Good Reads

[Saint Peter]

Twice!

 

[Balladeer08]

It's a hilariously bizarre mental image.

There used to be a porn star that went by the name of Veri Knotty, or something like that.

Her 'claim to fame" was that she could tie hers in knots.

(At the cop/fireman parties, the firemen always brought these weird pornos. 3 midgets on a trapeze, this broad, etc. Smoke inhalation must be a terrible thing)

 

[neci]

My favorite quote from the series:

...

cannot discuss the specifics of any case.

that is how they hide. they all say that, because it is the right of the child to be protected. you work in a place where two adults are fired for hidden secrets. no charges are ever pressed. they tell you, if you speak, it can only be to this person, or you lose your job. and the fire - automatic incarceration in an institution and being labeled as unadoptable. code red. blame the child. walk away christian free.

 

[Laurel]

LOL @ "Brangelina effect"

http://doznajemo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/baby-boom.jpg

So what's going on? It seems that the relationship between fertility and household income has shifted. Increased prosperity used to lead to a decline in the fertility rate as parents did not need children as an insurance policy for their old age; and indeed, the modern child is very expensive to bring up. But now better-off people seem to be having more children; in the US, the fertility rate of wives whose husbands are in the top decile of income is back where it was a century ago. Having a lot of children may be a sign of status - BCA dubs this the "Brangelina effect" - or it may be that better-off women can afford the childcare help (and increased housing space) that children necessitate.

Interestingly, the proportion of childless highly-educated American women (those with phDs) aged 40-44 was just 23% in 2006-08, down from 34% in 1992-94. There was a similar (if less marked) fall in childlessness among those with a master's degree.​

- read the full article The coming baby boom? (from The Economist)​

 

[Laurel]

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/09/14/arts/music/A1-Mister-Cee/A1-Mister-Cee-articleLarge.jpg

It was early Thursday morning and Mister Cee, a D.J. on the hip-hop station Hot 97 and a prominent figure in New York hip-hop history, was in tears. The day before, an audio clip was released in which he appeared to solicit a sexual act from a transgender person, the latest in a string of incidents, including arrests, revolving around Mister Cee’s sexual activities. During his Wednesday afternoon show he had announced his resignation, saying he didn’t want to draw negative attention to his employer and colleagues because of his actions.

So there he was on the air the following morning, getting a loving and concerned third degree from Ebro Darden, the program director for Hot 97 (WQHT 97.1 FM), the station where Mister Cee, 47, has worked for two decades. The sober and wrenching conversation lasted about a half-hour, all of it eye-opening.

In its detail and bluntness the talk became not just a discussion about one man’s personal struggles but also an intense and public conversation about hip-hop and sexuality.​

- read the full article Hip-Hop, Tolerance and a D.J.’s Bared Soul: He’s Tired of Denial (from The New York Times)​

 

[Laurel]

http://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2013/09/weibo_law.jpg?w=600

Details of a new law issued by China’s supreme court are bound to make loose talkers on Sina Weibo and other social media platforms think twice before speaking freely. The law says that any libelous posts or messages will be considered “severe” breaches of the law if they are visited or clicked on more than 5,000 times or forwarded (or “retweeted,” in Western parlance) more than 500 times. Those found guilty could face up to three years in jail, reports Reuters, citing Chinese state media.

As if that weren’t alarming enough, the threshold for being charged with this crime includes offenses as vague and subjective as “damaging the national image” and “causing adverse international effects.”​

- read the full article In China, being retweeted 500 times can get you three years in prison (from Quartz)​

 

[Laurel]

Look out for mass-produced invisibility cloaks thanks to an entirely new way of designing and manufacturing them out of materials such as Teflon.

http://www.chmag.in/system/files/apr2011/mom/invisible-man.jpg

Today, Lu Lan at Zhejiang University in China and a few pals have actually created the first invisibility cloak designed using topology optimisation. They carved it out of Teflon and it took them all of 15 minutes using a computer-controlled engraving machine. “The fabrication process of a sample is substantially simplified,” they say.

The resulting “Teflon eyelid” invisibility cloak hides a cylindrical disc of metal the size of poker chip from microwaves. But crucially, its performance closely matches the prediction of the computer simulation.​

- read the full article Chinese Researchers Make An Invisibility Cloak In 15 Minutes (from MIT Technolog Review)​

 

[CandiCame]

Truth.

My ex tried to set my car on fire. She tried to poison my cat. She stabbed me. She melted some of my action figures in the oven in an attempt to piss me off and poison me with plastic fumes. She put glue in my lube.

Men know what fucking crazy means. Don't take one story and try to generalize it to an entire gender.

 

[CandiCame]

Look out for mass-produced invisibility cloaks thanks to an entirely new way of designing and manufacturing them out of materials such as Teflon.

http://www.chmag.in/system/files/apr2011/mom/invisible-man.jpg

Today, Lu Lan at Zhejiang University in China and a few pals have actually created the first invisibility cloak designed using topology optimisation. They carved it out of Teflon and it took them all of 15 minutes using a computer-controlled engraving machine. “The fabrication process of a sample is substantially simplified,” they say.

The resulting “Teflon eyelid” invisibility cloak hides a cylindrical disc of metal the size of poker chip from microwaves. But crucially, its performance closely matches the prediction of the computer simulation.​

- read the full article Chinese Researchers Make An Invisibility Cloak In 15 Minutes (from MIT Technolog Review)​

Holy fucking shit that's going to make my next Hogwarts cosplay fucking epic.

 

[Laurel]

My ex tried to set my car on fire. She tried to poison my cat. She stabbed me. She melted some of my action figures in the oven in an attempt to piss me off and poison me with plastic fumes. She put glue in my lube.

Men know what fucking crazy means. Don't take one story and try to generalize it to an entire gender.

Maybe you should read the article first before you comment.

 

[Laurel]

Men know what fucking crazy meansz. Don't take one story and try to generalize it to an entire gender.[/b]

Also, irony.

 

[CandiCame]

Maybe you should read the article first before you comment.

What article?

 

[Colonel Hogan]

I think maybe there is some confusion on what crazy is.

Dudes of the world – if you do not return your girlfriend’s calls for a week, and she shows up at your door yelling, she is not crazy. She is angry at you. There’s a difference. “Crazy’ would be if you did not return her calls for a week and she decided she was a lighthouse.

Even then, it is most likely she would reappear as an angry lighthouse!

 

[SkAoUt]

What article?

The one below. The one gs was commenting on in that same post you responded to.

Goddamn you are bad at context clues...

http://i.imgur.com/Sez5aoI.jpg

Some totally sane dude knew this crazy girl. She was crazy because she drunk texted people, I guess? She drunk texted, periodically.

- He invited her out to watch sports and bought her 4 or 5 beers

- He had her back to his apartment and let her blow him.

- They woke up after a nap and “Crazy D asked if I wanted her to blow me again. It felt like an odd move — too much, too soon and slightly desperate. Who blows someone twice on the first date, I thought. It seemed surreal.” Dude! Blowing you twice. That crazy bitch.
[...]
Nothing about this girl really strikes me as “crazy,” because none of this is “crazy.” It sounds like D really wants a boyfriend and is lonely and possibly drinks too much. A sense of loneliness and insecurity is not crazy. It’s not even remotely uncommon. I’d go so far as to say it’s part of being a person, and not a god or a monster (Sir Francis Bacon will back me up on this).

You know, it’s funny, generally when men refer to their exes as “crazy” what I keep hearing is “she had emotions, and I did not like that.”

I think maybe there is some confusion on what crazy is.

Dudes of the world – if you do not return your girlfriend’s calls for a week, and she shows up at your door yelling, she is not crazy. She is angry at you. There’s a difference. “Crazy’ would be if you did not return her calls for a week and she decided she was a lighthouse.

That’s not to say that women don’t refer to ex-boyfriends as crazy as well, but when women say that, the subtext is generally “he beat up a cop. He’s in jail now.” Ashley just referred to Ted Nugent as “crazy” and I snapped, “what do you mean by that?” and she replied “he just threatened to kill Obama. The secret service is following up.”

What men mean when they talk about their “crazy” ex-girlfriend is often that she was someone who cried a lot, or texted too often, or had an eating disorder, or wanted too much/too little sex, or generally felt anything beyond the realm of emotionally undemanding agreement. That does not make these women crazy. That makes those women human beings, who have flaws, and emotional weak spots. However, deciding that any behavior that he does not like must be insane – well, that does make a man a jerk.​

- read the full article Lady, You Really Aren't "Crazy" (from The Gloss)​

 

[CandiCame]

The one below. The one gs was commenting on in that same post you responded to.

Goddamn you are bad at context clues...

Oh, sorry. Links are wonky on my phone sometimes. I legit didn't see it. That girl is a meme so I thought it was just in response to the picture.

 

[CandiCame]

OK, now having read it I stand by my comment more than ever. The type of behavior spoken about in this article is by no way "normal" for a man. If a man ever does this to you, he's an abuser. In fact, if you're ever on a college campus, a psychiatrist office, a health department, or anywhere else that has those posters that tell you how to spot an abuser, the things that this article talk about are on that list. Please do not generalize this article to all men, or the majority of men. If a man ever does this to you, a friend, or even some chick that they're randomly talking about, they are a potential abuser. They have a condition. This is not common. The fact that anyone would think this is common, that they know no sane men, makes me incredibly sad.

 

[Laurel]

Even then, it is most likely she would reappear as an angry lighthouse!

Physical violence is definitely teh crazy. Period, end of story.

OK, now having read it I stand by my comment more than ever. The type of behavior spoken about in this article is by no way "normal" for a man. If a man ever does this to you, he's an abuser. In fact, if you're ever on a college campus, a psychiatrist office, a health department, or anywhere else that has those posters that tell you how to spot an abuser, the things that this article talk about are on that list. Please do not generalize this article to all men, or the majority of men. If a man ever does this to you, a friend, or even some chick that they're randomly talking about, they are a potential abuser. They have a condition. This is not common. The fact that anyone would think this is common, that they know no sane men, makes me incredibly sad.

Definitely not generalizing, except to the point of "If someone acts in this manner, they're a bit of a dick."

 

[Laurel]

Death has become too sanitised. It needs raucous laughter and a little bit of living to make it real again

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DkLxjSp_R_I/T_yYl_4J6PI/AAAAAAAABBw/5eXEUVW6Oys/s1600/skull+teacup+best.jpg

Several days after leaving Winchester and walking the South Downs Way through southern England, filming ourselves and the landscape, and endlessly talking, we reached the perilous cliffs of Beachy Head. From these vertically pitched, chalk-white heights, desperate souls have flung themselves to a brutal end, and countless ships have been wrecked at their rocky base. I’d imagined May sunshine, and us all sitting in a circle on the grassy cliff top. But as we approached our journey’s close, rain thrashed down, gales blew, and I could no longer see the cliff edge for fog rising from the sea. In the distance, I could just make out the outlines of crosses — memorials to past suicides. Then I spotted a table and, as I got closer, blue and yellow balloons tied by strings to its legs, dancing, hysterical, in the wind. Cake stands held green-iced sponges — one, topped with plastic lambs, another with the Way’s Long Man of Wilmington drawn on it in white icing. A Union Flag stirred in the air, its pole poking up from a sponge topped with green hills and a cowshed.

I had joined ‘A 100-Mile Conversation’ halfway through. A film project by the London artists Nathan Burr and Louis Buckley, it had progressed, in real time, from Winchester, across the M3 motorway, down through the Chilcomb Valley, then east along the coast. The purpose? To discuss suicide. Bringing the cake had been my idea. How apt, I’d thought, how crazy even, to celebrate the project’s end by drinking tea on a cliff edge; how right, somehow, to celebrate life with an abundance of cake at a beauty spot marred by the sadness of suicide jumpers.

One month later, and I’m tangled up with cake and death again. I’m at a Death Café, drinking loose-leaf Assam at London’s Royal College of Art with eight strangers. We finger mugs and wipe cake crumbs from our lips. I’ve set the others an exercise. A petite woman beside me reads from a sheet of paper on the tablecloth: ‘The first words that came to mind when I thought of the word death,’ she smiles, ‘were fucking bloody shit.’ ‘Death Cafés’ were a frequent topic of conversation on the 100-mile walk: the two had much in common in wanting to probe people’s personal connection to death. I’d attended several, intrigued by the dynamics that might unfold there, but also drawn there by personal loss. Now I was hosting my own.​

- read the full article The Death Café (from Aeon Magazine)​

 

[oggbashan]

“I dance,” he’ll say. “Ballet. This year I’m doing hip hop and tap and jazz, too, but ballet is my favorite.”

Try as you might, progressive thinker that you are, modern and open-minded for all the decades you carry, your eyebrows will move up a quarter of an inch.

“Oh!” You’ll tilt your head and hopefully you’ll smile. For a heartbeat you’ll spin through a lexicon of words and phrases, seeking the correct positive acknowledgment.

And I’ll hold my breath as your eyes meet mine over his shaggy blonde head of hair, a wordless prayer as we wait for the moment of reaction. What does one say to a seven year old boy who is built for carrying a football but wears ballet shoes?...

In the 1950s, when Og was a Boy Scout in London, the Scout Troop went to Sadlers Wells to see Ballet. Part of the trip was behind the scenes with the dancers showing how they trained, practised, worked out, and how physically demanding it was to be a ballet dancer, female or male.

Those ballet dancers were seriously fit, fitter than many athletes, certainly fitter than most footballers - because they had to perform night after night, not just on Saturdays.

Their muscle development was impressive. But what shook us most in our preconceptions about ballet dancers?

The obvious bruises and injuries they had, yet they continued to perform. They might appear light and graceful on stage, but that was an illusion created by skilled professional performers who were the best in their field.

 

[Laurel]

In the 1950s, when Og was a Boy Scout in London, the Scout Troop went to Sadlers Wells to see Ballet. Part of the trip was behind the scenes with the dancers showing how they trained, practised, worked out, and how physically demanding it was to be a ballet dancer, female or male.

Those ballet dancers were seriously fit, fitter than many athletes, certainly fitter than most footballers - because they had to perform night after night, not just on Saturdays.

Their muscle development was impressive. But what shook us most in our preconceptions about ballet dancers?

The obvious bruises and injuries they had, yet they continued to perform. They might appear light and graceful on stage, but that was an illusion created by skilled professional performers who were the best in their field.

Yeah, totally. Ballet is serious athletics.

 

[Balladeer08]

Yeah, totally. Ballet is serious athletics.

A quibble:

I don't think Ballet is athletics. Who are they competing against? How is it scored?

But I do understand that ballet dancers are seriously athletic.

I think the movie was titled "White Nights", with Baryshnikov? His balance and muscle control were just stunning to watch.

 

[Laurel]

A quibble:

I don't think Ballet is athletics. Who are they competing against? How is it scored?

But I do understand that ballet dancers are seriously athletic.

I think the movie was titled "White Nights", with Baryshnikov? His balance and muscle control were just stunning to watch.

That too. Thank you for the quite-right correction.

An acquaintance of mine teaches ballet to kids now, but when I first met her she was on the tail end of (unsuccessfully) pursuing a career as a dancer herself. She'd been deeply involved in ballet since she was 4. It was a tremendous physical and emotional strain. I think she was actually a little relieved when she finally gave up, relaxed a little. She eats donuts now. Smokes in public (I think she started as a teen, but had to be very secretive about it). She's moving her way into a full-time teaching thing now, dances some. Even now it takes up nearly all of her life.

 

[Laurel]

http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/files/2013/09/szechuan-peppers.jpg

If, in the midst of a Szechuan pepper-heavy meal, you have the presence of mind to ignore the searing hot pain that fills your mouth, you might notice a more subtle effect of eating the hot peppers: a tingling, numbing sensation that envelops your lips and tongue.

What’s behind this strange phenomenon, scientifically known as paresthesia? Scientists believe that it has something to do with a molecule called hydroxy-alpha-sanshool, naturally present in the peppers.

Research has shown that the molecule interacts with our cell’s receptors differently than capsaicin, the active ingredient in the world’s hottest chili peppers. Capsaicin produces a pure burning sensation by binding to the same sorts of receptors present in our cells that are activated when we’re burned by excessive heat, but the Szechuan peppers’ active chemical appears to act on separate receptors as well, perhaps accounting for the distinctive tingling that can persist for minutes after the burn has gone away.​

- read the full article Why Szechuan Peppers Make Your Lips Go Numb (from Smithsonian Magazine)​

 

[Laurel]

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/09/09/article-2415618-1BB78945000005DC-47_306x626.jpg

Brigitte Höss lives quietly on a leafy side street in Northern Virginia. She is retired now, having worked in a Washington fashion salon for more than 30 years. She recently was diagnosed with cancer and spends much of her days dealing with the medical consequences.

Brigitte also has a secret that not even her grandchildren know. Her father was Rudolf Höss, the Kommandant of Auschwitz.

It was Rudolf Höss who designed and built Auschwitz from an old army barracks in Poland to a killing machine capable of murdering 2,000 people an hour. By the end of the war, 1.1 million Jews had been killed in the camp, along with 20,000 gypsies and tens of thousands of Polish and Russian political prisoners. As such, Brigitte’s father was one of the biggest mass murderers in history.

About “Hanns and Rudolf”: Thomas Harding discovered that his great-uncle Hanns Alexander had been a Nazi hunter at his eulogy in 2006. The revelation set Harding off on his own search. For six years, the journalist (a British and U.S. citizen) researched archives and interviewed survivors for his book, being published this month. Harding, who lives in Hampshire, England, until recently co-owned the WV Observer in Shepherdstown, W.Va. About “Hanns and Rudolf”: Thomas Harding discovered that his great-uncle Hanns Alexander had been a Nazi hunter at his eulogy in 2006. The revelation set Harding off on his own search. For six years, the journalist (a British and U.S. citizen) researched archives and interviewed survivors for his book, being published this month. Harding, who lives in Hampshire, England, until recently co-owned the WV Observer in Shepherdstown, W.Va.

For nearly 40 years she has kept her past out of public view, unexamined, not even sharing her story with her closest family members.​

- read the full article Hiding in N. Virginia, a daughter of Auschwitz (from The Washington Post)​

 

[girlsmiley]

In the 1950s, when Og was a Boy Scout in London, the Scout Troop went to Sadlers Wells to see Ballet. Part of the trip was behind the scenes with the dancers showing how they trained, practised, worked out, and how physically demanding it was to be a ballet dancer, female or male.

Those ballet dancers were seriously fit, fitter than many athletes, certainly fitter than most footballers - because they had to perform night after night, not just on Saturdays.

Their muscle development was impressive. But what shook us most in our preconceptions about ballet dancers?

The obvious bruises and injuries they had, yet they continued to perform. They might appear light and graceful on stage, but that was an illusion created by skilled professional performers who were the best in their field.

I went to see The Phantom of the Opera a few years ago. I was at the bar with a friend. This guy across the way wouldn't stop staring. After a while his staring started to make me feel a bit uncomfortable. I thought, 'what the fuck is his problem? Is it my dress? Is he having a perve? Do I know him from somewhere?'

Anyway. He came up to me and asked if I was a dancer. I said that I was just here to enjoy the show.

My head was so huge I could barely make it through the aisle to get to my seat. Not ballet, but still.