Tab Dump

I volunteer to serve on occasional weekend panels.

FWIW, Damrosch's book is great.

a beautiful autumn weekend....
time to spend a few moments with vivaldi's "autumn" movement from "the fours seasons..."
enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tHgtzAJePo

autumn is here....what better time, than to listen to
vivaldi's "four seasons," the "autumn" movement.
enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tHgtzAJePo

Yo! Ezra! K'tiva v' chasima tova, and let us get a good health care bill that works! I just realized I could sign in.

(Rabbi Shulman's Shabbos Shuva drasha was about the Rosh Hashanah when Ezra read the Torah to the people and the beginning of the Great Assembly period where many of the words of the prayers (such as the Amidah) were set. This was a key development because you have synagogues and prayer developing even in EY in the Second Temple period where we have no evidence for it in the First Temple period.)

You're not going to BLOG TOMORROW, are you, Ezra? Just had this horrible thought.

Definitely get rid of tipping. In what other line of work is the customer allowed to decide whether the employee is paid or not? If you don't like the experience at the restaurant, tell the manager and maybe don't go back. And if a waiter does a bad job, they can be fired. But paying people just shouldn't be optional. Also, it seems from Damrosch's article and the Atlantic follow up, all the restaurants being discussed are high end ones where a waiter really can make semi-decent money through tips. But that's not the majority of restaurants, and tons of people out there tip for crap or not at all, even when the service is perfectly adequate or even downright good.