Benjamin, One Word

graphene

Ah, Yes. January. Midwest.

In this case, Stow, Ohio.

Tiger Mothers

By now you've heard about the Tiger Mother controversy, right?
No? Okay, well there was this Chinese American Harvard Yale law prof who wrote this NYT WSJ op-ed piece about how she drove her two daughters to specified goals, wouldn't let them have sleepovers even, and threatened all sorts of wildly lunatic reprisals just because she loved them and wanted them to succeed and by the way, please buy the book about it.
So after that it was a long, is she right, is she wrong debate, mostly among men but some women, too, including at least one Chinese American daughter of a lunatic mother who begged to differ about the approach.
Me, I pretty much got over wondering if I was some sort of a monster because I took a more laisse faire approach, since it's fairly clear I am a monster, but not necessarily because of that. But who knows?
Anyhoo, the debate is still going on and I found this great quote:

It’s just way better to be the world’s best acrobatic kite-surfer than the third best pianist in Cleveland. Also, the ethos of hyper-individuation is about activity/personality search and matching. It’s better to be happily mediocre at something you love than miserably amazing at something that never quite felt right.

I'm not sure it's right, but then I'm not sure of much. Although I can talk a good game.

Quote O' Teh Day

Thank you, Andrew Sullivan. Thank you for saying this. It's about the torture, of course, which Bush has gladly, proudly admitted to.
I used to read Scott Horton every day. Then I couldn't stand it anymore.

Under international law, George W. Bush is a war criminal. There is no dispute about that outside a tiny coterie of legal mediocrities and political hacks and a general public as yet unable to grasp that their ex-president should be in jail.)

Which gets me to thinking, how many known, living war criminals do we have, the U.S. and Britain. Is is agreed Kissinger is a war criminal? McNamara and minions, I guess, can't remember if he's still alive. Sullivan says the jury's still out on Blair.

What I Want To Be When I Grow Up

"...a free intelligence, a type hated with equal hatred by all the smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending for our souls."

 Orwell on Dickens. This is from a piece Andrew Sullivan is pondering as he ponders the call for civility following Tucson. Me, I learn where I can.
Smelly little orthodoxies. Love that. 

The Dowager Dutchess

"One can't got to pieces over the death of every foreigner. We'd all collapse the minute we opened a newspaper."

I love Maggie Smith and I love Downton Abbey.

That is all.

Previously.
"What is a weekend." (accent on the second syllable, can you hear it?)

Quote O' Teh Day

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd." - Voltaire

From this, which came from this, which came from this.
It started here.

It's all in the oneness, right? Is the internet God?

No Bunnies Today

Candygram

Pretty Good One This Morning

Pericardium
 by Joanna Klink                 

 Am I not alone, as I thought I was, as I thought
The day was, the hour I walked into, morning
When I felt night fly from my chest where prospect had
Slackened, and close itself off, understanding, as I thought I did,
That the ground would resist my legs and not let them
Break nor let them be released into air as my heart, in its
Muscle, might be released from the body that surrounds it,
Like someone who, placing a hand on a shoulder's
Blade, felt a life move inside an hour and a day
Break from the day the hour meant something more than weakness,
More than fear, and flew forward into the depths of
Prospect, your arms, where you'd been, before me, waiting
For me, the way the body has always been waiting for the heart to sense
It is housed, it is needed, it will not be harmed.

SNL:Jan. 8, 2011

Pretty good show tonight, and when I watch, I'm usually disappointed.
Actually laughed out loud quite a bit, always a good test.
Thanks, Lorne.

Congress Shall Make No Law

ever again.
A cutting satire from David Cole at WaPo.

I Have A New Guru

His name is Andrew Oliver Burkeman. I chose him because of this. Other than that, I know very little about him.

“Give up on yourself. Begin taking action now, while being neurotic or imperfect, or a procrastinator, or unhealthy, or lazy, or any other label by which you inaccurately describe yourself. Go ahead and be the best imperfect person you can be and get started on those things you want to accomplish before you die.”

Japanese psychotherapist Shoma Morita,

Jorge and Alexa

Cover a song by the Acoustic Zeroes. Sullivan says this was viral in 09. I never saw it, so how could it have been viral? Besides, it still has less than 700,000 hits.

I Liked This Today

The 7 Bowls of Tea

The first bowl of tea moistens my throat,
the second breaks my loneliness, and
the third bowl racks my brains, bringing to light the texts of 5,000 volumes.
The fourth induces perspiration whereby all ills evaporate through my pores.
The fifth makes my muscles and bones feel light, and
the sixth links me to celestials.
Be careful when drinking the seventh bowl,
as it makes you feel as if a cool breeze were coming from your armpits.

--Lu Tung

And For Today...Bunnies!

First this bunny.


Then these bunnies. I'll look for more.

Dave Barry

Reminds us why we're glad it's over.

Brain Stuff, Brain Stuff, Brain Stuff

My favorite stuff.

In other words: one night someone else went to sleep and woke up as me. I do a lot of the same things as him but I know that I'm not the one who came up with them. I like a lot of the same things as him but I know I didn't discover them. Otherwise I act in ways that he wouldn't have thought of and found new stuff to like that he wouldn't have recognized. I've taken that poor bastard's place and he barely even realized it was happening. It's awesome.

And Then There's Randall Jarrell

"Say Good-bye to Big Daddy"

Big Daddy Lipscomb, who used to help them up
After he'd pulled them down, so that ''the children
Won't think Big Daddy's mean''; Big Daddy Lipscomb,
Who stood unmoved among the blockers, like the Rock
Of Gibralter in a life insurance ad,
Until the ball carrier came, and Daddy got him;
Big Daddy Lipscomb, being carried down an aisle
Of women by Night Train Lane, John Henry Johnson,
And Lenny Moore; Big Daddy, his three ex-wives,
His fiancee, and the grandfather who raised him
Going to his grave in five big Cadillacs;

Big Daddy, who found football easy enough, life hard enough
To -- after his last night cruising Baltimore
In his yellow Cadillac -- to die of heroin;
Big Daddy, who was scared, he said: ''I've been scared
Most of my life. You wouldn't think so to look at me.
It gets so bad I cry myself to sleep -- '' his size
Embarrassed him, so that he was helped by smaller men
And hurt by smaller men; Big Daddy Lipscomb
Has helped to his feet the last ball carrier, Death.
The big black man in the television set
Whom the viewers stared at -- sometimes, almost were --
Is a blur now; when we get up to adjust the set,
It's not the set, but a NETWORK DIFFICULTY.
The world won't be the same without Big Daddy.
Or else it will be.

Global Warming, The Mountains In Siberia And You

Climate change is causing winter weather extremes. Oh, you already knew that. Did you know about Siberia? Or the reason the East Coast's storm today came up from the Gulf? You think you're so smart, how come you're not rich?
Love,
Inner Bob