Are you an Adviser or a Chooser?

May 23, 2012 - 12:51 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: education, General, Life 

Seeing the forest for the trees

To dream the impossible dream. With all the difficult, or sometimes just logistical realities of life — work, mortgage, family, relationships, with some relaxation thrown in for good measure — how hard is it to pursue your dreams, or take the time to encourage others to pursue their dreams?

Two academics, Dr. Rachel Barkan of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and Professor Shai Danziger of Tel Aviv University spent more than a little time examining the areas of choice and advice, and their findings look a little bit like the conclusions of writer Malcolm Gladwell in his book, The Tipping Point, but maybe that’s just me. They’re not looking for Mavens, Connectors and Salesmen, nor how a trend is made, but rather Advisers and Choosers, and how and whether positive reinforcement makes a difference.

“It is a matter of seeing the forest for the trees,” Barkan explains, “The advice we give is not anchored in the choice we would make. When we give advice, we do not consider what we would have done in the same situation. Instead, our role as adviser distances us from the dilemma at hand. From afar we see the forest. We consider long term goals that are worthy and desirable. As advisers, we overlook the trees and discount obstacles and impediments on the way to this goal. As Choosers however, we cannot avoid seeing the trees – sometimes to the extent of losing the forest. As choosers, our mindset is oriented toward implementation and we give more weight to concrete details of feasibility and pragmatism.

In other words, are you an Adviser or a Chooser? The goal-reacher or onlooker? It seems clear that the world is filled both kinds of people, and even more possibly, that we all fill both roles at different times in our lives. Clearly, we need advisers when looking to follow a dream, to hear from those who are cheering us on, as well as receive the pragmatic, ‘look at the trees’ advice so that we can anticipate some of the obstacles ahead.

In the research gathered, Barkan and Danziger found that advisers tend to be more idealistic than pragmatic, on the ‘why’ rather than the ‘how’ and tend to act as cheerleaders. And so, they concluded, in order to follow a dream, there need to be two people in the equation, the one who believes in the dream, and cheers on the person actually following the dream.

In other words, positive reinforcement isn’t a waste of time, it may actually help make something happen. Go on, help someone fulfill their dream.

Tags: , ,

Adi Barkan’s BMI battle

May 15, 2012 - 8:54 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, design, education, Entertainment, General, health, Politics 

Adi Barkan, a fashion photographer, has been working for years to get the Knesset to outlaw underweight models, following his own exposure to models suffering from anorexia and bulimia.

Back in 2007, after the death of former model Hila Elmalich who was 34 and weighed less than sixty pounds, he told me the following for Women’s Wear Daily:

“The problem is with society, and the low self-esteem of these girls,” says Barkan. “We need to put this out there, to make it a societal norm in Israel and the rest of the world. People need to see these anorexic bodies and move their butts and do something about this.”

Israel21c interviewed Barkan several times about the issue, and posted the following video:

In March, his perseverance paid off, as the Knesset passed what is being called the Photoshop law, for the aspect of the law that regulates the use of Photoshop to make women appear perfect in advertisements. That’s a huge accomplishment. The bulk — no pun intended — of the law focuses on banning underweight models based on their BMI, or Body Mass Index.

The law is making waves in Israel, and around the world. Can Israel set the precedent for changing the way the fashion industry views and uses models’ bodies?

Interestingly enough, it was on Israel’s new fashion channel, Fashion.net., that a panel of fashion professionals, including clothing designer Yosef and a local fashion magazine editor, agreed that despite the new law and its groundbreaking potential, the fashion world will still view impossibly thin model bodies as the ultimate in goal.

“No one wants to see a curvy, zaftig model,” said Naama Chaisin, who is the second generation in the Tovale designer line of clothing. “And I say that as someone who is curvy and has fought to lose weight my whole life.”

Here’s to hoping she’s wrong.

Tags: , , ,

The insider’s reference

May 4, 2012 - 7:48 AM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Entertainment, General, History and Culture, Life, Pop Culture, tv 

It’s not exactly Israel-related, but it’s always funny when TV screenwriters put in hamevin yavin — ‘for those in the know’ — references for characters. This time, it was in the new HBO show, “Girls”, which is about a group of young women living in New York, post-college. In one of the recent episodes — it just started up in mid-April — Jessa Johansson, a Brit and her cousin, Shoshanna Shapiro, are crossing the street somewhere downtown when a guy calls out to Shoshanna, reminding her that they knew each other in Camp Ramah and that she carried out the best kitchen raid he’s ever experienced.

Yes, it’s the Camp Ramah reference, appealing to all those who attended one of the seven, now eight, Ramah camps in North America, established and run by the Conservative Movement, and with programs in Israel as well. It’s not the first Ramah reference on TV. On “Will and Grace,” actress Debra Messing sometimes dropped Ramah references, thanks to one of the screenwriters who attended, and supposedly Messing did as well.

Ramah Israel has also made onto the Israeli small screen, although more unobtrusively, as part of the opening scenes in “Srugim”, which shows images of Jerusalemites walking to shul on Friday night, when some cameraperson captured the students on TRY — Tichon Ramah Yerushalayim — making their way to a local synagogue.

It’s a small thrill, but a thrill nonetheless. Clearly, you write about what you know.

Tags: , , , ,

Under Bar

May 1, 2012 - 7:50 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Business, design, Entertainment, General, Israeliness, Pop Culture 

Bar in her new underwear

Move aside Delta Galil and Tefron, Israel’s longtime underwear makers (albeit private label for companies such as Victoria’s Secret, Calvin Klein, The Gap, Banana Republic and others), it’s time for another Israeli undergarment maker, model Bar Refaeli.

According to blog SheFinds, Refaeli is following the success of her colleagues, Elle Macpherson and Gisele Bundchen, and recently launched her own underwear line, under.me, because “underneath my clothes lies the real me. Nothing else…”

The line includes Under Her (for women) and Under Him (for guys). And soon there will be underwear subscriptions, one would assume so that you never find yourself in holey, tatty underwear ever again, as well as underwear gift certificates.

Finally, to see what the underwear looks like, and what Bar looks like wearing it, watch this video, and women, know that this sports bra will not really work like that for most women.

Tags: , , ,

City non-planning

April 18, 2012 - 8:57 PM by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: design, education, Environment, General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Israeliness, Life, Politics 

The Hursha event flyer

I posted back in November about some neighborhood excitement over the planned recycling area in the Hursha, a neighborhood playground and garden. At the time, we were all disappointed because while an area had been paved for recycling bins, no bins were ever brought to the paved area and it seemed clear all these months later that it just wasn’t going to happen. Meanwhile, the garden’s been taking off, as well as more heavy-duty recycling in other nearby neighborhoods, enabling people to gather their cardboard, batteries, plastics and metals more easily. It’s still nothing like cities that I know in the States, where you just bring your recyclables curbside on the appointed day (yes, I know people who have to freeze their garbage because pickup is so infrequent). But, it’s something.

And then, a major scoop on why it is that the Hursha recycling area never happened. During a ‘heppening’ — Hebrew for a gathering, an event — that was taking place yesterday at the Hursha playground, sponsored by a local Jerusalem political and social action party, a municipality official taking part in the event told a friend that the reason the bins were never put in place is because the space wasn’t planned well, and there was no way the recycling trucks would ever be able to access the bins.

The Hursha, you see, is situated between two streets, Efrata and Korei Hadorot, accessed by what we call a simta, a kind of open alley or path that connects the two streets. The recycling space is at the front of the park, about midway up the simta, formally known as Barzilay Street, and therefore inaccessible to cars or trucks. It’s quite true, there is no way to access large recycling bins and clearly someone in the municipality made a big mistake when they poured the cement for this particular corner.

So that’s it. No cardboard or metal recycling corner for Talpiot, or not yet. And it seems doubtful that the city would post an apology sign, letting us know that they screwed up. Instead, the orange-painted area has become a default hangout space for parents and their toddling kids, until someone comes up with another, better idea.

Tags: , ,

Page 1 of 9012345...102030...Last »

 

© 2012 ISRAELITY | Sitemap