Idiots

Apparently the Washington Post "can't tell" Barak Obama from Malcolm X . . . Eesh

(via a BagNewsNotes tweet)

Some interesting bits (Us and Them Edition)

• Don’t talk to aliens, warns Stephen Hawking -- there's every reason to expect that they'd want to pillage the earth just as we have...
  
  
• Tea-bag protests through the lens of white privilege -- would we really be as calm about all this rhetoric if it were crowds of black/brown/scary folks shaking their fists?
  
  
• "I just don't like kids" is not that uncommon a position, but it's hard to look at it the same way after reading this discussion classing that stance as bigotry (be sure to read the comments, which is where the real peeling back of the language happens)...
  

Better than nothing

I've never heard anybody discuss this: giving up red meat has more than health perks -- it can produce most of the ecological benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle, because chickens are so much more efficient than cattle/pigs at making meat out of grain . . .

Friday link roundup

Infuriating

• British airways screws stranded passengers, offering a choice of nearly a month's delay or stratospheric prices for earlier flights.
  
  
• The Supreme Court is so old that even its youngest members don't really understand current technology, even though they're expected to make rulings about it.

Cheering

• Clever train doesn't stop at stations -- it picks up and leaves attachable subunits with arriving and departing passengers. Neat idea (see the video), and radically improves travel times.
  
  
• Arkansas adoption ban, passed by voters, found unconstitutional. Chip, chip...
  (via Alas, a Blog)
  
  
• The President apparently thinks that people should be able to have their loved ones visit them in the hospital and make their medical decisions. Gotta love a good "crazy socialist" who can put the power of Medicare/Medicaid behind some sane policy!
  

Interesting

• Rafe notes two ways to break news, only one of which actually leads to informing the public.
  
  
• The Civil War can be seen as a battle with three sides, the South, the North, and African-Americans.

  What you see, as the war goes on, is a gradual, and rather amazing, process by which blacks, free and enslaved, force the North to accept the cause of emancipation as their own. The logic of the war makes it unavoidable.

  A good example of a frame that changes the way you see a wide range of events, in illuminating ways. I recommend the whole thing.
  
  
• Washington, D.C., has to balance its desire to be a national monument against the benefits of becoming a modern liveable city...

  The monumentalist vision of Washington has choked nearly all urban life from the Mall and its environs. It has fashioned large sections of our city into pleasing vistas for tourists but has given the rest of us lifeless wastelands ... The monumental core should be the city's heart, not its parasite

  This issue arises in many different contexts, and in other cities as well.
  (via Atrios at Eschaton)
  

Quote of the day

You are flawed, you are stuck in old patterns, you become carried away with yourself. Indeed you are quite impossible in many ways. And still, you are beautiful beyond measure.

- John Welwood

(via whiskey river)

mmmmmmmmMOMA!

Ah, in the pre-parental days, Spouse and I often made pilgrimages to New York, to visit friends, walk the streets, and visit MOMA. It's been a long time, so thanks to YouTube for this quick eyeful of modern art. Will have to hold me for a while yet...

(via pourmecoffee)

Our great post-feminist era

One cannot help but be happy that those in positions of power are so full of wisdom and open-mindedness. [mindless gnashing of teeth]

(via a Medley tweet)

Impatient for the DVD set!

Having been completely engrossed (and appropriately depressed) by The Wire, I'm already excited for David Simon's new series, Treme, which takes on the challenge of conjuring the complicated atmosphere and culture of New Orleans. We don't pay for fancy TV channels, so will wait for Netflix to get its hands on some DVDs (or maybe we'll just spring for the set ourselves).

Meantime, here's an episode of NPR's Fresh Air that combines description and interview to preview the show. Also, I immediately wondered how Harry Shearer would feel about it, since he's a native, an opinionista, and a man who's had a lot to say about the nation's inadequate handling of Katrina -- here's his first take. I can't wait to get a look for myself!

Imagination

Wow, the number of ways in which this video is fantastic is hard to count!

Pixels invade New York
(The Tetris-block part made me particularly happy, although the vanishing subway entrances boggled my technical understanding.)

(via Travis Provick, a guy I don't even know -- yay, Internet!)

Maybe they're not teflon after all...

The GOP seems to be setting up a political pie-in-face with their opposition to Wall Street reform. Sure, their base is more wealthy than that of the Dems, but that doesn't mean they were asleep for the last couple of years (or any less angry about watching their portfolios disappear into Big Bonus)...

Tuesday round-up (= link-dump)

• A couple weeks old: Ohio Pastors File IRS Complaints Over C Street House. Weird Christian "frat house" set-up may be a taxable rent-subsidy.
  
  
• Don't Mess With Texas (Mortgages, That Is) -- they actually regulated mortgages and home equity loans, and thus avoided the worst disasters of the last couple of years. Maybe the rest of the country could learn something!
  
  
• On Flexing Your Rights. Or at Least Meagerly Trying to Hold on to Them. Advice on dealing with cops always recommends calm and courtesy -- good on a practical front, but seems to imply that the absence of meekness is an opening for aggression, as evidenced by the crazy story here of police tazing a pregnant woman on a routine traffic stop...
  
  
• When did the Senate become such a lonely, cynical place?

  "My father used to quote it: `The Senate allows you two years as a statesman, two years as a politician, and two years as a demagogue.' " He gave me a wistful look right then, and proceeded to say exactly what I’d been thinking. "And that’s actually changed. You’re now a demagogue the full six years."

  Hope we can find a way to salvage the institution.
  
  
• The Bias of Veteran Journalists

  The journalists at the press conference didn't have a bias as the term is normally used; that is, I didn't get the sense that they were inherently for or against the company or its product. They just appeared to think they knew the subject well enough, or had a set enough idea in their heads as to what this kind of story was about, that they pursued only the lines of questioning necessary to fill in the blanks of that presumed story line.

  If it's bad for product reviews, imagine what it does to ones ability to develop an understanding of the political landscape, policy, and the future of both!
  
  
• Robert Reich argues Why More Immigrants Are An Answer to the Coming Boomer Entitlement Mess. Not sure that his numbers game will convince the fundamentally xenophobic, but it's a good perspective for the rest of us.
  
  
• Think Before You Speak, a great video campaign to get kids out of the habit of using "so gay" as the ultimate put-down for things uncool. Worth watching all of the initial vids.
  [Someday, maybe we can take on the whole late-night talkshow host vocabulary, of calling people "pussy" and "douchebag" and the like, for similar reasons. But the urgency is almost certainly greater on this chosen front.]
  
  
• Just fun: Music video with a whole school as the instrument. Video and sound-mixing are a realm in which today's kids have a whole different fluency than do the middle-aged set, however computer savvy.
  
  
• Just mind-bending: This is not a spiral. Say, wha...?!

Oh, *this* is what it's like

Semi-sick kid + definitely sick usual caretaker = lots of time off and disrupted schedules for parents. Have been lucky on both counts for most of last two years, so still startled by the degree to which it throws our aspirations and energy levels for the week. Can't imagine what it's like with less flexible employment!!

Onward, ho!

Stop it, iPad-lovers!

Kind of blown away by this: Gizmodo's Essential iPad Apps
drool, drool...

(via NowThis, whom I hold directly accountable!)

Gratuitous baby-blogging

Because what could be more adorable than Speck and Daddy reading in bed together? Except, maybe, that they're both perusing guides on parenting strategies...



(This is from just about a month ago, so just over 2 years old...)

Quote of the day

The door of a bigoted mind opens outwards so that the only result of the pressure of facts upon it is to close it more snugly.

- Ogden Nash, author
(1902-1971)

(via A.W.A.D.)

Growing up

Well, it looks like the Iraqi voters have grown up politically since their last elections, refusing to vote for incumbents, political bigwigs, or religious parties as instructed, and instead picking and choosing. Look at that! always nice to see the public being smarter than they're given credit for, especially in places that we like to dismiss as primitive...

(via a BagNewsNotes tweet)

iPad intrigue

Am quite intrigued by the iPad, even more than the iPhone, both because I websurf (et al.) much more than I talk on the phone and because the bigger screen hugely increases the number of things you can do with this critter. Of course, still too big for your pocket, so some lifestyle adaptation required...

Am not a first-adopter type, but was curious to see how real people would find this gadget. The first reviews are pretty impressive and make me want to see one in person, just to play a bit. Also struck by the possible impact that this could have on publishing (see, e.g., much of this review), particularly the ability to seamlessly integrate pretty advanced multimedia aspects. The future is ever more intriguing to imagine!

Update: well, here's the counterargument on just about every front. I think he undervalues the magic of techno-love -- I mean, many of the same arguments could be made about the iPhone and many many people love it -- but he has some points too. Only time will tell.

Link deluge

Man, I have so many tabs open that I can barely scroll through them. Am sleeping poorly and thus have all kinds of time-management issues, so I guess my nuanced analyses and specialized posts are going to have to wait, and I'll just heap a bunch of interesting/disturbing/entertaining things here...

• Bad News
  
  
  1. Corporate America Still Hates Moms -- penalties for actually taking the leave that you have a legal right to (and a lot of hostility around the whole topic). Not surprising to feminists, but recurrently amazing to those who think that Everything's Already Fixed.
     
     
  2. Our water and sewers systems are crumbling and in need of serious work; this could mean we have major disasters ahead, or it could be a good opportunity to use stimulus dollars to put people to work on longterm improvements for all of us.
     
     
  3. Scary thought: a Happy Meal on a shelf shows no signs of decay after a year. I think a real hamburger would reek after a week or so, judging from my accidental trashcan experiences -- are McDonald's products that full of preservatives, or just made entirely of chemicals??
     
     
  4. Airport full-body scanners: what could possibly go wrong? Typical adolescent behavior, maybe?? Rules that presume best behavior from all participants are no protections at all...
     
     
  5. Pentagon abruptly ends tuition aid for military spouses. Because times are good!! sigh.
     
     
  6. Fed continues to ignore one of its two mandates, aggressively so...

     This is an institution that has two mandates -- price stability and maximum employment -- but admitting that you care about the latter is so controversial as to be dangerous to your chances of working at the institution. It's as if firefighters, charged with both rescuing people and putting out fires, emphasized during their job interviews how committed they were to the latter goal but promised not to rescue anyone unless the conditions were superb and it wouldn't bother anyone. Weird, wild stuff.

  7. Obama to Open Offshore Areas to Oil Drilling for First Time. I hope that this is a trial balloon designed to accomplish some political ends (and trusting on regulatory and activist nets to catch a lot of the proposals) rather than a representation of the Administration's real views, but it's hard not to find the headline disheartening.
     
  
  
• Good News
  
  
  1. Amanda at Pandagon has an interesting bit on how social technology is letting us keep in touch with people that matter to us in a way that the modern workplace has made increasingly difficult.

     A lot of attention is paid to the struggles people have with making friends in our isolating society, and I think that focus is important, but it’s also important to ask if the other part of the equation is that people aren’t keeping the relationships they do have healthy. A culture that expects people to use down time at work to update Facebook and text message their partners and friends is one where people are probably going to have that many real relationships to keep them buoyed. I’ll add that touching base with loved ones during the day can make a person feel less lonely overall; merely having someone at home isn’t enough if you feel like a lot of their life is mysterious to you.

     A nice counter to the constant narrative that we're all cut off from one another by our addictive little devices...
     
     
  2. Popular Science lists some high-tech medical innovations that may offer cures to a variety of pesky conditions, from genetic deficits to vegetative states. Amazing stuff!
     
     
  3. Too much to hope? Sounds like a few Republicans are disgusted by their failed obstructionism over healthcare and might want to be part of the legislative process again. Only time will tell!
     
     
  4. From the department of Elections Do Matter: Sen. Frankin assures justice for a rape victim being revictimized by military contractors. For the win!
     
  
  
• Fun/interesting bits
  
  
  1. Jon Stewart channels/skewers Glen Beck. Truly inspired.
     
     
  2. Philadelphia shows population growth for the first time in 60 years. Not to dismiss the serious ongoing problems with poverty, inequality, and so forth, but perhaps people are starting to believe!
     
     
  3. Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy, a charity encouraging small acts of sneaky selflessness -- fun and intriguing ideas and experiences.
  
  

Strange days indeed

Apparently Rachel Maddow is the scariest thing in Masschusetts, from a conservative perspective. Meantime, the GOP wants to set Nancy Pelosi on fire. New Conservatism: all about fear and intimidation?? (I guess that if it's really about women, then that's Old Conservatism. But some things just always feel fresh!)

Quote of the day

It is a serious thing to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.

- C.S. Lewis

(via whiskey river)