October 2011
3 posts
Claire Denis, "White Material"
Last night I went to the third film in Carleton’s Tournées French Film Festival - White Material by the French director Claire Denis. The intentionally and beautifully disjoined story concerns a woman - played by Isabelle Huppert - trying to save her family’s coffee plantation during a rebellion in an unnamed African country.
A person could write up all of White Material’s plot...
Coaching for Everyone →
This brilliant article by Atul Gawande lays out a solid rationale for everyone, especially professionals, having thoughtful coaches to continuously guide improvement.
Porter (the beer) →
Porters are my favorite beer, and the Wikipedia entry does a great job of describing their characteristics and history, which has been markedly shaped by war.
September 2011
1 post
4 tags
“To read for an hour or so at night is to enter a magic realm in which people are...”
– The Torchlight List, Jim Flynn (via judijone)
August 2011
9 posts
3 tags
Senate Candidate 'Regrets' Comparing Poor People... →
A Nebraska politician has compared (and now weakly apologize for comparing) poor people using welfare to raccoons scavenging for insects. One guess as to his political party.
"Replacement Therapy" (Rob Walker, The Atlantic) →
A great short essay on why we want our gadgets to die already.
Sexy Cougar or Dangerous Predator? →
A memorable advice column…
"Should We Challenge Student Beliefs?" (Inside... →
An argument in favor of challenging students’ incorrect beliefs…
"She Has A Plan: Pelosi Says There'll Be No More... →
myreadinglist:
Pelosi for President.
"Take It to the Limit" (New Yorker) →
Hendrik Hertzberg’s savage attack on the GOP’s debt-limit position.
Nicholas Schmidle, "Getting bin Laden" (New... →
The definitive account of the raid to kill Osama bin Laden.
July 2011
1 post
June 2011
1 post
April 2011
12 posts
“Nicholas II, once Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias (and now Saint...”
– (Statements like this want to see a family tree of European royalty, which seems to be stunningly inbred.) Julia Ioffe, “The Royal Wedding, Moscow Style,” The New Yorker
Meghan Daum: "Why Palin doesn't get what she... →
Alas, we cannot. Not only because it would be cheap and lazy and unbecoming, but also because Palin is too well-shielded by her own incompetence. By casting herself as the less privileged, less polished outsider in the fancy school, she fashions the rest of us into playground bullies (ironic, given her predilection for bullying language) who taunt her with big vocabularies and book learning and...
The Wonderful Wilderness of Michigan's Upper... →
This is a wonderful article about Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. It makes me very, very homesick, which is okay because we’ll be heading up there in June - maybe the best time of the year to visit.
“On Monday, she was doing homework at a table in Sayles (our student center) and...”
– I love this. So effing Carleton. (Carleton College: Rachel Levit’s Blog: Anna)
“No Ordinary Malted Milk Balls, Our Huge Ones Are the Ultimate”
– They’re not kidding.
Malted Milk Balls at The Vermont Country Store
“the Titanic —which sank in the Atlantic Ocean 97 years ago — was...”
– Gigantic New SuperOrganism with ‘Social Intelligence’ is Devouring the Titanic
Your Daily Globe: "Norrie School gets picked... →
My elementary school, being converted to apartments…
"Heading for a Crash?" (Inside Higher Ed) →
An interesting account of a panel on the need to change the “business model” of liberal arts education…
"Scorecasting: The Hidden Influences Behind How... →
Here’s a fun and illuminating book that any fan - serious or casual - of the “big four” team sports would enjoy. Though full of the kinds of stats that fans love, the numbers are never overwhelming, and the authors do an excellent job of contextualizing their data. Highly recommended.
New Vikings Stadium? NO, NO, NO. →
No, no, no. If we can’t raise taxes to pay for social services, we should not raise taxes to subsidize a billionaire’s stadium for his millionaire athletes.
"The Wire" as Victorian Serial Novel →
I don’t know enough about Victorian serial novels to know if this essay, analyzing The Wire as if it were such a novel, but the essay is fascinating anyhow - one if the few things I’ve read that actually sheds new light on my favorite TV show.
March 2011
15 posts
"Making a rural comeback: The old gravel road"... →
I love gravel roads, but converting pavement back to gravel seems like a step away from civilization…
"Diggins Holds on For Podium in First-Ever 30 K" →
Jessie Diggins, budding cross-country skiing star and Minnesotan, caps her breakout season with a great result: silver at U.S. Nationals.
"Supermoon blamed as nearly 100 World War II bombs... →
The Supermoon is all fun and games until is starts trying to blow you up.
"Pine Bend Refinery" (Wikipedia) →
If you live in Minnesota and drive a car, you probably give your money to the Koch brothers, who operate the state’s biggest refinery and fund right-wing attacks all over the country.
Steve Inskeep: "Liberal Bias at NPR?" →
I’m a huge fan of Steve Inskeep’s interviewing on NPR, and now I’m in love with his op-ed’ing. This is a great essay on the supposed liberal bias of NPR - published, notably, in the official organ of the plutocracy.
Anna Quindlen on Parenting →
A beautiful short essay by Anna Quindlen on parenting. Wonderful stuff.
Under Vivi's Pillow
You’ll find
a smooth rock she found outside,
a beaten-up tube of Walgreens lip balm (cherry flavored),
one small note reading, “Woffy Woffy* Talks,” and
one large note reading, “Woofy Woofy* can jump very high for such a small pup.”
(“Woofy Woofy” is the tiny plastic dog toy she takes with her everywhere.)
"1554 Enlightened Black Ale" (New Belgium Brewing) →
The best thing to come out of the 16th century.
Zoo City / Lauren Beukes →
An incredible book - half SF, half fantasy, half crime thriller. Yeah, it’s 1.5 times a regular book.
"Some Perspective On The Japan Earthquake" →
A fascinating and, to some extent, counterintuitive take on the Japanese disasters, written by an American in Japan.
“I want to be every person’s candidate — that’s my goal,” Mr. Pawlenty said. “The...”
– “Tim Pawlenty Tests Republican Presidential Run” (NYTimes.com)
“Starting teacher pay, which now averages $39,000, would have to rise to $65,000...”
– Nicholas Kristof, “Pay Teachers More” (NYTimes.com)
“An ale that has all the chocolate and roasted nut flavor of a classic Porter,...”
– Breckenridge Vanilla Porter, Vanilla Beer
August 2010
4 posts
"Minneapolis will pay $165,000 to zombies" →
A great, great headline.
Word Spy: "nature-deficit disorder" →
I have this, bad.
"The Most and Least Religious Colleges"... →
I’m glad to see Mac at #8 in the least-religious list!
This Modern World: "Sparky predicts: Bogus wingnut... →
Read this cartoon and you won’t have to pay attention to the news for months. Years, even!
July 2010
6 posts
clay shirky - blog all dog-eared interviews... →
A great compendium of quotations from the digital-culture thinker Clay Shirky. The choicest of the choice bits:
Whenever media become more abundant, average quality falls quickly, while new institutional models for quality arise slowly… The response to distraction, then as now, was social structure. Reading is an unnatural act; we are no more evolved to read books than we are to use...
"A bizarre extortion tale of the South Pacific"... →
Follow this - if you can.
"Insurers Push Plans That Limit Health Choices"... →
“As the Obama administration begins to enact the new national health care law, the country’s biggest insurers are promoting affordable plans with reduced premiums that require participants to use a narrower selection of doctors or hospitals.
Socialist Nazi death panelists!
"Mystery trader buys all Europe's cocoa"... →
I’ll bet they can find the mystery cocoa-cornerer if they just look to see who’s buying up marshmallow futures…