January 2012
9 posts
3 tags
BBC News - How to offset your 'conflict mineral'... →
‘“As our devices get smaller and faster, they require some specialised minerals,” says Sasha Lezhnev, a policy consultant for the Enough project, a non-governmental organisation which focuses on genocide and crimes against humanity.
“A significant portion of the minerals that accomplish those tasks come directly from Eastern Congo war zones.”’
3 tags
“In spite of the noble affirmations of Christianity, the church has often lagged in its concern for social justice and too often has been content to mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. It has often been so absorbed in a future good ‘over yonder’ that it forgets the present evils ‘down here.’ Yet the church is challenged to make the gospel of...
3 tags
'Stuff' & Consumption: Currently Reading...
The Information Diet: A Case for Conscious Consumption (@NPR). “Just because your boss doesn’t see you looking at that Kim Kardashian post on The Huffington Post doesn’t mean that it’s not without consequence. When you click on it, you’re making it so that it’s more visible to other people. That means an information diet is something that’s of ethical...
6 tags
Seth's Blog: Trading in your pain →
“Pain is a part of work. And it leads to two mistakes…”
Quite true.
3 tags
2 tags
8 tags
How ‘Sh*t White Girls Say to Black Girls’ Blew Up... →
This video is pretty accurate… (giiirl, who called and told you my life?). Except instead of “white”, I might substitute: “the culturally infirmed” lol. This is probably the best response to that “girls say” meme that started a string of these parodies.
To add:
In applying for school and other competitive application-based programs: *looks you over*,...
6 tags
5 tags
Alone on NYE
Get dressed. Put on something nice.
Go to a space that you like. Bring some hot tea or champagne. Or don’t.
Then do this: Give thanks.
NYE doesn’t have to be complicated or perfect. You don’t have to be surrounded by crowds, have a date, or have a special invitation. The hope of 2012 doesn’t have to hinge on the fulfilling the expectation of a spectacle of one day....
December 2011
10 posts
1 tag
What is Debt? – An Interview with Economic... →
“In Sanskrit, Hebrew, Aramaic, ‘debt,’ ‘guilt,’ and ‘sin’ are actually the same word. Much of the language of the great religious movements – reckoning, redemption, karmic accounting and the like – are drawn from the language of ancient finance. But that language is always found wanting and inadequate and twisted around into something completely different. It’s as if the great prophets...
Joy to the world
.<3.
6 tags
“I want everything we do to be beautiful. I don’t give a damn whether the client...”
– -Saul Bass
From Saul Bass: A Life in Film and Design
He did the opening title sequence and film poster for Carmen Jones (a favorite film!).
3 tags
What is money? - Opinion - Al Jazeera English →
“The truth about money creation is a bit like the end of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, when it turns out that there is no all-knowing wizard, only an old man behind a curtain, making things up as he goes along.”
Interesting piece!
The passion of #OWS occupiers is growing and so exciting, but while the rest of the world watches on and more participate it’s important to be...
2 tags
What’s Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative... →
Yes!
“Collaborative Consumption describes the rapid explosion in swapping, sharing, bartering, trading and renting being reinvented through the latest technologies and peer-to-peer marketplaces in ways and on a scale never possible before.”
via keri smith’s blog: Ways to Reduce Our Reliance on Corporations (and Exposure to Ads)
2 tags
Rethinking... Conventional Thinking
“When you grow up, you tend to get told that the world ‘is the way it is’… life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact…” - Steve Jobs
“I think that we should try to examine the things that we’re using to make us happy.” - Russell Brand on the cult of celebrity
Kind of left-field here, but so wonderfully wise:...
5 tags
6 tags
Trader Joe's Silent Movie Mondays @ The Paramount... →
I’m so excited for this! The theme for this year is “The First Oscars”. Last year I went for the the first time and it was magical: old silent film, live organ accompaniment, beautiful theater, fantastic food from TJs (even better if you get VIP tickets!). Recommended!
6 tags
FAMOUS NAMES | Does it matter what a product is... →
Fascinating!
“Lexicon’s most successful names—among them Pentium, for Intel; Swiffer, for Procter & Gamble; PowerBook, for Apple; Dasani, for Coca-Cola—have become immensely lucrative global brands, which collectively have brought in billions of dollars for their companies. Lexicon’s founder and C.E.O., David Placek, maintains that the best name brands, like poems, work by...
November 2011
7 posts
2 tags
“Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries.”
– Theodore Roethke
5 tags
“You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.”
– Desmond Tutu, Address at his enthronement as Anglican archbishop of Cape Town
5 tags
Does Fairness Translate?: An Economist and a... →
“Did you know that fair is one-to-one untranslatable into any other language–that it is distinctly Anglo in origin? And a relatively new word at that? (Late 18th century, actually–the industrial revolution apparently also vastly enhanced our capacity to complain.) But the twisted history of “fair” is even more interesting than that…”
Fascinating!
1 tag
105>532>566
<3
4 tags
WatchSo beautiful: impressionistic, cool piano intro… brilliant crescendo, crashing waves
6 tags
Big Business x Goverance: Interesting Links
Oligarchy, American Style- NYT (Krugman)
Does one ‘super-corporation’ run the global economy? -DailyMail UK (Waugh)
The Class-Domination Theory of Power - UCSC, Sociology Dept. (Domhoff)
October 2011
17 posts
Lisa Bloom: How to Talk to Little Girls →
“As our cultural imperative for girls to be hot 24/7 has become the new normal, American women have become increasingly unhappy. What’s missing? A life of meaning, a life of ideas and reading books and being valued for our thoughts…”
Resist the urge to complement their cuteness; be inquisitive about their personalities and what’s on their mind.
via fitvillians
5 tags
Bibliographic: The 100 Best Design Books of the... →
#booklist!
2 tags
Things I Wish I Was Doing This Weekend
1. Chasing an inflatable gold cube in the fields off somewhere
2. Painting
3. Drawing
4. Having a long talk with a friend and getting stuff off my mind.
In order of most likely to happen: 3, insert: buying a pony, 2, insert: flying to Iceland this weekend, 1, 4.
…Aaaaaaand what will actually happen: paperwork (meh), staying up too late (boo!), thinking about all those grown-folk things...
Twitter / @zen_habits: "Fight the marketing", btw,... →
4 tags
It’s Mary Blair’s 100th Birthday! Always loved those characteristic lines and edges in her work.
8 tags
Missrepresentation
Once again, when you isolate the effective treatment of women in the media and use these representations to create a critical dialogue with the 51%, you realize (again) just how well we’ve all been played.
This may not be new information, but how we choose to interact with it and let it affect us is what will make a difference.
Studies show the majority of the purchasing power is yours if...
5 tags
"The worst thing you can do to any human being, of... →
-Tavis Smiley
(feeling that 5:01!)
I need to keep a 1 Corinthians 13 kind of attitude
5 tags
'Occupy' protests held around the world →
As this movement becomes more global, a brilliant question is posed: Can ‘a more egalitarian society here at home’ ‘translate into a more egalitarian global society’?
A wise man did say, “Injustice is indivisible….”.
4 tags
“I think Congresspeople should wear uniforms like NASCAR drivers so we can...”
– My friend Jessica (via venceremos)
!
3 tags
#Stuff my African mother says...
Asiyefunzwa na mamaye hufunzwa na ulimwengu.
“If your mother doesn’t teach you, the world will.”
3 tags
“Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is...”
– 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, NIV
2 tags
BookList! DailyCandy Roundup of 101 →
11 tags
10 tags
Insider Out: One man's journey from the front... →
What do you hope this movement becomes?
“My hope would be that, like all great social movements, that it gets so large in number and influence that it fundamentally changes the priorities of our elected officials so that they believe then that it’s their obligation to serve individuals and not corporations.”
What do you say to critics of this movement?
“I think that most grassroots...
1 tag
Things I do not like
- Putting busyness and multitasking on a pedestal (at the expense of relationships… and sanity).
- Checking multiple log-in sites and forms of communication just to plan a get-together or talk with friends (Why does no one just call? I have over 4,000 rollover minutes! Maybe I’m old school, but I like to hear people’s voices).
- The healthcare/insurance system (although I am...
4 tags
Time Lost and Found- Anne Lamott →
“…you have to grasp that your manic forms of connectivity—cell phone, email, text, Twitter—steal most chances of lasting connection or amazement. That multitasking can argue a wasted life. That a close friendship is worth more than material success.”
Such an interesting read! Except rather than skipping...
September 2011
14 posts
11 tags
SPENT: Over 14 million Americans are unemployed... →
… now imagine you’re one of them. Can you make it through the month? That’s what playspent.org’s game asks you to consider as you navigate through difficult life and finance questions on your last $1000. Intense.
I’ve got personal finance/ economic empowerment on the brain these days- what with the Occupy Wall Street Campaigns and… these things:
And Then...
8 tags
5 tags
“Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless...”
– Frederick Buechner, The Magnificent Defeat
6 tags
4 tags
5 tags
7 tags
Former French president accused of taking millions... →
Well! How timely.
Would this have anything to do with… the Colonial Pact?:
“During elections in France the CFA zone countries are constantly solicited to provide private funding to French politicians, an obligation that has no justification whatsoever. This has always been a requirement from successive French presidents. The fact that the CFA countries provide their French ...