the pandas are moshing

Serbia (via Katarina 2353)

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:47:08 -0500

“Obama and the Democrats have no real vision for a transformed health care system, so they’ve gone...

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:44:20 -0500

“Obama and the Democrats have no real vision for a transformed health care system, so they’ve gone for a slightly modified version of business as usual. They’ve cut backroom deals that win a few meager concessions toward the public good, while at the same time ensuring the profits of the insurance companies, Big Pharma, and other health care profiteers by entrenching their control of the health care system and rewarding them with larger markets and fatter profits. They’re doing what Democrats have done since at least the Clinton years—acting like kinder, gentler Republicans rather than the defenders of the common people. A whole lot of Americans don’t like the current health care system, and a whole lot more hate insurance companies. The Democrats should have been able to translate that into some kind of populist support for real change. Instead, they dithered and compromised, and failed to invoke any compelling ideology. Health care ought to have nothing to do with profits or even with “affordability.” It should be a basic human right in a civilized society. But that’s precisely the kind of statement the Democrats are unwilling to make—so they end up saying nothing at all.”

— Obama’s Unhealthy Victory (via azspot)

"You think abortion is wrong? Don’t have one. I think killing people is wrong, so I’m not in the..."

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 23:05:00 -0500

“You think abortion is wrong? Don’t have one. I think killing people is wrong, so I’m not in the army. My tax dollars still go to fund it, though (in fact about 21 cents of each of my tax dollars). My tax dollars also go to keep prisoners on death row even though I think the death penalty is morally wrong. My tax dollars fund Guantanamo and Bagram, extraordinary rendition, and Jim DeMint’s salary, all of which I find disgusting. So why is abortion, a legal medical procedure, so remarkably different that we have to go overboard making sure tax dollars don’t fund it?”

- Hey Stupak, women’s bodies are not bargaining chips, by Sarah Jaffe (via pcquotes x lavenderlines)

liquidnight: Eikoh Hosoe - Kimono #2, 1963

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:37:51 -0500

liquidnight:

Eikoh Hosoe - Kimono #2, 1963

ontheborderland: algo

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:09:52 -0500

ontheborderland: algo

The U.S. media’s willingness to mindlessly apply the term “terrorist” in exactly the subjective,...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:02:00 -0500

The U.S. media’s willingness to mindlessly apply the term “terrorist” in exactly the subjective, self-serving way the U.S. Government dictates — starkly contrasted with their refusal to use the far more objective term ”torture” on the ground that the term is in dispute (i.e., disputed by the U.S. Government torturers) — illustrates the establishment media’s principal function: to serve American political power and justify whatever our government does. That’s a major reason — perhaps the primary one — why the U.S. Government has been able to get away with everything it’s done over the last decade. Those unseen victims of torture, rendition, indefinite detention and other government crimes are all just “terrorists,” so who cares? In reporting on these convictions, CNN immediately and helpfully proclaims Nasr to be a “suspected terrorist” in a way that guts any meaningful definition of that term and — in many minds — justifies whatever was done to him, no matter how illegal. It’s worth asking this question: which sounds more like actual “terrorism”: (a) kidnapping people literally off the street and shipping them thousands of miles away to be tortured with no legal process, or (b) what Nasr is “suspected” of having done?

— Glenn Greenwald (via azspot)

stefantueshaus: (via abusator)

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:55:49 -0500

stefantueshaus: (via abusator)

billydalto: From here, either a periodic table or a board...

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:53:16 -0500

billydalto:

From here, either a periodic table or a board game.

Bookmarks by Lucia W

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:38:04 -0500

Bookmarks by Lucia W

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:37:25 -0500

Bookmarks by Lucia W

Frederike Wetzels

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:10:41 -0500

Frederike Wetzels

unsolvedmysteries: kissmytoes

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:57:33 -0500

unsolvedmysteries: kissmytoes

Harvard Students to Learn About Black People By Watching The Wire

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:24:00 -0500

Harvard Students to Learn About Black People By Watching The Wire:

youmightfindyourself:

Harvard, the nation’s insufferable institution of higher learnin’ attended by the nation’s most insufferable kids from its most insufferable families, will offer a course on HBO’s The Wire, the best TV show ever made, so as to better educate their pampered student body about life in the ghetto. Says William J. Wilson, who will teach the class: “I do not hesitate to say that (The Wire) has done more to enhance our understanding of the challenges of urban life and the problems of urban inequality, more than any other media event or scholarly publication.”

“The announcement came at a panel discussion at the school featuring several of the show’s stars.”

WAIT, WHAT?!

According to this mailing list snippet, the panel (featuring the actors who played Kima, Bubble and Omar) was held last Thursday @ 7:30 in Science Center D.

?!?? O_O ?!?!

At 7:30 that Thursday I was literally in the next room Science Center C trying not to hit myself in the face to keep awake. (3 straight hours of orgo lecture will microwave your soul.) All the while the sounds of cheers, laughter and applause kept streaming in from next door. We didn’t know what we were jealous of, but we were definitely jealous.

Now I know. Sad to have missed this panel because I’m right in the thick of the 4th season, I’m caught up and emotionally invested in the characters’ lives, and all the wonders of this show are still unfolding before me… :(

andreafleischer: (via Lea Maria Heinrich)

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:08:15 -0500

andreafleischer: (via Lea Maria Heinrich)

iamallface: liquidnight: Jill Freedman - Jumping Rope

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:06:49 -0500

iamallface: liquidnight: Jill Freedman - Jumping Rope

loveallthis: Inspired by jeannr, I flowcharted the Beatles...

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 01:31:39 -0500

loveallthis:

Inspired by jeannr, I flowcharted the Beatles classic, ‘Hey Jude.’

(via unicornology x she-doesnt-wear-any-wings)

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:42:07 -0500

(via unicornology x she-doesnt-wear-any-wings)

ekstasis: austinkleon: David Schalliol, Isolated Building...

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:56:18 -0400

ekstasis:

austinkleon:

David Schalliol, Isolated Building Studies
A smart comment by the interviewer for ArchDaily, Sarah Wesseler, about his work:

There’s been a lot of discussion of late in the architecture community about how to deal with existing building stock and how buildings should relate to their context. Most architectural photography, however, doesn’t seem to have much connection with these issues, for the perfectly valid reason that it’s generally a commercial product designed to make an individual project look as good as possible.

This comment made me think about the architecture photographer Julius Schulman, and how uncritical the documentary about his life was about this point.

I had a professor who very strongly believed the problem with modernist architecture (and, by proxy, modern understandings of architecture) is that it’s designed to look good in photographs and not in three dimensions. For anyone who has ever felt isolated in a minimalist, Danish-Modern, etc. room, anyone who has ever felt the oppressive weight of some cavernous convention center, go back and find a picture that of that space. see how much warmer it looks, see how inviting it seems. Pictures don’t have a one-to-one correspondence with reality.

ontheborderland: Sea of 30,128 pumpkins in Boston Common (via...

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:46:00 -0400

ontheborderland: Sea of 30,128 pumpkins in Boston Common (via innusa)

Al Parker

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:42:45 -0400

Al Parker