shaky truce, the channel's director Abdallah Qasir, defends the credibility of his news output and told Adnkronos International (AKI) that Israel could be a new basin for viewers.

‘Even within Israel there are people who tune in to know what is happening to their soldiers: during the war, many Israeli viewers often prefered al-Manar to know the truth of the war of Olmert and Peretz’ Qasir said.” Qasir is right; I wish we got Al Jazeera in the states. The only trouble is reconciling Israeli viewership with revenue funneled into the pockets of Nasrallah. Fat chance of that happening. [AKI, Hat Tip: Jewschool]

Welcome to the fight, Benedict? Saul Singer is glad the Pope sees Muslims as violent, revelation-blind crazies without the faculty of reason that, say, Holy Mother Church sanctifies. All well and good, but Jews do Enlightenment better, natch: “There is, however, a difference in the balance Judaism strikes between faith and reason that sets it apart from both Christianity and Islam. Faith is central to all three, but Judaism, again ironically, leaves the greatest space for doubt and lapses of faith.” [J-Post]

Krauthammer’s Law: “Everyone is Jewish until proven otherwise. I've had a fairly good run with this one. First, it turns out that John Kerry — windsurfing, French-speaking, Beacon Hill aristocrat — had two Jewish grandparents. Then Hillary Clinton — methodical Methodist — unearths a Jewish stepgrandfather in time for her run as New York senator.” Jump down two graphs and we get: “For all its tongue-in-cheek irony, Krauthammer's Law works because when I say ‘everyone,’ I don't mean everyone you know personally.” For all its tongue-in-cheek what? For its what irony? [WaPo]