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https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7110/7765111620_77dfeabe74.jpg
image courtesy Urban Sea Star (Flickr)

This isn’t a new story but it is one that refuses to die. The thorny question of what constitutes ‘correct’ grammar in English seems to have a cyclical life, aided and abetted by new generations of enthusiastic grammarians.

It’s great that so many people are engaged with their own language, but we sure can be judgmental about it. No other subject seems to make us feel quite so insecure (or on the flip side, overly superior) about something which really belongs to us all–the way we naturally speak our native language.

To boldly split an infinitive, to make less (or fewer) mistakes ending in prepositions than others are wont to – these so-called ‘crimes’ against proper language use have been repeatedly cited as obvious evidence of (other people’s) stupidity and lack of education, amongst other, weightier moral judgements. Passionate reactions range from simply getting “annoyed”, “cringing” to “making my blood boil” according to public comments made to the BBC, erstwhile bastion of good English.​
- read the full article Dear Pedants: Your Fave Grammar Rule is Probably Fake (from JSTOR)​
 
nuttedtwice:

shout out to the vietnamese kids named phuc, dam, bich, son, dat, nga and so much more for enduring the namecalling and jokes about your name; you’re strong and beautiful.

yellowxperil:

& đông and dủng

batsnack:

lemme tell yall, my mom came to america when she was around 4 y/o and went to school in america and the white kids made jokes about her name becus her name was MyDung. when she was old enough she changed her legal name to a more “acceptable” one becus she was afraid it wouldnt b seen professional in america. she was too embarrassed to say her name out loud. when she did have to, she’d say it quietly. ever since i was a kid i would notice her behavior when ppl asked her name. so yeah fuckin SHOUTOUT to vietnamese kids w/ vietnamese names who get teased, yall amazing

rubygoby:

Alright, this post has been going around and I think it’s high time for a lesson in Vietnamese. People who tease foreigners about their names, sit the fuck down and let me show you what those names mean.

- “Phúc” (Phuc) means phúc đức, phúc hậu, hạnh phúc - kindness, merit and happiness.

- “Đam”, “Đàm” (Dam) means yên tĩnh, yên lòng, an tâm - tranquility, calmness, relief.

- “Bích” (Bich) means ngọc bích, ngọc lục bảo - emerald, jade (can be understood as both the color and the precious gemstones).

- “Sơn” (Son) means núi, mạnh mẽ và uy nghiêm như núi - mountains, as strong and majestic as the mountains.

- “Đạt” (Dat) means thành đạt, vẻ vang - success, honor, glory.

- “Nga” (Nga) means xinh đẹp, tốt đẹp - beauty, kindness.

- “Đông” (Dong) means mùa đông, hướng đông - winter, East.

- “Dũng” (Dung) means dũng mãnh, anh dũng - strength, power, bravery.

- “Dung” (Dung) means xinh đẹp, yêu kiều - beauty, elegance, grace.

Can you see it? Can you see how beautiful these names are? And you dare compare them to your vulgar profanities?

Names are extremely important in Vietnamese culture. They represent the virtues, qualities, characteristics that parents want their children to possess. They represent the hopes and dreams of Vietnamese parents. THEY REPRESENT A VERY HUMAN BEING.

WHEN YOU TEASE SOMEONE ABOUT THEIR NAME, YOU ARE NOT ONLY INSULTING THEM, YOU ARE MAKING THEM ASHAMED OF THEMSELVES, OF THEIR OWN NAME AND THEIR OWN LANGUAGE, EVEN THEIR OWN ORIGIN.

DO NOT MAKE FUN OF OUR PEOPLE, DO NOT MAKE FUN OF OUR LANGUAGE AND DO NOT MAKE FUN OF OUR CULTURE.

http://rubygoby.tumblr.com/post/125992789808
 
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7605/16890933632_22b124a295_z.jpg
image courtesy emanuele tripani (Flickr)

Research suggests that once people earn $75,000 per year, making additional money has no positive effect on emotional well-being and happiness. It seems that money is important to ensure our basic needs are met and a decent standard of living, but beyond that point there is little evidence that material purchases (including fancy homes and expensive cars) produce lasting happiness.

While much attention is given to monetary and material affluence, it appears as though time affluence is a better predictor of personal happiness. And, it makes sense — We are busier than ever, more technologically connected than ever, and often our days are spent rushing from one activity or obligation to the next. So the ability to gain control over our time, and direct it in the most meaningful ways, has become increasingly important.
[...]
So, when you look at your calendar over the last day, week, month, or year, is your time spent consistent with what is important to you and the person you want to be — whether that’s experiences with family and close friends, making a difference in other people’s lives, pursuing a new business idea, learning a new skill or sport, working, exercising, or something else of significance? If not, the first step to spending your time more thoughtfully is to take control of your calendar.

But how can you rescue some time back in order to focus it in the most meaningful areas?​
- read the full article Time Is Our Most Valuable Asset (And How To Get More Of It) (from Medium)​
 
Every now and then the Times hits a grand slam out the park. This is one of them.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qd3ZLe5O8go/Vd93VHQ2efI/AAAAAAAAA6c/sHpVfVwzbN8/s1600/CQT-wpid-30serena2-superjumbo-v8.jpg

Imagine you have won 21 Grand Slam singles titles, with only four losses in your 25 appearances in the finals. Imagine that you’ve achieved two ‘‘Serena Slams’’ (four consecutive Slams in a row), the first more than 10 years ago and the second this year. A win at this year’s U.S. Open would be your fifth and your first calendar-year Grand Slam — a feat last achieved by Steffi Graf in 1988, when you were just 6 years old. This win would also break your tie for the most U.S. Open titles in the Open era, surpassing the legendary Chris Evert, who herself has called you ‘‘a phenomenon that once every hundred years comes around.’’ Imagine that you’re the player John McEnroe recently described as ‘‘the greatest player, I think, that ever lived.’’ Imagine that, despite all this, there were so many bad calls against you, you were given as one reason video replay needed to be used on the courts. Imagine that you have to contend with critiques of your body that perpetuate racist notions that black women are hypermasculine and unattractive. Imagine being asked to comment at a news conference before a tournament because the president of the Russian Tennis Federation, Shamil Tarpischev, has described you and your sister as ‘‘brothers’’ who are ‘‘scary’’ to look at. Imagine.

In the essay ‘‘Everybody’s Protest Novel,’’ James Baldwin wrote, ‘‘our humanity is our burden, our life; we need not battle for it; we need only to do what is infinitely more difficult — that is, accept it.’’ To accept the self, its humanity, is to discard the white racist gaze. Serena has freed herself from it. But that doesn’t mean she won’t be emotional or hurt by challenges to her humanity. It doesn’t mean she won’t battle for the right to be excellent. There is nothing wrong with Serena, but surely there is something wrong with the expectation that she be ‘‘good’’ while she is achieving greatness. Why should Serena not respond to racism? In whose world should it be answered with good manners? The notable difference between black excellence and white excellence is white excellence is achieved without having to battle racism. Imagine.

Read: The Meaning of Serena Williams
 
I'm sick of my book club picks, They made me read "eat, pray, love"!

...also, I was disappointed with pattersons' "Zoo", both the book and the on going series, which isn't like the book at all. :mad:
 
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Aglaopheme said:
Data from a recent study entitled, The Highest Form of Intelligence: Sarcasm Increases Creativity for Both Expressers and Recipients, suggests that the delivery and deciphering of sarcasm offers psychological benefits that have been largely underappreciated and long overlooked.

Francesca Gino, the study author from Harvard, told the Harvard Gazette in an email, “To create or decode sarcasm, both the expressers and recipients of sarcasm need to overcome the contradiction (i.e., psychological distance) between the literal and actual meanings of the sarcastic expressions. This is a process that activates and is facilitated by abstraction, which in turn promotes creative thinking.”
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I've intuitively known this for a very, very long time. Sarcastic humor is my most favorite form, whether I am its source or target.

My mother is 91-years-old and her memory and cognitive faculties are seriously waning. But on those now rare occasions when she hits me with a snarky zinger it makes me both immensely proud and hopeful that she will be with me for at least a few more happy years.
 
Laurel said:
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7605/16890933632_22b124a295_z.jpg
image courtesy emanuele tripani (Flickr)

Research suggests that once people earn $75,000 per year, making additional money has no positive effect on emotional well-being and happiness. It seems that money is important to ensure our basic needs are met and a decent standard of living, but beyond that point there is little evidence that material purchases (including fancy homes and expensive cars) produce lasting happiness.​
Click to expand...


I've intuitively known this for a very, very long time. Most of my adult life was spent worrying about having enough money to meet my financial obligations to creditors and suppliers of necessities. Adequate funds for my own indulgences were of a secondary concern.

Now in retirement, I have more than enough money to meet my basic needs and there is nothing more "fun" that I do with my time than the feeling I have being free of financial stress. Once that was "purchased" there hasn't been much else I've felt compelled to buy. :)​
 
Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery

Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery


http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/418tSpTGIdL._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg ................ http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/150518_r26515-320.jpg





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Marsh_(neurosurgeon)


Why has no one ever written a book like this before? It simply tells the stories, with great tenderness, insight and self-doubt, of a phenomenal neurosurgeon who has been at the height of his specialism for decades and now has chosen, with retirement looming, to write an honest book. Why haven't more surgeons written books, especially of this prosaic beauty? Of blood and doubts, mistakes, decisions: were they all so unable to descend into the mire of Grub Street, unless it was with black or, worse, "wry" humour?

Well, thank God for Henry Marsh. His speciality is drilling into people's heads and sucking out or cauterising various problem globules, usually life-threatening. Those are the bald basics, but they disguise a multitude of traumas, not least those of a very human surgeon. He writes with near-existential subtlety about the very fact of operating within a brain, supposed repository of the soul and with myriad capacities for emotion, memory, belief, speech and, maybe, soul: but also, mainly, jelly and blood. He has been 4mm away, often, even with microtelescopes, from catastrophe.

"As I become more and more experienced, it seems that luck becomes ever more important." Not the most copper-bottomed reassurance you could wish from the man who's going to plough your brain, but honest. And he has removed so many problems, with filigreed sure-handed finesse: there was a 15-hour operation once, but it had to be attempted. "The skull is a sealed box and there is only a limited amount of space in the head."

He's been to Kiev, given selfless time there to fledgling neurosurgeons who might as well have been working with flints and candlelight, and saved many lives there too.

But he doesn't flinch from admitting disasters. His chosen word is "catastrophic". It applies to bleeding within that sealed nut of the skull, as in "Once I had sawn open the woman's skull and opened the meninges, I found to my horror that her brain was obscured by a film of dark red blood that shouldn't have been there." He has "wrecked" patients, he woefully admits; patients left half-frozen, half-crippled, dead. But there was no option. Or was there? One of the finest admissions to emerge in this phenomenal book is that of every surgeon's dilemma, which is the inability to play God: but instead to have to decide, after nights of soul-searching, whether it's worth it. All moral oversimplifications steal away like morning mist.

Throughout, there runs a caustic commentary on the current target-setting woes of the NHS. Patients being shunted, at 3am, not between wards but between hospitals, sometimes 150 miles apart. Not the Ukraine, quite, but the idiocies could give it a run for its money.

"I have lost count of the number of different passwords I now need to get my work done every day."

He tells, briefly in the last chapter, the story of having to race up various flights of stairs, repeatedly, to ascertain a password for a ruinously expensive NHS-wide computer system, just the latest in a succession. "Try Mr. Johnston's," he's told. "That usually works. He hates computers." Forty-five months have passed since the introduction of the latest doomed system. The password is "Fuck Off 45".

Marsh tries it back in his office, in various upper/lower case and space-optional guises. He is sitting before a policeman who has had sudden serious epilepsy attacks, and his ageing parents, and waiting to get into the system to find the relevant x-ray, which will probably save the man's life. He has to run again, two flights up, to double-check the password. Two months have elapsed. Turns out it is now "Fuck Off 47."

Apparently Mr. Marsh's decision to retire has been hastened by the threat of disciplinary action, at the hands of an NHS manager, for wearing a wristwatch on his rounds. There is no evidence of the risk of infection being infinitesimally increased by the wearing of such. What a bloody loss. And what a bloody, splendid book: commas optional.
 
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Watch: This striking lipstick tutorial could help end acid attacks — with your help.
 
Laurel said:
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7605/16890933632_22b124a295_z.jpg
image courtesy emanuele tripani (Flickr)

Research suggests that once people earn $75,000 per year, making additional money has no positive effect on emotional well-being and happiness. It seems that money is important to ensure our basic needs are met and a decent standard of living, but beyond that point there is little evidence that material purchases (including fancy homes and expensive cars) produce lasting happiness.

While much attention is given to monetary and material affluence, it appears as though time affluence is a better predictor of personal happiness. And, it makes sense — We are busier than ever, more technologically connected than ever, and often our days are spent rushing from one activity or obligation to the next. So the ability to gain control over our time, and direct it in the most meaningful ways, has become increasingly important.
[...]
So, when you look at your calendar over the last day, week, month, or year, is your time spent consistent with what is important to you and the person you want to be — whether that’s experiences with family and close friends, making a difference in other people’s lives, pursuing a new business idea, learning a new skill or sport, working, exercising, or something else of significance? If not, the first step to spending your time more thoughtfully is to take control of your calendar.

But how can you rescue some time back in order to focus it in the most meaningful areas?​
- read the full article Time Is Our Most Valuable Asset (And How To Get More Of It) (from Medium)​
Click to expand...

The fly in the soup is this: We always live in the now.
 
This blew my brain apart. An interesting read.

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7626/16314601913_bef8e20d6a.jpg
image courtesy Amaury Laporte (Flickr)

“It’s not a fetish,” I sometimes find myself explaining. I don’t exclusively fuck fat people, just like I don’t exclusively fuck black people. Out of the—one, two, give me a minute—nine people I’ve slept with or dated this year, three have been fat. Last year I dated two men who you might classify as “obese” and who I classify as “some of the best sex I’ve ever had.” The fact that I even have to qualify my attraction to them outside of fetishization is fucked up and depressing, but that’s the world we live in. Most people are so conditioned to view fat bodies as undesirable that those of us who desire them are automatically labeled deviants.
[...]
If you’ve never fucked a fat person, take a minute and ask yourself why. Is it that you truly find their bodies ugly? Are you afraid that fat stigma is going to rub off on you, that people will see you loving a fat person and think that means there’s something wrong with you? Are you fat and unhappy with your own body? Are you not-fat and unhappy with your own body? Has the media conditioned you to believe that sex with fat people is somehow more difficult and less enjoyable (spoiler: it’s not)? Or is it that you have fucked a fat person but insisted to yourself or to them that they’re not fat, instead of telling them what part of their fatness you consider sexy?

I could rhapsodize about the feel of soft skin and flesh you can dig your nails into, about men and women with barrel chests and wide asses and round faces and strong arms. But, as choice as I find it, the hotness of fat people is something you have to discover for yourself.​
- read the full article I Fuck Fat People (from Jezebel)​
 
Laurel said:
This blew my brain apart. An interesting read.

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7626/16314601913_bef8e20d6a.jpg
image courtesy Amaury Laporte (Flickr)

“It’s not a fetish,” I sometimes find myself explaining. I don’t exclusively fuck fat people, just like I don’t exclusively fuck black people. Out of the—one, two, give me a minute—nine people I’ve slept with or dated this year, three have been fat. Last year I dated two men who you might classify as “obese” and who I classify as “some of the best sex I’ve ever had.” The fact that I even have to qualify my attraction to them outside of fetishization is fucked up and depressing, but that’s the world we live in. Most people are so conditioned to view fat bodies as undesirable that those of us who desire them are automatically labeled deviants.
[...]
If you’ve never fucked a fat person, take a minute and ask yourself why. Is it that you truly find their bodies ugly? Are you afraid that fat stigma is going to rub off on you, that people will see you loving a fat person and think that means there’s something wrong with you? Are you fat and unhappy with your own body? Are you not-fat and unhappy with your own body? Has the media conditioned you to believe that sex with fat people is somehow more difficult and less enjoyable (spoiler: it’s not)? Or is it that you have fucked a fat person but insisted to yourself or to them that they’re not fat, instead of telling them what part of their fatness you consider sexy?

I could rhapsodize about the feel of soft skin and flesh you can dig your nails into, about men and women with barrel chests and wide asses and round faces and strong arms. But, as choice as I find it, the hotness of fat people is something you have to discover for yourself.​
- read the full article I Fuck Fat People (from Jezebel)​
Click to expand...


I'm always surprised at the couples I see. I think I've seen every combination and permutation of human pair-bonding. I'm no chubby chaser but had an obese patient 25 years ago who captured my attention and held it. With me its how its all distributed and assembled. I don't want huge tits or a belly that hangs over the pubic area. Whereas a bubble butt and beefy thighs and arms is great.
 


"Pawn Sacrifice" Examines Genius of Chess Champion Bobby Fischer


...This game, it's a rabbit hole. After only four moves, there's more than 300 billion options to consider. It can take you very close to the edge...


SIEGEL: First, this movie is very much about Bobby Fischer. It's about his brilliance at the game and also his paranoia. You played against him. Does "Pawn Sacrifice" convey a good sense of Fischer?

SOLTIS: I think it does, and that's one of the problems with the movie. Bobby was not a very likable person. And this is a movie about a man cracking up. That works as entertainment if the subject is, say, John Nash and the movie is "A Beautiful Mind." But you have to be sympathetic to the character, and you can't do that really well with Bobby Fischer.

SIEGEL: I have to confess. Even knowing the outcome, I was actually rooting for Spassky there for a couple of minutes.

SOLTIS: That's the other problem. This is a sporting movie. This is another "Rocky," another "Karate Kid" or "A League Of Their Own" except the subject is chess. And you're building up to the final thing, and you really - you have to have a rooting interest. But it's really hard to be in Fischer's camp by the time that the final credits roll.​




​
 
I once came across this article which made me have one of those "Aha!" moments.
And, given some of my recent Lit experiences, the article came to my mind:

Podolyak, Pavel: Myers-Briggs Personality Pluralism
http://pavelpodolyak.blogspot.com/2009/11/myers-briggs-personality-pluralism.html

"Populous mammals like dogs and cats have a number of breeds that cluster by physiological external differences like size and internal neural differences like aggressiveness, friendliness, and task specialization. Humans of course are no different.

Right now we have a world where the German Shepards, the Pitbulls, the Poodles, the Border Collies, and the Golden Retrievers...
Each person judges all others based on what the one judging is good at physiologically. A very empathic person judges others based on empathy. A conservative one judges the rest on how good of a conservative they are. Same applies to all the others be they a partying hedonist, an introverted scientist, an artist, an athlete, or a social butterfly with highly developed taste buds ("how can others eat that crap!?")."

Perhaps that's why, sometimes, even well-intended individuals end up arguing?:confused:
 
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http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/150928_r27063-690.jpg
Photographs by Will Mebane for The New Yorker

Armed with little more than persistence and the skills of a documentary journalist, the brother of a victim of the bombing of Pan Am 103 has achieved that which two government investigations fell short -- exposure of the evil roots of one of the most infamous acts of terrorism in modern history.

His autobiographical documentary and one of the most dangerous and unlikely investigations is now a three-part special PBS FRONTLINE report beginning September 29.

- read the full article The Avenger (from The New Yorker Magazine)
 
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Colonel Hogan said:
http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/150928_r27063-690.jpg
Photographs by Will Mebane for The New Yorker

Armed with little more than persistence and the skills of a documentary journalist, the brother of a victim of the bombing of Pan Am 103 has achieved that which two government investigations fell short -- exposure of the evil roots of one of the most infamous acts of terrorism in modern history.

His autobiographical documentary and one of the most dangerous and unlikely investigations is now a three-part special PBS FRONTLINE report beginning September 29.

- read the full article The Avenger (from The New Yorker Magazine)
Click to expand...

Ahh this is so my thing! Going to read now.
 
http://a3.files.psmag.com/image/upload/c_fit,cs_srgb,w_620/MTMzMjQ2Njc2NDI4MTM5MTM5.png

Television news media is creating a false symmetry of violence.

News stories of officers being attacked and killed while in the line of duty have become regular features of the nightly news broadcast, but does this increase in coverage reflect an increase in reality? My analysis suggests no.

A count of stories of police officers killed in the line of duty shows that media attention to these killings has increased dramatically since the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Between one-third and one-half of all of the news stories that the legacy networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) have done on this topic over the last 10 years have appeared in the last year. Fox News has run more stories on this topic this year than it did over the four previous years combined.

Actual incidences of fatal violence against police officers perpetrated by civilians, however, have not been on the rise. Data on police officer deaths compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund shows that the year since Michael Brown’s death has not been especially dangerous for police officers, at least when it comes to the danger of being maliciously attacked by another person. According to the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund’s data, in the year following Brown’s death, 43 police officers were shot and killed, which is significantly less than the average of 54 police officer shooting per year over the last 10 years. Looking back even further, policing is much safer now than any time in the last 45 years.

http://a4.files.psmag.com/image/upload/c_fit,cs_srgb,w_620/MTMzMjQ2Njc2NDI4MTg5NjY2.png

The impression that civilians are targeting officers, then, is a reflection of media coverage, not reality. This is a phenomenon called agenda setting, a process by which the media put an item on the public agenda.

What’s particularly troubling here is not necessarily that the media has put police killings by civilians on the agenda, but that they have failed to do so when it was. Many more officers were being killed in the line of duty in 2011, the most lethal year for police officers over the last 10 years, and yet the news media gave scant attention to their deaths.

http://a2.files.psmag.com/image/upload/c_fit,cs_srgb,w_620/MTMzMjQ2Njc2NDI4MjA0Njc1.png​
 
Laurel said:
Ahh this is so my thing! Going to read now.
Click to expand...

If you've read the article, go to the FRONTLINE web site. The first part of the documentary special is online and available for preview viewing. Every bit as captivating as the story itself, and the scenes with Ken and his wife and kids at the dinner table are almost haunting when one considers the dangers he will be facing.
 
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