Throughout today’s midterm election drama, I paused to reflect on how it’s all unfolding.
Throughout today’s midterm election drama, I paused to reflect on how it’s all unfolding.
1:00: Controlled chaos
2:00: Recommended reading
5:00: A rhythm to the heartbeat
6:00: The turnout factor
8:00: It ain’t over ’til it’s over
9:00 to 12:00: Finally over
Also: Recommended reading II
You can follow me here:
Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook
This week: Steinbeck the sadist / Burial in the Texas State Cemetery / Use more cash / Beekeeping superstars / Evacuations as a hurricane looms
This week: Steinbeck the sadist / Burial in the Texas State Cemetery / Use more cash / Beekeeping superstars / Evacuations as a hurricane looms
Most of these great items come from my social media networks. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism.
1. The Village Voice (1955–2018)
ArtForum | September 2018
“The Voice was a cultural necessity for decades, a breeding ground for generations of passionate and relentless journalists, critics, and writers, where they could hone their chops, flex their intellects, dig deep and deeper still into acts both heroic and criminal, whether civic or aesthetic.”
2. John Steinbeck was a sadistic womaniser, says wife in memoir
By Sian Cain | The Guardian | September 2018
“Gwyn Conger Steinbeck’s newly unearthed book tells of troubled marriage to author.”
3. Thousands of People Live in These Ancient Spanish Caves
By Alexandra Genova and Tamara Merino | National Geographic | August 2018
“The Sacromonte and Guadix caves in Granada have been occupied for centuries. See what life there is like today.”
4. What Do I Have to Do to Get Buried in the Texas State Cemetery
By David Courtney | The Texanist :: Texas Monthly | August 2018
“A Brownsville woman wants to spend eternity in close proximity to Ma and Pa Ferguson.”
5. Self-Care: A Working Definition
The New York Times | August 2018
“A collective, non-exhaustive list of behaviors and diagrams that keep us on point, compiled by some employees of The New York Times.”
6. Put away that credit card. You need to use cash more
By Neil Swidey | The Boston Globe Magazine | August 2018
“Big banks are the big winners when shoppers whip out the plastic. Meanwhile, Americans sink further into debt.”
7. Edward Snowden Reconsidered
By Tamsin Shaw | NYR Daily :: The New York Review of Books | September 2018
“This summer, the fifth anniversary of Edward Snowden’s revelations about NSA surveillance passed quietly, adrift on a tide of news that now daily sweeps the ground from under our feet. It has been a long five years, and not a period marked by increased understanding, transparency, or control of our personal data.”
8. The Super Bowl of Beekeeping
By Jaime Lowe | The New York Times Magazine | August 2018
“Almond growing in California is a $7.6 billion industry that wouldn’t be possible without the 30 billion bees (and hundreds of human beekeepers) who keep the trees pollinated — and whose very existence is in peril.”
9. How to Evacuate Cities before Dangerous Hurricanes
By Leonardo Dueñas-Osorio, Devika Subramanian, Robert M. Stein | Scientific American | October 2018
“With new risk maps, authorities hope to avoid mass exoduses and blocked exits.”
Also see from Scientific American: Hurricane Is a Natural Selection Experiment
10. Why I fell in love with Salamanca
By John Clarke | El Pais | August 2018
“Erasmus student John Clarke recounts how the city and its 800-year-old university captured his heart.”
This week: Dealing when a friend has a baby / America beyond Trump / Powerless Puerto Rico / Dancing with Madonna / Loving your library
This week: Dealing when a friend has a baby / America beyond Trump / Powerless Puerto Rico / Dancing with Madonna / Loving your library
Most of these great items come from my social media networks. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism.
1. A Friend’s Pregnancy
By Julia Wertz | The New Yorker | October 2016
“I was happy for her, but I was afraid it would have a negative impact on our relationship. It was certainly not what I wanted, but I knew such an epic life event would change our relationship irrevocably, and I was scared.”
2. War Without End
By C.J. Chivers | The New York Times Magazine | August 2018
“The Pentagon’s failed campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan left a generation of soldiers with little to fight for but one another.”
3. Planning for the Post-Trump Wreckage
By Stephen M. Walt | Foreign Policy | August 2018
“When the president eventually exits the White House, the rest of us will quickly have to make sense of the world he’s left behind.”
4. What Happened in the Dark: Puerto Rico’s Year of Fighting for Power
By Daniel Alarcon | Wired | August 2018
“More Americans rely on Puerto Rico’s grid than on any other public electric utility. How one renegade plant worker led them through the shadows.”
5. Nuance: A Love Story
By Meghan Daum | Medium | August 2018
“My affair with the intellectual dark web”
6. 2001 Is Still Teaching Us How to Pay Attention to Movies
By Colin Fleming | Slate | August 2018
“Your mind need not be going.”
7. Step one for befriending a goat: Smile
By Karin Brulliard | Animalia :: The Washington Post | August 2018
“Goat subjects … had already shown themselves to be adept at reading subtle human body language. Now, the researchers have found, goats are also able to distinguish happy people faces from sad ones — and they prefer happy.”
8. Dancing with Madonna Kept Me Alive
By Salim Gauwloos | Outlook :: BBC World Service | July 2018
“Salim Gauwloos became famous dancing with Madonna on her iconic Blond Ambition tour. Madonna used the tour to promote freedom of sexuality and sexual health. All of this made a young Salim feel extremely uncomfortable. The reason he was so anxious was that he was harbouring a secret.”
9. The Dos and Don’ts of Supporting Your Local Library
By Kristin Arnett | LitHub | August 2018
“For God’s sake, do not recatalog a book with Sharpie”
10. My son, Osama: the al-Qaida leader’s mother speaks for the first time
By Martin Chulov | The Guardian | August 2018
“Nearly 17 years since 9/11, Osama bin Laden’s family remains an influential part of Saudi society – as well as a reminder of the darkest moment in the kingdom’s history. Can they escape his legacy”
This week: How to survive an earthquake / New life in a coral reef cemetery / Resisting Obama / The best Texas bourbon / David Simon’s secrets
This week: How to survive an earthquake / New life in a coral reef cemetery / Resisting Obama / The best Texas bourbon / David Simon’s secrets
Most of these great items come from my social media networks. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism.
1. Trump Engaged in Suspect Tax Schemes as He Reaped Riches From His Father
By David Barstow, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner | The New York Times | October 2018
“The president has long sold himself as a self-made billionaire, but a Times investigation found that he received at least $413 million in today’s dollars from his father’s real estate empire, much of it through tax dodges in the 1990s.”
Also see from the Columbia Journalism Review: The Times Trump investigation and the power of the long game
2. Traveling to Find Out
By Hanif Kureishi | London Review of Books | August 2018
“Legitimate anger turned bad; the desire for obedience and strong men; a terror of others; the promise of power, independence and sovereignty; the persecution of minorities and women; the return to an imagined purity. Who would have thought this idea would have spread so far, and continue to spread.”
3. The Marines Didn’t Think Women Belonged in the Infantry. She’s Proving Them Wrong.
By Thomas Gibbons-Neff | The New York Times | August 2018
“As Lieutenant Hierl issued orders against the din of rifle fire, she dropped her usually reserved, soft-spoken demeanor for a firm tone that left no doubt about who was in command.”
4. Forget Doorframes: Expert Advice on Earthquake Survival Strategies
By Robin George Andrews | Scientific American | August 2018
“Indonesia’s Lombok quake revives the question of taking cover versus running outside.”
5. A coral reef cemetery is home to life in the afterlife
By Kelli Kennedy | Associated Press | August 2018
“[T]he Neptune Memorial Reef is home to the cremated remains of 1,500 people, and any snorkeler or scuba diver can visit.”
6. Blood and Oil
By Seth Harp | Rolling Stone | September 2018
“Mexico’s drug cartels are moving into the gasoline industry — infiltrating the national oil company, selling stolen fuel on the black market and engaging in open war with the military. Can the country’s new populist president find a way to contain the chaos.”
7. He Was the Resistance Inside the Obama Administration
By David Dayen | The New Republic | September 2018
“Timothy Geithner’s refusal to obey his boss has had long-term political and economic consequences.”
8. Six Texas Bourbons to Drink Right Now
By Jessica Dupuy | Texas Monthly | September 2018
“Enjoy them straight, on the rocks, or in an inventive cocktail, such as the Tejas Ponche from Treaty Oak in Dripping Springs.”
9. The Guy Who Wouldn’t Write a Hit: An Interview with David Simon
By Claudia Dreifus | NYR Daily :: The New York Review of Books | August 2018
“In the world of cookie-cutter television program-making, writer and producer David Simon is a creative maverick. For a quarter of a century, Simon, now turning fifty-eight, has been making unconventional dramas about the political and social problems of modern America.”
10. 7 strategies to keep your phone from taking over your life
By Chris Bailey | Ideas :: TED.com | August 2018
“We’re distracted like never before — and our phones are probably the biggest culprit. But there is a way you can live with one and still get things done.”
This week: Celebrating Amelia Earhart / The power of male friendships / The Marines in Lebanon / Bringing down Saddam Hussein / The beautiful game around the world
This week: Celebrating Amelia Earhart / The power of male friendships / The Marines in Lebanon / Bringing down Saddam Hussein / The beautiful game around the world
Most of these great items come from my social media networks. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism.
1. Holy Wars and the Founding of Saudi Arabia
By Eric Czuleger | Ozy.com | November 2016
“Because he may have been the original jihadist”
2. Who suffers when local news disappears
By Kyle Pope | Columbia Journalism Review | July 2018
“We need to move away from the arguments that the country should care about laid-off reporters or that the suits should be held to account. This can’t be about us.
It has to be about why the country should care if local news goes away, which is the trajectory we now find ourselves on.”
3. Amelia Earhart’s Mysterious Death Shouldn’t Overshadow Her Life
By Keith O’Brien | LitHub | July 2018
“Worse still, perhaps, with the focus squarely on Earhart, history has all but erased the other women who flew with her in the 1920s and 30s — female pilots who made daring flights of their own in a time when many men believed women had no business flying airplanes.”
4. Football, Free on the Streets
By Garnette Cadogan | NYR Daily :: The New York Review of Books | July 2018
“The sight of people playing football daily in public spaces around the world is visual testimony of how the presence of bodies can turn the commonplace into the marvelous; proof, too, that football is a world game not because of the millions drawn to watch the World Cup, but because of the millions for whom the game is alive every day on the street, tournament or none.”
5. Male Friendships
By Nastaran Tavakoli-Far | The Why Factor :: BBC World Service | July 2018
“From the Obama-Biden bromance to the transformative experience of the men’s group … what men can get from their friendships with other men that is unique.”
6. Yes, sit-stand desks may help people sit less at work
By Lisa Rapaport | Reuters | July 2018
“Workers who use sit-stand desks may reduce the amount of time they spend in a chair by more than an hour a day, according to a review of research on the best ways to curb sedentary time at the office. ”
7. When the Marines Came to Lebanon
By Anthony Elghossain | The New Republic | July 2018
“Sixty years later, a classic Middle Eastern intervention under Eisenhower now looks like a symbol of a dysfunctional relationship.”
8. Crypto Rico: Blockchain for a Broken Paradise
The Documentary :: BBC World Service | July 2018
“Whilst many thousands of Puerto Ricans are leaving the island after the devastation of Hurricane Maria, a small group of wealthy ‘crypto-preneurs’, are moving to this US territory. They harbour hopes to reboot paradise using blockchain technology … and bring prosperity back to this financially struggling island.”
9. Scientists say black hole discovery proves Einstein was right
By Ruth Brown | The New York Post | July 2018
“Scientists have observed for the first time a star’s light being warped by a supermassive black hole — and they say it backs up Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity while rebuking Newton’s ideas about gravity.”
10. Saddam Hussein: My part in his downfall
By Adnan Sarwar | 1843 :: The Economist | August / September 2018
“Adnan Sarwar went from praying in the mosques of Burnley to patrolling the streets of Basra. Fifteen years on, he remembers the sun, sex and bomb disposal”
This week: The biblical view of Beyonce / Stephen King looks back / How writers build new worlds / Young Jean Lee takes on Broadway / Reading the classics
This week: The biblical view of Beyonce / Stephen King looks back / How writers build new worlds / Young Jean Lee takes on Broadway / Reading the classics
Most of these great items come from my social media networks. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism.
1. Beyoncé and the Bible
By Sonia Paul | PRI :: Studio 360 | July 2018
“Yolanda Norton, an assistant professor of Old Testament at the San Francisco Theological Seminary, just taught a course called ‘Beyoncé and the Hebrew Bible.’ In the course students learned what Beyoncé can teach us about the Bible, and what the Bible can teach us about Beyoncé.”
2. Putin’s Attack on the U.S. Is Our Pearl Harbor
By Mark Hertling and Molly K. McKew | Politico Magazine | July 2018
“Make no mistake: Hacking the 2016 election was an act of war. It’s time we responded accordingly.”
3. How to Make This the Summer of Missing Out
By Hayley Phelan | The New York Times | July 2018
“What’s happening Who cares. Meet JOMO, FOMO’s benevolent younger cousin.”
4. Why Read the Classics
By Italo Calvino | The New York Review of Books | October 1986
“There should therefore be a time in adult life devoted to revisiting the most important books of our youth. Even if the books have remained the same (though they do change, in the light of an altered historical perspective), we have most certainly changed, and our encounter will be an entirely new thing.”
5. Goldfinger and the myth of a Bond girl’s death
By Christian Blauvelt | BBC Culture | July 2018
“Many think Goldfinger actress Shirley Eaton died during filming after being painted gold. But is this true In the first episode of Debunked, Christian Blauvelt takes a look.”
6. Young Jean Lee’s Unsafe Spaces
By Parul Sehgal | The New York Times Magazine | July 2018
“The first female Asian-American playwright on Broadway takes aim at identity and watches the audience squirm.”
7. Chaos from order
By John R. Allen | Brookings | July 2018
“In my 45-year career as a national security professional and Marine Corps General serving my country, I have never seen a moment like the one we are in now.”
8. The generation that grew up on Stephen King is taking him back
By Randall Colburn | The Outline | July 2018
“The author is going through a cinematic renaissance, thanks to directors who grew up as fans.”
9. Journalism in the Age of Trump: What’s Missing and What Matters
By Michael Massing | The Nation | July 2018
“Has the preoccupation with the president pushed aside other urgent stories”
10. From Star Wars to Lord of the Rings, How to Build a World
By A.D. Jameson | LitHub | May 2018
“The Art of Making the Imaginary Seem Real”
This week: Hollywood in Trump’s America / Don’t be scared of the dark / The worldview of Sarah Sanders / The anthem of Puerto Rico / The future of journalism school
This week: Hollywood in Trump’s America / Don’t be scared of the dark / The worldview of Sarah Sanders / The anthem of Puerto Rico / The future of journalism school
Most of these great items come from my social media networks. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism.
1. Disruption, Consolidation, Uncertainty: Welcome to Hollywood’s Age of Anxiety
By Stephen Galloway | The Hollywood Reporter | July 2018
“Speak to writers, producers, actors and executives … and you’ll have trouble finding people who won’t admit to heightened feelings of stress, anxiety and depression, three interlinked mental-health issues that have escalated over the past decade in the entertainment sector.”
2. The Quiet Anger of Adam Schiff
By Andy Kroll | The California Sunday Magazine | July 2018
“Two years ago, he was a respected but little-known congressman from Los Angeles. Today, he’s the face of the Democrats’ opposition to Trump.”
3. What Is Less Scary in the Dark
By Cindi May | Scientific American | July 2018
“There is a way that the dark makes us feel safer — and this has implications for our health”
4. Never Trumpers Will Want to Read This History Lesson
By Joshua Zeitz | Politico Magazine | July 2018
“In the 1850s, disaffected Democrats made the wrenching choice to leave their party to save American democracy. Here’s what happened.”
5. The World Burns. Sarah Sanders Says This Is Fine.
By Megan Garber | The Atlantic | July 2018
“The White House press secretary has set a new precedent: Partisanship over patriotism. Victory over truth.”
6. U.S. Army Mirrored Amazon’s HQ2 Search Tactics in Choosing New Futures Command Location
By Michael Hardy | Texas Monthly | July 2018
“The Army chose Austin, citing its entrepreneurial culture and incentives from UT.”
7. The world’s top beaches: a statistician’s guide
By James Tozier | 1843 Magazine :: The Economist | July 2018
“Where to get the best tan for the best price”
8. Bomba: The Enduring Anthem of Puerto Rico
By Rose Marie Cromwell, Lauren Du Graf and Eve Lyons | The New York Times | July 2018
“The resurgence of a traditional Afro-Puerto Rican musical genre owes something to formal experimentation. But some traditionalists fear that its roots are at risk.”
9. 150 Cheers for the 14th Amendment
By Amanda Bellows | The New York Times | July 2018
“In the last 50 years, the Supreme Court’s evolving interpretations of the 14th Amendment have led to an expansion of civil rights. Its decisions have also produced a system of federalism that significantly differs from that of 1868 through the reallocation of power from the states to the federal government. Thanks to the 14th Amendment, with its plain text authorizing Congress to act in perpetuity, the contours of our federal system continue to shift.”
10. Do we need J-schools
By Bill Grueskin, Felix Salmon, and Alexandria Neason | Columbia Journalism Review | Spring/Summer 2018
“The role of a reporter is shifting, as are the economics of education. With this new calculus, does journalism school still have a place in our profession”
This week: Fighting climate change / Iran’s view of the West / Kissinger on Trump’s America / The legacy of “The Dark Knight” / Remembering Blockbuster
This week: Fighting climate change / Iran’s view of the West / Kissinger on Trump’s America / The legacy of The Dark Knight / Remembering Blockbuster
Most of these great items come from my social media networks. Follow me on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, and Facebook for more fascinating videos, photos, articles, essays, and criticism.
1. Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change
By Nathanial Rich | The New York Times Magazine | August 2018
“It tracks the efforts of a small group of American scientists, activists and politicians to raise the alarm and stave off catastrophe.”
2. Managing the Unmanageable
By Margaret MacMillian | The Reith Lectures :: BBC Radio 4 | July 2018
“Speaking to an audience at the Northern Irish Parliament Buildings at Stormont in Belfast, Professor MacMillan outlines how both states and the people have sought to justify warfare — from self-defence to civil war — focusing on examples from Irish and British history.”
3. What does Iran think of the West
By Pooneh Ghoddoosi and Matthew Chapman | The Inquiry :: BBC World Service | July 2018
“It dates back to the Western desire for Iran’s rich oil reserves in the early 20th century, and continues through the CIA-backed coup in 1953, which strengthened the Shah’s grip on the throne. The Western powers supported Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War, while the US is believed to have unleashed a highly effective cyber-weapon against the Iranian nuclear programme. Iran has reasons to be equally suspicious of Moscow — with the Russian Empire seizing large parts of historical Persia in the 19th century.”
4. Deciphering the sex scenes in Spain’s medieval churches
By Manuel Morales | El Pais | July 2018
“Experts meet to discuss the meaning of highly explicit sculptures made 1,000 years ago”
5. 230 Minutes With Michiko Kakutani
By Shawn McCreesh | Vulture :: New York | July 2018
“Instagramming New York by night on her first publication day.”
6. The Complicated Legacy of ‘The Dark Knight’
By Richard Newby | The Hollywood Reporter | July 2018
“Christopher Nolan’s acclaimed film changed the movie landscape when it was released 10 years ago this month, but at what cost”
7. Americans Have Some Pretty Vanilla Sexual Fantasies
By Ashley Fetters | The Atlantic | July 2018
“A new book on the science of sexual desire finds Americans are surprisingly romantic and loyal to their partners when they fantasize about sex.”
8. The History Behind the Graffiti of War
By Jonathan Bratten | The New York Times Magazine | July 2018
“About 5,000 years ago, someone decided to paint a battle scene between archers in a cave in Spain — perhaps one of the first instances of what we’d call “war graffiti” today. That person was probably an early grunt who had just finished griping that the chow was bad and that he’d had to march too far that day. Because as long as there has been war, there have been soldiers leaving behind their doodles, names or other markings for historians to muse on why they did so.”
9. For One Last Night, Make It a Blockbuster Night
By Justin Heckert | The Ringer | July 2018
“Everything is 10 years behind in Alaska — including the way people see movies. In three stores across the coldest state in the union, Blockbuster captured the imagination of its residents long after the company ceased operations around the rest of the country. But now, the late fees are finally coming due, and the end of the Blockbuster era is upon us.”
10. Read 13 of the Best Literary Interviews from Interview
By Emily Temple | Interview :: LitHub | May 2018
“RIP a Great American Magazine”
Looks magnificent
As a way to celebrate San Antonio’s 300th anniversary this year, the Institute of Texan Cultures (ITC) teamed up with Special Collections to create a new exhibit, “San Antonio: 1860s-1990s A Photographic Chronology from UTSA Special Collections.” The exhibit, which opened on August 4th, is made up of 300 images selected by Photographs Curator Tom Shelton to span the portion of San Antonio’s history that can be represented with this artistic medium.
The photos are grouped together by decade, enabling visitors to view the city’s past chronologically and get a taste of the spirit of the times. Visitors are able to move from the 1860s forward through subsequent decades, and observe changes in San Antonio. The images showcase the flow of the city’s growth, as it developed from narrow streets with horses and buggies into the downtown skyline and urban footprint that we know today. …
View original post 347 more words
From time to time, we’re asked the question “so when will all of this be online?” The answer is—you might want to sit down for this—not everything will be digitized. While we love to connect our patrons with every resource they could ever want to use online, there are several reasons why we’re just not able to do this for everything. Below I’ll outline some reasons why we might not digitize audiovisual (A/V) items in our collections.
Not everything is digitized. This is the truth.
Digitization takes a lot of resources, both in physical resources and in people hours, so we want to be sure we’re getting the most out of our efforts. We do our best to find content to digitize that will have the highest degree of utility for our patrons, so this means we put a lot of effort into assessment. Readers…
View original post 966 more words
Tabletop Games
#CallingAllJournalists Initiative | Reporter | Media Watchdog | Mentor | Latinas in Journalism
Words, images & collages tossed from a window.
Gayle Brennan Spencer - sending random thoughts to and from South Austin
Irreverent travelogues, good drinks, and the cultural stories they tell.
Talking about some of the best publications from the Federal Government, past and present.
Cadillac News, Forums, Rumors, Reviews
Real News That Matters
bringing joy to family meals
Bloggen Øl, Mad og Folk
fun, delicious food for everyone
Modern Comfort Food
Art is a gift we give ourselves
low waste living drawn from food lore through the ages
MUSINGS : CRITICISM : HISTORY : NEWS
Observations on the Hudson River as it passes through New York City. The section of the Hudson which passes through New York is historically known as the North River, called this by the Dutch to distinguish it from the Delaware River, which they knew as the South River. This stretch of the Hudson is still often referred to as the North River by local mariners today. All photos copyright Daniel Katzive unless otherwise attributed. For more frequent updates, please follow northriverblog on Facebook or Instagram.
Stillness of Heart 
You must be logged in to post a comment.