The Big Find

The Cooler Me | GQ

Sun, 27 May 2012 17:52:51 -0400

For some reason, I told Kyle about how I’d asked my daughter recently what she wanted to be for Halloween, and she’d said “a confused chicken.” This apparently meant dressing up like a chicken but pretending not to know what she was. I couldn’t help thinking she’d hit upon a deep ontological truth: the idea that who you were would be obvious to everyone else but yourself. Kyle looked at me carefully. “You love your kids.” “Yeah,” I said. “You know, I’ve started thinking of you as my bourgeois doppelgänger.” I tried to be flattered about this. The way he’d said “bourgeois” made it sound almost like a compliment. “Still, I can’t help thinking what else I might have accomplished if I hadn’t had children. Like I’m wasting my talent or something.” “There’s always something else you could be doing,” he said. “We’re wasting a life as we speak.”

Is long-term solitary confinement torture? | The New Yorker

Thu, 24 May 2012 09:22:39 -0400

Is long-term solitary confinement torture? | The New Yorker:

The simple truth is that public sentiment in America is the reason that solitary confinement has exploded in this country, even as other Western nations have taken steps to reduce it. This is the dark side of American exceptionalism. With little concern or demurral, we have consigned tens of thousands of our own citizens to conditions that horrified our highest court a century ago. Our willingness to discard these standards for American prisoners made it easy to discard the Geneva Conventions prohibiting similar treatment of foreign prisoners of war, to the detriment of America’s moral stature in the world. In much the same way that a previous generation of Americans countenanced legalized segregation, ours has countenanced legalized torture. And there is no clearer manifestation of this than our routine use of solitary confinement—on our own people, in our own communities, in a supermax prison, for example, that is a thirty-minute drive from my door.

African child mortality: The best story in development | The Economist

Wed, 23 May 2012 21:55:03 -0400

African child mortality: The best story in development | The Economist:

Africa is experiencing some of the biggest falls in child mortality ever seen, anywhere

Introducing the Leap (by leapmotion)

Mon, 21 May 2012 23:17:46 -0400

Introducing the Leap (by leapmotion)

The Value of Teachers - Nicholas Kristof | NYTimes.com

Mon, 21 May 2012 10:27:59 -0400

The Value of Teachers - Nicholas Kristof | NYTimes.com:

The study, by economists at Harvard and Columbia universities, finds that if a great teacher is leaving, parents should hold bake sales or pass the hat around in hopes of collectively offering the teacher as much as a $100,000 bonus to stay for an extra year. Sure, that’s implausible — but their children would gain a benefit that far exceeds even that sum. Conversely, a very poor teacher has the same effect as a pupil missing 40 percent of the school year. We don’t allow that kind of truancy, so it’s not clear why we should put up with such poor teaching. In fact, the study shows that parents should pay a bad teacher $100,000 to retire (assuming the replacement is of average quality) because a weak teacher holds children back so much.

Are You a Bigot If You Oppose Gay Marriage? | The Atlantic

Sun, 20 May 2012 17:54:12 -0400

Are You a Bigot If You Oppose Gay Marriage? | The Atlantic

Lower Costs and Better Care for Neediest Patients - Atul Gawande | The New Yorker

Sun, 20 May 2012 17:41:21 -0400

Lower Costs and Better Care for Neediest Patients - Atul Gawande | The New Yorker:

Can we lower medical costs by giving the neediest patients better care?

Dallas Willard: The Gospel in a Pluralist Age

Fri, 18 May 2012 15:22:00 -0400

Dallas Willard: The Gospel in a Pluralist Age

How Pixar Almost Deleted Toy Story 2 (by pixarsuperfan10)

Wed, 16 May 2012 23:58:21 -0400

How Pixar Almost Deleted Toy Story 2 (by pixarsuperfan10)

Tweeting pastor destroys wise reputation | LarkNews.com

Wed, 16 May 2012 23:21:48 -0400

Tweeting pastor destroys wise reputation | LarkNews.com:

SARASOTA, Fla. —John Royal, pastor of Peace Christian Fellowship, the largest church in the city, was long considered a pillar in the community. Then he opened a Twitter account.

50 Years Of Government Spending, In 1 Graph : Planet...

Wed, 16 May 2012 15:58:00 -0400

50 Years Of Government Spending, In 1 Graph : Planet Money : NPR

Adam Yauch and Paul’s Boutique: How dumb court decisions have made it nearly impossible for artists to sample the way the Beastie Boys did | Slate Magazine

Wed, 16 May 2012 10:18:21 -0400

Adam Yauch and Paul’s Boutique: How dumb court decisions have made it nearly impossible for artists to sample the way the Beastie Boys did | Slate Magazine:

In all, the album is thought to have as many as 300 total samples. The sampling gave Paul’s Boutique a sound that remains almost as distinctive today as it was when it was released in 1989. Perhaps the main reason—and certainly the saddest reason—that it still sounds distinctive is that a rapidly shifting legal and economic landscape made it essentially impossible to repeat.

He Makes All Things Grow | elmorelian

Tue, 15 May 2012 09:28:53 -0400

He Makes All Things Grow | elmorelian:

There was once a farmer who inherited an ailing and broken-down grove of date palms and who toiled long and hard to restore the palms to shape. He cut back dead branches, enriched the soil with camel droppings, and diverted a watercourse — to produce, year after year, a bountiful crop of luscious dates. “What a glorious harvest God has provided!” remarked the long-bearded imam at the village, nodding his head in pious pleasure as he passed by the grove one day. “Thanks be to God!” “Thanks be to God, indeed,” replied the farmer. “You should have seen the harvest when God was the only one doing the work!”