The Internet, Filtered

(via Message to a Graduate | The Big Picture)

Wed, 22 May 2013 03:12:35 -0400

(via Message to a Graduate | The Big Picture)

What Do U.S. College Graduates Lack? Professionalism - Bloomberg

Wed, 22 May 2013 02:24:36 -0400

What Do U.S. College Graduates Lack? Professionalism - Bloomberg:

The students text-message during class, send e-mails to teachers with grammar and spelling errors, and act “unfocused.” (For the “unfocused” part, the researchers said they started hearing comments a few years ago from employers about workers lacking “focus,” so they included a direct item in the questionnaire on it.) Faculty members identify parents as the main cause, though American culture in general and grade inflation in high school also receive blame.

End of semester is getting to me.

"This was powerful stuff for a teenager such as me who was losing his religious belief. What..."

Wed, 22 May 2013 01:36:35 -0400

“This was powerful stuff for a teenager such as me who was losing his religious belief. What Kierkegaard showed was that the only serious alternative to atheism or agnosticism was not what generally passes for religion but a much deeper commitment that left ordinary standards of proof and evidence completely behind. Perhaps that’s why so many of Kierkegaard’s present-day admirers are atheists. He was a Christian who nonetheless despised ‘Christendom’. To be a Christian was to stake one’s life on the absurdity of the risen Christ, to commit to an ethical standard no human can reach. This is a constant and in some ways hopeless effort at perpetually becoming what you can never fully be. Nothing could be more different from the conventional view of what being a Christian means: being born and baptised into a religion, dutifully going to Church and partaking in the sacraments. Institutionalised Christianity is an oxymoron, given that the Jesus of the Gospels spent so much time criticising the clerics of his day and never established any alternative structures. Kierkegaard showed that taking religion seriously is compatible with being against religion in almost all its actual forms, something that present-day atheists and believers should note.”

- Julian Baggini — I still love Kierkegaard

n 1: What Do You Desire?

Wed, 22 May 2013 00:48:32 -0400

n 1: What Do You Desire?:

After a decade or so of living this way, with occasional suspensions for relationships that would first revive my belief in romantic love and its attendant structures of domesticity, and then once again fail and extinguish them, I started finding it difficult to revere the couple as the fundamental unit of society. I became a little ornery about it, to be honest: that couples paid lower taxes together, that they could afford better apartments, that there were so few structures of support to ease the raising of a child as a single person, that the divorced experience a sense of failure, that failed marriages are accompanied by so much logistical stress on top of the emotional difficulties. All this because we privilege a certain idea of love. The thought of the natural progression of couples, growing more and more insular, buying nicer and nicer furniture, shutting down the world, accruing things, relaxing into habit, scared me. As I grew older, I found it difficult to distinguish romantic love from other kinds of connections: the platonic love for the friends I did not want to have sex with, the euphoric chemical urges toward people I had sex with but did not love. Why was love between couples more exceptional? Because it attached itself to material objects, and to children? Because it ordered civilization? I probably would not have a baby without love, and buying a home seemed impossible for all kinds of reasons, but I could have sex. I had a body.

(via Kid Safety Manual Will Make You Never Want to Go Outside...

Tue, 21 May 2013 03:12:24 -0400

(via Kid Safety Manual Will Make You Never Want to Go Outside Again)

The Prophets of Oak Ridge | Style | Washington Post

Tue, 21 May 2013 02:24:22 -0400

The Prophets of Oak Ridge | Style | Washington Post:

All of the relevant information on Y-12’s layout was available online. All of the relevant motivation was available in the books of Psalms, Proverbs and Isaiah.

….They spray painted the building’s north wall, which was designed to withstand the impact of aircraft but not the words of the Book of Proverbs. They poured and splashed blood that had once been in the veins of a painter-activist named Tom Lewis, one of the Catonsville Nine who, on Hiroshima Day 1987, hammered on the bomb racks of an anti-submarine plane at the South Weymouth Naval Air Station near Boston. In 2008, Lewis died in his sleep, and his blood was frozen so that he might one day participate in one last Plowshares action.

(via Read J.K Rowling’s Hand-Written Plan For “Harry...

Tue, 21 May 2013 01:36:21 -0400

(via Read J.K Rowling’s Hand-Written Plan For “Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix”)

An Original Thinker of Our Time by Cass R. Sunstein | The New York Review of Books

Tue, 21 May 2013 00:48:18 -0400

An Original Thinker of Our Time by Cass R. Sunstein | The New York Review of Books:

Who else would publish an essay in The American Economic Review exploring the “overproduction of opinionated opinion,” questioning the value of having strong opinions, and emphasizing the importance of doubting one’s opinions and even one’s tastes? Hirschman thought that strong opinions, as such, “might be dangerous to the health of our democracy,” because they are an obstacle to mutual understanding and constructive problem-solving.

"I met Stephen at a bachelor party. I hated bachelor parties. I hated them because the elements that..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 03:00:52 -0400

“I met Stephen at a bachelor party. I hated bachelor parties. I hated them because the elements that made them such a good time for the men in attendance—the randy women, the booze, the feeling of brotherhood—conspired to bring out something ugly in them: bravado.”

- Captain Save-A-Ho - The Rumpus.net

The Millions : So That If I Died It Mattered

Mon, 20 May 2013 02:00:46 -0400

The Millions : So That If I Died It Mattered:

She tells me that when the family got home from the funeral, her two eldest siblings, both in high school, were scheduled to attend a weekly sock-hop. My grandparents urged them to go, saying, “You have to move on with your life.” For years, her parents rarely spoke of Mary. My mother would learn in her adult life that they had spent three years of nights privately crying in the dark.

My mom was seven, learning that grief did not involve sadness. You die, then a hole closes around where you were, perhaps leaving a small scar, and then the survivors continue with the business of mortality. Her parents fought, perhaps, the most difficult battle of their lives in silence in order to not burden their children with even a small share of grief.

…Then she tells me, her youngest son, what I never thought to ask. “I really tried hard to be the best person I could be. So that if I died it mattered.”

(via Minneapolis Bridge Lit Up Like Rainbow After Marriage...

Mon, 20 May 2013 01:00:41 -0400

(via Minneapolis Bridge Lit Up Like Rainbow After Marriage Equality Passes)

Daft Punk Profile Random Access Memories - GQ May 2013: Music: GQ

Sun, 19 May 2013 03:00:28 -0400

Daft Punk Profile Random Access Memories - GQ May 2013: Music: GQ:

The experience made them even more grateful that they’d chosen to do things the way they had. The costumes granted them a measure of freedom that their friends, people like Kanye West, had long since lost. It’s what allowed the two of them to sit out here on the sidewalk, sipping strawberry lemonade, while Daft Punk was out in the ether somewhere, fighting crime, playing music, or doing whatever superheroes do when their alter egos are somewhere else.

"In that way, Scrabble is like any other kind of all-consuming game. If you’ve ever been bolted..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 02:00:20 -0400

“In that way, Scrabble is like any other kind of all-consuming game. If you’ve ever been bolted to a blackjack table for nine hours straight, or if you’ve ever spent an entire weekend playing Call of Duty, you know that certain games aren’t so much addictive as they are magnetic. They exert a remarkable pull on your mind. You can get up to take a break, because you know you really ought to take a break, but you know, deep in your heart, that you never really want to stop. Ever. A recent MIT study of gamblers found that gamblers care more about playing the game than they do about winning or losing money:”

- Searching For Anything But Bobby Fischer At School Scrabble Nationals

CLMP recommends "These Are the Fables" by Amelia Gray

Sun, 19 May 2013 01:00:44 -0400

“Here’s the thing,” he said. “Your mama’s dead. And you’re forty years old. And I have a warrant out for my arrest. And I am addicted to getting tattoos. And our air conditioner’s broke. And you are drunk every day. And all I ever want to do is fight and go swimming. And I am addicted to Keno. And you are just covered in hair. And I’ve never done a load of laundry in my life. And you are still technically married to my drug dealer. And I refuse to eat beets. And you can’t sleep unless you’re sleeping on the floor. And I am addicted to heroin. And honest to God, you got big tits but you make a real shitty muse. And we are in Beaumont, Texas.”

(via Exercise? Meh. Here’s a Better Way to Burn Calories |...

Sat, 18 May 2013 03:00:37 -0400

(via Exercise? Meh. Here’s a Better Way to Burn Calories | Raw File | Wired.com)

Multiplicity - The Rumpus.net

Sat, 18 May 2013 02:00:26 -0400

Multiplicity - The Rumpus.net:

The first time we got married, we eloped. I guess we eloped the second and third times, too, but maybe that depends on your definition of elopement. Is it just getting hitched without telling anyone you’re going to do it? Or maybe it depends on your definition of marriage.

(via Anacostia - The Morning News)

Sat, 18 May 2013 01:00:21 -0400

(via Anacostia - The Morning News)

Craft Brewers Chug Away Heady Pressure by Bankers to Sell - Bloomberg

Fri, 17 May 2013 03:00:46 -0400

Craft Brewers Chug Away Heady Pressure by Bankers to Sell - Bloomberg:

“It takes so long to build equity in the brewery, once you’ve got it — especially if your name is on it,” he said. “Do you really want to sell that to some private-equity people that are just there to make a bunch of money and flip it? What does that do for your legacy? That’s not why I spent 30 years building the business.”

"Book tours attract nosy little reporters who are completely uninhibited and will ask for all sorts..."

Fri, 17 May 2013 02:00:42 -0400

“Book tours attract nosy little reporters who are completely uninhibited and will ask for all sorts of details such as, Do you write for money? How much money will you make off this book? How much money did you make off your last book? How much did you pay for your house? What kind of car do you drive? Does your wife work? Where do you vacation? What’d you sell the film rights for?”

- ISSUE 1: The Faulkner Thing by John Grisham :: Oxford American - The Southern Magazine of Good Writing

Earl Sweatshirt: Bless This Mess « The FADER

Fri, 17 May 2013 01:00:37 -0400

Earl Sweatshirt: Bless This Mess « The FADER:

Earl saw his dad, upon his return from Samoa, but is not wordy on the experience. “It was crazy,” he says. In the New Yorker article, when Earl’s father was asked whether or not he was familiar with his son’s work, he said he was not. The poet was disinclined to pry, reasoning that when Earl was ready to share music with him, he would. Earl finds reassurance in his father’s response. “I fucked with him after that,” he says, punching a palm for emphasis.