September 2011
35 posts
A Recommendation →
Doodle is a web service that helps you figure out meeting times, and is definitely my most-used non-google Internet thing.
“I like how in the fifties they were just like “No, of course women...”
– Molly Lambert
I love Molly’s writing style and apparent interests. She’s fun to read and hyperliterate in a way that most people can’t work very successfully. I also think she and I would make good roommates. Weird? Yes.
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3 tags
“…Your variations on “I got mine, you gotta earn your own, so quit your...”
– DANGERPANTS!: Just because they’re disorganized collectively..
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“Farmers and ranchers whose families have spent generations on the Texas side of...”
– This is my favorite sentence in the border security report released earlier this week by retired Generals Barry McCaffrey and Robert Scales, which is grandly titled “Texas Border Security: A Strategic Military Assessment (PDF).”
Commissioned by the Texas Department of Agriculture, whose secretary...
6 tags
“What remains of democracy is largely the right to choose among commodities....”
– Noam Chomsky, Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance (2003)
He calls it "The Dubes."
Him: Oh, you're reading Ibn Battuta?
Me: Yeah, for a medieval lit class.
Him: You should just go to the Ibn Battuta Mall.
Everyone: ...
Him: You can shop around and learn about all the places he visited. It's back home in Dubai.
Everyone: ...
Him: Seriously. ibnbattutamall.com.
As Scorn for Vote Grows, Protests Surge Around... →
tiffehr:
Abstract: ”Protesters around the world have something in common: wariness, even contempt, toward traditional politicians and the democratic political process they preside over.”
Mr. Levi, born on Degania, Israel’s first kibbutz, said the protests were not acts of anger but of reclamation, of a society hijacked by a class known in Hebrew as “hon veshilton,” meaning a nexus of money...
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4 tags
“Now I love fish and I love taxonomy and I would never suggest anything as silly...”
– I know our campus forums are supposed to be unavailable for the public, but oh my god did this make me smile enough to share with the alumni on Tumblr. (Usually our forums read like a list of people you should avoid being friends with.)
(But if you ever want to get together sometime and make fun of people whose main form of civic participation is posting strongly-worded Facebook statuses, call me.)
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I bet you have a really comfortable office chair....
The hacktivist efforts are “illegitimate?”
The Occupy Wall Street movements aren’t “cohesive?”
My generation isn’t “knowledgeable” about the problems?
Protests are never deemed legitimate by the power, sweeping social movements are never cohesive, and people who are knowledgeable have no reason not to be standing with these illegitimate, confusing...
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“In the art world when you provoke, disobey the rules, push the boundaries,...”
– John Jordan, “The Art of Desertion”
God damnit, Georgia.
I don't want to brag, but...
I’ve had a really awesome day.
I found out that Troy Davis got a temporary stay as I was standing with my peers at a vigil, thinking he was already gone; my dear friend in Yemen is texting me about the situation after months of Internet blackout; the administration of my school is opening up to the things that I really care about; and the thesis writers on my side of the library are hanging...
“I hear all this, you know, “Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.”—No!...”
– Eschaton: What She Said
Elizabeth Warren, Massachusetts Senate candidate on class warfare.
(via agreatnation)
Arrested for Protesting? →
What the hell is wrong with this country? Arrested for wearing masks? For chalk graffiti? For peaceful assembly?
So what exactly is the legitimate form of outrage the authorities are looking for? We’re supposed to write strongly-worded letters to our representatives? Because that is certainly a tried and true method.
(I don’t buy the claims of police brutality, for the...
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“They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or...”
– W.E.B. Du Bois in “Of Our Spirtiual Strivings.”
Did anyone else find The Atlantic’s article on “Obama’s Jewish Problem” oddly named? Particularly when the answer argued in the article was no?
(I do it because I love you, Atlantic.)
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Oh, wow! The phone GLOWS BLUE whenever I do anything with it? WHAT A GREAT SELLING POINT I TOTALLY GET IT.
Hate the Future
Now that Facebook makes it so easy to wish people a happy birthday, I find myself needing to text them to show I actually do care.
…Because texting is obviously a much more effective vessel for love.
“I’m going to turn the TV off on September 11th. And close all the web browser...”
– Charlie Stross (via cleversimon)
I’m not going to lie, I’m getting a little uncomfortable with how much we obsess over 9/11 with little or no knowledge of the terrorist attacks that happen so often everywhere else. Wouldn’t it be great if the anniversary of 9/11 became a time to...
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“Raise your hand if you’re a racist. As my students do that thing where they sort...”
– Deeply Embarrassed White People Talk Awkwardly About Race by Jen Graves - Seattle Features - The Stranger, Seattle’s Only Newspaper (via npr)
I’ve been talking about this article with anyone who will listen.
The next time someone doubts the use of your...
Provide a quick summary of the philosophical stance of Wall-E.
Got to the nearest WalMart, where they are playing the movie in the store on all of the television monitors.
