I was on the road the last two weeks visiting people in our offices in Montreal and Tel Aviv. As I had the weekend free in Israel, I hired a guide and went to Jerusalem. Benny Goodman was a fit 60+ year old professional guide who served in the artillery during the '67 war, and was still a press officer in the reserves. As we approached the border, I asked him about the wall Israel has been building over the last five years. He corrected me and said that the western press likes to call it that, but it's really just an obstacle meant to hinder terrorist movement. Only in certain areas is it actually a concrete wall. As we went past the checkpoint through the obstacle, I asked him if we were now in the West Bank. He corrected me and said we were now in the occupied territories, an area that Israel took in their war of independence in 1947 and had yet to return to a sovereign nation through a negotiated peace. As we neared Jerusalem, I pointed out the car's window and asked if those were Palestinian towns. He corrected me and said they were Arab towns, as there is no nation of Palestine. Obviously, the trip was a very interesting history lesson in the politics of the Middle East. It also made it clear to me why Tel Aviv felt so safe: there was a lot of work going on to protect the borders.

 

The tour of the city was equally interesting. Benny knew every little nook of the city. For example, in the Edicule of Church of the Holy Sepulcre, where Jesus was laid to rest, he took me past the huge crowd waiting to go inside the tomb. Instead he "borrowed" a candle from a priest's reading spot, and led me through a small hole in the wall. As we crouched down and moved further into the darkness, we entered a cave area and he showed where the sarcaphagus was squeezed into a spot hacked from the rock.

 

I was surprised by the scale of the city. To my eyes it seemed tiny: the valleys surrounding the town seemed like gullies, and the mountains just hills. The history was where the depth dominated, with multiple religions and sects within each religion each finding endless details for their faith in the geographic features of the city, and unfortunately also for arguing with each other. Overall, though, I felt like the city was ossified, caught by history and unable to evolve. Partly this was because the economy is based on tourism, and even though millions of people marched along the streets each year for a trip of a lifetime, this ever changing flow provided a constant backdrop for the residents. More, though, it felt as though the weight and passion of history had been passed on to the residents. The water in a river is constantly renewed, but the course is immutable, or at least appears so when observed over the span of an individual life.

 

The passion of the city did impact me, though. I was moved to buy Amelia a silver Jerusalem cross, and to follow an old custom by passing it over the spot where Jesus paused on his way to the crucifixion, which blesses the object and makes the gift holy. Perhaps one day Amelia will be inspired to take a trip to this part of the world and learn where the gift originated.

 

I was also moved by the Western Wall, which is the remaining part of the great temple built by Herod and destroyed by the Romans in retribution for the Jewish resistance to their rule. I found a prayer immediately in my thoughts and heart, and let it roll out as I followed custom and leaned against that holy place, feeling both thankful and lucky that I was allowed to share it.

 

 

Benny Goodman, Guide

 

Where Jesus paused along the Villa Dolorosa,

and where I passed Amelia's cross to bless it.

 

Jerusalem Cross, the shape of Amelia's necklace.

Zango was named to #10 spot on CEO Magazine's annual list of the best places to work in Washington. This is a really fun place filled with great people, and it was nice to be recognized.

 

Though we had a tough week last week, laying off 68 employees, the company is doing well and we are focused on building our new Platrium business. It was sad to say goodbye to so many great people in our offices around the world, but this was a necessary business step to execute our plan (our CEO blogs about it elegantly in June 19th entry here).

 

I'm off tomorrow on a business trip to Montreal and Tel Aviv, and Julia took the kids down to Eugene to visit Lala and Papa while I'm on the road. I dropped them off this afternoon at the King St station, and they boarded Amtrak. Both Zack and Amelia love taking the train, and it's a lot easier for Julia than driving.

 

So I had the afternoon to read Crimes Against Logic by James Whyte. It's an energetic discussion of the mistakes that politicians, journalists, lazy thinkers and citizens make in their reasoning, told with a biting edge. His primary point is that we must always search for truth, and not be distracted by faulty reasoning, which he catalogs in the 156 pages that make up the book. Naturally, he believes that truth is absolute, enduring, and can be revealed by scientific reasoning. He is therefore a platonist, and believes that if mankind struggles enough to use logic and reason the shadowy shapes on the cave wall will become clearer (Plato's allegory of the cave).

 

I mostly agreed with the book, despite Whyte's smug condescending "know-it-all" tone (I think this was just a rhetorical trick to stir the pot in the tradition of Voltaire's Candide). However, I found his diatribes against religion and faith a little disconcerting. It's true that much of religion cannot sustain its stories in the face of the scientific method. The earth was not made in seven days a mere 5,000 years ago. But that's not the point of religion. It's a way to organize and express a different way of coming to know truth.

 

There is always the unknown, the boundary between what we know and what we do not know. For example, no one really knows what happens when we die. Yes, science has pushed the boundary farther and farther out. However, I do not personally believe that science can reveal everything, that given enough time and resources mankind can become omniscient. I have yet to see scientific proof that there are a finite amount of unknowns in the world, or that science can figure them all out. To me, the point of faith is to embrace this limit on reason, and seek a parallel path to knowledge. As Carl Jung said (or maybe it was Joseph Campbell, who edited The Portable Jung, I can't remember exactly), the bible and other religions may be historically false, but they are spiritually true, revealing something essential about the psychology and experience of life that transcends direct logic.

 

I think Whyte and those who hold too tightly to logic as the sole source of truth and knowledge are missing out on something important about life.

 

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I think this has been out on Yahoo for a while, but this celebrity search game is clearly a copy of Live Search Club we launched at Microsoft over a year ago. The game isn't connected to a loyalty program where players earn tickets they can redeem for prizes. Rather, it is branded Yahoo Games and is sponsored by an advertiser (Ritz). So this looks more like a revenue driver for one of their channels than a pure search marketing program.

 

Zango placed first in the Games and Entertainment category of SEOmoz's Web 2.0 Awards. SEOmoz is a search engine marketing company based here in Seattle, and they used a panel of experienced online judges to review nearly 200 companies. The judging process and criteria were pretty straightforward, and the results were posted early last month.

  

We launched our new toolbar (we call it a playbar) and casual gaming site today at www.platrium.com. It's a nice collection of online flash games (I like Rise of Atlantis and Pirate Popper), and we've created a much better ad experience (no pop-ups!). This project kicked off just after I arrived 8 months ago. After a lot of hard work by many dedicated people it's rewarding to see it finally go live.

 

Let us know what you think.