The Opt-Out Generation, NYTimes.com: That’s me, that’s me … Article is worth reading.
“I really thought it was what I had to do to save my marriage,” she said. But the tensions in her marriage didn’t improve. The couple’s long-term issues of anger, jealousy and control got worse as O’Donnel’s dependency grew and a sense of personal dislocation set in. Without a salary or an independent work identity, her self-confidence plummeted. “I felt like such a loser,” she said. “I poured myself into the kids and soccer. I didn’t know how to deal with the downtime. I did all the volunteering, ran the auctions. It was my way of coping.” Five years after leaving her Oracle job, O’Donnel began volunteering for Girls on the Run, a nonprofit group devoted to girls’ emotional empowerment and physical well-being, and was eventually hired part time, at low pay. She loved the work. The organization’s message, about respecting yourself and surrounding yourself with people who appreciate you, resonated with her. “I started feeling very devalued when I was with him,” O’Donnel said of her husband, “but when I was doing all this nonprofit stuff, I felt great.” … The culture of motherhood, post-recession, had altered considerably, too. The women of the opt-out revolution left the work force at a time when the prevailing ideas about motherhood idealized full-time, round-the-clock, child-centered devotion. In 2000, for example, with the economy strong and books like “Surrendering to Motherhood,” a memoir about the “liberation” of giving up work to stay home, setting the tone for the aspirational mothering style of the day, almost 40 percent of respondents to the General Social Survey told researchers they believed a mother’s working was harmful to her children (an increase of eight percentage points since 1994). But by 2010, with recovery from the “mancession” slow and a record 40 percent of mothers functioning as family breadwinners, fully 75 percent of Americans agreed with the statement that “a working mother can establish just as warm and secure a relationship with her children as a mother who does not work.” And after decades of well-publicized academic inquiry into the effects of maternal separation and the dangers of day care, a new generation of social scientists was publishing research on the negative effects of excessive mothering: more depression and worse general health among mothers, according to the American Psychological Association. I wondered if these changes affected the women who opted out years ago. Had they found the “escape hatch” from the rat race that one of Belkin’s interviewees said she was after? Were they able, as a vast majority said they had planned, to transition back into the work force? Or had they, as the author Leslie Bennetts predicted in her 2007 book, “The Feminine Mistake,” come to see that, by making themselves financially dependent upon their men — particularly at a time when no man could depend upon his job — they had made a colossal error? The 22 women I interviewed, for the most part, told me that the perils of leaving the work force were counterbalanced by the pleasures of being able to experience motherhood on their own terms. A certain number of these women — the superelite, you might say, the most well-off, with the highest-value name-brand educational credentials and powerful and well-connected social networks — found jobs easily after extended periods at home. These jobs generally paid less than their previous careers and were less prestigious. But the women found the work more interesting, socially conscious and family-friendly than their old high-powered positions. via The Opt-Out Generation Wants Back In – NYTimes.com.
Twitter, MLA , citations: So who was the first to cite twitter in an academic paper?
meghugs meghugs 3 Aug English major nerd alert: MLA has officially devised a standard way to cite a tweet in an academic paper. pic.twitter.com/BWZfKDXSY7 via Twitter / meghugs: English major nerd alert: MLA ….
TE Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, Winston Churchill: Thanks, Bob … I had to divert myself to do a little research on Churchill and Lawrence. 🙂
Bob: Upon Lawrence’s death in 1935, Winston Churchill said “I fear whatever our need, we shall never see his like again”. Sunday at 8:01pm · Unlike · 1
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Born into a privileged British family, Churchill had a colorful career as a soldier and war correspondent before he entered politics as a member of parliament. When Lawrence publicly refused to accept his gallantry medals Churchill realized the deep discontent among Arabs. Churchill first encountered T.E. Lawrence after World War I when, as Colonial Secretary, he was charged with making a new and more just settlement in the Middle East. He determined to assemble the best and brightest of Britain’s Middle East experts. Despite Lawrence’s maverick reputation Churchill could not overlook his vast knowledge of the Arabs and their needs. Churchill persuaded Lawrence back into public service in 1921 with a special post in the Colonial office. Lawrence had enormous respect for Churchill and genuinely believed they could repair the injury done to the Arabs at the Paris Peace Conference, stabilize the region and remove British armed forces. The Cairo Conference set out to achieve this end and resulted in Feisal being given a Kingdom in Iraq and his brother the throne of neighboring Transjordan. Lawrence later wrote: “In Winston’s 1922 settlement of the Middle East the Arabs obtained all that in my opinion they had been promised by Great Britain, in any sphere in which we were free to act”. The pair remained in contact until Lawrence’s death in 1935 when Churchill headed the list of notable mourners. He said of Lawrence: “I fear whatever our need we shall never see his like again.” Churchill went on to lead his country through the darkest hours of World War II as both Prime Minister and Minister of Defense between 1940-1945. He returned for a second term in 1951, was knighted in 1953 and resigned as Prime Minister in 1955. Churchill remained in politics until 1964, dying a few short months later at the grand old age of 90. via Lawrence of Arabia . Winston Churchill | PBS.
‘NewsHour’, First Female Anchor Team, kudos, NYTimes.com: Kudos to ‘NewsHour’ not so much because it has appointed two women but because it has appointed two excellent women.
The PBS “NewsHour,” which was co-anchored for decades by the two men who created it, will soon be co-anchored by two women. PBS announced on Tuesday that Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff would take over the nightly newscast in September, putting an end to the rotating anchor format that has been in effect for several years. Ms. Ifill and Ms. Woodruff will also share the managing-editor responsibilities for the program. via ‘NewsHour’ Appoints First Female Anchor Team – NYTimes.com.
Banksy, kudos, unintended consequences, ARTINFO: I like it that Banksy took responsibility for his unintended consequences.
In 2011, while in Los Angeles promoting his documentary “Exit Through the Gift Shop,” the shadowy British street artist Banksy tagged a vaguely elephantine water tank near the Pacific Coast Highway with the sentence “This Looks a Bit Like an Elephant.” Unbeknown to him, the abandoned tank had been serving as a makeshift home for Tachowa Covington, and the attention brought by the famous artist’s stencil forced him to abandon his home of seven years.
via Capturing Banksy
“I watched it for a month or so,” Covington told the Independent, recounting his discovery of the tank after it was abandoned in 2004. “Eventually, I climbed inside and saw that it was empty. I thought, ‘Wow. This would be a cool place to make a house.’ I picked it as a sanctuary, a place to kick back, to be close to God and to the ocean.” A choreographer and dancer, and a former escort and Michael Jackson impersonator originally from Sacramento, Covington became friendly with the local police, who didn’t bother him, and even had his mail delivered to the tank. “People left me alone because they thought it was an empty tank and I was just climbing up there with a sleeping bag,” he told the Independent. “But I was building inside the whole time.” By the time February 21, 2011 rolled around, he had installed a generator and security cameras, and was lobbying to secure squatter rights to the tank. That’s the night he heard to people moving around outside his home. “I looked out of the hatch, and there were two guys there,” he told the Independent. “I asked what they were doing, and one of them said, ‘We’re just making a joke’. I climbed down the ladder, looked at the writing, and I said, ‘Hey, that looks pretty cool!’ I introduced myself, and the English dude told me his name was Banksy. I didn’t know who he was, so I didn’t think twice about it.” Less than two weeks later, after buying the tank directly from the city of Los Angeles, the owners of the design firm Mint Currency had it removed by crane and trucked away, leaving Covington just 16 hours to gather his possessions and vacate his home of seven years. That’s when Banksy stepped in to help the man he’d inadvertently left homeless, giving him enough money to find an apartment and pay his bills for a full year. “He helped me so fast, I didn’t have to spend a single day more on the streets. It was like a miracle,” Covington said. “There ain’t no better man than Banksy… He was an angel to me. He helped me more than anybody helped me in my life.” Recently, the artist’s money ran out, and Covington was forced to move back to the hillside where his water tank home once stood while he waits for state-supported housing to become available. In the meantime, his story has inspired a new play, “Banksy: The Room in the Elephant” — which debuts at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this week — and a forthcoming documentary. via Banksy Gave a Man Whose Home He Tagged Enough Money To Live for a Year | ARTINFO.
labyrinth, journeys,
New York City Reflections: Join My Journey:
Godspeed on your walks!
My journey began on May 18, 2012. My goal is to complete it by April 30, 2014. As with any journey, but particularly this one, it began with a single step. A step into a labyrinth. Anne Hornstein’s labyrinth on Miramar Beach, Florida. It was the first state of 50 that I will visit. All outdoor labyrinths, grounded in the earth. All created by women. Since Florida, I have visited a labyrinth in 20 states. Nineteen built in yards. One on a beach. Each with a story. I have walked each labyrinth except the one in New Jersey, made unwalkable by Hurricane Irene. (Bianca Franchi has since rebuilt it.) I have listened to each woman’s story. The idea came from, well, who knows where. That mysterious Voice that sneaks up on you from “out of the blue,” or as a needling nudge that elbows you at 2:00 am and won’t go back to sleep. “You love to write. You love labyrinths. Write about labyrinths, one in every state.” An ambitious Voice to be sure! For those of you unfamiliar with the labyrinth, it is an ancient design consisting of one path that leads from an entrance on the outer edge, in a circuitous way, to the center and back out.
Welcome! Thank you for reading my blog about our first (now second) year in New York City! In addition to my NYC experiences, I’m in the process of making a 50-state labyrinth journey, which will end in April 2014. I invite you to share these exciting adventures and everything in between! All the best, Twylla via New York City Reflections: Join My Journey.
NIH, privacy agreement, Henrietta Lacks’ family, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a classic. I hope this privacy agreement brings closure to the family.
“The main issue was the privacy concern,” says Lacks’ grandson, David Lacks Jr. “Right now we are in the early stages of genomic science or genomic medicine and we don’t know what is going to come down the road in the future.” The new agreement requires NIH-funded researchers to use a “controlled-access” database of the HeLA cell genome, governed by a panel that contains Lacks family members, still living today in Baltimore. The agency is also asking biomedical researchers not funded by NIH to abide by the agreement as a matter of scientific ethics. Noting that he has used HeLa cells in his own lab, Collins stated that more steps need to be taken to protect privacy rights of genetic sample donors in the future — even those not made famous by a best-selling book. “Frankly the science has moved faster than the consent process, and maybe it is time to catch up,” Collins said in a telephone briefing on the agreement Wednesday. A related study in the journal, led by Andrew Adey of the University of Washington in Seattle, reports on the identification and location of the human papilloma virus genes inserted into the HeLA cell gene map that caused them to become cancerous. Collins called the study an important step in understanding what made the HeLa cancer cells so deadly to Lacks — and also made the cells so resilient in the lab. Collins drove up to Baltimore to talk the agreement over with members of the Lacks family. “That wasn’t lost on the family,” says author Skloot, who helped set up the meetings with the NIH and family members, and listened to the discussions. “This was the first time in history that scientists really took this kind of time with the family in a really open and transparent way.” via NIH makes privacy agreement with Henrietta Lacks’ family.
Two-Year-Old Best Man Dies Two Days After His Parents Marry, TIME.com: This one is a heartbreaker.
A toddler who served as the best man at his parents’ wedding over the weekend, died Monday due to complications associated with Fanconi anemia, a rare blood disorder, the Today Show reports. Logan Stevenson had been suffering from leukemia and malignant tumors on his kidneys since December 2011. When doctors recently told his parents, Christine Swidorsky and Sean Stevenson, that their son only had a few weeks to live, the couple decided to get married this past Saturday instead of next July, as they had planned, so that their son could be there. During a backyard wedding at the family’s home in Jeannette, Pennsylvania, east of Pittsburgh, the terminally-ill boy, dressed in a tan, pinstripe suit and orange shirt, held his favorite teddy bear while his mother carried him down the aisle before passing him off to his grandmother. Being all together as a family was “a dream come true,” Swidorsky told NBC’s WPXI. via Two-Year-Old Best Man Dies Two Days After His Parents Marry | TIME.com.
travel, kith/kin: 24 hours to KWI … 26 hours in KC … 24 hours back …and now eagle landed and is snoozing on the sofa … Poor thing … Off on the early bird to LGA in the AM.
Halloween, cartoons, viral videos: Now for a little fun …
Steven Pinker, language, RSA Animate: I love these animated whiteboard videos! And Steven Pinker is one of my new favorites (thanks katie!) – Language as a Window into Human Nature – YouTube.
potatoes, food, history, changed the world: Food history … also interesting …
When potato plants bloom, they send up five-lobed flowers that spangle fields like fat purple stars. By some accounts, Marie Antoinette liked the blossoms so much that she put them in her hair. Her husband, Louis XVI, put one in his buttonhole, inspiring a brief vogue in which the French aristocracy swanned around with potato plants on their clothes. The flowers were part of an attempt to persuade French farmers to plant and French diners to eat this strange new species.
Today the potato is the fifth most important crop worldwide, after wheat, corn, rice and sugar cane. But in the 18th century the tuber was a startling novelty, frightening to some, bewildering to others—part of a global ecological convulsion set off by Christopher Columbus.
About 250 million years ago, the world consisted of a single giant landmass now known as Pangaea. Geological forces broke Pangaea apart, creating the continents and hemispheres familiar today. Over the eons, the separate corners of the earth developed wildly different suites of plants and animals. Columbus’ voyages reknit the seams of Pangaea, to borrow a phrase from Alfred W. Crosby, the historian who first described this process. In what Crosby called the Columbian Exchange, the world’s long-separate ecosystems abruptly collided and mixed in a biological bedlam that underlies much of the history we learn in school. The potato flower in Louis XVI’s buttonhole, a species that had crossed the Atlantic from Peru, was both an emblem of the Columbian Exchange and one of its most important aspects.
Compared with grains, tubers are inherently more productive. If the head of a wheat or rice plant grows too big, the plant will fall over, with fatal results. Growing underground, tubers are not limited by the rest of the plant. In 2008 a Lebanese farmer dug up a potato that weighed nearly 25 pounds. It was bigger than his head.
Many researchers believe that the potato’s arrival in northern Europe spelled an end to famine there. (Corn, another American crop, played a similar but smaller role in southern Europe.) More than that, as the historian William H. McNeill has argued, the potato led to empire: “By feeding rapidly growing populations, [it] permitted a handful of European nations to assert dominion over most of the world between 1750 and 1950.” The potato, in other words, fueled the rise of the West.
Equally important, the European and North American adoption of the potato set the template for modern agriculture—the so-called agro-industrial complex. Not only did the Columbian Exchange carry the potato across the Atlantic, it also brought the world’s first intensive fertilizer: Peruvian guano. And when potatoes fell to the attack of another import, the Colorado potato beetle, panicked farmers turned to the first artificial pesticide: a form of arsenic. Competition to produce ever-more-potent arsenic blends launched the modern pesticide industry. In the 1940s and 1950s, improved crops, high-intensity fertilizers and chemical pesticides created the Green Revolution, the explosion of agricultural productivity that transformed farms from Illinois to Indonesia—and set off a political argument about the food supply that grows more intense by the day.
‘Inhalable’ Caffeine, inventions: Would you snort one?
Is caffeine addictive? Certainly, it produces tolerance and withdrawal symptoms if it is stopped abruptly. But even though it is the most widely used drug in the world, few caffeine users exhibit signs of serious addiction — namely, compulsive drug-related behaviors despite negative consequences. That could be in part because caffeine is legal and easily and cheaply obtained. Or, it could be because the effects of caffeine use — especially in a hyperefficient society — are generally positive.
So, while previous products, like inhalable aerosolized alcohol, led to bans in multiple states, AeroShot seems more likely to garner praise (especially from employers — and editors).
The new product will hit stores in New York City and Boston in January and will be available online in several weeks, according to Edwards. The retail price is expected to be $2.99 per inhaler — cheaper than a Starbucks latte.
Moammar Gadhafi, legacy: to many Africans he is a “martyr, benefactor, instigator.” Leaves a conflicted image.
Moammar Gadhafi’s regime poured tens of billions of dollars into some of Africa’s poorest countries. Even when he came to visit, the eccentric Libyan leader won admiration for handing out money to beggars on the streets.
“Other heads of state just drive past here in their limousines. Gadhafi stopped, pushed away his bodyguards and shook our hands,” said Cherno Diallo, standing Monday beside hundreds of caged birds he sells near a Libyan-funded hotel. “Gadhafi’s death has touched every Malian, every single one of us. We’re all upset.”
Gadhafi backed some of the most brutal rebel leaders and dictators on the continent, but tens of thousands are now gathering at mosques built with his money and are remembering him as an anti-colonial martyr, and as an Arab leader who called himself African.
While Western powers heralded Gadhafi’s demise, many Africans were gathering at mosques built with Gadhafi’s money to mourn the man they consider an anti-imperialist martyr and benefactor.
Critics, though, note this image is at odds with Gadhafi’s history of backing some of Africa’s most brutal rebel leaders and dictators. Gadhafi sent 600 troops to support Uganda’s much-hated Idi Amin in the final throes of his dictatorship.
And Gadhafi-funded rebels supported by former Liberian leader Charles Taylor forcibly recruited children and chopped off limbs of their victims during Sierra Leone’s civil war.
“Is Gadhafi’s life more important than many thousands of people that have been killed during the war in these two countries?” asked one shopkeeper in the tiny West African country of Gambia, who spoke on condition of anonymity fearing recrimination.
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“Gadhafi was a godfather to many Ugandans,” said Muhammed Kazibala, a head teacher at a Libyan-funded school in the country’s capital.
The Libyan leader also built a palace for one of Uganda’s traditional kingdoms. It was a fitting donation for a man who traveled to African Union summits dressed in a gold-embroidered green robe, flanked by seven men who said they were the “traditional kings of Africa.”
Gadhafi used Libya’s oil wealth to help create the AU in 2002, and also served as its rotating chairman. During the revolt against Gadhafi, the AU condemned NATO airstrikes as evidence mounted that his military was massacring civilians.
Gadhafi’s influence even extended to Africa’s largest economy: The Libyan leader supported the African National Congress when it was fighting racist white rule, and remained close to Nelson Mandela after the anti-apartheid icon became South Africa’s first black president.
rhinos, South Africa, endangered species: A group of rhinos is called a “crash.” But why do people destroy animals for human rituals … craziness.
Johannesburg’s bustling O. R. Tambo International Airport is an easy place to get lost in a crowd, and that’s just what a 29-year-old Vietnamese man named Xuan Hoang was hoping to do one day in March last year—just lie low until he could board his flight home. The police dog sniffing the line of passengers didn’t worry him; he’d checked his baggage through to Ho Chi Minh City. But behind the scenes, police were also using X-ray scanners on luggage checked to Vietnam, believed to be the epicenter of a new war on rhinos. And when Hoang’s bag appeared on the screen, they saw the unmistakable shape of rhinoceros horns—six of them, weighing more than 35 pounds and worth up to $500,000 on the black market.
Investigators suspected the contraband might be linked to a poaching incident a few days earlier on a game farm in Limpopo Province, on South Africa’s northern border. “We have learned over time, as soon as a rhino goes down, in the next two or three days the horns will leave the country,” Col. Johan Jooste of South Africa’s national priority crime unit told me when I interviewed him in Pretoria.
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You might also wonder why they bother. The orneriness of rhinos is so proverbial that the word for a group of them is not a “herd” but a “crash.” “The first time I saw one I was a 4-year-old in this park. We were in a boat, and it charged the boat,” said Bird. “That’s how aggressive they can be.” Bird now makes his living keeping tabs on the park’s black rhinos and sometimes works by helicopter to catch them for relocation to other protected areas. “They’ll charge helicopters,” he added. “They’ll be running and then after a while, they’ll say, ‘Bugger this,’ and they’ll turn around and run toward you. You can see them actually lift off their front feet as they try to have a go at the helicopter.”
twitter, women, Occupy Wall Street: Where are the women?
Twitter is still the social media outlet of choice for Occupy Wall Street, but new analysis into the #OWS tweets has found a surprising gender imbalance in those who’re talking about the protests: Fewer women seem to be doing so, despite Twitter being a female-dominated service overall.
According to analysis by Attention released yesterday, only 30% of tweets mentioning Occupy Wall Street were from female users, even though over 64% of all Twitter users are believed to be female as a result of a 2010 Pew survey. That number is actually up from where it was a month earlier; by mid-September, fewer than 20% of Occupy Wall Street tweets were from women.
The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, Will Ferrell, FYI: Never heard of this award … have to look it up.
Actor and comedian Will Ferrell jokingly gives the thumbs-down during his introduction as the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor honoree at the Kennedy Center in Washington. At left is his wife, Viveca Paulin.
The Mark Twain Prize recognizes people who have had an impact on American society in ways similar to the distinguished 19th century novelist and essayist best known as Mark Twain. As a social commentator, satirist and creator of characters, Samuel Clemens was a fearless observer of society, who startled many while delighting and informing many more with his uncompromising perspective of social injustice and personal folly. He revealed the great truth of humor when he said “against the assault of laughter nothing can stand.”
The event is created by the Kennedy Center, and executive producers Mark Krantz, Bob Kaminsky, Peter Kaminsky, and Cappy McGarr. The Kennedy Center established The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in October 1998, and it has been televised annually. Recipients of the Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize have been Richard Pryor (1998), Jonathan Winters (1999), Carl Reiner (2000), Whoopi Goldberg (2001), Bob Newhart (2002), Lily Tomlin (2003), Lorne Michaels (2004), Steve Martin (2005), Neil Simon (2006), Billy Crystal (2007), George Carlin (2008), Bill Cosby (2009), and Tina Fey (2010).
Gabrielle Giffords, therapy, Asheville NC: Must be a pretty good therapist in Asheville!
TUCSON, Ariz. — U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is in North Carolina for two weeks of intensive therapy sessions as she continues to recover from a gunshot wound to the head.
Giffords’ office says in a statement Sunday that the Arizona congresswoman is expected to spend time with a therapist who has worked with her in Houston for the last several months and has been extensively involved in her therapy.
Giffords will work with the therapist from Monday through Nov. 4 in Asheville, N.C. No other specifics on her therapy were given.
Her staff says the trip is strictly rehabilitation-related and has been planned for several months. No public appearances or events are scheduled.
Giffords is recovering from a brain injury suffered on Jan. 8 in Tucson. Six people were killed and 13 were wounded, including Giffords.
What the second law of thermodynamics has to do with Saint Augustine, landscape art, and graphic novels.
Time is the most fundamental common denominator between our existence and that of everything else, it’s the yardstick by which we measure nearly every aspect of our lives, directly or indirectly, yet its nature remains one of the greatest mysteries of science. Last year, we devoured BBC’s excellent What Is Time? and today we turn to seven essential books that explore the grand question on a deeper, more multidimensional level, spanning everything from quantum physics to philosophy to art.
Chemistry: A Volatile History, tv, BBC: I just love the BBC shows!
Now, thanks to the fine folks at BBC Four — who previously pondered such captivating issues as the nature of reality, the age-old tension between science and religion, how music works, and what time really is — you can refresh and enrich your understanding of this complex world with Chemistry: A Volatile History, a fascinating three-part series by theoretical physicist Jim Al-Khalili, exploring everything from the history of the elements to the rivalries and controversies that bedeviled scientific progress to the latest
Mitchell International Airport, Mitchell International Airport, “recombobulation area”: I have to ask my Milwaukee friend Donna if she’s utilized the “recombobulation area.”
Taking off your shoes and pulling out your laptop at airport security may leave you feeling discombobulated.
The Mitchell International Airport staff has set up some chairs and a sign just past one of the security checkpoints to help you out.
They’ve labeled it the “recombobulation area.”
Yes, it’s a joke. At airport security.
The sign has been hanging at the Concourse C security checkpoint for about a month. Some passengers get it immediately. Some take a few steps, then laugh. Others look up and say, “Huh?”
“See? You’re getting recombobulated right now,” Melissa Fullmore said Tuesday morning to another traveler who was putting on his belt.
gender differences, economic hardship, Great Recession:
Measured in terms of absolute job loss, men bore the brunt of the Great Recession, hence the term “mancession.” On the other hand, men have fared better than women in regaining jobs during the slight rebound sometimes called the recovery.
Interesting comparison, but gender differences in economic hardship reach beyond employment statistics.
Many people – even those who live alone – share a portion of their earnings or devote unpaid hours of work to family members, including children and others who are dependent as result of age, sickness, disability or unemployment. Measures of economic hardship should take responsibility for dependents into account.
Women tend to be more vulnerable in this respect than men, primarily because they are more likely to take both financial and direct responsibility for the care of children.
Lake Lanier GA, Atlanta, FYI: Lake Lanier to within 9 feet of historic low … 😦
Authorities say Lake Lanier has dropped below 1,060 feet above sea level and is now just nine feet above the historic low it reached during Georgia’s devastating drought of 2007-2009.
The lake has been on a downward trend for months now, away from the full pool of 1,071 feet and stirring memories of the drought.
The lake’s historic low water level of 1,051 feet was set on Dec. 26, 2007.
Business owners tell The Times of Gainesville (http://bit.ly/oVGFJi) that the low water level has drained some tourism.
Bob Benson, a lake guide, said there are stumps everywhere sticking out of the water, and many people aren’t going out on the lake.
Aftershock Survival Summit, books, Global Recession: Not pretty!
At one point, Wiedemer even calls out Ben Bernanke, saying that his “money from heaven will be the path to hell.”
This wasn’t the first time Wiedemer’s predictions hit a nerve. In 2006, he and his team of economists accurately predicted the four-bubble meltdown in the housing, stock, private debt, and consumer spending markets that almost sunk America.
Regardless of his warnings and survival advice, Bernanke and Greenspan were not about to support Wiedemer publicly, nor were the mainstream media.
As the warnings went unheeded, and America suffered the consequences, Wiedemer penned his latest prophetic work, “Aftershock: Protect Yourself and Profit in the Next Global Financial Meltdown.”
Once again his contrarian views ruffled feathers and just before the book was publicly released, the publisher yanked the final chapter, deeming it too controversial for newsstand and online outlets such as Amazon.com.
Despite appearances, “Aftershock” is not a book with the singular intention of scaring people, explains DeHoog. “The true value lies in the sound economic survival guidance that people can act on immediately. I was able to read the original version with the ‘unpublished chapter,’ and I think it’s the most crucial in the entire book. After contacting Wiedemer, we [Newsmax] were granted permission to share it with our readers. In fact, viewers of the Aftershock Survival Summit are able to claim a free copy of it.”
In the Aftershock Survival Summit, Wiedemer reveals what the publisher didn’t want you to see. Citing the unthinkable, he provides disturbing evidence and financial charts forecasting 50% unemployment, a 90% stock market collapse, and 100% annual inflation.
“I doubted some of his predictions at first. But then Robert showed me the charts that provided evidence for such disturbing claims,” DeHoog commented.
coffee, cities, lists: It seems surprising to me that the home of the chain Starbucks is “the mother ship for coffee-loving AFC voters.” But I have been there ad it is true!
No surprise—the home of Starbucks is the mother ship for coffee-loving AFC voters. But there is more than just that familiar logo here—you’ll find plenty of indie coffeehouses all over the city, as well as espresso shacks and carts on street corners and in parking lots. All that caffeine gives the locals an edge, but in a good way: they ranked No. 2 for smartest locals in the AFC. And while colder months seem like a great time to enjoy that hot cup, the Emerald City took last place for winter visits.
books, media, viral, discourse: All I can say is interesting …
There is something both ridiculous and refreshing about all this. Ridiculous because 90 percent of Morozov’s criticisms are wildly unfair (and also because, you know, http://bit.ly/AnsweringMrGrumpy)…and refreshing because here is a work of book-bound nonfiction — chock full of claims to be assessed and arguments to be discussed — that is actually being assessed and discussed. In a public forum! Discourse, and everything!
That shouldn’t be an anomaly, but it is. Books both e- and analog — the kind that exist not to tell a tale, but to advance an argument — face a fundamental challenge: The interests of books-as-artifacts and books-as-arguments are, in general, misaligned. Books are great, definitely, at capturing ideas. Books are great at claiming cultural ownership of ideas. Books are great at generating speaking gigs based on ideas. Books are great at getting authors paid for ideas. But books are much, much less great at actually propagating ideas — particularly ideas of the relative nuance that Morozov’s “Internet intellectuals” tend to favor.
Which is a flaw that’s easy to forget, given books’ cultural status. A book deal is a big deal; those who have gotten one will make a point, as they should, of highlighting the achievement. A writer and an author.
vertigo farming, Queens NY, organic produce, locavore: Innovation … got to love it.
Brooklyn Grange Rooftop Farm is at the forefront of urban agriculture in the United States. Operated by four young entrepreneurs on an acre of rooftop in Queens, New York, the farm grows organic produce that is sold to local restaurants, co-ops and farmers markets across New York City. Business is growing quickly, with a second location opening in the Spring of 2012 and booming demand for rooftop vegetables, herbs and honey. To educate urban dwellers about the food systems upon which they rely, the farm hosts regular educational tours, workshops and field trips for schools and community groups.
Condoleezza Rice, Freedom Agenda, The Freedom War, books: “There is both a moral case and a practical one for the proposition that no man, woman, or child should live in tyranny. Those who excoriated the approach as idealistic or unrealistic missed the point. In the long run, it is authoritarianism that is unstable and unrealistic.”
“We pursued the Freedom Agenda not only because it was right but also because it was necessary,” Rice writes in her book. “There is both a moral case and a practical one for the proposition that no man, woman, or child should live in tyranny. Those who excoriated the approach as idealistic or unrealistic missed the point. In the long run, it is authoritarianism that is unstable and unrealistic.” So there’s no sense dwelling on the final demise of tyrants, whether Gaddafi or, for that matter, Saddam Hussein, whose hanging turned into a hideous spectacle as well. “Time to move on,” says Rice.
But the fascination of Rice’s memoir, and it is fascinating, is less in the broad vision put forth for a more democratic world than in the gritty description of the way decisions were made in the White House and the State Department as the Bush administration sought to adapt to a universe radically changed by Al Qaeda’s attacks on the United States in 2001.
Rice’s account of the immediate aftermath, as seen from inside the halls of the White House, is both vivid and disturbing. The threat of a second wave of attacks was real. The possibility that biological or other weapons might be used seemed imminent: some lunatic had put anthrax in the mail; one report received at the White House said many of the people there might have been poisoned with botulinum toxin; another report said a plot was afoot to disseminate smallpox. The intelligence was rarely definitive, and it took a toll on everyone involved.
Rice is honest enough to say that at one point she was just about burned out. While attending a ceremony on the White House lawn soon after she became secretary of state, she saw an airliner approaching. It was on a normal route to land at Reagan National Airport, but for a few moments she thought it was coming straight toward the executive mansion. “Tomorrow I am going to tell the President that I want to leave at the end of the year,” she thought. “I can’t do this anymore.”
But she soldiered on, and key to Rice’s role was the confidence of the president, who emerges from her book as sharper than the clichés indulged in by his critics, but perhaps too familiar, too folksy with those he likes and relies on.
The wars launched by the Bush administration have cost the United States more than $1 trillion and many thousands of lives. Were they worth it? The Middle East has been a volatile region, with countless wars at countless cost, Rice said as we talked in Stanford. “I don’t think you put a price on a Middle East that will look very different without Saddam Hussein and with movement toward freedom.”
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, book club: My book club is reading this book this week. I had never heard of Henrietta Lacks or of the book. I have not read it and cannot go, but I am intrigued after reading this review.
When Henrietta Lacks (1920-1951), an African-American mother of five who migrated from the tobacco farms of Virginia to poorest neighborhoods of Baltimore, died at the tragic age of 31 from cervical cancer, she didn’t realize she’d be the donor of cells that would create the HeLa immortal cell line — a line that didn’t die after a few cell divisions — making possible some of the most seminal discoveries in modern medicine. Though the tumor tissue was taken with neither her knowledge nor her consent, the HeLa cell was crucial in everything from the first polio vaccine to cancer and AIDS research. To date, scientists have grown more than
Bob Pierpoint, RIP: Another from a different era of broadcast journalism is dead. Don’t you love this picture? Rest in peace, Bob Pierpoint.
Bob Pierpoint was a mainstay of CBS News during the golden age of that organization. He was part of the Murrow team and covered the Korean War while in his 20s. He became a White House correspondent during the Eisenhower Administration and stayed on that beat through the time of Jimmy Carter and beyond. It was some time in the 1970s that the picture above, which delighted him, was taken. He was an avid tennis player and had just come from a match on the White House court when he had to do a standup, obviously framed from mid-torso upward. I first saw that picture in Barney Collier’s book Hope and Fear in Washington (The Early Seventies), and I believe it was the jacket photo on Bob’s own book, At the White House. I got it from the collection of his papers at his alma mater, the University of Redlands.
When I was growing up, Bob Pierpoint was the most glamorous product of my home town in California. (That was before Redlands’s own Brian Billick went on to win the Super Bowl, and Landon Donovan became Mr. Soccer USA.) He would come back and tell our public school assemblies what it was like to cover the Kennedy or Johnson Administrations; this was as close as we came to first-hand contact with national politics. He was patient, generous, and non-big-shot-ish in a way I noticed then and admire more in retrospect. He was two days older than my father, and a good friend to my parents and tennis rival to my father when he was in town. When my wife and I first moved to Washington he and his wife Patty served in loco parentis for a while.
He will be remembered, and should be, as a connector to a different, prouder era in broadcast news. But he was also a good friend, husband, and father. Our sympathies to his family.
time: I have always wanted a chiming clock in the house … it keeps you conscious of and accountable for time.
Each hour when my watch, computer, or phone beeps, I stop whatever I’m doing, take a deep breath, and ask myself two questions:
1. Am I doing what I most need to be doing right now?
2. Am I being who I most want to be right now?
At first it seemed counterintuitive to interrupt myself each hour. Aren’t interruptions precisely what we’re trying to avoid? But these one-minute-an-hour interruptions are productive interruptions. They bring us back to doing what, and being who, will make this a successful day.
This isn’t all about staying on plan. Sometimes the beep will ring and I’ll realize that, while I’ve strayed from my calendar, whatever it is I’m working on is what I most need to be doing. In those situations I simply shift items on my calendar so my most important priorities still get done and I make intentional choices about what I will leave undone.
For me, a once-an-hour reminder, one deep breath, and a couple of questions, has made the difference between ending my day frustrated and ending it fulfilled.
summer jobs, internships, college, summer camps: I think there i something here …
For the most part, interns do work that is wholly unrelated to any sort of day-to-day task that full-time employees fulfill. Indeed, not only do most offices give interns mundane tasks that the aforementioned employees would never do, but they are also given tasks that will only be taken over by another intern. In short, interning in any office, regardless of the field, will likely mean you will be performing more secretarial duties than industry-specific ones. Anyone thinking that taking an internship with Goldman Brothers will give him or her a better shot at becoming a full-time employee is misguided. As such, taking an internship for the sake of career advancement is an unwise decision.
As alluded above, internship experience rarely parallels relevant work experience. Moreover, a student with (all else equal) an internship experience — indeed, even two — will not receive a substantive boost in the hiring process. The dirty secret of the professional world is that everyone knows that internships are vehicles through which companies can unload their undesirables onto unsuspecting college students.
Given this, it is reasonable to conclude that internships provide few potential benefits for their laborious components. Not only are interns wasting time in their respective offices by performing arcane duties, they also are allowing their last free summers to go by the wayside. Indeed, for all intents and purposes, college summers are the last ones for which we will have a legitimate array of choices. Accordingly, students would be well advised to engage in activities that they would enjoy, as opposed to activities that they misguidedly believe will yield long-term benefits. To this end, there are more efficacies in volunteering, working in non-profits or even taking classes than doing an internship. However, the most benefit comes from being a camp counselor.
At my particular summer camp, Four Winds Westward Ho, I have learned many workplace skills that are more relevant than what I could obtain from an internship. For example, at Four Winds, located on tiny Orcas Island in the San Juan Islands off the coast of Seattle, I am fully integrated into the aforementioned professional hierarchy. I am given great responsibility; indeed, I am responsible for the physical, emotional and mental well-being of up to seven children for two four-week sessions.
D.C., Georgetown, urban planning: Shooting itself in the foot?
IMAGINE A CITY telling its largest private employer — one that pays millions in taxes and salaries, strives to hire local residents and voluntarily does community service — that it can’t grow anymore, that it might have to cut back. That seems far-fetched in light of today’s scary economy, but it’s essentially what D.C. officials are telling Georgetown University by insisting it either house all its students or cut back enrollment. The District seems distressingly disinterested in promoting a knowledge-based economy.
Georgetown’s 10-year plan for its 104-acre main campus, the subject of hearings before the D.C. Zoning Commission, would cap the undergraduate population at current levels while increasing graduate students by about 1,000. Enrollment in 2010 was 14,033, of whom 6,652 were undergraduates. The plan is modest: It contains no major new building, no additional parking and an offer to reduce the main campus enrollment by moving some graduate students to satellite locations. Still, adjacent neighborhoods — particularly Burleith and Foxhall — are up in arms, and they seem to have city officials on their side.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys on Monday began selecting a jury in the trial of Brittany Norwood, a 29-year-old charged with killing her co-worker in an upscale Bethesda yoga shop.
social media, police, gangs, antisocial side: Darwin Award? Why is social media so hard to resist?
Gangs are just following societal trends,” said a federal law enforcement official who spoke about the issue on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss how agents use social media to target gangs. “Facebook and Myspace are now some of their primary methods of communication.”
economics, unrest: “… relatively undemocratic governments have historically extended voting rights in order to convince a restive public of the promise of future redistribution. In the West, that is not an option. A bit more growth and a bit less austerity might take the edge off public anger. But if social unrest has its roots in the effects of structural economic changes, a more fundamental societal reckoning may be needed. ”
Growth that undermines existing social institutions and dislocates workers is also likely to generate instability. In China mass migrations associated with rapid catch-up growth and urbanisation are often blamed for causing instability. Instances of “mass disturbances” have risen steadily since 1993, even as the Chinese economy has enjoyed scorching growth. Ricardo Hausmann of Harvard University similarly argues that Egypt’s steps towards economic liberalisation stimulated an appetite for greater opportunity that fuelled discontent with the ruling regime.
Research by MIT’s Daron Acemoglu and Harvard’s James Robinson finds that relatively undemocratic governments have historically extended voting rights in order to convince a restive public of the promise of future redistribution. In the West, that is not an option. A bit more growth and a bit less austerity might take the edge off public anger. But if social unrest has its roots in the effects of structural economic changes, a more fundamental societal reckoning may be needed. A study by Patricia Justino of the University of Sussex examined inequality and unrest in India and found that redistribution can quell an outcry. That may well be the outcome of the current turmoil, too.
recipes, scrambled eggs, chopsticks: Scramble with chop sticks!
And last but not least, ditch that fork! Scramble your eggs with a heat-proof spatula, a flat-topped wooden spoon, or for the perfect curd, chopsticks.
The PBS “NewsHour,” which was co-anchored for decades by the two men who created it, will soon be co-anchored by two women. PBS announced on Tuesday that Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff would take over the nightly newscast in September, putting an end to the rotating anchor format that has been in effect for several years. Ms. Ifill and Ms. Woodruff will also share the managing-editor responsibilities for the program. via ‘NewsHour’ Appoints First Female Anchor Team – NYTimes.com.
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