If you've visited my classes page lately, you'll have noticed that I'm taking Hebrew this quarter.

Although it's not part of the class, I've spent some time figuring out how to set up my computer to type Hebrew. It wasn't all that difficult — you have to go to the Languages tab on the Regional and Language Options control panel, check "Install files for complex script and right-to-left languages," and then click "Details" where you can "Add" the "Hebrew" keyboard layout. You need your Windows XP installation CD. After a reboot, you'll see a new Language taskbar, and you'll be all set to type in Hebrew.

Before you reboot, though, you might want to activate some keyboard shortcuts to make switching between languages easier. You do that on "Key Settings" in the dialog box where you add keyboard layouts. Check "Switch input languages" and then choose whether you want to use CTRL + SHIFT or Left ALT + SHIFT to switch languages. If you don't do this when you first set up language support, or if you want to change this afterwards, you have to reboot for the changes to take effect (ugh @ Microsoft).

Click on
this every
time I want
to switch
languages?
No!

So I brought up language settings again, switched the hot key to Left ALT + SHIFT, rebooted, and was happier. But not completely happy. I don't think ALT + SHIFT is part of any other shortcut I use, but I still would find myself suddenly with Hebrew as the active keyboard layout when I hadn't intended for it to be. Not a horrible big deal. Look down at the language bar, confirm that yes, HE is showing, press Left ALT + SHIFT, see it switch to EN, backspace over stuff and start typing again.

But today, after a couple weeks of it, I figured I couldn't be the only person annoyed by it. One solution is simply to turn the hotkey off for switching languages, but that would mean having to use the mouse when I did want to type in Hebrew, not something I find acceptable (I really, really like being able to use the keyboard to do things). Luckily, after some determined Googling, I found that in fact Mike Matsnev (a student or a professor in the Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics department at Moscow State University) was so annoyed by all this that he wrote a utility that lets you set up any key to be the hotkey to toggle languages. I went one more time to language settings, turned off the hotkey, rebooted and then typed "lswitch 19", and presto, my Pause key, a key I never use for anything ever and won't accidentally hit, switches me between English and Hebrew. Beautiful!

Of course just because it's easy to switch between English and Hebrew keyboard layouts doesn't mean that it's easy to type in Hebrew. Besides the fact that I'm learning a whole new alphabet (alefbet)...

Sorry, while I'm on the subject of the Hebrew alefbet, if you're not familiar with it, you may have heard that it has only 22 letters. The English alphabet has 26 letters, you might say to yourself, how hard can it be to learn the Hebrew alefbet? Well whoever says Hebrew has only 22 letters is misleading you. First there are 5 letters that have a different form if they fall at the end of a word. Then there are 3 letters whose pronunciation changes if a dot is added to them. That makes 30 letters by my count. But these are just consonants. Modern Hebrew omits vowels. But if you're learning Hebrew, in particular Biblical Hebrew, which includes vowels, you have to learn additional "letters" or "points" (Niquid) for the vowels. There are over 16 combinations of those points for vowels. So by my count the alefbet has over 46 letters.

But that's not all. Just as some letters in English appear differently when printed as opposed to when written in cursive handwriting, so does Hebrew. To my mind (just now grappling with learning Hebrew), the differences between Hebrew printing and handwriting affect just about every letter, so that's almost double what I have to learn.

... I have to learn the Israeli keyboard layout, which is designed for the convenience of native speakers and typers of Hebrew, not for American English speakers. (For example, to type a Bet including its Dagesh dot, I have to type [with caps lock on] SHIFT-C SHIFT-=.) There are some helpful sites that have charts of how to type Hebrew, but I didn't find any that had everything. Plus I found a font for Hebrew handwriting, Shalom, which lets me prepare cheat sheets, etc., as they'd appear if I'd written them out. The deal with Shalom, however, is that it's mapped differently than the Israeli keyboard, with letters mapped to keys based on how they sound (to type a Daled in Shalom you press "d" instead of the "s" you'd press in the Israeli layout).

View the whole chart...

If you see this woman off-campus, you might assume she's armed.

If you're a gun-toting homicidal maniac with ties to Wright State and thinking of pulling a Virginia Tech there, you might steer clear of the departments of Religion, Philosophy and Classics, whose secretary is in favor of allowing (properly licensed, I assume) people to bring concealed weapons on campus and has seen the announcement by Wright State President David Hopkins of a special observance honoring the Virginia Tech victims as an opportunity to lobby for Wright State's ban on concealed weapons to be lifted:

From: Siobhan Semmett
Sent: Tuesday, April 17, 2007 8:14 PM
To: David R. Hopkins
Subject: Re: [OFFICIAL-L] Observance Honoring Victims of Virginia Tech Tragedy

Dr. Hopkins,

I am speaking only for myself here: I believe everyone at Wright State would be far safer if the restriction against conceal carry on campus were abolished.

One mature individual, registered with the police and trained in the use of firearms, might well have prevented the carnage at Virginia Tech. Such an individual would not legally be permitted to carry a weapon at WSU. In the case of such an horrific event, all of us are, like the VT victims, essentially defenseless until the police eventually arrive.

It seems to me that the students & faculty of VT were victimized twice, once by their assailant, and once by the administration which had decided that they were somehow better off being completely unable to defend themselves.

Lifting the ban on conceal carry would add an extra measure of safety to whatever plans the university already has in place.

Thank you.
Siobhan Semmett

On the other hand, if you are in fact planning an attack, you might want to go before the ban's lifted and while this secretary is still defenseless.

Remember when Joan Crawford, towards the end of her career, filled in for her daughter Christina on the soap opera The Secret Storm, playing the part of a character 30 years younger than she was? Okay, I don’t remember it either, except from Mommie Dearest, but from all accounts, it didn’t go well. I saw something this afternoon that reminded me of that, another actor playing a part 30 years younger, but apparently this actor’s been doing it for over 30 years. Ugh.

Ted in 1973 as JC

Ted now
(airbrushed?)

I was a bit surprised at the overall depiction of JC, which seemed to waver between showing him as a man and as divine. Ted’s certainly got the benedictory hand gestures down pat, which, if the historical JC did as much as Ted did, would make me think he was a bit full of himself. But they did show JC as being tired of his duties and unsure of his future, both not wanting to die and doubtful as to how he’d be remembered. Yet in Gethsemane talking to God he ends up calling what’s about to happen God’s will. Earlier talking to Judas JC says Judas has to do what he’s going to do, and later Judas too says God chose him to carry out his plans. All this should meet with the approval of conservative Christians who see the Crucifixion as the only way God could save us all from eternal hellfire (the only way an all powerful God could save us?!). Yet the Crucifixion is the end of Jesus Christ Superstar — there is no Resurrection.

Actually that’s not quite true. Ted did his agonizingly long dying on the Cross and ascended into heaven (very theatrical but not at all Biblically accurate) to thunderous applause, and then shazam! he’s resurrected along with the rest of the cast, taking their bows before Dayton’s provincial audience who rewards them with a standing ovation. Jesus, Dayton’s faithful Broadway Series viewers will give anything that comes to town a standing ovation, but that’s another blog entry.