At the Center of the Universe

One of my favorite radio storytellers (and thinkers), Scott...

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:53:19 -0400

One of my favorite radio storytellers (and thinkers), Scott Carrier, on why I should probably find a new career. Still, sound is the most powerful medium. And Scott Carrier has proved that over and over again. I think I’ll keep following his strange and sad footsteps into the abyss of public radio.

Listen to his stories on thisamericanlife.org!

(video from transom.org)

because dogs should wear awesome mens clothes. obviously.

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 16:57:52 -0500

because dogs should wear awesome mens clothes. obviously.

Photo

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 13:43:16 -0500

areasofmyexpertise: Non-swing-state voters, remember: the...

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 14:04:44 -0500

areasofmyexpertise:

Non-swing-state voters, remember: the electoral college wins the office; the popular vote wins legitimacy. Vote.

(Posted from a so called “my vote doesn’t matter” state.)

That is all.

"households are essentially complex firms for the production of well-being"

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 16:03:12 -0400

“households are essentially complex firms for the production of well-being”

- deep thoughts from an economist

“think/feel” by Beat Connection —- i also feel...

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 18:33:20 -0400

“think/feel” by Beat Connection

—-

i also feel too little and think too much.

"The problem for me with economics is that it’s not a science."

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 15:18:00 -0400

““The problem for me with economics is that it’s not a science.””

- — Alex Blumberg of NPR’s Planet Money

EXACTLY.

Taking Note: What Citizenship Means

Fri, 07 Sep 2012 15:08:53 -0400

Taking Note: What Citizenship Means:

“This country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations. We, the people, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which asks only, what’s in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.”

- Barack Obama, Democractic National Convention 2012

—

Oh Look, Obama summed up my fulbright proposal.

theimpossiblecool: Lennon.

Fri, 24 Aug 2012 21:18:12 -0400

theimpossiblecool: Lennon.

"I just wasn’t — and I was never terribly good at that kind of no-holds-barred fun. …..."

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 22:16:39 -0400

“I just wasn’t — and I was never terribly good at that kind of no-holds-barred fun. … I’ve essentially made a career on not being good at no-holds-barred fun. But, you know, I [was] just never sort of like, hey, yes, let’s go play. I was always more sort of like, does everybody know where the fire exit is? And let’s make sure there’s enough oxygen in this elevator. … As a grownup it’s much easier to work — to navigate the world with that, because then you can just go home to your own apartment.”

- David Rakoff on NPR’s Fresh Air

David Rakoff, one of my favorite writers. I will forever...

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 20:09:50 -0400

David Rakoff, one of my favorite writers. I will forever appreciate his dark, self-depricating wit. Some of my favorite Rakoff stories include Christmas Freud, 29, and Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace. I was lucky enough to see him do a live reading at Seattle Town Hall in 2010. It was hilarious and heartbreaking, but beautiful.

So is this final performance by David for a live episode of This American Life.

——

More on David Rakoff from GQ editor-in-cheif Jim Nelson:

I just learned that a friend and a longtime contributor to the magazine, the writer David Rakoff, died yesterday, at the cruel age of 47.

Some of you may be familiar with his wickedly smart and powerfully funny writing, but if you don’t know it, I urge you to go back and read one of the most original voices of our time.

Funnily enough, David and I met through a blind date, years ago, set up through our mutual friend, Ilena Silverman, a former GQ editor who just had this gut feeling we would hit it off. She was right. (Thank you, Ilena.)

This must have been 1993.We went to a long-gone restaurant on Avenue A, Zitunya, near my apartment on Tompkins Square Park. I hate blind dates, and so did he, but we figured what the hell. On the phone I said, “Um, how will I know you?” He said, “I’ll be the one who looks like Richard Benjamin.” Ha! (People Who Have Never Heard That Name: That’s the oh-so-70s’ actor from movies like “Portnoy’s Complaint” and “Westworld.”) And you know what: He kinda did! Here was a man with an unaffected sense of himself, unafraid to be exactly who he was. We got on famously, so famously that after the date, we saw the immediate wisdom of becoming friends.

(Continued)

i’m going through an audrey hepburn phase. i’ve...

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 02:29:23 -0400

i’m going through an audrey hepburn phase. i’ve watched sabrina, how to steal a million, and breakfast at tiffany’s in the last month. now on to funny face, my fair lady and all the other classics (i.e. the ones not on netflix watch instantly). god that girl was gorgeous. peter o’toole was not bad either.

allaboutaudrey:

Peter O’Toole (Simon) finally gets the girl (Audrey as Nicole) in a broom closet in William Wyler’s How To Steal A Million, 1966.

reason #49854 my mom is better than your mom: she has her own...

Sat, 21 Jul 2012 13:00:45 -0400

reason #49854 my mom is better than your mom: she has her own meme.

#lolpollyz #lolmomz

"Authority has been replaced by authenticity as the currency of social journalism. The key to..."

Thu, 12 Jul 2012 12:03:08 -0400

“Authority has been replaced by authenticity as the currency of social journalism. The key to engaging with a community is to seek out those closest to the story. They rarely have a title but are people of standing within a community. They are guides to the wisdom within their crowd and interpreters of nuance: if you are verifying video from Syria you don’t want a foreign policy wonk, you want someone who can distinguish between a Damascus and a Homs accent.”

- Writes Mark Little in the latest issue of Nieman Reports.

He and his colleagues at Storyful practice what he calls social journalism — the process of examining, validating, and finding a context (and a place) for meaningful information uploaded by people all over the world.

(via futurejournalismproject)

on the ethics of traveling

Tue, 10 Jul 2012 14:19:00 -0400

on the ethics of traveling:

“Reclaiming Travel,” ILAN STAVANS and JOSHUA ELLISON

New York Times, July 7, 2012

Not knowing where we are, what to eat, how to speak the language can certainly make us anxious and uneasy. But anxiety is part of any person’s quest to find the parameters of life’s possibilities.

…

Travel has no inherent moral character, no necessary outcome. It can be precious or worthless, productive or destructive. It can be ennobling or self-satisfied. The returns can be only as good as what we offer of ourselves in the process. So what distinguishes meaningful, fruitful travel from mere tourism? What turns travel into a quest rather than self-serving escapism?

George Steiner wrote that “human beings need to learn to be each other’s guests on this small planet.” We usually focus on the ethical imperative of hospitality, on the obligation to be a generous host. When we travel, though, we are asking for hospitality. There’s great vulnerability in this. It also requires considerable strength. To be a good guest — like being a good host — one needs to be secure in one’s own premises: where you stand, who you are. This means we tend to romanticize travel as a lonely pursuit. In fact, a much deeper virtue arises from the demands it makes on us as social beings.

Travel is a search for meaning, not only in our own lives, but also in the lives of others. The humility required for genuine travel is exactly what is missing from its opposite extreme, tourism.

Modern tourism does not promise transformation but rather the possibility of leaving home and coming back without any significant change or challenge. Tourists may enjoy the visit only because it is short. The memory of it, the retelling, will always be better. Whereas travel is about the unexpected, about giving oneself over to disorientation, tourism is safe, controlled and predetermined. We take a vacation, not so much to discover a new landscape, but to find respite from our current one, an antidote to routine.

…

The kind of travel to which we aspire should tolerate uncertainty and discomfort. It isn’t about pain or excessive strain — travel doesn’t need to be an extreme sport — but we need to permit ourselves to be clumsy, inexpert and even a bit lonely. We might never understand travel as our ancestors did: our world is too open, relativistic, secular, demystified. But we will need to reclaim some notion of the heroic: a quest for communion and, ultimately, self-knowledge.

Our wandering is meant to lead back toward ourselves. This is the paradox: we set out on adventures to gain deeper access to ourselves; we travel to transcend our own limitations. Travel should be an art through which our restlessness finds expression. We must bring back the idea of travel as a search.

futurejournalismproject: The Unanimous Declaration of the...

Wed, 04 Jul 2012 14:36:02 -0400

futurejournalismproject:

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.—Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”

FJP: Still edgy after all these years.

Here, here. Happy 4th of July!

some of my favorite places in Senegal. i sure do miss it. 1....

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 16:31:00 -0400

mosquée près de ma maison

mar lodj, sud de Dakar

mermoz petanque club

Ouakam bar

Ouakam village

some of my favorite places in Senegal. i sure do miss it.

1. mosquée près de ma maison: a beautiful mosque next to my house. i heard the call to prayer eminate from its speakers everyday. i saw the groups of men flock to its quarters every friday afternoon for prayer. islam is a beautiful and complex religion.

2. mar lodj: an island a couple hours south of Dakar. Our whole program spent a weekend here, enjoying a break from the hustle and bustle of Dakar. it is surrounded by mangroves a little sereer villages. by far, one of my favorite weekends abroad.

3. mermoz petanque club: the local bocci ball club I befriended. I spent many afternoons watching these men debate politics and bocci ball with equal passion for both. they let me play a few rounds of bocci, but only against other toubabs or little kids.

4. Ouakam bar: the little pub where we hung out on weekends before heading out into the craziness of senegalese nightlife. this bar was unmarked; you entered down a little passage way that led into the open space, usually dark and home to a couple sketchy senegalese men. Victor, the bartender, must have made a good deal of his yearly income off of us crazy american kids.

5. Ouakam village: the oldest part of my neighborhood. it retains its traditional village feel with narrow walkways and dilapidated houses. i loved walking through the village, getting lost in its maze-like passage ways. my host-mom’s dad used to be chief of the ouakam village. the neighborhood has grown a great deal in the last few decades, incorporating more upper middle class families and western-style homes. but the village still holds it traditional fisherman roots.

on the political divide

Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:17:00 -0400

Liberals are Ruining America. I Know Because I am One.

Steve Almond, New York Times Magazine, June 10, 2012

This, to be blunt, is the tragic flaw of the modern liberal. We choose to see ourselves as innocent victims of an escalating right-wing fanaticism. But too often we serve as willing accomplices to this escalation and to the resulting degradation of our civic discourse. We do this, without even meaning to, by consuming conservative folly as mass entertainment.

…

Media outlets like MSNBC and The Huffington Post often justify their coverage of these voices by claiming to serve as watchdogs. It would be more accurate to think of them as de facto loudspeakers for conservative agitprop. The demagogues of the world, after all, derive power solely from their ability to provoke reaction. Those liberals (like me) who take the bait, are to blame for their outsize influence.

Even programs that seek to inject some levity into our rancorous political theater run on the same noxious fuel. What would “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” be without the fulminations of Fox News and the rest of the right-wing hysterics?

Taken as a whole, the arrangement is entirely cynical. This slavish coverage of conservative scoundrels does nothing to illuminate policy or challenge our assumptions. On the contrary, its central goal mirrors that of the pundits it reviles: to boost ratings by reinforcing easy prejudices. These ratings come courtesy of dolts like me: liberals who choose, every day, to click on their links and to watch their shows.

So why do I do this?

The first and most damning reason is that some part of me truly enjoys resenting conservatives. I know I shouldn’t, that I should strive for equanimity. But secretly I feel the same helplessness and rage that animates the extreme right wing of this country. I see a world dangerously out of balance — morally, economically, ecologically — and my natural impulse is to blame those figures who, in my view, embody the decadent ignorance of the age. They become convenient scapegoats.

Rather than taking up the banner and the burden of the causes I believe in, or questioning my own consumptive habits, I’ve come to rely on private moments of indignation for moral vindication. I fume at the iniquity of Pundit A and laugh at the hypocrisy of Candidate B and feel absolved — without ever having left my couch. It’s a closed system of scorn and self-congratulation.

My fixation on conservative demagogues also includes a share of covert envy. The truth is that I feel overrun by moral uncertainty, bewildered by the complexity of our planetary crises. Wouldn’t it be nice, I ask myself, to feel entirely sure of my beliefs? To shout down anyone who disagrees with me? To dismiss peak oil and global warming as fairy tales? To accept capitalism as a catechism?

But what’s really happening when I scoff at Sarah Palin’s latest tweet amounts to a mimetic indulgence: I’m bleeding the world of nuance, surrendering to the seduction of binary thinking.

This pattern of defensive grievance, writ large, has derailed the liberal agenda and crippled the nation’s moral progress.

…

I’m as heartbroken as the next liberal at the cynicism of the Republican Party and the inability of Democrats to confront them in blunt moral terms. But as Americans, we are endowed with the freedom to vote for the sort of democracy we want — not just at the ballot booth, but with our attention and energy. The more we devote to amplifying conflict, the less we listen to each other. Which is precisely what those special interests want: a nation too distracted by wrath to follow the money.

My personal goal is simple: to go cold turkey on conservative wing nuts and instead take up the hard work of genuine political action. It’s time for all of us — liberal, conservative and otherwise — to define ourselves as Americans not by who we hate but by what we can do to strengthen our communities and country.

socks the cat. sometimes i wish i was a presidential cat. the...

Sat, 23 Jun 2012 16:04:48 -0400

socks the cat. sometimes i wish i was a presidential cat. the perfect combination of my love of international affairs and sleeping.

source: oldtimeycats

Photo

Thu, 14 Jun 2012 01:17:00 -0400