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May 10 2012
Razistan: Afghanistan’s Land of Secrets
President Obama may have declared a “new chapter” in Afghanistan last week, but to the creators of Razistan, a new photography project about the region, his words were more rhetoric than reality. For more than 10 years now, American troops have been fighting an expensive and bloody war in Afghanistan: 88,000 U.S. troops remain in the area, and last year was the deadliest so far for civilian casualties. Yet even in an election cycle — and amid the dire statistics — the conversation is focused elsewhere. Coverage of Afghanistan accounts for barely 2 percent of U.S. news stories.
“It’s appalling,” says Marcos Barbery, the cofounder and publisher of Razistan, which launched on Tumblr this month. “People’s lives, how the war is impacting them on a daily basis … it’s just completely cut from the conversation.” Barbery hopes to change all that by showcasing Afghanistan from beyond the veil of war.
5 Things We Learned from Maurice Sendak
1. Children are mysterious, and childhood can be dark.
When I worked at a daycare, I watched High School Musical to see what the kids were so excited about. After seeing that the conflict was basically that the stars were good at too many extracurricular activities, I was disappointed. What were kids going through real problems supposed to learn from this? Editing out conflict is becoming far too common in media, especially when it’s aimed at children and women.
Where the Wild Things Are changed the game in children’s literature by celebrating mischief, and getting on the side of the child, rather than the parent. He acknowledged that childhood was hard, and that kids were wise enough to comprehend the truth about life. “Childhood is a very, very tricky business of surviving it,” he pointed out. This is often forgotten by the people who make media for kids.
2. The best literature and art is never pedantic or concerned with morals.
I took a Y.A. lit class in college and my teacher would always say, “Don’t try to sneak in a lesson! Kids hate that.” I have taken this advice to heart, and I think it originated for this field with Maurice Sendak. It’s a radical idea – that literature can go against the institutions of “good” and “bad” if it means giving people something to relate to.
3. Be yourself, even if it means being blunt and rude.
If you haven’t watched The Colbert Report’s interview with Maurice Sendak, watch it now. He has a unique talent for saying whatever he thinks, which has definitely become more and more rare in an era when PR people outnumber journalists 3:1. Sendak will swear, he’ll unapologetically hate something, but that makes it all the more touching when he says something like, “I cry a lot because I miss people. They die and I can’t stop them. They leave me and I love them more.”
4. You don’t have to have children. You can devote your life to art.
He’s said that he wouldn’t have had children even if he could have come out earlier and more publicly, and adopted. Instead he devoted his life to making childhood more spooky, adventurous and meaningful for other people’s children, and I think that’s admirable.
5. A long life is a blessing, but a tragedy too.
This morning I listened to his NPR Fresh Air interview that he did when he was very sick, and my lip trembled the whole time. Usually when people die old, I say something like, “Well at least they had a long life and made an impact.” But hearing him talk about how painful it was to lose his friends and family members, and how uncertain he was about what death was, with no ornamentation other than plain sincerity, gave me a dark glimpse into how scary growing old can be.
And that was his real power – being so committed to the truth that people can’t help but linger over everything he says and does. He gave us a glimpse of something that is usually sitting in our blind spot of belief and expectation.
Gay rights in the US, state by state
Gay rights laws in America have evolved to allow — but in some cases ban — rights for gay, lesbian and transgender people on a range of issues, including marriage, hospital visitation, adoption, housing, employment and school bullying. The handling of gay rights issues vary by state and follow trends by region.
May 03 2012
The Gangsta Rap Guide to Dealing With Haters at Work
Tip #1: Remind yourself what Rousseau said about humans being noble savages. Then remind yourself he’s wrong, and actually Dr. Dre was right when he said, “Give me one more platinum plaque and fuck rap, you can have it back.” Yes, French philosophy tells us humans are more than animals; that we have capacity for art, compassion, intellect. But, the fuck?! Freedom Fries! Humans emerged from ooze, from ooze we shall return, and in between time, we’re stealing our coworker’s candy stash if she’s not looking. When haters hate, they’re pissed at you not because you breached the contract of nobility we all subscribe to, but because you a) stole her candy (euphemism, people), or b) cursed them out in an underground mixtape. So don’t pay attention to these animals.
Tip #2: Always be handy with the steel, a.k.a. the company handbook. Warren G knows how to protect himself (Wikipedia tells me he’s not dead yet! Thank God). And that’s weapons! This is a message that applies as well to the Streets of L.A. as to the corporate boardroom. But not like real guns. Metaphors. I mean like the company netiquette policy (you can shove that in their face and make a clicking noise). Or instead of keeping it in the trunk, how about a well-lit place, like the breakroom, with a Post-It saying something like “Nate Dogg, Warren G, and section 14.5 about using inappropriate language in emails is about to regulate.”
Tip #3: Describing elaborate fictional death scenarios of your nemesis can be both professionally stabilizing and enliven most of your sophomore album. The best part of Eminem describing shoving Kim into the back of his trunk in numerous songs was that—as far as I know—he never did it! Which just goes to show the power of MC-therapy. If for example, creating a rap about shooting a coworker in a hot tub will release the pent-up frustration you have at her and allow you to be more generous and patient the next time she eats your string cheese and stomps her foot the entire fucking afternoon listening to some crappy folk music, well then, get on with it.
Tip #4: When necessary, diplomatically suggest to your hater that if this little prosecution of your ethical behavior continues, you might have to reveal his own vices to the world…or that you kidnapped his daughter. The beautiful turnabout in Notorious B.I.G.’s seminal “Hypnotize” comes when the bad boy MC has a “note” for the plaintiff that his daughter is, well, how can I put this lightly, err, “tied up in a Brooklyn basement / Face it: not guilty.” Granted, what said daughter is DOING in said basement is up for poetic ambiguity. But still, the point I think we can derive is, don’t be afraid to play a little hardball when your coworkers start beating up on you. Maybe you can take their parking space. Or sneak in late at night and upload porn on their computer. Or make threatening calls. I don’t know. Just like listen to five minutes of this stuff on Spotify and you’ll think of something nasty.
April 24 2012
good:
The class of 2012 is about to get a gigantic wake-up call: In the last year, college graduates were more likely to be employed as servers, bartenders, and food-service helpers than as engineers, physicists, chemists, and mathematicians combined. Only three of the 30 occupations with the largest projected number of openings by 2020 will require a college degree—teachers, college professors, and accountants.
Today, new numbers find that half of college grads under 25 are out of work.
April 21 2012
April 20 2012
April 19 2012
true end
March 31 2012
Spending more than two hours a night doing homework is linked to achieving better results in English, maths and science, according to a major study which has tracked the progress of 3,000 children over the past 15 years.
Spending any time doing homework showed benefits, but the effects were greater for students who put in two to three hours a night, according to the study published by the Department for Education.
The finding on homework runs counter to previous research which shows a “relatively modest” link between homework and achievement at secondary school.
The academics involved in the latest research say their study emphasises what students actually do, rather than how much work the school has set.
(via Two hours’ homework a night linked to better school results | Education | The Guardian)
Also see recent story on a group of French parents and teachers boycotting homework.
March 30 2012
March 24 2012
Two years after the quake
Haiti and its approximately 4.3 million children continue to recover from the 2010 earthquake that killed some 220,000 people and displaced more than 1.6 million. Advances in education have been substantial, with over 1,200 schools repaired or constructed. Still, half of eligible children do not attend primary school.Here…children attend class at St. Gérard School, rebuilt with UNICEF support, in Port-au-Prince.
© UNICEF/ /Marco Dormino
For more information, please visit: http://www.unicef.org
March 23 2012
Prince - American Music Awards, Los Angeles 28.01.1985
1. “favorite black single/album” uuh what the fuck2. this is one of my favorite clips on the internet
This video is everything.
If you ever had any question as to why Prince is THE Man… Question No More.
March 17 2012
The Gettysburg Address may be the most perfect speech ever delivered. Light on rhetoric and heavy on message. I could read it everyday and never fail to be impresses by it’s ability to retain brevity and concision while delivering such a forceful sentiment. It is our birthright to marvel in words like these.
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense we can not dedicate-we can not consecrate-we can not hallow-this ground. The brave men living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be here dedicated to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us. That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion – that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation under god shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people by the people for the people shall not perish from the earth. ”
March 10 2012
The Burden
Two monks were returning to the monastery in the evening. It had rained and there were puddles of water on the road sides. At one place a beautiful young woman was standing unable to walk accross because of a puddle of water. The elder of the two monks went up to a her lifted her and left her on the other side of the road, and continued his way to the monastery.
In the evening the younger monk came to the elder monk and said, “Sir, as monks, we cannot touch a woman ?”
The elder monk answered “yes, brother”.
Then the younger monk asks again, “but then Sir, how is that you lifted that woman on the roadside ?”
The elder monk smiled at him and told him ” I left her on the other side of the road, but you are still carrying her.”
March 02 2012
“ Although he thought of himself as a “regular” there, he always had to wait to be seated. One night as the hostess went looking for his table, he snuck a look at the note next to his reservation. It said “asshole. ”— (via magnificentruin)
white men & a black woman's intelligence
A white guy on Tumblr said he feels sorry for people who think I’m intelligent. I didn’t respond to it at the time but I kept thinking about it. It was weird reading that because I’ve come a long way with what I think about whites and their white opinions. I was like, I ain’t care bruh.
The last thing I need is for a holy white man to think I’m intelligent. That is in fact the antithesis of my intentions as an individual with a black feminist consciousness.
But how easy is it to REALLY think this when white men = society’s standard of intelligence.
I literally write something about racism and a white man reblogs it and ta da 300+ notes.
Tumblr is so illustrative of real life.
My faculty adviser thinks I’m the most intelligent student, black or white, at my school. He has said so much. And because of him, a white man, it seems like all of the faculty thinks I’m intelligent now.
Now I’m a worthy student. I get to borrow books I can’t afford to buy and have people constantly remind me to email them for recommendations and get invited for every distinction and honor that can be conferred upon anybody.
If a white man didn’t notice my potential and what I’m currently doing, would I even be intelligent in a manner that matters at all?
It irks me.
And plus, I feel like I’m largely protected by him too. I have said things… that I think my classes are too white-centric, that racism is so pervasive on campus and etc and etc and how much trouble would I be in if those feelings weren’t validated by a white male member of faculty?
Which brings me back to Tumblr.
So white boy on Tumblr says that he thinks I’m an idiot. And I don’t care… really. But I can’t help but think, how many white men can I afford to piss off if I’m going to make it anywhere in life?
March 01 2012
good:
Why We Need Food Trucks in a Recession
A new proposed bill in California mandates that food trucks be barred from parking within 1,500 feet of public schools. Food trucks have been battling city and state governments across the country, from Boston to the Twin Cities to New York City. But these food trucks are softening the blow of our economic reality, in which food prices have risen, our time for lunch has shrunk, and the opportunities of entrepreneurs have been dampened by skittish banks and unpredictable outcomes.
February 29 2012
Another crucial age-old mystery has been solved: What are the physics and mathematics behind the ponytail?
Once pondered by Leonardo Da Vinci, British scientists at University of Cambridge have used what they call a “Rapunzel Number,” a ratio of information regarding gravity and length, to find an exact “Ponytail Shape Equation.” Their equation as a whole takes in account the stiffness and waviness of individual hairs, gravity, and how a “bundle of hair is swelled by the outward pressure which arises from collisions between the component hairs.”
In a statement, Professor Raymond Goldstein said:
That determines whether the ponytail looks like a fan or whether it arcs over and becomes nearly vertical at the bottom… Our findings extend some central paradigms in statistical physics and show how they can be used to solve a problem that has puzzled scientists and artists ever since Leonardo da Vinci remarked on the fluid-like streamlines of hair in his notebooks 500 years ago.
So, why did we want to know about ponytail physics? These equations could help the understanding of the structure of materials made up of random fibers, such as wool and fur, in addition to aiding those in the computer graphics and animation industry, where it has proven difficult to properly replicate human hair.
My pony tails just go straight down instead of out and then down. This has always angered me.
“ [Kickstarter] is now on track to raise over $150 million for its users in 2012. That’s a staggering number all on its own, but even more impressive when you consider it would exceed the funding provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. ”—
I feel like the internet just kicked America’s nuts in the middle of the playground with all the teachers watching.
If you haven’t read this yet, go be angry.
(via sweatonthelawn)
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