Politics

I'm a political junkie, and the Web's helped make a bad habit worse.  The site I turn to most is probably Hotline Scoop.  I am a loyal Democrat in spite of Bill Clinton; the Party's home page is here. As a Jewish Democrat, I guess I should include a link to the National Jewish Democratic Council's home page.

To service my news habit, I often turn to two of the newspapers on the web, the New York Times and the Washington Post; they help satisfy my thirst for movie reviews, too. I also read the print edition of the San Francisco Chronicle. Slate often has interesting articles.
 

Music

My musical tastes are rather odd, I suppose - I like both Elizabethan folk music and popular music from the '20's and '30's; I have a lot of Bach and Mozart CDs, but also most of R.E.M.'s works. I also am a big fan of klezmer music - a product of the Jewish diaspora that incorporates Eastern European folk and dance music along with jazz into irresistable melodies.
 

Other Stuff

I've participated in "academic buzzer competitions" / "quiz bowl" / "college bowl-type things" since back in high school. I had the good fortune to be part of a powerhouse Maryland team that won a lot of tournaments and finished second at ACF nationals and of a Berkeley team that has enjoyed similar success. There is a college bowl newsgroup, alt.college.college-bowl. I retired from play in 1998.

The high school from which I graduated, the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, has a number of useful web pages associated with it. There's a school page, of course, but also a well-maintained alumni page with information on e-mail addresses and web sites of NCSSM graduates.

I keep kosher (i.e., follow the Jewish dietary laws), though these days I do it by being basically vegetarian. At the University of Maryland, I was on the meal plan at Hillel. An interesting site with both recipes and links to useful information (like a list of kosher and nonnkosher fish species) is maintained by the Asian-American Kashrus Services. I am a Conservative (which is actually the middle-of-the road branch, as opposed to Reform or Orthodox) Jew, though a political liberal, and attend Netivot Shalom synagogue.

I live with "delayed sleep phase syndrome" (DSPS), a sleep disorder due to which I used to be unable to fall asleep till 5 AM, or wake up in time for classes in the morning. Due to recent research (check out this link), I have found an effective solution: minimizing my exposure to light (even typical levels of indoor room light are problematic) in the evening. I now keep more normal hours, often falling asleep around midnight. An excellent page on DSPS, with links to more general information on sleep disorders, has been created by Su-Laine Yeo.
 
 

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© Jeffrey Newman, 2001