It’s been too long since I last did this.
In the pic, a Facebook friend shared the meme version of Russell’s Paradox.
Supporting my assertion that all fiction is contemporary, Bad Horse reads some centuries-old stuff and says something very similar. The classics ain’t that great (to us).
In familiar “The past is terrible and we should never go back there” news – In the Golden 50s less than 1 in 3 people were happy in their marriage, poverty was twice what it is today, the average age of new mothers was seven years younger, and the teen pregnancy rate was twice today’s rate.
(quoting a friend) “California has reported 3,458 cases of pertussis, more commonly known as whooping cough, so far this year, with about 800 cases in the past two weeks alone.” IF ONLY THERE WAS SOMETHING WE COULD HAVE DONE TO PREVENT THIS”
High School Principal Cancels Entire Reading Program To Stop Students From Reading Cory Doctorow’s ‘Little Brother’. Some day, decades from now, I hope that one of my books will be banned in schools as well. One needs dreams.
What If We Admitted To Children That Sex Is Primarily About Pleasure? “I remember when the movie ‘Juno’ was out, and a sudden rash of curiosity broke out among my son’s class about what “accidentally pregnant” meant.
I realized why my son was confused. He was thinking “accidentally getting pregnant” was like accidentally burning yourself because you didn’t realize the stove was on. “Sweetie,” I explained, “most of the time that people have sex, they’re not having it to have a baby. They’re having it because it feels good. So you can get accidentally pregnant if you’re having sex for pleasure and you don’t use effective birth control.”
He looked shocked. Apparently I had forgotten to mention that sex was not just for making babies.”
“Reading is at least as dangerous as it is useful. At least. If you love to read — really, truly love to read — it’s more like having an addiction than a superpower.
…
I read instead of clean. I read instead of sleep…. As far as I can tell, at this point in my life, reading is far more destructive than it is beneficial….
I’m sure that, in a way, reading sets you free.
But it also untethers you from the real world. People who fall in love with books never really stop falling.
…
If you love to read — really, really love to read — you never quite feel full. You never feel like the contents of your own head are enough. You’re always on a quest for new and more.
And nobody stops you. Nobody says, “You should really rein in all that reading.”
Reading is like Mother Teresa or breastfeeding. Untouchable. Unassailable. If you’re a kid with a reading problem, people pin awards on you. If you’re an adult, they pretend to be impressed.
But nobody tells you to stop.”
“Yes, the woman you love, the woman we all love, the incomparable Dr. Maya Angelou was a sex worker and she proved, in her life and her stories, that there’s nothing wrong with it.”
Interesting argument for the Citizen’s Dividend – the idea that no land should ever be privately owned, only leased by The People to individuals who can use it to turn a profit, and the revenue from that leasing be paid out to all citizens evenly.
“Landless laborers become entirely dependent upon landowners simply for their right to exist on the surface of the planet. … When the free land is gone, and the bargaining power that comes with it, wages tend towards subsistence. … The landlord will just increase the rent by however much the Basic Income is, because he has all the bargaining power. It is like trying to fill a bucket with a hole in the bottom. … We can plug up that hole by taxing the rental value of land to the fullest extent possible”
Fun, and I’ve run into a few of these problems myself. 25 Words That Are Their Own Opposites
I’ve never seen either Revenge of the Nerds or Sixteen Candles. I didn’t realize major protagonists in both of these were rapists. :(
Maurice Raving. Just because.
Anaea Lay on winning Writers of the Future. The good bits, the infuriating bits, and the bizarre stuff.
Shining light where we need it. Little Sis is a database of who-knows-who in government and business: “connecting the dots between the world’s most powerful people and organizations.”
The interesting story of how a book that’s not special in any way came to be worth (or at least offered for sale for) $23M.
Civilization is progressing. :) As Scott Alexander says “Hopefully someday soon a cop without a camera will be viewed with the same horror as a surgeon without gloves.”
How To Rob A Bank (or: Breeding Dragons)
“In the [80’s] Savings & Loan debacle we made over 30,000 criminal referals. Produced over 1000 felony convictions. … As of one year ago [we] made 0 criminal referrals.” (now up to 1!) In a crisis in which the losses and frauds were 70 times larger than the S&L debacle.
Incredibly Honest Yet, Disheartening and Infuriating, Confession from a Cop “I’ve literally been yelled at by a superior because some asshole called in a DV (domestic violence) against his neighbor who he had a land dispute with, and I refused to arrest the guy because his wife wasn’t even in town when we got there (she had been out of town on business for a week…). It doesn’t matter to the higher up’s, because once you are arrested for even a bullshit reason, it’s money getting pumped into the system”
What it’s like to work in a hospital. Sung to the tune of Piano Man. You may not want to read this, triggers for mortality.
This is neat. May 7th was Tell Your Crush Day. Always something that’s kinda awkward, now there’s an official(ish) excuse to do it, so it’s not weird! I like this, I find the optimism heart-warming, but it’s probably still best not to say anything to people you work with.