January 2012
12 posts
The Caging of America →
The scale and the brutality of our prisons are the moral scandal of American life. Every day, at least fifty thousand men—a full house at Yankee Stadium—wake in solitary confinement, often in “supermax” prisons or prison wings, in which men are locked in small cells, where they see no one, cannot freely read and write, and are allowed out just once a day for an hour’s solo “exercise.” (Lock...
SK8 & Cre8 - S.C. school offers skateboarding for...
Our friends at Fuzzco are decorating some skate decks as part of a fundraiser for the Charleston Charter School for Math and Science. They are the first school in South Carolina to offer skateboarding for P.E. Which sounds awesome to me. Why not offer some sports that the kids are into? I think parkour will follow soon after. The biggest problem for most schools is probably finding someone willing...
“If we are honest, we must admit that one aspect of the technium is to make holes...”
– The Technium (via azspot)
“Dear Thom:
We had your letter this morning. I will answer it from my point of...”
– John Steinbeck’s 1958 response to his eldest son’s proclamation of falling in love.
I have found about 15 solid and timely reminders in here and a great fat affection for the closing line.
via the Rumpus and Letters of Note
(via beenthinking)
Awesome new song by The Shins →
Generosity is GOOD
Good magazine always lives up to its name. Their mailing list is one of the few worth subscribing to. They have an ongoing section called “People are Awesome” which details positive/smart/noble/kind/etc things that people do. It serves to offset the obvious evidence to the contrary that we are barraged with all day every day.
South Carolina got a shout-out today: The Coffee Shop Where...
Must read: Colbert article in NYTimes
We don’t get Comedy Central and I don’t have time to watch it online anymore, but I’ve always thought that what Stephen Colbert does on The Colbert Report is absolute genius.
In Charleston, we lived across from the medical building named after his father, so I walked over to hear him give the graduating class their commencement address a couple of years ago. Hilarious (as...
December 2011
4 posts
Hurt Hawks - Robinson Jeffers
I The broken pillar of the wing jags from the clotted shoulder, The wing trails like a banner in defeat, No more to use the sky forever but live with famine And pain a few days: cat nor coyote Will shorten the week of waiting for death, there is game without talons. He stands under the oak-bush and waits The lame feet of salvation; at night he remembers freedom And flies in a dream, the dawns...
November 2011
14 posts
“…because nerds like us are allowed to be unironically enthusiastic about stuff…...”
– John Green
(via amandabrollercoaster)
This is so accurate with regards to my students. My “nerds” don’t often fit the TV stereotypes of nerd, but they are the students that have a natural curiosity about whatever we are learning.
I feel so sorry for my students that are...
Wouldn't it be a strange and delicious bit of...
“Zuccotti Park wasn’t emptied by weather, or the insufficient commitment of...”
– Did Bloomberg do Occupy Wall Street a favor? (via synecdoche)
BREAKING: Eddie Murphy Quits as Oscar Host →
newsweek:
imwithkanye:
bbook:
popculturebrain:
(via Soup on Twitter)
Yes, I will gladly step in.
Yusss, first Ratner - now this. Someone call NPH stat!
Seconded for NPH.
Although NPH would be most excellent, who doesn’t agree that Joseph Gordon-Levitt would absolutely KILL it.
October 2011
3 posts
Endless Evil: The Drug War's Continuing Collateral... →
In September 2009, 28-year-old Jonathan Ayers pulled into a gas station in Stephens County, Georgia, to withdraw money from an ATM. Ayers, a pastor, had just given $23, all the cash he had in his pocket, to Johanna Barrett, a drug addict alleged to be a prostitute to whom Ayers had been ministering. His purpose was to help Barrett pay rent at the motel where she was living with her boyfriend....
September 2011
3 posts
The Fraying of a Nation's Decency →
It doesn’t feel like one nation when a company like Amazon, with such resources to its name, treats vulnerable people so badly just because it can. Or when members of a presidential debate audience cheer for a hypothetical 30-year-old man to die because he lacks health insurance. Or when schoolteachers in Chicago cling to their union perks and resist an effort to lengthen the hours of...
August 2011
9 posts
palindromes
wizkid:
Awesome list :) I’ve never heard any of these.
sabinasblog:
lickystickypickyme:
1. Go hang a salami. I’m a lasagna hog.
2. Do geese see God?
3. Was it Eliot’s toilet I saw?
4. Are we not drawn onward, we few, drawn onward to new era?
5. A nut for a jar of tuna.
6. Dennis and Edna sinned.
7. Oozy rat in a sanitary zoo.
8. A man, a plan, a canal: Panama!
9. Borrow or rob?
...
“This vision of the detoxification of one’s neighbour suggests a clear passage...”
– Slavoj Zizek (via azspot)
old WWII photos
The Atlantic put up some really great pictures from WWII, focusing on the bombing raids in England. 9/11 was awful, but I can’t imagine spending each night wondering if a bomb was going to get dropped on your head. These pictures can help us try to understand. Here are a few favorites…
From bull-fighting (books) to bull-riding
This is a completely random post about something entirely unrelated to my life in general. But finding random interesting things is the beautiful thing about the Internet, and being allowed to pass it on for no other reason except to feed others curiosity is the whole point of this blog.
One of the masters of this is kottke.org, where I found this post (and many others). Read the whole thing with...
July 2011
7 posts
thoughts on The Sun Also Rises and Midnight in...
The last major work that I taught my 11th graders back in Charleston was The Great Gatsby. I managed to get a few of them to actually enjoy it, but rediscovered for myself why it’s such an amazing work of genius, as well as just a truly enjoyable read. I can’t wait for the new film, though DiCaprio is an awful piece of casting.
(Ryan Gosling would make a much better Gatsby - just...
American Medical Association Officially Condemns... →
Comeon… do you really think that we’re gonna let a consensus by our leading medical professionals determine how we behave when there is money to be made?
