We are in the hottest days of summer. This is a good and charmingly quirky video, descriptive of Baton Rouge in many ways. It does not say that the Scenic Highway is also the road that leads to Angola. And I did not know that on it is one of Buckminster Fuller’s most important geodesic … More Scenic Highway
By Carmen of All About Race. Via Tom of Automatic Preference. Recently, I’ve been asked both directly and in roundabout ways, “When do we get to press the racial reset button?” The people who’ve asked this question seem to feel tired of dealing with racial issues and in particular are frustrated by the level of … More The Racial Reset Button
I Now Liz has another very interesting post on emotional abuse. And as everyone probably realizes by now, what I most deplore about Al-Anon is its encouragement of self-abuse, and the way the 12 steps can drive people to question their own sanity. Here are two examples: 1. “Remember, the [alcoholic / addict / narcissist … More News Flash / One More Thing
In response to popular demand I now offer a self-tagging town meme. For purposes of this meme, a town is defined as a municipality with a population under 1,000,000. If you do not have five favorite towns of this size, or five towns you consider overrated, you may fill in with cities, but you must … More Self-Tagging Town Meme
I am overjoyed to find that the investigative journalist Tasneem Khalil, an excellent writer and a very brave person who also honors this blog with his friendship, has resurfaced alive and well. He was arrested May 11 and we had heard little since. I thought he was in jail or dead. But he was in … More Tasneem Khalil
I have posted this poem before, and I have said before – although I have not yet located the post – that when I was learning to speak, my father would read interesting poems aloud. I liked them a great deal. I liked the metamorphoses of words and lines. This poem made a strong impression. … More Un hombre se levanta…
I have found my digital camera. I had buried it in a box in my house. I had purposely forgotten which one, because it had arrived to me as a present from a former friend and had had the effect of tying me to him. The camera was to remain buried until that magic wore … More Magical Charm
Via Undine we have once again for our exquisite entertainment a test for the Meyer-Briggs personality type, and this test makes me ENFP. I am very happy to have tested this way because it is how I feel. People tend to believe I am a Thinking type, because I can be so calm, logical, and … More Another Personality Test
My Frisian friend has spent most of his adult life in Japan. He speaks near-native English, of course, like many Frisians. Like most of the world, he follows events in the United States. He has not spent much time here, however, and he does not understand everything that happens. Sometimes he asks me questions. Now … More America, the Oddity
The Republicans believe in abstinence, but they are not abstaining – from sex or from profit. Michael Reynolds elaborates: Over the past six years George W. Bush’s faith-based Administration and a conservative Republican Congress transformed the small-time abstinence-only business into a billion-dollar industry. These dangerously ineffective sexual health enterprises flourish not because they spread “family … More Abstinence Gluttons
coldhearted scientist وداد 