International Day of the Girl: So much progress, yet so much to do. Funny it is also Eleanor Roosevelt’s birthday … “A woman is like a tea bag; you never know how strong it is until it’s in hot water.”
Today, the International Day of the Girl, is an important day as the international community recognizes the rights of girls and the unique challenges girls face around the world.
This year’s theme is “innovating for girls’ education.” Why education? Education is one of the most powerful tools an individual can have, and for a girl the benefits are enormous. An educated girl will delay marriage, she is more likely to have fewer children, her children are more likely to go to school, and she will contribute to the economy of her country.
I loved these pictures … what a great thing to do to teach a young girl about iconic, but real women.
Photographer and mother Jaime Moore searched high and low for creative inspiration to take photos of her 5-year-old daughter Emma but found most of the ideas were how to dress your little girl like a Disney princess. It got her thinking about some real women for her daughter to look up to, whether that be a pilot, a doctor, or even an astronaut.
Then she did what I can only describe as kick-ass. Below are the five inspirational women she dressed her daughter as. Then scroll down to see the bonus sixth photo because it made me smile so much.
high school classics, YA literature, entertainment, The Atlantic Wire: Rereading books from my YA era is something I’ve always found to be insightful. While studying for the bar at 25, I reread Madeleine L’Engle’s trilogy centered on A Wrinkle in Time, which at that time had become a quartet (and I read the 4th book). When I read them to my children, the quartet had become a quintet …
If the act of rereading a book is partly about remembering the you who paged through it the first time, and comparing that version of yourself to the one dipping into that book again, the classics that we read in high school offer endless possibilities for rediscovery, for looking at ourselves then and now. That’s part of what makes Kevin Smokler’s new book, Practical Classics: 50 Reasons to Reread 50 Books You Haven’t Touched Since High School, so much fun. His homages to 50 titles, including Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, The Bluest Eye, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, and even The Scarlet Letter (he writes, “I don’t like it either,” but argues for rereading it nonetheless), offers a truly enjoyable trip down one’s personal memory lane of books. It’s also a love letter to the act of reading, to continual learning, and to making an effort to slow down and savor the good books in life.
Not all of the works Smokler writes about fall into the category of Y.A., or, for that matter, are even books (and his book, of course, is intended for grownups). There are William Shakespeare plays and Emily Dickinson poems and even the fantastic David Foster Wallace essay, “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.” Many of the books he reconsiders, for instance, To Kill a Mockingbird and The Catcher in the Rye, while not explicitly intended for teens by their authors, have been huge hits among that readership. The Phantom Tollbooth is widely considered a book for younger readers, and A Separate Peace and The Bell Jar—the latter of which a friend told him, “is for teenage girls what On the Road is for teenage boys”—are surely read most by people under 20. But more than whether the books are Y.A. or not, the idea of reading what you read then to know yourself better now is part of why I started the Y.A. for Grownups column in the first place. I wanted to reevaluate books I’d read as a kid with grownup eyes … and I did that, but I also developed an appetite for new Y.A., and a desire to look at what it means to read those books in “reverse,” as an adult. So, I was eager to talk to Smokler about his experience of rereading so many high school classics, and to find out what he gained in the process.
Y.A. for Grownups, Kevin Smokler, Books, Publishing, Y.A. Fiction/literature: How had I missed this column …
But more than whether the books are Y.A. or not, the idea of reading what you read then to know yourself better now is part of why I started the Y.A. for Grownups column in the first place. I wanted to reevaluate books I’d read as a kid with grownup eyes … and I did that, but I also developed an appetite for new Y.A., and a desire to look at what it means to read those books in “reverse,” as an adult. So, I was eager to talk to Smokler about his experience of rereading so many high school classics, and to find out what he gained in the process.
Malcolm Muggeridge, Jesus, rereading, ChristCare: My ChristCare group is indulging me by reading/studying a book I read in high school, Malcolm Muggeridge’s Jesus … the group is journeying with me. 🙂
Tim Cook, Apple, AAPL: 😦
On Wednesday afternoon, Apple CEO Tim Cook addressed investors and the media at the company’s annual shareholders meeting. It was the sixth time in the last five months that Cook has made something like a public appearance; and it is also the sixth time in the past five months that Apple’s stock (AAPL) has closed down after Cook appeared.
Consider this: The last six times that Cook has put himself out there, Apple’s stock declined afterwards. It’s a streak that dates back to October 2012, when Cook introduced the iPad mini, and it is a trend that has gone unbroken for about five months now: When Cook appears, AAPL goes down
Queen Elizabeth, ex-IRA leader, historic handshake, iconic images, picture is worth a thousand words: OK, again I saved this during my sabbatical from blogging … but this is a very significant picture …
June 27, 2012
In a meeting symbolizing the end of years of enmity between British rule and Northern Ireland republicans, Queen Elizabeth shook hands Wednesday with a former Irish Republican Army commander.
Martin McGuinness, now a deputy first minister of Northern Ireland and a member of the pro-republican Sinn Fein party, was a senior IRA member in the years of sectarian violence. During that time, the group was responsible for blowing up the yacht of Lord Louis Mountbatten, the queen’s cousin, killing him and three others while they vacationed off the coast of Northern Ireland in 1979.
The once unthinkable handshake took place away from media eyes — apart from one camera crew — behind closed doors at a charity arts event in Belfast, witnessed by the queen’s husband, Prince Philip, and leading politicians including Irish President Michael Higgins and Northern Ireland’s first minister, Peter Robinson.
The seemingly mundane greeting was widely heralded as a turning point. Peter Sheridan, host of the event, told reporters, “It’s a huge act of reconciliation, you cannot underestimate how important this is.”
Hurricane Irene: Charlotte and western and central NC really got nothing. I actually am feeling guilty because so many friends are in harm’s way … stay safe those n the path of Irene. My beloved OBX was hit hard. 🙂
This photo from the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) shows something never seen – and certainly not on what should be a busy Saturday afternoon in August: an empty Grand Central Station. With all transit in the New York area closed, the terminal is a big empty barn. If you’re watching TV news they’ll probably call it “Death Central Station.”
CLS XC, WNC Cross-Country Carnival, UrbanSpoon, Mean Mr. Mustard’s Cafe, Hendersonville, NC, kith/kin: What a great race … very well-organized and wonderful park – WNC Cross Country Carnival at Jackson Park, Hendersonville, NC. Afterwards, we used Urban Spoon app to find Mean Mr. Mustard’s Cafe in downtown Hendersonville … which was excellent.
Midnight in Paris, movies: John and saw Midnight in Paris on the recommendation of several. I loved it and he enjoyed it. He said if he had not read A Paris Wife and recently been there, he would not have enjoyed it nearly as much. Molly adored seeing the Eiffel Tower lit up at 11 pm. Toward the end they showed the Eiffel Tower lit up and it just made me smile.
apps, FutureTap, Urban Spoon, travel, food: We used the similar Urban Spoon, in Hendersonville NC and found a great restaurant. First time I have ever really had success with these apps. Anybody tried this one?
Discover your next destination.
Where To? makes it incredibly easy to locate the closest steakhouse, bank branch, billiard club or anything else you may be looking for, at the drop of a hat! Finally you can find local businesses without any typing, using a slick, intuitive user experience.
Navy SEALs, Hawkeye, man’s best friend, pets, followup, photography, iconic images, followup: I actually did not post this story, but I loved it and wondered what would happen to Hawkeye (what a great name for a dog!) … now we know. I think this photo may become an iconic image of the continued war on terror.
Hawkeye — not a military dog, but Tumilson’s personal pet — “led the family into the gym” where the funeral was held, as the Des Moines Register reports. And then he lay down.
A poignant picture taken by Tumilson’s cousin, Lisa Pembleton, has gotten lots of attention since then. So too have video reports aired and posted by local TV stations and the news networks.
Our colleagues at KPBS’ Home Post blog in San Diego were among the outlets that helped spread the word about Hawkeye. Today, they write that many readers wanted to know what was going to happen to Hawkeye and wondered if they could adopt him. There’s good news: According to Home Post, “Tumilson’s friend, Scott Nichols, will be Hawkeye’s new master.”
Gadhafi, Libya Uprising, personality cults, dictators, megalomaniacs: Unfortunately, those that choose this route can negatively affect international politics for years …
In contrast, Gadhafi showed absolutely no interest in fleeing abroad during the six months that elapsed between the start of the Libyan uprising in February until Tuesday, the day the rebels stormed into his compound in Tripoli.
For months, the rebels encouraged Gadhafi to leave, and it seemed he would have had relatively little trouble finding a new home. Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez was often mentioned as a possible host.
Now Gadhafi is presumed to be in hiding in Libya, and the rebels have put a bounty out on him. If captured, he is likely to be prosecuted at home or abroad.
Personality Cults
Absolute power, it seems, not only corrupts — it can also confuse.
“There’s a healthy dose of megalomania in these guys,” John Norris, a security analyst at the Center for American Progress, says of dictators who refuse to surrender power. “If I had to find one common thread, it’s a profound and fundamental miscalculation that the end is near.”
Dictators who rule unchallenged for decades — like Gadhafi or Saddam Hussein — have the hardest time accepting the fact that it’s time to leave, says Natasha Ezrow, a lecturer in government at the University of Essex and author of two books about dictators.
Game of Thrones, bookshelf, tv, HBO: A friend has highly recommended both the Game of Thrones tv show and the book. Books are ordered from Amazon and will watch the show … Anybody read the books or watching the show? HBO: Game of Thrones: About.
food – wine, viticulture, oenology, Stellenbosch, South Africa, apartheid: This is a great story. We have been to SA’s wine country and Kwala-Zulu Natal, and the contrast is amazing. What a wonderful story of post apartheid success.
Her choice of study was a fluke. Though she had been a good student, none of her grant applications for college were approved until an airline, hoping to promote diversity, offered to pay her way to study viticulture and oenology: grapes and wine. What was wine? the young woman wondered, guessing it was another name for cider.
She had never been outside the eastern province of KwaZulu Natal, but she boarded a bus and traveled across South Africa to the wine country of the Western Cape. She gazed at the immense mountains. She puzzled over the short, thin trees planted in perfect rows. She had no idea what they were.
Finally, Ms. Biyela tasted the beverage she had come such a distance to study. She and a handful of other black scholarship students met with a wine connoisseur, Jabulani Ntshangase. He opened a superb red, raised the moist cork to his nose and talked rapturously about the wine’s fruitiness and color and fragrance. She was expecting to sip something sublime when handed the elegant, long-stemmed glass. Instead, she was stunned. It was disgusting.
Ms. Biyela, having definitely adapted her tastes, is now one of this nation’s few black winemakers in an occupation that has been dominated by white people for 350 years. Her blends of merlot, cabernet sauvignon and pinotage have won gold medals and four-star ratings. She was named South Africa’s Woman Winemaker of the Year in 2009. Last month, she was busy judging the country’s entries for the International Wine and Spirit Competition.
“Somehow I fell in love with the ever-changing content of wine,” she said as if still surprised by her own journey. “Wine is never the same today as it is tomorrow. It even depends on where you drink it and who you are with and what mood you are in. It’s a very, very nice thing.”
Though apartheid has been swept away, this country is still a racially divided society. Ms. Biyela is a pioneer in its transformation, not someone elevated through political connections, but a rural woman who made it on grit.
R.E.M., one of Athens, Georgia’s biggest rock exports, has lent their song, “Oh My Heart” from Collapse Into Now to the University of Georgia for a beautiful, new public service message. The University of Georgia reached outside the arches, teaming with an alumni group, to create the in-game public service announcement for the upcoming 2011 football season.
college basketball: I really do like college basketball
…25 consecutive hours of game action highlighted by Champions Classic doubleheader with College GameDay on-site; 17 men’s games; two women’s games for first time; and 11 ESPN telecasts
For the fourth consecutive year, ESPN will celebrate the opening of the college basketball season with a marathon of college basketball coverage across ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN3.com. This year’s College Hoops Tip-off Marathon Presented by Disney Parks Tuesday, Nov. 15, beginning at midnight ET, will include 19 live matchups – 17 men’s and two women’s – in a minimum of 25 hours, highlighted by ESPN’s 11 game telecasts and a special one-hour College GameDay Driven by State Farm. ESPN3.com will offer two exclusive games as well as a simulcast of every ESPN and ESPN2 telecast.
The schedule will feature four of the sport’s winningest programs – Duke, Kansas, Kentucky and Michigan State – in the inaugural State Farm Champions Classic doubleheader, 14 teams that played in last year’s men’s NCAA Tournament, including Final Four participant Kentucky; and four women’s NCAA Tournament teams from last year, including defending National Champion Texas A&M.
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