The publishing of my Child & Domestic Abuse book will be in a few days

Problem

My book is almost finished. I am just waiting for one final essay to be finished. However I have run into a major roadblock. I contacted three distributors/book sellers regarding the book. The first one said simply, "I can't have a book on abuse in my store." The second one said, "Of course I'll distribute the book. It is an important work that is needed by our community. However I don't know a single store that I supply that would take it." The third one said, "The book is important but I can't have a book which is so explicit in description and language. I need a book that any beis yaakov graduate would be comfortable with , a book that any chassidic woman would allow in her home. You need to just say there is an abuse problem and here are the solutions to prevent it - just don't describe what abuse is or use terms such as oral sex, sodomy or incest." LOL

Therefore the problem is how to produce and distribute a book that will be acceptable to the mainstream Orthodox stores. How do I produce a safe enough book which conveys the nature of abuse to those who have no idea of what it entails without describing what it is? Aside from the concerns with content the distributors  were also very concerned that the book would be banned and that they might suffer financially - but they all agreed that I have no way of protecting against this.

Solution
However I have a solution. The book will be initially released as an ebook from Barnes and Noble. This uses the ePub format which is readable on all computers as well as most ebook readers (Kindle is a major problem however.). The Nook free software works also on cell phones. It will also be copy protected (DRM) This produces some significant problems regarding format i.e., the pages are smaller and so navigating is a formidable problem. Formatting is limited and Hebrew can't be displayed. However it can have internal links in the text and so the Table of Contents (12 pages in book format) will provide hyperlinks to the relevant sections. The Nook software not only allows reading the ebook on many different devices but allows you to lend it to others for a 14 day period.

 Once I have a finished version I will also sell it through Amazon for the Kindle. If the ebook version is acceptable to the public then I will see about publishing it either as (publish on demand) or for the stores.

There is also a major advantage to this approach - aside from the fact that I don't need a store or pay for printing (for Barnes & Noble but not Amzaon) - I can update and correct the book free and purchasers can download the latest edition free (This is true only for Barnes & Noble but not Amazon). There is obviously no physical book so there is no problem that your mechutan might see that you are reading a book on abuse or your children might ask what child abuse is. So it won't produce problems for shidduchim.

The ebook of Child and Domestic Abuse hopefully will be available in a few days.

Long Recovery Looks Like Recession

New York Times

This is not what a recovery is supposed to look like.

In Atlanta, the Bank of America tower, the tallest in the Southeast, is nearly a fifth vacant, and bank officials just wrestled a rent cut from the developer. In Cherry Hill, N.J., 10 percent of the houses on the market are so-called short sales, in which sellers ask for less than they owe lenders. And in Arizona, in sun-blasted desert subdivisions, owners speak of hours cut, jobs lost and meals at soup kitchens.

Less than a month before November elections, the United States is mired in a grim New Normal that could last for years. That has policy makers, particularly the Federal Reserve, considering a range of ever more extreme measures, as noted in the minutes of its last meeting, released Tuesday. Call it recession or recovery, for tens of millions of Americans, there’s little difference. [...]

National Week for Prevention of Child Abuse

Why Barack Obama is losing the political war

Time Magazine

Barack Obama is being politically crushed in a vise. From above, by elite opinion about his competence. From below, by mass anger and anxiety over unemployment. And it is too late for him to do anything about this predicament until after November's elections.

With the exception of core Obama Administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters. This view is held by Fox News pundits, executives and anchors at the major old-media outlets, reporters who cover the White House, Democratic and Republican congressional leaders and governors, many Democratic business people and lawyers who raised big money for Obama in 2008, and even some members of the Administration just beyond the inner circle. [...]

Boro Park as real estate

New York Times

IN late September, during the final days of the weeklong holiday of Sukkot, young boys in white shirts and black hats could often be seen lining the streets of Borough Park, a large neighborhood in southwest Brooklyn. Standing behind folding card tables arrayed with long, thin willow branches to be waved in synagogue, they called out in Yiddish, hoping to attract customers from among the crowds of shoppers who exited, bags in hand, the kosher markets of 13th Avenue.

The neighborhood is home to one of the largest Orthodox and Hasidic Jewish populations in the United States — “the Jewish capital of the United States” and a “kosher utopia,” according to David G. Greenfield, who lives and works in Borough Park, in addition to representing it in the City Council. [...]

Israeli loyalty oath:Denounced by Arabs as racist

Voice of America

Israel's Cabinet approved a controversial loyalty oath that requires new citizens to pledge allegiance to a "Jewish and democratic" state. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the oath reflects the essence of the State of Israel. Critics countered that it would widen the existing gap between Jews and Arabs.
Mr. Netanyahu told the Cabinet that many in the world are trying to blur the connection between the Jewish people and their national homeland. He said Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and there is no other Jewish state in the world.  "Those who wish to join us must recognize this," he said.
The bill, which must be passed by parliament to become law, is largely symbolic because it only applies to new citizens.  But Israeli Arabs, who make up 20 percent of the population, and who tend to identify with their Palestinian brothers, describe the loyalty oath as racist.[...]

Medical training & high suicide rates of doctors

New York Times

Several years ago, I learned that a physician in a town not too far from where I was practicing had committed suicide. Neither I nor my hospital colleagues knew him, but according to the story we heard, he was the father of young children, was respected by doctors and patients alike and had struggled privately with mental illness since medical school.
But it was not the details of his life that haunted us; it was the details of his death. He had locked himself in a room in the hospital, placed a large needle in his vein and injected himself with a drug that so effectively paralyzed his muscles he was unable to breathe.[...]

Palestinians turn rock attack into car attacking innocent children

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZWSiA-nrjQ

Haaretz

David Be'eri, head of a known settler group, hit two Palestinian children with his car on Friday, after they hurled rocks at his vehicle in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan.[...]

Crown Heights:Integrating a neighborhood with a restaurant

New York Times

“IS HE COMING BACK?” Clara Santos Perez was peering out the windows and across the street, where an imposing man in black stood, his face turned in her direction.
Was he watching? Waiting? Planning to confront her anew? Perez wondered aloud about all of this, wrung her hands and paced. In her agitation and dread she more closely resembled a criminal on the lam than what she really was: a restaurant manager rattled by an unusually troubling customer complaint.
It was a Sunday in late summer, and most of the night had gone smoothly. From 6 p.m. on, almost all of the 45 or so seats in the main dining room of Basil Pizza & Wine Bar were filled, primarily with its core clientele of Hasidic Jews from the restaurant’s neighborhood in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. Their conversation and a soundtrack of merry classical music combined to form a pleasant din. [...]

Academic program for Chareidim

YNET

Much of the criticism leveled at Israel's haredi community pertains to the issue of employment. Yet at this time, more haredim choose to shatter the stigma and not only focus on Torah studies, as they increasingly seek to join the workforce.
 
"The way to make a dignified living – study and work," is the name of a special academic track for haredim offered by the Zefat Academic College and reflecting the new perception among haredim. The program aims to allow the ultra-Orthodox to combine Torah and academic studies in the aims of securing desirable jobs in the areas of economics, human resources, and business administration. [...]

Obama:Audacity of Hope - promise them the moon

A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.

 "She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be a Republican." "I am," replied the man. "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically Correct. However, I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me."

The man smiled and responded, "You must be an Obama Democrat."

"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You've risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but somehow, now it's my fault."

Breaking the Silence: Sexual Abuse in the Jewish Community (Ktav)

YU Faculty

A decade after child sexual abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community came to public light, there is a nascent but historic transformation taking place on the issue. Communal leaders, rabbis, mental health professionals, parents, school administrators and teachers, and survivors are ready to fully engage in dialogue, as well as work together to develop and implement definitive intervention and prevention strategies.  All they need is a blueprint to move forward.

Yeshiva University professor and nationally-prominent trauma psychologist Dr. David Pelcovitz, the Gwendolyn and Joseph Strauss Chair in Jewish Education at Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration and David Mandel, longtime chief executive officer of OHEL Children’s Home and Family Services, have created this road map. They are the editors of Breaking the Silence: Sexual Abuse in the Jewish Community (KTAV), the most comprehensive book on the issue. To be released October 2010, Breaking the Silence brings together for the first time the insights and experience of the professionals – psychologists, social workers, pediatricians, attorneys, educators and rabbis – who have been on the front lines dealing with the issue for years.

“The reality of sexual abuse in the Jewish community has necessitated a comprehensive nuts-and-bolts, hands-on guide for clinicians, community leaders, educators and parents outlining practical approaches to intervention and prevention,” said Dr. Pelcovitz. “This book is an essential resource for all those interested in learning how to better fulfill our responsibility to protect and nurture the next generation.” [...]

Parasitic worms cure autoimmune diseases?

Fox News

Tired of suffering from Crohn’s disease, Michael, a 31-year-old financial planner from New York City, turned to a last resort – an underground network of "worm pushers" in cyberspace.

Michael, who asked that his last name not be revealed, chose to undergo helminthic therapy – infecting himself with Necator Americanus, or microscopic hookworm larvae, in order to put his autoimmune disease into remission. Helminthic therapy, also called worm therapy, is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration, but it has seen significant success around the world. [,,,]

Experiment in Nihilism: Suicide as ideology

Boston Globe

In the end, no one really knows what led Mitchell Heisman, an erudite, wry, handsome 35-year-old, to walk into Harvard Yard on the holiest day in his faith and fire one shot from a silver revolver into his right temple, on the top step of Memorial Church, where hundreds gathered to observe the Jewish Day of Atonement.

But if the 1,905-page suicide note he left is to be believed — a work he spent five years honing and that his family and others received in a posthumous e-mail after his suicide last Saturday morning on Yom Kippur — Heisman took his life as part of a philosophical exploration he called “an experiment in nihilism.’’

At the end of his note, a dense, scholarly work with 1,433 footnotes, a 20-page bibliography, and more than 1,700 references to God and 200 references to the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, Heisman sums up his experiment:

“Every word, every thought, and every emotion come back to one core problem: life is meaningless,’’ he wrote. “The experiment in nihilism is to seek out and expose every illusion and every myth, wherever it may lead, no matter what, even if it kills us.’’[...]