Grandpa. The asap article identifies the pic as an AP photo; if some suit in New York wants to sue me for reproducing one of our own family photos without permission, they can take it up with my grandmother first.

One of the nice things about having a brother working at the Associated Press is that it's possible to manipulate Big Media into force-feeding our family's cherished traditions into countless households accross the nation.

Case in point: My brother Eric has just published a hilarious, yet heartfelt tribute to my late grandfather, Simon Kaplan, that spreads the gospel of his glorious latke recipe. Latkes, of course, are potato pancakes made by Eastern European Jewish families here in the US. (As Eric notes, they're not a big tradition among Israelis - just those of us in the States who can connect our family trees back to Barbra Streisand, David Berkowitz, Monica Lewinsky and Woody Allen if you go back far enough.)

One of the fondest memories for both of us growing up was helping Grandpa make heaping mountains of latkes on special occasions, particularly around Hanukkah. Though Grandpa died almost exactly 15 years ago, we've managed to keep his glorious latke recipe alive, in no small part thanks to the Internet. For around 10 years now I've had a copy of his latke recipe on my website, and I've shared it on countless online discussion forums. Now, Eric has benevolently (and lovingly) used his almost irrational influence over mainstream media to publish the recipe through AP's asap news service. (That's pronounced A-S-A-P; don't think of calling it "ay-sap" unless you want to get verbally cudgeled by asap staff.)

Some quick snips of what Eric wrote:

Born in Boston in 1912 to Lithuanian Jewish immigrants, Simon Kaplan never became a master chef, but he knew how to take the world's blandest vegetable and work a Hanukkah miracle.

Starting when I was old enough to eat solid food, I ate Grandpa's latkes every year -- ate as many as I could get my greedy little hands on. Somewhere along the way, I started helping out in the kitchen, savoring the sizzle I created when I pressed down a pancake with my spatula. Tssssssssss. The soundtrack to a growling stomach.

Grandpa was a man who believed in family traditions -- not so much the mechanical rites that go along with religious observance, but the little things that make life so enjoyable that they must be repeated. As for so many other things, we loved him for this, and after he died when I was 17 we made sure his latkes would outlive him.

My brother Andy -- the unofficial keeper of the recipe, mostly because I keep forgetting to write it down -- continued making Grandpa's recipe during the Hanukkah season. Some years I made them too, inviting friends over for latke parties in my New York apartment at least a couple of times. The tradition lives on, with new people and in different places.

Since Eric's written the recipe in a very detailed fashion, I'll refrain from posting his version lest I open myself up to an AP lawsuit. (Grandpa would roll over in his grave, no doubt.) Instead, I'll include the text of my recipe as I've kept it for the last decade. Nonetheless, I encourage you to read Eric's version for the sheer pleasure of it.

---

Grandpa Simon Kaplan's Latkes

Ingredients:

• Twelve medium Idaho potatoes, thoroughly washed
• two eggs or egg substitute
• vegetable oil
• one large onion
• matzah meal
• salt and pepper

Begin by peeling the potatoes if you desire. Personally, I don't bother, but if you want to, it won't hurt. Then, grate the potatoes with a medium-size grater into a plastic bowl. You'll notice a lot of liquid in the process - that's starch, and you'll want to get rid of it. After grating three or four potatoes, strain out the starch through a fine collander or similar strainer, discarding the starch. Put the drained potatoes in a large plastic bowl. Continue to grate and strain the potatoes until they're all done.

In your large bowl of potatoes, add two eggs, breaking the yolk with a fork. Grate the large onion into the bowl. Add one tablespoon each of salt and pepper to the mix. Blend with a large spoon or spatula (don't bother to use a machine to do it - it's too thick and it'll taste goyish if you try). You'll notice the mixture will be somewhat soupy - add about half a cup of matzah meal and blend. Continue to add meal by the teaspoon until mixture is thick, though not necessarily dry.

Coat a large skillet with a small amount of oil and bring to medium/high heat. Test your batter by frying up a tablespoon's worth until a golden brown on both sides. If you like the taste, continue to make the rest of your latkes, using about a tablespoon per latke. If you don't like the taste, adjust batter with salt and pepper. If you still don't like it, go find another recipe, you little complainer, you.... -andy

Thursday night, millions of people watched the the live finale of Donald Trump's reality TV show, The Apprentice. The winner was none other than Randal Pinkett, the former Rhodes scholar, IT entrepreneur and digital divide activist. Randal's been active in CTCNet for a long time, so I usually get to see him each summer at the CTCNet conference. I can only imagine that the next time he attends he'll have more groupies than usual because of his newfound (and well-deserved) stardom.

There are few people in life I've met whose first impression made me think "natural born leader." Randal is one of them. I'm so happy to see he's captured the big prize on The Apprentice, but if you ask me, he didn't need it. Randal's passion on issues related to the digital divide and minority entrepreneurship in the IT sector is infectious and inspiring. Even without the notoriety, there's no doubt we'll see bigger and brighter things from him. Now we'll just have to share his leadership with the general public. :-)

Congratulations, Randal - you've done us proud.... -andy

The latest round of the Wikipedia accuracy wars turns out to be a tie. According to an investigation by the science journal Nature, Wikipedia fared well when compared head-to-head with Encyclopedia Britannica on science-related entries.

The magazine asked experts in various scientific fields to review 42 topics in both Wikipedia and Britannica. The result: both sources had a similar number of mistakes. On average, Wikipedia entries had four errors or ommissions, while Britannica had three. When you add these up with misleading statements, 162 were found in Wikipedia, while 123 appeared in Britannica.

"People will find it shocking to see how many errors there are in Britannica," Nature quotes information scientist Michael Twidale. "Print encyclopaedias are often set up as the gold standards of information quality against which the failings of faster or cheaper resources can be compared. These findings remind us that we have an 18-carat standard, not a 24-carat one."

The most error-prone article? Dmitry Mendeleev. If you go to the Wikipedia entry, there's a note at the top saying that Nature identified certain problems with it and they're working to correct the article. But when you access the Britannica version, there's no mention of any dispute. Perhaps it's because Britannica's online entry for Mendeleev is so brief there's little room for error, and the errors are only in the most recent paper version of the encyclopedia. There's no way to tell. With Wikipedia, at least, there's a paper trail you can follow to see who change the entry and how it was changed.

My guess is that the Nature study will do more to harm Britannica's rep than improve Wikipedia's. Chances are, there will be another instance similar to the Siegenthaler controversy that led to so much bad media attention for Wikipedia. They've change the rules so that anonymous participants can only edit articles rather than create new ones. But to me, that doesn't go far enough. While I'm concerned about protecting the anonymity of Wikipedians posting on sensitive topics, particularly from countries that oppress free expression, this issue only affects a very small minority of entries. Isn't it more important for Wikipedia to build confidence among the online public? If that's the case, the anonymity policy needs to be assessed more radically. I love Wikipedia, but I'd feel a hell of a lot more comfortable with what I read if there were also a transparent paper trail for the Wikipedians editing articles.

Perhaps a solution would be to strongly discourage anonymity. For those entries that have edits posted by an anonymous Wikipedian, place an icon prominently on the page warning us that the entry was edited anonymously, so readers can make an informed judgment. For those that have been edited by people willing to log in with their names, have those names appear on the entry's page as a by-line, with links to their biographies. I know that all of this information can be found in the entry's history page, but the average Internet user who doesn't know the inner workings of Wikipedia won't realize this. By placing the names of the contributors on the marquee of each entry, the authors are forced to stand up and take credit for it - for better or worse - just like a scientific journal.

Then, perhaps we need to add an eBay-like rating system for Wikipedians. For Wikipedians whose work is judged as accurate, let readers award them a point, or perhaps 1-10 rating system (ie, a perfect 10 for stellar wikipedians with strong credentials who cite primary source materials obsessively, and a 1 for those whose work is clearly incompetent). That way, when you go to a wikipedia entry, you can judge it on the rating of the Wikipedians. You could even do the same for the articles themselves: wouldn't it be useful to know if 83% of the readers of one particular entry found it lacking in one way or another?

On eBay, I'd rather buy from someone with a high trust ranking; wouldn't we all want to find the same level in trust among those who are creating the knowledge we're consuming?

Anyway, it's just an idea.... -andy

The BBC has a story today about the upcoming trial of celebrated Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk, who faces three years in jail for "insulting Turkishness." His alleged crime? Making the following statement in public: "Thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands [ie, Turkey] and nobody but me dares to talk about it."

Despite the many reforms Turkey has enacted to increase the odds of getting into the EU, free speech continues to face many challenges, particularly on issues related to Turkish involvement in Armenian deaths during World War I. Armenians and countless historians worldwide regard these deaths as a genocide, but refering to them as such can get you thrown in jail. Journalists and authors have protested the trial; most recently, a group of international prize-winning authors including Gabriel García Márquez, Günter Grass, Salman Rushdie, Umberto Eco, Carlos Fuentes, John Updike and Mario Vargas Llosa have issued their support of Pamuk.

EU governments, no doubt, will follow the trial closely, given their negotiations with Turkey surrounding membership in the continental club. No matter how the trial goes, it saddens me to no end to see one of my favorite authors on trial in a country I love dearly for merely stating the truth. If countries such as Germany, South Africa and Rwanda can come to terms with eggregious human rights abuses made in the past, why can't Turkey?

I personally support Turkey's bid for EU membership. But foolish show trials such as this seriously cause me to question whether they're ready for it. Economic reforms are just one criteria for membership; freedom of expression and human rights must be respected and taken seriously as well.

And don't expect to see many people blogging about the case, except perhaps foreign nationals; Turkish bloggers, conceivably, could get arrested just for covering the trial and the statement in question. So far, I've only found one Turkish language blogger talking about it. I wish my Turkish weren't so rusty.... -andy

For those of you wondering why my posts from Tunisia stopped rather abruptly, it's because my hands needed a break from typing. I've been home in Boston for about 10 days now, but haven't posted much of anything except a few videos just to take a break from all the writing I did in Tunisia.

After leaving Tataouine, Marouen and I spent a couple of relaxing days in Djerba, where I got to visit the famous El Ghriba Synagogue. Otherwise, I didn't do too much there, apart from rest and get ready to fly back home. My time since then has been absorbed in preparing the Digital Divide Network to move from EDC to TakingITGlobal.

So in case you were thinking I got thrown in jail in southern Tunisia or something, I didn't. (Not that I wouldn't put it past them give the way we got treated by local authorities.)

Anyway, now back to your regularly scheduled programming... -andy