September 2010
The Low-Flow Showerhead Backlash →
Antigovernment conservatives love to complain about the nanny state, and some of them are aiming their ire at a new target: low-flow showerheads.
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Ayn Rand is 3,000 Miles Wide →
We could let this speak for itself, but how about a little backstory?
Write a Love Letter to Your Favorite Punctuation... →
Show your appreciation, love, or lust, just like Lucy:
Dear Pilcrow,
I never heard of you. I had to go look you up. Now it turns out that I have known you for a long, long time. You’re the one that tells people there’s a new paragraph in legal documents. You should be proud of yourself. That is very useful. How do you make you? How do I make you is what I mean? Oh, option and then 7 works?...
Love and Marraige: Soft-spoken Portraits of Gay... →
Inspired by her disappointment last year in the New York Senate’s vote against a bill that would allow gay marriage, Utne Reader cover artist Zina Saunders “decided to interview and paint long-standing gay couples, both men and women, and ask them about their stories and their relationships and what marriage means to them.”
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Why Can’t We Have a Rational Discussion About the...
Let’s put our ideological and spiritual differences aside for just a moment and, through reasoned argumentation, decide what happens to human beings after they die. Easier said than done. Should we approach the mystery from a high philosophical horse, or whittle it down with the empirical edge of the scientific method? And don’t forget: the cozy theologian will have something to add to the...
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Artist Faces Darkness at Heart of Amazon...
Artistic concern over the natural environment is not particularly new. Since at least the Romantic era, artists have been investigating the cost of human intervention in the natural world. Thomas Cole’s 1836 painting “Desolation,” for instance, is as vivid a depiction of post-apocalyptic environmental degradation as any vision dreamt up by Ridley Scott. With this long history of...
“When we engage in spiritual practice, we have placed ourselves on the stove and...”
– Andrew Holecek on why living mindfully is like boiling water.
Watchupyourarchitecture:
BIG’s proposal for the Audi Urban Future Award | ArchDaily
We had no idea what this was until the end, but a (driver)less future sounds idealistically salacious.
"Every photo of Nicolas Cage is the best photo of... →
We all want our own personal Nicolas Cage, right? A smaller version, one we can take with on long car rides and toss in our backpacks, would be perfect—you’d get all of the egomaniacal, action-packed fun of the original but with the option of taping him to your refridgerator. So, did you pick up your Nicolas Cage Adventure Set yet?
Enemy of the Bean: Coffee Berry Borer →
In another example of environmental destruction begetting environmental destruction Erica Westly, in Yale Environment 360, tells us how the “cooling effects of shade trees have provided some of the best protection from coffee pests, including the coffee berry borer,” a pest that can devastate coffee plants and that can spread rapidly with minor increases in temperature. Watch out! Temperatures...
“It feels weird to say “happy banned books week,” but happy banned books week! I...”
– The Olive Reader - The Weblog of Harper Perennial (via housingworksbookstore)
“Nature has given western capitalism one last laugh.”
– Miriam Rose on the impending resource-pillaging of Greenland.
End-of-the-World Hotel →
When a 50-megaton nuclear explosion incinerates the American heartland, do you really want to be caught in a mildew-ridden, dumpy motel next to a highway in the middle of Nowhereville? Of course not. So when the apocalypse comes a-knockin’, protect yourself in a luxury end-times bunker from the Del Mar, Calif.-based Vivos Group.
Poor Countries Can Have Remarkable Education...
“Sitting comfortable in our first-world lives, it’s easy to assume that we’ve got the best of everything,” writes Co.Design’s Cliff Kuang. “And it’s easy to assume that problems of infant mortality, hunger and education are simply a matter of having a roaring GDP. But that’s not true at all …” Kuang is referencing a series of interactive...
"If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we...
Big, Bad BPA: Now It’s Killing the Lobsters →
The chemical bisphenol A is seemingly everywhere—it’s in our receipts, our toys, our food containers, even our bodies—and it’s increasingly suspected as a factor in many health problems. Now the nasty stuff is even in lobsters, and it may be killing them off.
“We’re watching the foundation of our modern taste come together—that’s...”
– Natasha Vargas-Cooper on why popular television program Mad Men inspires loyalty and unending praise.
An App for Lazy Do-Gooders →
In theory, it’s a neat idea. You’re walking down the street and observe a sewage leak or some illegally dumped trash. You snap a quick picture with your smart phone and that picture along with your location are automatically forwarded to an online city map. Ideally, someone from the city government acknowledges this, and, ideally, this someone does something to remedy the problem.
“We adhere to copyright law and “fair use” guidelines, and when excerpting a...”
– — Arrianna Huffington
Fair use is tricky business these days. Does anyone think Ms. Huffington has got it right?
(via soupsoup)
Nothing is better than delivery ramen. Nothing. →
Let us introduce you to the amazing bit of commercially-geared whimsy that I just spotted in the ultra-hip journal KoreAm: The Ramen Box, a mix-and-match sodium fest delivered to your door.
Next time you visit an indy film-fest, wear your... →
“Four participants were placed in coffins with L.C.D. monitors on the lids playing the film. If they made it through, they would get to meet the film’s star, Ryan Reynolds. Events like these and an eclectic selection of genre movies, horror, action and sci-fi/fantasy films that range from the surreal to the ultra-gory, have helped Fantastic Fest carve out a niche.”
Move your mouse towards this link. Erm, toward... →
“Any entity – no matter how many tentacles it has – has a soul.”
– Guy Consolmagno, astronomer to the Pope, on baptizing aliens.
Isotope University: UC Berkeley →
Sixty-five years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945, the University of California imprimatur is an air freshener for the stench of preparations for global annihilation. Nuclear war planners have been pleased to exploit UC’s vast technical expertise and its image of high-minded academic purpose.
— Anti-war Activist Norman Solomon on...
Model City of New Urbanism . . . Waco, TX? (Yeah,... →
In a move not usually linked with areas that have large expanses of open space and strong views on property rights, this central Texas city of about 125,000 is embracing innovative urban concepts. Waco is close to adopting a plan that includes mixed retail and residential downtown development, green construction and high-density, “walkable” communities that discourage driving.
Is There a Loophole in LEED Building... →
So your new corporate campus was built with reclaimed lumber and uses 90 percent renewable energy. Too bad on the inside it might be a toxic deathtrap.
“We’re not trying to increase traffic. We’re looking to frustrate it. But we are...”
– Michael Sorkin on completely redesigning New York’s landscape, one major street at a time.
“In 1980, Manhattan ranked 17th among the nation’s counties for social...”
– Once again eviscerating our ideas about growth, cities, and upward mobility, Joel Kotkin weighs in on the link between urbanism and middle-class stagnation for The American.
“What does the current law say about marches? You must receive permission from...”
– Putinwatch: Vladimir Putin on freedom of assembly in Russia, or lack thereof. (Hat tip to Vladimir Kara-Murza of World Affairs).
“Paranoia is a novel about love in time of dictatorship. The love between a man...”
– Paranoia is a novel that was banned in Belarus. Find out why.
Ethical Traveler names the world's most ethical... →
Chile and Namibia are on the list. Find the rest here.
Obama's Quiet Revolution: Regulatory Reform →
Obama’s three Republican predecessors were all committed to weakening or even destroying the country’s regulatory apparatus: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and the other agencies that are supposed to protect workers and consumers by regulating business practices. Now Obama is seeking to rebuild these battered institutions.
“Arab countries looking to burnish their cosmopolitan credentials are opening...”
– Read about the biting journalism programs in Qatar, Dubai, and Egypt.
How We Fight Crime in Cyberspace →
Citizen Lab is geared up to “watch the watchers and document the shadow war most are too busy updating their Facebook pages to notice,” according to Aaron Broverman of This Magazine.
Urban Planning for the Mentally Ill →
Urban planners often have to deal with the legacy of a building site, such as groundwater pollution or soil erosion. The developers behind a multibillion-dollar project in Toronto are addressing a different kind of historical remnant: the stigma of mental illness.
Our Friends at Good Magazine breakdown which... →
Is your city on the list?
“Now my nourishment consists of cans of a viscous, nondescript liquid that is...”
– More reflections on appetites by a man who cannot eat.
Itemizing Your Tax Dollars →
Where, exactly, do tax dollars go? Equal parts misinformation and lack of accountability have confused the question for decades, and as a result, Americans’ confidence in their government has plummeted. If more detailed guidance and answers were readily available, suggests Ethan Porter, managing editor of Democracy, it would go a long way toward rebuilding America’s trust in its leaders. There...
