les blurbs de cygnoirhttps://cygnoir.newsblur.com/2021-02-19T06:39:18.731000ZcygnoirWhy Did Fred Meyer Throw Out Thousands of Pounds of Food?2021-02-19T06:39:18.731000ZAlex Franehttps://pdx.eater.com/2021/2/17/22287586/fred-meyer-hollywood-food-waste-police-portland-snowstorm-power-outage<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/why-did-fred-meyer-t/245602:68d3e8">shared this story</a>
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<img alt="A dumpster filled with cheese and other perishable groceries at Fred Meyer" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/PEXOMD1L_t1jgQ8-xmHIjzoO6tc=/228x0:3869x2731/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/68834091/dumpster.7.jpeg" />
<figcaption>A dumpster full of food outside the Hollywood Fred Meyer | <a class="ql-link" href="https://twitter.com/JuniperLSimonis/status/1361900622107185155/photo/1" target="_blank">Dr. Juniper Simonis / Twitter</a></figcaption>
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<p>A conflict broke out between grocery store employees and the people who were salvaging food, to the point where a manager called the police</p> <p class="p--has-dropcap p-large-text" id="9n96Yc">On Tuesday, February 16, grocery workers and food rights activists stood off over the fate of multiple dumpsters full of food. After a Hollywood neighborhood grocery store threw out a massive amount of groceries following a power outage, activists attempted to save the food to redistribute it; instead, employees called the police, and a fierce argument has developed online surrounding the potential risk to vulnerable communities — either by choosing to distribute the food, or by choosing not to. </p>
<p id="67P41i"><a href="https://pdx.eater.com/2021/2/16/22285853/portland-restaurant-snowstorm-valentines-day-power-outages">Like many other businesses and homes</a>, the Hollywood Fred Meyer location lost power due to the snowstorms over Valentine’s Day weekend. After employees were directed to throw out thousands of food items like packaged meats and cheeses, milk, tofu, and juice, activists took to Twitter to alert the public about the available food. The <em>Oregonian</em> <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2021/02/portland-police-guard-dumpster-face-off-with-residents-trying-to-get-discarded-food-from-fred-meyer.html">first reported</a> that around 2:30 p.m., a number of local residents and activists showed up to salvage the still-intact food, only to be blocked by store employees. A tweet from Dr. Juniper Simonis, a local activist, showed a <a href="https://twitter.com/JuniperLSimonis/status/1361900622107185155?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1361900625626210306%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es2_&ref_url=about%3Asrcdoc">dumpster filled with thousands of pounds of food</a>. Around 4 p.m., <a href="https://twitter.com/JuniperLSimonis/status/1361897261928640515">Portland Police officers responded to a 911 call</a> from store employees, asking them to remove the individuals outside the store. </p>
<p id="r8hVRe">One such individual was Morgan Mckniff, who operates with <a href="https://twitter.com/teamraccoonpdx">Team Raccoon</a>, a group that provided clean-ups for parks after the ongoing protests against police brutality, as well as respirators for protestors and families affected by police tear gas during last year’s summer. A former chef, Mckniff tells Eater that around a half a dumpster’s worth of food was successfully salvaged and redistributed; people brought food to food insecure Portlanders’ homes, volunteers dropped food in Portland’s many free fridges, and mutual aid kitchens prepared meals for those still without power. Mckniff said on Twitter that the team <a href="https://twitter.com/teamraccoonpdx/status/1362112758993485824?s=20">checked food temperatures and inspected items</a> to evaluate whether it remained food-safe. “The point is that they didn’t even bother to check,” they say, referencing the Fred Meyer employees. “They just covered their asses and called the cops on the people who did show up to check.”</p>
<p id="RoAkeQ">Fred Meyer, a chain founded in Portland and currently owned by grocery giant Kroger, remained quiet about the incident on Tuesday, but the following day issued a statement: “Unfortunately, due to loss of power at this store, some perishable food was no longer safe for donation to local hunger relief agencies. Our store team became concerned that area residents would consume the food and risk foodborne illness, and they engaged local law enforcement out of an abundance of caution. We apologize for the confusion.” </p>
<p id="L7pnwN">According to the <a href="https://www.fema.gov/">Federal Emergency Management Agency </a>(FEMA), food in freezers during an outage would remain safe for around 48 hours; food in refrigerators would last closer to four. Other items, including shelf-stable ones, would remain safe for longer. A spokesperson for Fred Meyer was able to confirm that the shop had lost power due to the storm, and that the outage had lasted 48 hours, though it was unclear if that was 48 hours before the disposal, or total; Fred Meyer’s spokesperson did not respond to emails with follow-up questions. </p>
<p id="Srdh7v">It’s also unclear whether the Hollywood Fred Meyer had closed at any point, or if the market had considered donating the food before the full 48 hours had transpired. In the last year — facing untold crises like the <a href="https://pdx.eater.com/2020/3/12/21177290/coronavirus-portland-restaurant-bar-impact">pandemic</a>, <a href="https://pdx.eater.com/2020/9/11/21431328/restaurants-helping-oregon-fires">wildfires</a>, and most recently, catastrophic snowstorms — mutual aid groups, food shelters, and restaurants have worked to <a href="https://pdx.eater.com/2020/8/11/21295571/how-to-help-during-pandemic-covid-19-portland">help alleviate hunger around the city and state</a>. Many of them accept donated food from places that have lost power or otherwise been forced to close, including Blanchet House and Feed the Mass. Julie Showers, marketing and communications director for Blanchet House, says that the nonprofit often accepts food related to power outages; the team inspects the food to make sure it’s safe for consumption, and then repurposes it for use. “We rely on food donations to meet the need,” Shower says. “It’s also an incredible way to keep good food from going to waste.”</p>
<p id="NitsTr">Some Twitter users have expressed concern that donating the food within the window would have put them at risk of a lawsuit. If Fred Meyer had chosen to donate the food when the power first went out, they would have been protected, in part, by the <a href="https://www.feedingamerica.org/about-us/partners/become-a-product-partner/food-partners">Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act</a>. The bill protects businesses from being liable when donating products in good faith. Mckniff tells Eater that they are aware of the bill, and even brought it up to Fred Meyer workers during the standoff. “It was a disgusting display of capitalism and property over people,” they say. </p>
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<p dir="ltr" lang="en">after not too long, the folks pulling food realized it would be helpful to open the doors, which from the looks of it, did help quite a lot.<br />and yes, those are boxes of frozen beef in the green dumpster<br />7/ <a href="https://t.co/WSLGWCLDPV">pic.twitter.com/WSLGWCLDPV</a></p>— Dr. Juniper L Simonis; The Professor (@JuniperLSimonis) <a href="https://twitter.com/JuniperLSimonis/status/1361902726905356290?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2021</a>
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<p id="mX5jjw">According to police, workers called the cops out of fear for their physical safety. A representative from Portland Police told Eater they responded to two 911 calls from a Fred Meyer manager, who was reportedly concerned about the size of the crowd, and said there were threats being levied at the workers. </p>
<p id="URDgcx">Three officers remained on the scene for around an hour, during which a number of others, including trainees and their training officers, arrived. According to the PPB, at one point 11 police were on the scene for around 5 minutes. According to the police report, as well as witnesses on social media, the police vacated the area a little after 5 p.m.</p>
<p id="uZUWvQ">Debate on social media regarding the safety of the food has raged on over the course of the day; some assert that the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/stories/86dlistpdx/2510838863044793539/?hl=en">food could cause food poisoning</a> throughout the unhoused community, while others say <a href="https://twitter.com/teamraccoonpdx/status/1362112758993485824">the food was obviously safe</a> and showed no signs of spoilage. The heart of this debate comes out of an urge to help the <a href="https://www.oregonhungertaskforce.org/the-problem">one million Oregonians who are food insecure</a>, a number that doubled in 2020. The question remains: If the food was sitting untouched in a power outage, why was there no effort to donate that food before it became a question of safety? Instead, much of it joined the 40 million tons of food thrown away by Americans each year. </p>
<p id="yqbw6t">• <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2021/02/portland-police-guard-dumpster-face-off-with-residents-trying-to-get-discarded-food-from-fred-meyer.html">Portland police officers ‘guarding’ Fred Meyer dumpsters as residents seek discarded food</a> [O]<br />• <a href="https://pdx.eater.com/2020/8/11/21295571/how-to-help-during-pandemic-covid-19-portland">The Eater Portland Guide on How to Help</a> [EPDX]</p>
<aside id="koCbHt"><div></div></aside><script id="twitter-wjs" type="text/javascript" async defer src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>Defund the Police? We’ve Already Done It Successfully in America.2020-08-08T02:15:41.998000ZJason Kottkehttps://kottke.org/20/08/defund-the-police-weve-already-done-it-successfully-in-america<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/defund-the-police-we/8676581:f639f4">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/8676581.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> kottke.org.</b>
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<p>The American system of law enforcement is so deeply embedded into our national psyche that if you find the idea of defunding or abolishing the police challenging, I don’t blame you. But imagine calling an ambulance because a loved one was having trouble breathing or was suffering a stroke and, instead of the expected trained paramedics, a man with a gun showed up. Not great, right? As Jamie Ford <a href="https://twitter.com/JamieFord/status/1272273637173637120">explains in this thread</a>, that was not unusual in America until recently.</p>
<blockquote><p>Until the 70s, ambulance services were generally run by local police and fire departments. There was no law requiring medical training beyond basic first-aid and in many cases the assignment of ambulance duty was used as a form of punishment.</p>
<p>As you can imagine, throwing people with medical emergencies into the back of a paddy wagon produced less than spectacular health outcomes. Now imagine how much worse it became when disgruntled white police officers were demoted to ambulance duty in black neighborhoods.</p></blockquote>
<p>From Kevin Hazzard’s <a href="https://magazine.atavist.com/the-first-responders-paramedics-pittsburgh-civil-rights-ems">The First Responders</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Emergency care was mostly a transportation industry, focused on getting patients to hospitals, and it was dominated by two groups: funeral homes and police departments. Call the local authorities for help and you’d likely get morticians in a hearse or cops in a paddy wagon. If you received any treatment en route to the hospital — and most likely you did not — it wouldn’t be very good. At best, one of the people helping may have taken a first-aid course. At worst, you’d ride alone in the back, hoping, if you were conscious, that you’d survive.</p></blockquote>
<p>Pittsburgh’s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_House_Ambulance_Service">Freedom House Ambulance Service</a> changed all that, ushering in a new era of much improved medical care for communities around the US.</p>
<blockquote><p>Together the two men hashed out a plan: Hallen would raise the money, Safar would contribute his medical expertise, and together they would design advanced ambulances and teach paramedics to provide care on the scene of an accident or emergency. It would be a pioneering medical effort, and Hallen, who was white, suggested another first. The Falk Fund was committed to mitigating racism, and Hallen wanted to staff the service with young black men from the Hill. He hoped that empowering individuals long deemed unemployable would be a source of pride in the black community, a symbol of equality, and a signal that bigoted notions about the black people of Pittsburgh standing in their own way were nonsense.</p>
<p>To help with recruitment, Hallen and Safar partnered with an organization called Freedom House Enterprises, a nonprofit dedicated to establishing and supporting black-run businesses in the city. Freedom House handled staffing for the fledgling ambulance service and recruited the first class of paramedics, including Vietnam veterans and men with criminal records.</p></blockquote>
<p>So this is a great instance in which armed and untrained police officers have been relieved of a particular responsibility and replaced with specially trained personnel, resulting in a greatly improved outcome for members of the community. If you want other examples, just think about how odd, unhelpful, and dangerous it would be for our communities if the police showed up — armed with a loaded weapon — to collect your garbage, to put out fires, to inspect restaurants, to fix potholes, or to deliver the mail. No, we have sanitation workers, firefighters, public health inspectors, municipal maintenance workers, and postal workers to do these jobs — and they’re all trained in the ins and outs of their particular disciplines.</p>
<p>With these examples in mind, instead of armed personnel handling a wide variety of situations for which they are often not trained, it becomes <a href="https://theappeal.org/10-ways-to-reduce-our-reliance-on-policing-and-make-our-communities-safer-for-everyone/">easier to imagine</a> traffic patrols conducting transportation safety stops, social workers responding to domestic disputes, special crisis centers assisting rape victims, mental health counselors helping people behaving erratically in public, housing guides finding homeless folks a place to stay, student safety coaches helping struggling students navigate school, unarmed personnel responding to property crime, and drug addiction counselors helping drug users stay safe. These are all areas where American communities have applied policing by default, like a flimsy bandaid. It’s ineffective, expensive, and dangerous, and communities should think seriously about supporting and funding alternatives that will be more effective, cheaper, safer, and produce better outcomes for everyone.</p>
<strong>Tags:</strong> <a href="https://kottke.org/tag/cities">cities</a> <a href="https://kottke.org/tag/crime">crime</a> <a href="https://kottke.org/tag/Jamie%20Ford">Jamie Ford</a> <a href="https://kottke.org/tag/medicine">medicine</a> <a href="https://kottke.org/tag/policing">policing</a>Libraries Providing Virtual Reference Service via Virtual Reality: An Idea Whose Time Has Come?2019-07-07T18:59:52.784000ZRyan Schultzhttps://ryanschultz.com/2019/07/07/libraries-providing-virtual-reference-service-via-virtual-reality-an-idea-whose-time-has-come/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/libraries-providing-/6898394:dd7022">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/6898394.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Ryan Schultz:</b>
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Have you ever used virtual reference services from a library?
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<p>The short answer is: not yet, but that doesn’t mean that libraries shouldn’t prepare for the eventuality. </p>
<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="alignright"><img alt="" class="wp-image-29900" src="https://i2.wp.com/ryanschultz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/referencedesk.jpg?w=660&ssl=1" /><figcaption>Reference Desk, UCLA School of Law</figcaption></figure></div>
<p>Many academic, public, and special libraries offer virtual reference services to their users. <a href="http://www.ala.org/tools/virtual-reference-selected-annotated-bibliography">The American Library Association defines <em>virtual reference</em> as</a>:</p>
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote"><p>Virtual reference is reference service initiated electronically, often in real-time, where patrons employ computers or other Internet technology to communicate with reference staff, without being physically present. Communication channels used frequently in virtual reference include chat, videoconferencing, Voice over IP, co-browsing, e-mail, and instant messaging…</p><p>Reference services requested and provided over the Internet, usually via e-mail, instant messaging (“chat”), or Web-based submission forms, usually answered by librarians in the reference department of a library, sometimes by the participants in a collaborative reference system serving more than one institution. </p></blockquote>
<p>There has been extensive academic research done on libraries offering services in predecessor virtual worlds such as Second Life. <a href="https://ryanschultz.com/2018/08/13/the-rise-and-fall-of-library-use-of-second-life-what-happened-to-all-the-libraries-that-used-to-be-in-second-life-and-other-virtual-worlds/">Libraries’ and librarians’ presence in SL has waned after an initial burst of enthusiasm</a>, mainly due to budgetary constraints, the relatively steep learning curve associated with Second Life, and the fact that few people were expecting to use what they considered a game platform to access library services (user mismatch). However, this earlier research gives us a glimpse of what virtual reference via VR could look like. In fact, <a href="https://ryanschultz.com/2018/12/22/the-first-episode-of-the-metaverse-newscast-is-now-up-on-youtube/">one person (Cedar Librarian) has already built a functional library on the social VR platform High Fidelity</a>, using public-domain versions of classic books.</p>
<p>One important issue that virtual reference service via VR would face is the licensing of resources. Libraries sign license agreements with commercial database publishers which restrict access to institutional users only. This means that, if I were to provide reference services to a user not affiliated with my institution, I would not be able to provide them with copies of books and articles. However, there are still many useful non-commercial information resources such as <a href="https://scholar.google.com">Google Scholar</a> that we could refer users to, as well as the myriad of resources of their own local public and academic libraries. Librarians refer users to other libraries all the time.</p>
<p>Another key issue is the cost of VR equipment and the learning curve associated with social VR platforms. While I would argue that it is easier and more natural to get started in Sansar than it is in Second Life, it’s still a significant challenge for many people to take their first steps in VR. The first generation of VR headsets, the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, were complicated to set up, and required an expensive gaming-level computer. However, cheaper standalone VR headsets like the Oculus Quest promise to bring VR to an ever larger audience of consumers, including potential library users.</p>
<p>I can forsee a future (starting perhaps a decade from now) where many libraries would offer virtual reference services to users via virtual reality (“VR in VR”, if you like). Users could make appointments for their avatar to meet in-world with a reference librarian, who would assist them in finding electronic and printed information resources to answer their questions. Alternatively, library staff could sit at the virtual reference desk at regularly scheduled shifts, available to whoever dropped in with a query. The reference interview would encompass both text chat and voice chat, and include hand gestures, body language, and facial expressions, just as in real-life conversations. Academic, public, and special libraries could even work together to create a collaborative, 24/7 reference service which spans the globe and has locations on many popular social VR platforms. </p>
<figure class="wp-block-image"><img alt="" class="wp-image-29901" src="https://i1.wp.com/ryanschultz.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/virtual-reality-2229924_1920.jpg?fit=660%2C380&ssl=1" /><figcaption>One day, you might just consult with your reference librarian in virtual reality. <br />(Image by <a href="https://pixabay.com/users/geralt-9301/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=2229924">Gerd Altmann</a> from <a href="https://pixabay.com/?utm_source=link-attribution&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=image&utm_content=2229924">Pixabay</a>)</figcaption></figure>
<p>As I said, it’s not here yet. But it’s coming, and perhaps sooner than you might think. </p>
<p> </p>Meet Libby - the new robot library assistant at the University of Pretoria's Hatfield campus2019-07-07T05:18:03.164000Zhttps://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-06-04-meet-libby-the-new-robot-library-assistant-at-the-university-of-pretorias-hatfield-campus/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
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<div><div><p>The new coolest attraction at the library of the University of Pretoria’s main campus in Hatfield is a robot named Libby.</p><p>Although short and slightly chubby for her height, she’s become the hottest thing on campus after being appointed as the new library assistant at the university which boasts a 50,000-plus student community.</p><p>The stumpy robot helps with directions and can help you find your way at the campus’ main library. When Sowetan interviewed her on Tuesday, Libby could respond to 2,500 questions and was in for an upgrade on Thursday, which would expand her information processing capabilities.</p><p>When asked why was Libby around, Isak van der Walt, the university's centre manager for digital scholarship and MakerSpace, said her presence was informed by the university and its library's drive to “immerse itself in the Fourth Industrial Revolution".</p><p>“The library continuously strives to redefine academic librarianship and how we deliver services. With the growing number of students we had to get smart on how we still deliver excellent service but still advance and stay relevant. This has been done by the adoption of self-help terminals,” Van der Walt said.</p></div></div>Opinion | Smash the Wellness Industry2019-06-10T18:10:55.989000Zhttps://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/08/opinion/sunday/women-dieting-wellness.html<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
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<div><div><p>The diet industry is a virus, and viruses are smart. It has survived all these decades by adapting, but it’s as dangerous as ever. In 2019, dieting presents itself as wellness and clean eating, duping modern feminists to participate under the guise of health. Wellness influencers attract sponsorships and hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram by tying before and after selfies to inspiring narratives. Go from sluggish to vibrant, insecure to confident, foggy-brained to cleareyed. But when you have to deprive, punish and isolate yourself to look “good,” it is impossible to <em>feel</em> good. I was my sickest and loneliest when I appeared my healthiest.</p><p>If these wellness influencers really cared about health, they might tell you that yo-yo dieting in women may increase their risk for heart disease, <a href="https://newsroom.heart.org/news/yo-yo-dieting-may-increase-womens-heart-disease-risk" rel="nofollow" class="external">according to a recent preliminary study</a> presented to the American Heart Association. They might also promote behaviors that increase community and connection, like going out to a meal with a friend or joining a book club. These activities are sustainable and <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/relationships-boost-survival/?redirect=1" rel="nofollow" class="external">have been scientifically linked to improved health, </a> yet are often at odds with the solitary, draining work of trying to micromanage every bite of food that goes into your mouth. </p><p>The wellness industry <em>is</em> the diet industry, and the diet industry is a function of the patriarchal beauty standard under which women either punish themselves to become smaller or are punished for failing to comply, and the stress of this hurts our health too. I am a thin white woman, and the shame and derision I have experienced for failing to be even thinner is nothing compared with what women in less compliant bodies bear. Wellness is a largely white, privileged enterprise catering to largely white, privileged, already thin and able-bodied women, promoting exercise only they have the time to do and Tuscan kale only they have the resources to buy.</p><p>Finally, wellness also contributes to the insulting cultural subtext that women cannot be trusted to make decisions when it comes to our own bodies, even when it comes to nourishing them. We must adhere to some sort of “program” or we will go off the rails.</p><p>We cannot push to eradicate the harassment, abuse and oppression of women while continuing to serve a system that demands we hurt ourselves to be more attractive and less threatening to men.</p><p>And yet that is exactly what we are doing when we sit around the lunch table and call our stomachs horror shows.</p><p>There is something called the Bechdel test for film. Developed by Alison Bechdel in 1985, an American cartoonist, the idea is that the film must satisfy three requirements to pass: (1) feature at least two women who (2) talk to each other about (3) something other than a man. Sounds simple, but a shocking number of films have failed to pass.</p></div></div>A U.S. Army Tweet Asking 'How Has Serving Impacted You?' Got An Agonizing Response2019-05-27T18:43:15.409000ZStacey Samuelhttps://www.npr.org/2019/05/27/727254720/a-u-s-army-tweet-asking-how-has-serving-impacted-you-got-an-agonizing-response?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/a-us-army-tweet-aski/6227898:b1c768">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/6227898.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> NPR Topics: News.</b>
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<img alt="In this Dec. 24, 2011 file photo, a soldier walks with his family following a ceremony at Fort Hood, Texas, for soldiers from the U.S. Army 1st Cavalry 3rd Brigade, who returned home from deployment in Iraq." src="https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2019/05/27/ap_111224145198-soldier-returns-home_wide-419a53c72e42b1e7c58db3da7fe17084f1fca4f9.jpg?s=600" /><p>In response to the May 23 tweet, thousands of veterans and their loved ones shared stories of trauma, depression, illness, sexual assault and suicide.</p><p>(Image credit: Erich Schlegel/AP)</p><img src="https://media.npr.org/include/images/tracking/npr-rss-pixel.png?story=727254720" />How I Hacked My iPhone’s “Do Not Disturb While Driving” Function and Significantly Improved My Life — Brick2019-05-26T16:48:25.964000Zhttps://www.gobricknow.com/blog/2018/5/18/how-i-hacked-my-iphones-do-not-disturb-while-driving-function-and-significantly-improved-my-life<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/how-i-hacked-my-ipho/7485611:29eba3">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/7485611.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> News - Brick - The Phone-Free Movement:</b>
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I'm trying this out for the first time today. Wish me luck!
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<div><div><p>We do this because we feel an obligation to respond immediately when someone messages us. When we get a text, we get this feeling, this itch, that we only have a certain amount of time to respond before we feel guilty about the “delay.” Conversely, when we reach out to others, we expect them to do the same. This is the slippery slope we’ve fallen into as we’ve created the “always on” society. </p><p>This lifestyle is not serving me and it’s not serving you. I don’t want to be a slave to my phone or our society to be either because we’re headed towards <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VASywEuqFd8" rel="nofollow" class="external">a very dark </a>reality.</p><p>As a self-diagnosed ex-phone addict, I don’t have all the answers, but I do have an iPhone lifehack that has significantly improved my life. If you do this too, together we might start to mend our “generational addiction” for the survival of meaningful relationships, before it’s too late.</p><p><strong>HOW I TURNED APPLE’S “DO NOT DISTURB WHILE DRIVING” INTO AN iMESSAGE AUTO-REPLY.</strong></p><p>A year ago I created a rule for myself that became a daily routine. For at least an hour every day, I disconnect from my phone by turning it into a Brick™, and do something engaging in the real world. It’s worked so well that I left my job to start a community that makes it fun and easy for others to join me and get off the grid a little bit every day (join at <a href="https://www.gobricknow.com/" rel="nofollow" class="external">www.gobricknow.com</a>).</p><p>When my phone is in Brick™ Mode and I’m completely disconnected from the internet (at dinner with a friend, on a hike, or reading a book) anyone who texts me will get an automatic reply saying that I’m off my phone and I’ll get back to them when I’ve reconnected. This simple auto-reply relieves my “always on” pressure because I know that anyone who texts knows I haven’t seen the message yet. So the “always on” clock hasn’t started in my absence. When I come back to my phone and I get my “notification flood,” I’m not triggered with the pang of anxiety that I’m already behind on a ton of things. This also relieves the pressure from anyone who texts me because they know I haven’t seen it yet and won’t be getting back to them immediately. This is much more pleasant than wondering if they’re being ignored.</p><p>My life has really opened up. I’ve been more engaged with my friends and family, I read 28 books last year and I started my own company. Brick Mode has made all the difference.</p></div></div>What's Your Purpose? Finding A Sense Of Meaning In Life Is Linked To Health2019-05-26T14:38:47.858000ZMara Gordonhttps://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2019/05/25/726695968/whats-your-purpose-finding-a-sense-of-meaning-in-life-is-linked-to-health?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=news<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/whats-your-purpose-f/6227898:629c7c">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/6227898.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> NPR Topics: News:</b>
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Unsurprising. Now to decouple the meaning of life from arbitrary social milestones.
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<img alt="Having a purpose in life, whether building guitars or swimming or volunteer work, affects your health, researchers found. It even appeared to be more important for decreasing risk of death than exercising regularly." src="https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2019/05/24/lifepurpose_wide-226722da836907905b81ca51fd5f3b7ce2b15554.jpg?s=600" /><p>Researchers found that people who did not have a strong life purpose were more likely to die than those who did — specifically more likely to die of cardiovascular diseases. </p><p>(Image credit: Dean Mitchell/Getty Images)</p><img src="https://media.npr.org/include/images/tracking/npr-rss-pixel.png?story=726695968" />Everything I know about a good death I learned from my cat2019-05-25T18:22:51.708000Zhttps://www.theverge.com/2015/2/23/8069825/everything-i-know-about-a-good-death-i-learned-from-my-cat<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/everything-i-know-ab/6643112:57dd9b">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/6643112.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> The Verge - All Posts:</b>
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I can relate to much of this article. My Zen is 22 years old and has been dying slowly for quite some time.
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<div><div><p>Dorothy Parker — Dottie, to her friends — is a cat I adopted in Brooklyn from a local vet; she made the cross-country hop with me to Oakland with minimal fuss. Her attitude, most of the time, is that of a 14-year-old Marxist in a Che Guevara T-shirt. One of her favorite moods is <em>murder</em>. She likes cuddling, hates strangers, and goes crazy for ice cream. She steals cheese. I live with a tiny, vicious alien, and I love her.</p><p><q>she's clawed out two years; i'd like longer, but that's not in the cards</q></p><noscript>
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<p class="readability-styled" style="display: inline;"> When Dottie was first diagnosed with leukemia in January 2013, I panicked. But my vet helped me through it; we had to have a conversation about cost of care versus benefit of care. We kept diagnostic tests to a minimum, in part because they’re costly, but also to spare her trauma — she hates the vet and has to be sedated to be examined. Usually, she shits herself in her carrier on the way there, out of what I presume is terror.
</p><p>We were lucky; she had an indolent leukemia — a slow-growing blood cancer. It responded well first to prednisone, then to chemotherapy when the prednisone alone was no longer enough. She’s clawed out two years; I’d like longer, but that’s not in the cards.</p><p>And this is where I feel I have been better served by my vet than many patients are by their doctors: we have had, for the last two years, a continuous conversation about Dottie’s end-of-life plan. No one has ever promised me a cure, or made me hope Dottie will beat cancer. I have not been shuttled from one expensive treatment to the next, in the hopes of another month or two. Some of this, doubtless, has to do with cost — I am paying for all her treatments, so my vet has to run through an itemized list of what she plans to do for Dottie so I can okay it. That also means that we talk about the risks and benefits of her treatments in great detail, so I can decide how best to treat her.</p><p><q>it is very difficult to look a person in the eye and tell her she is dying</q></p><p><q></q>But some of it, I suspect, is that it is very difficult to look a person in the eye and tell her she is dying — even though it may be the kindest possible thing to do. No one has to do that with a cat, and there’s only one person making Dottie’s decisions: me. I try to take what will make her happiest into account — it is the reason we pursued steroids as a main treatment, to keep the side-effects in check — but I don’t have to ask her how she wants to die.</p><p>Most Americans <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus10.pdf#page=63" rel="nofollow" class="external">want to die at home</a>; most don’t do so. Only 19 percent of people ages 85 and older <a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1568250" rel="nofollow" class="external">die at home</a>. They die, instead, <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus10.pdf" rel="nofollow" class="external">in the hospital or a nursing home</a>.</p><noscript>
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<p class="readability-styled" style="display: inline;"> Dottie will die at home. That’s one of the things the vet and I talked about — my cat is currently in what my vet calls "a gray zone," where euthanasia isn’t wrong per se but isn’t definitively necessary to spare her suffering. Dottie used to weigh almost 20 pounds; she now weighs six. Her back legs are weak, and she slides a little when she jumps onto surfaces. She’s tired almost all the time, and she no longer runs to the door to greet me when I return from the outside world, as she habitually did for most of the six years we’ve spent together.
</p><p>A few years ago, "death panels" were a talking point for certain unscrupulous members of the political elite. The "death panels" conservative politicians scrambled to denounce were meant to provide people with the level of care my cat is receiving, to talk dying patients through how their death would go — so they could make their own decisions about where, when, and how they would die. So that maybe a few more Americans could die at home, surrounded by loved ones, instead of full of tubes in the ICU. The controversy these politicians created effectively torpedoed legislation that would have allowed more human beings to have the kind of dignity in death that my cat will have. That something so important was perverted for political purposes is a disgrace.</p><p>"Many critically ill people who die in hospitals still receive unwanted distressing treatments and have prolonged pain," the American Psychological Association — the largest professional organization of psychologists in the US — writes <a href="http://www.apa.org/pi/aids/programs/eol/end-of-life-factsheet.aspx" rel="nofollow" class="external">in its end-of-life care fact sheet</a>. "Many fear that their wishes (advance directives) will be disregarded and that they will face death alone and in misery."</p><p><q>"many fear that their wishes will be disregarded and that they will face death alone and in misery."</q></p><p>Maybe some of it is that people don’t want to accept that death is coming; perhaps some patients want to rage against the dying of the light. But at least some of it is doctors, too. Doctors want to preserve hope in their patients — and probably also in themselves (one becomes a doctor to save lives, after all). "Talking about end of life is difficult for many physicians and their patients and has been a taboo topic in society generally," the APA writes. Doctors struggle to tell patients a cure is impossible; they’re often uncomfortable discussing treatment decisions, like whether the hospital or the home is the best setting for the patient. And some physicians believe they must do everything possible to prolong life no matter how much pain is involved. Some fear that offering palliative care and pain management suggests they’ve quit trying to help their patients, or that they’ve failed in their duties, the APA says. What’s more, few doctors receive education on these absolutely crucial conversations.</p><p>Doctors are increasingly recognizing this gap. The American Medical Association — the largest professional group of physicians in the US — has a <a href="http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-resources/medical-ethics/about-ethics-group/ethics-resource-center/end-of-life-care/ama-statement-end-of-life-care.page?" rel="nofollow" class="external">statement on end-of-life care</a> that focuses on doctors’ duties to alleviate suffering and listen carefully to patients’ needs. Every person, the AMA writes, should expect "the opportunity to discuss and plan for end-of-life care." That includes treatment preferences, worst-case scenarios, the chance to make a formal living will or advanced care directive, and help with creating these documents so they’ll be useful when needed. Patients should know their wishes will be honored, no matter whether they want "to communicate with family and friends, to attend to spiritual needs, to take one last trip, to finish a major unfinished task in life, or to die at home or at another place of personal meaning," the AMA says. Patients deserve "trustworthy assurance that dignity will be a priority" in death. They deserve the careful conversations that my vet and I had about my cat, at minimum.</p><p><q>patients deserve "trustworthy assurance that dignity will be a priority" in death</q></p><noscript>
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<p>(Kristin Delevich)</p>
<p class="readability-styled" style="display: inline;"> My vet is right about Dottie being close to death, that it’s probably a matter of weeks rather than months. I know she’s right because Dottie did not take her habitual swing — last time we went in for Dottie’s checkup, she attacked an assistant so viciously she left several claws in the leather guard the assistant wore to deal with her. This time, she just hid behind me and growled. It felt like she was out of fight. This visit to the vet was her last; from now on, it’s house calls only. Luckily for her and for me, I can afford that. I have referrals for vets who make house calls, and if it comes to it, for at-home euthanasia services.
</p><p>Dottie may make this decision for me; it’s possible one day soon I will wake up and discover that my cat did not. I’m not ready to line up euthanasia yet — and I don’t think she is, either — but I know what to expect. I know her life will end, and I’ve thought about how; I am prepared to deal with the logistics surrounding her death. And it’s because I’ve had difficult conversations with my cat’s health care provider that I’m ready. I only hope that when my own time comes, my doctor is as forthcoming as Dottie’s vet was.</p><p><em>Author's note: While we were editing this piece, Dottie abruptly got sicker — she began to vomit blood. She died at home on Sunday, February 22nd. Changing the tenses in this piece is a relatively simple edit; I cannot bring myself to make it. </em></p></div></div>Letting Go of Facebook2019-02-17T18:58:48.273000ZMarius Masalarhttps://mariusmasalar.me/letting-go-of-facebook/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/letting-go-of-facebo/6453639:c2f371">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/6453639.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Marius Masalar.</b>
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<img alt="Letting Go of Facebook" src="https://mariusmasalar.me/content/images/2019/02/MariusMasalar-20180915-E-M1MarkII-1539-1-copy-3.jpg" /><p>As my close friends know, I’ve spent the beginning of this year grappling with grief. It bears little resemblance to what I thought grief meant—despair, anger, regret.</p><p>Grief is not malicious but it <em>is</em> insidious. It permeates.</p><p>An unexpected consequence of this immersion in grief has been a sort of detachment from the day-to-day. I’m watching my life from the outside as my body continues to go through the motions. I’m seeing some things I don’t like, and if there’s a silver lining in all this, it’s that I’m finding myself able to direct more attention to addressing those problems.</p><p>One such problem is that I’ve been falling victim to a set of false expectations and misplaced idealism when it comes to online platforms.</p><p>It can be unsettling to put deliberate distance between yourself and the technology of the day, but I believe the time for boundless optimism has passed. This is a difficult admission to make as a technologist and early adopter. It’s time to be more critical of the technology we invite into our lives and our homes. The love of technology is an unrequited one, after all.</p><p>As Jesse Weaver <a href="https://medium.com/s/story/the-growing-cost-of-early-adoption-75050e80b004">recently put it</a>:</p><blockquote><em>Today, each new device we purchase is a conscious decision to share an intimate piece of ourselves with a company whose goals may not align with our own. This exchange represents a fundamental shift in our relationship with technology and the companies that produce it. Adoption is no longer an ephemeral transaction of money for goods. It’s a permanent choice of personal exposure for convenience.</em></blockquote><p>I’m making some changes to my online footprint, but I believe my role remains the same: to help others navigate the reality of modern technology and find healthy ways to include or exclude it from daily life.</p><p>It starts with Facebook, a company whose ongoing actions make very clear that their goals do not align with my own.</p><h2 id="i-m-leaving-facebook-all-of-it-behind">I’m Leaving Facebook—All Of It—Behind</h2><p>For a long time now, my relationship with Facebook has been an unhappy one. I don’t use its feed, I prefer not to use its Messenger, and I feel like its Groups and Events provide too little value for the cost in privacy that a presence on their platform demands.</p><p>In truth, I could have given those up more easily had Facebook not also become the steward of Instagram. But leaving one without leaving the other isn’t just pointless from a privacy perspective, it also feels like delaying the inevitable drop of the other shoe. The ghosts that haunt Facebook have already possessed Instagram too, and they’ll leech its lifeblood just as readily.</p><p>A couple of years ago, I would have argued that Instagram is among the last bastions of pleasantness in social media. In many ways, it remains so today—the atmosphere is still mostly enjoyable. A focus on visuals makes it easier to maintain a sunny disposition, I suppose.</p><p>But over the past few months, I’ve had a more and more difficult time posting on Instagram. I keep ignoring my reminder to put something up. It’s taken me a while, but I think it’s time to admit that the experience isn’t what it used to be. Recent reflection has helped me understand the hidden costs of participation that were contributing to my subconscious hesitation.</p><p>There’s a different sort of toxicity there, and it has to do with the increasing theatricality of the feed. </p><p>Aspirational artifice is the name of the game on the Instagram of 2019. Scrolling the feed is like wandering through a maze of motivational posters, humblebrags, and weirdly distorted perspectives on the people we choose to follow.</p><p>Authenticity is a personal choice, but you can’t escape the fact that the product itself is built around encouraging and monetizing the small dopamine cascade of “engagement”. I fell for this, tagging and building up a decent audience on Instagram over the last few years.</p><p>I’ve now stopped and asked myself <em>why</em>.</p><p>Engagement feels nice, sure, but if I’m being honest with myself, I have to admit I gain nothing from it; the collection of internet points is a surprisingly hollow affair. It hasn’t brought me more work, or friends, or even conversations. The only Instagram DMs I get are from spam accounts.</p><p>And what if I succeed? Really <em>make it</em> on the platform? I’ve been reviewing products for a long time, but I make a terrible capital-I <em>Influencer.</em> I refuse many “partnerships” and only recommend products I use and like over time. My loyalty is to you, not the goblins of consumerist modernity.</p><p>Instagram’s feed is morphing, slowly but deliberately, into another mood manipulating platform for advertisers rather than users. You can tell it’s not for us because we aren’t asked to pay for it…except in data. Making that choice deliberately is fine, especially if you <em>do</em> get something positive out of it, but I don’t.</p><p>And I’m beginning to worry very deeply about transacting in data. There are no refunds for that particular currency.</p><p>Still, leaving Instagram hurts. I see a lot of beautiful images, particularly from my close friends and photographers whose work I admire. That’s why I think my account will remain active, just non-participatory for now. One step at a time.</p><p>But my Facebook account will be deactivated very shortly.</p><h2 id="no-more">No More</h2><p>There’s a bigger discussion here, one that transcends a single social media empire.</p><p><a href="https://medium.com/swlh/the-future-of-digital-product-design-is-about-human-empowerment-6a025bc330a">Jesse again</a>:</p><blockquote><em>Today, the digital products we use demand so much of us, and intrude so deeply into our daily existence that they undermine our confidence and make it harder and harder for us to control our lives. Our data and activity are mined and used with no compensation or transparency. Our focus is crippled by constant notifications. Our choices are actively reduced by algorithms that decide what we should see. In the worst of it, we can’t even set our devices down because we’ve lost our ability to resist them.</em></blockquote><p>I recognize myself in too many of these descriptions, and I’d like to be more active about managing the impact of technology on my attention, productivity, and wellbeing by not taking for granted the usual assumptions.</p><p>Working in marketing will make it clear very quickly how often product design is about inventing problems so you can sell a solution to them.</p><p>Legitimate problems exist, and technology remains equipped to solve them in remarkable and exciting ways (I’m eager to write about my new <a href="https://casper.com/ca/en/glow-light/">Casper Glow</a> lights soon), but not always and not with such urgency that we should trust new solutions uncritically.</p><p>I will remain excited by and deeply involved in technology, but I intend to be more careful about which companies I trust and how I spend my time online.</p><p>I have more to say about all this, but this is already a long post and I need to go outside to enjoy the snowstorm blowing through the city.</p>They Don’t Want to Know: Rebecca Solnit on Brett Kavanaugh and the Denial of Old White Men2018-10-02T19:47:58.868000ZRebecca Solnithttps://lithub.com/they-dont-want-to-know-rebecca-solnit-on-brett-kavanaugh-and-the-denial-of-old-white-men/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/they-dont-want-to-kn/5923052:920265">shared this story</a>
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<img alt="" class="attachment-medium_large size-medium_large wp-post-image" height="356" src="https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/kavanaugh-768x356.jpg" style="float: left; margin: 0 15px 15px 0;" width="768" /><p>They don’t want to know. They don’t want to know what these women or any women have experienced and what they have to say. They don’t want to add up the pieces of what all the people who knew Brett Kavanaugh as an incoherent hardcore drunk in his youth have told us about him. Kavanaugh doesn’t want to know—he told Senator Kamala Harris that he didn’t listen to Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony as any lawyer looking to understand what the charges are would, to understand how to refute the specifics (or he lied under oath about this, since <em>The Week</em> reports, “On Thursday, morning, a Senate Judiciary Committee aide <a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/kavanaugh/card/1538060501?ns=prod/accounts-wsj">told <em>The Wall Street Journal</em></a> that Kavanaugh was watching Ford testify from a monitor in a separate room in the Dirksen Senate Building.”).</p>
<p>He is from a culture of the suppression of knowledge, and he has told us so directly. He joked in a 2015 speech “What happens at Georgetown Prep, stays at Georgetown Prep,” a familiar phrase that in its various versions has justified a tribalism that protects its own against the larger society by hiding facts. In his senior yearbook page from that elite school, he wrote, “He who would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows, nor JUDGE all he sees.” In addition to being a phrase in praise of denial, it’s an apparent joking reference to his friend Mark Judge. Judge is who Ford says was his accomplice in attacking her. Judge has refused to testify and the Republican-led Judiciary Commission has refused to subpoena him, voting down a move by Senator Blumenthal today to use this means to oblige him to tell us what he knows.</p>
<p>Judge’s former girlfriend Elizabeth Rasor told the<em> New Yorker</em> that Judge had confessed to taking part in what appears to have been a gang rape: “Rasor recalled that Judge had told her ashamedly of an incident that involved him and other boys taking turns having sex with a drunk woman,” which might not have been regarded as rape then but is now. Gang-raping intoxicated and incapacitated girls is exactly what Julie Swetnick, the would-be witness who came forward Wednesday, states that Kavanaugh and Judge did at the parties she attended. Many conservatives responded by blaming her for not reporting it at the time, rather than understand how seldom there were consequences for such reports then, how often victims were blamed, how readily rapists still get off—and how bystanders and victims are not responsible for rape, rapists are.</p>
<p>The Republicans supporting Kavanaugh do not want to know. When they claim to be shocked or incredulous about allegations of gang rape at preppies’ parties, they demonstrate that they have avoided the many, many stories that have been in the news the last several years about gang rapes by high-school athletes and college fraternity members, as recently as last week in the <em>Washington Post</em>. They don’t want to know how ordinary it is for the attacked to tell the truth and attackers to lie, in all crimes, not just sexual assault.</p>
<p>They have decided, now that the cost of smearing victims the way they did Anita Hill—as delusional, fantasizing, manipulative—is too high, to pretend they care but to delicately, gingerly just pretend she doesn’t exist in any way that matters. They have denied her capacity to bear witness and the consequences of her testimony under oath as thoroughly as they did Hill’s but not as honestly. There’s an old adage that you’re entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts; these men feel entitled to their own facts and to make the facts of others go away. In their cosmology, the facts that matter belong to the people who matter, and Kavanaugh matters in this scheme and Ford does not.</p>
<span class="pullquote">“From beginning to end, the Kavanaugh nomination has been about thwarting knowledge and awareness.”</span>
<p>While they pretend to pity the victim, these men reserve their real pity for the man who is alleged to have raped her and for all (white) men whose impunity is under threat now. They do not want to know what it means to be a victim; they insist on limiting their awareness to what it feels like to be an accused victimizer nd to make that victimizer over into the true victim. Their indignation—and Kavanaugh’s fury, displayed in red-faced shouting and histrionic tears of rage—is that anyone dare to hold a white male product of the country’s most elite institutions accountable.</p>
<p>What has in the past been subtle is now obvious: this is a battle over whether this will be a country for all of us, a democracy in which everyone matters and all are equal, or a citadel of white male privilege. They are a minority—including babies and boys, white males make up a third of this country—but have majority party and are in a rageful panic about its ebb. This nomination is a power grab for the party committed to representing them at everyone else’s expense. That’s out in the open now; that clarity may mean that even if they win this battle, they’ve committed themselves to losing the war, because there will be backlash.</p>
<p>They have decided to pretend that Kavanaugh is unfairly being regarded as guilty when they will not allow an FBI investigation that, surely, backers of an innocent candidate would seek. They don’t want to know. I’m listening as I write this to Senator Ted Cruz denounce the “sensational, ridiculous charges”—attacking the victim directly now—and fret about Kavanaugh’s daughters because “these little girls have classmates of theirs repeat these charges to them.” It is the fault of rape victims that rape charges are unpleasant for the family; victims should shut up to protect the children from knowing who their father is. They could investigate his guilt or innocence, but they have chosen to suppress rather than pursue truth.</p>
<p>Cruz is now talking about Kavanaugh’s reputation of “being a boring boy scout: that’s been his reputation for a long time.” If you ask his college roommates and acquaintances you get other stories—about drunkenness and partying. If you ask three women and the people who back up their stories, he is a man who has treated women as having no inherent right to bodily boundaries and dignity to demonstrate dominion over them to other men. Kavanaugh keeps insisting that “the people who know me” affirm his version of who he is, which is an insistence that those who echo his version count and those who do not don’t count.</p>
<p>The latest of his Yale friends, acquaintances, and roommates to come forward is Republican Lynne Brookes, who said on CNN “And there had to be a number of nights where he does not remember. In fact, I was witness to the night that he got tapped into that fraternity, and he was stumbling drunk in a ridiculous costume saying really dumb things. And I can almost guarantee that there’s no way that he remembers that night.” She is saying not knowing is fundamental to who he was, and by denying this he chooses not to know who he is. A person who does not know who he is, is dangerous, since he won’t hold himself accountable for what he did; a judge in this condition—since the judiciary is how all of us who come before it are held accountable—is outrageous. James Roche, his freshman roommate, said earlier that Kavanaugh was often “incoherently” drunk and became “aggressive and belligerent” in that condition. There are so many witnesses. Another testifies to Kavanaugh’s vomit-caked dorm bathroom, because he was so habitually drunk and so habitually vomiting while drunk (and didn’t clean it up). Their statements add up.</p>
<p>The desire to know and understand is perhaps the highest and most humane of all our impulses; it is the desire to open up, to grow, to reach out, to exceed one’s limits, to experience the humanity and truth of others. The pursuit of knowledge is the profession we pursue as lawyers, writers, historians, scientists, teachers, as it is that of anyone who seeks self-awareness and an understanding of the people and world around us. Or not. From beginning to end, the Kavanaugh nomination has been about thwarting knowledge and awareness, of denying the senate access to 100,000 pages of documents that would let him know what he actually did during the Bush Administration. We know enough, and we know that he has lied about receiving information stolen from the Democrats, distorted his record on many things. We have seen him prevaricate, waffle, and pretend to be confused and unable to remember when Kamala Harris asked him a simple yes or no question about recent actions, while he continues to insist his memory is unquestionable.</p>
<span class="pullquote">“That Kavanaugh is not a nominee for a normal job makes this all the more grim and outrageous than it would be otherwise.”</span>
<p>Alcohol in small quantities muffles acuity of perception—a glass of wine at dinner can make the day go into soft-focus; more can shift consciousness from soft-focus to dimness and incapacitation; yet more means blackouts in which consciousness is extinguished and/or memory of what happened while drunk is obliterated. Dr. Ford testified about the role of the hippocampus in memory formation; alcohol impairs that function; there is a state of inebriation in which memories are no longer being created. Alcohol is, in quantity, the drug of oblivion, of not knowing. I have been around men in drinking cultures where what happens while drunk is treated as off-limits while sober; it is supposed to be forgotten, ignored, off the record, not be held against the drinkers. “What happens at the party stays at the party.”</p>
<p>Chris Hayes of MSNBC said, “The possibility hangs over all of this, one I return to over and over, that Blasey Ford’s account is absolutely true and that Kavanaugh has absolutely no memory of it and thinks he has been falsely accused.” Perhaps. Perhaps he is like many abusers who, when accused, respond something like “by saying I did this you are saying I am a bad person but I had the right to do it, I am guilty of nothing, and therefore you are wrong.” I wrote an essay this spring called “<a href="https://harpers.org/archive/2018/03/nobody-knows-3/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Nobody Knows</a>” about how those regarded as nobody are treated as people without voices and rights; what those considered to be somebody who matters do to them they do to nobody. Nobody knows what you did, there are no witnesses, because this black person, this poor person, this child, this woman cannot bear witness; their word does not matter; their testimony has no consequences. Too many elites think that what they did to people who are no one is, categorically, nothing. And thus they are justified in claiming they did nothing and indignant w hen told they did something. I am not saying this is the case with Kavanaugh, but I am saying it is common.</p>
<p>Even our laws have enforced the nullity of some of us, not only as lacking rights but lacking the right to witness. In the notorious People vs. Hall case, California’s supreme court let off a murderer by ruling that the testimony of the three eyewitnesses—all Chinese—was inadmissible by an 1850 statue declaring that “no black or mulatto person, or Indian, shall be permitted to give evidence in favor of, or against, a white person.” Truth and the ability to have our voices count is still something to which we have unequal access; #MeToo and Black Lives Matter are both movements to rectify this. The Republicans have demonstrated their commitment to rape culture, to a culture in which the voices of women will be ignored no matter regardless of the facts, in which men will be believed no matter how much evidence there is against them; and the racial equivalencies are everywhere we look, if we choose to.</p>
<p>This unequal status is what has allowed so much sexual assault to be perpetrated, in the Catholic Church, in families, on campuses, so much sexual harassment and abuse in the workplace. It is a direct consequence of the suppression of knowledge and the right and capacity of all of us to have it, to speak it and be heard, and to have consequences for our speech. Equality is one of the fundamental values of this country, delivered in small doses since 1776, and sometimes large ones—the freeing of enslaved people, the granting of voting rights to women, citizenship for Native Americans, the right to educational equality, the Civil Rights act, marriage equality.</p>
<p>That Kavanaugh is not a nominee for a normal job makes this all the more grim and outrageous than it would be otherwise. The job of a Supreme Court justice is to fathom what is true and right, to defend that principle of equality under the law, to pursue justice through an honest quest for truth, to be nonpartisan.</p>
<p>There is a stunning TV commercial making the rounds in which a series of white people denounce Paul Gosar, a candidate for reelection in Arizona. At the end you find out they’re his siblings who have chosen their values over their brother. There are two competing ideologies in this country, loyalty to fact-based ethics and loyalty to one’s tribe.</p>
<p>Some of us are purely tribal—our loyalty is to our family, posse, gang, political party, identity group, no matter what. That’s been part of the gangster ethos of the Trump Administration. Others among us are ideological: our primary loyalty is to values and truth, and we will repudiate or tell harsh truths about even people we love if they violate those values. The tribalists will repudiate values to stay with the gang. It’s a way to understand how good Republicans are at cohesiveness and how bad Democrats can be, and why that is sometimes a good thing.</p>
<p>Kavanaugh, like so many of his kind, appears to be bound by loyalties to his elite organizations and to male privilege, white privilege, and the privileges of the wealthy, and to the party committed to all this, the Republican Party—whose ruthlessly partisan player he was and is. Often, membership in the clan makes its members themselves indifferent to the larger society and the rights and interests of other kinds of people. This loyalty also overrides their loyalty to truth and knowledge. It’s an ethos in which the power that resides in the elites stays in the elites, and what is known by outsiders stays outside.</p>
<div class="ctx-subscribe-container ctx-personalization-container ctx_default_placement ctx-clearfix"></div><div class="ctx-social-container ctx_default_placement ctx-clearfix"></div><div class="ctx-module-container ctx_default_placement ctx-clearfix"></div><span class="ctx-article-root"></span>Creamy Golden Milk Smoothie2018-05-28T22:15:16.784000ZDana @ Minimalist Bakerhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/MinimalistBaker/~3/lEiYA5fz7Z0/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/creamy-golden-milk-s/1329268:6e372f">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/1329268.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Minimalist Baker:</b>
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Tried this today. Delicious!
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<a href="https://minimalistbaker.com/creamy-golden-milk-smoothie/"><img align="left" alt="Creamy Golden Milk Smoothie" height="1020" src="https://minimalistbaker.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/HEALTH-BOOSTING-Vegan-Golden-Milk-Smoothie-7-ingred-5-minutes-SO-tasty-vegan-glutenfree-plantbased-smoothie-minimalistbaker-46-680x1020.jpg" style="margin: 0 20px 20px 0;" width="680" /></a></p>
<p>If you’re into golden milk, this smoothie is a must-try! It requires <strong>7 wholesome ingredients</strong> (you likely have on hand right now), <strong>1 blender</strong>, and <strong>5 minutes</strong> to make. Let’s do this!</p>
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<p>The base of this smoothie is frozen banana for <strong>natural sweetness</strong> and a creamy texture. We tested other fruits and nothing quite worked. But if you’re trying (or prefer) to avoid banana, we include another option in the notes!</p>
<p><a href="https://minimalistbaker.com/creamy-golden-milk-smoothie/" rel="nofollow">Creamy Golden Milk Smoothie from Minimalist Baker →</a></p><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/MinimalistBaker/~4/lEiYA5fz7Z0" width="1" />randomslasher:
renamok:
This woman confronts racism in the...2018-03-03T20:46:25.140000Zhttps://leahj.tumblr.com/post/170645173314<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/randomslasher-renamo/1629817:94aa20">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/1629817.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> I tumble for you:</b>
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Perfect.
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<img src="https://78.media.tumblr.com/4acbda3ef64c3e3472493432167cca0e/tumblr_o0d61gWZaN1qc4814o6_500.jpg" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://78.media.tumblr.com/19f81bad82da029f67947f428e5b3944/tumblr_o0d61gWZaN1qc4814o1_500.jpg" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://78.media.tumblr.com/9590f31964fe8cedf62ca614a8972ae4/tumblr_o0d61gWZaN1qc4814o7_500.jpg" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://78.media.tumblr.com/dad0f40af897345a19c11263548d0dba/tumblr_o0d61gWZaN1qc4814o2_500.jpg" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://78.media.tumblr.com/63a2d919ac5888e6623c76c7bacd5fca/tumblr_o0d61gWZaN1qc4814o8_500.jpg" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://78.media.tumblr.com/54749f6522cfd5a363962337321d3178/tumblr_o0d61gWZaN1qc4814o9_500.jpg" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://78.media.tumblr.com/55f4edc275050da33e408394beb7b181/tumblr_o0d61gWZaN1qc4814o3_500.jpg" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://78.media.tumblr.com/48ed54c9dccec9690c038bd30f63d113/tumblr_o0d61gWZaN1qc4814o10_500.jpg" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://78.media.tumblr.com/a4a6a3814fa50294cfd539609628f61b/tumblr_o0d61gWZaN1qc4814o4_500.jpg" /><br /> <br /><img src="https://78.media.tumblr.com/11dbd06f701fc81dca634e136f97e4e1/tumblr_o0d61gWZaN1qc4814o5_500.jpg" /><br /> <br /><p><a class="tumblr_blog" href="http://randomslasher.tumblr.com/post/169855122911/renamok-this-woman-confronts-racism-in-the" target="_blank">randomslasher</a>:</p>
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<p><a class="tumblr_blog" href="http://renamok.tumblr.com/post/136514709230" target="_blank">renamok</a>:</p>
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<p><figure class="tmblr-full"><img class="" src="https://78.media.tumblr.com/6a8a40b7c1b331ac97d156fc46d8b011/tumblr_inline_o0d5xgIBxr1qbethy_540.jpg" /></figure><figure class="tmblr-full"><img class="" src="https://78.media.tumblr.com/32ee1e076640abdb40bffad19674f908/tumblr_inline_o0d5xv8JKt1qbethy_540.jpg" /></figure></p>
<p><a href="http://usuncut.com/black-lives-matter/black-woman-ridicules-racist-white-coworker/" target="_blank">This woman confronts racism in the funniest way possible.</a></p>
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<p>Not all heroes wear capes.</p>
</blockquote>Science Fiction Short Stories to Read Online (And Where to Find Them)2018-01-07T03:09:36.374000Zhttps://bookriot.com/2018/01/04/science-fiction-short-stories-online/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/science-fiction-shor/2920978:e31c5d">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/2920978.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> BOOK RIOT.</b>
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<div><div><p>We’re really in a second golden age of science fiction short stories, with multiple excellent outlets that not only publish these stories, but put them online for free. Here’s a list of a few good stories to get you started—which, trust me, is just scraping the surface of all that was excellent in 2017—and more importantly where you can look for more! So rather than as a long list of just stories, we’ll link you to a publication and give you a couple examples of their offerings. Please note that this list, presented in no particular order, is non-exhaustive and I’ve focused mostly on places that pay their writers pro rates.</p><h3>Lightspeed</h3><p><a href="http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com" rel="nofollow" class="external"><img alt="Lightspeed People of Color Destroy Science Fiction" scale="0" src="https://2982-presscdn-29-70-pagely.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Lightspeed-People-of-Color-Destroy-Science-Fiction-200x300.jpeg" height="300" width="200" />Lightspeed</a> is an online magazine that publishes both science fiction and fantasy short stories. They’re also the originators of <a title="Buy from Amazon" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1499508344/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&tag=boorio-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399349&creativeASIN=1499508344" rel="nofollow" class="external">Women Destroy Science Fiction</a>, a immensely successful project that was a reaction to jerks on the internet whinging that women were ruining science fiction with their lady something-or-others. (Which launched into other great Kickstarted special issues, <a title="Buy from Amazon" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1512142301/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&tag=boorio-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399349&creativeASIN=1512142301" rel="nofollow" class="external">Queers Destroy Science Fiction</a> and <a title="Buy from Amazon" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1532943474/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&tag=boorio-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399349&creativeASIN=1532943474" rel="nofollow" class="external">People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction</a>.)</p><h3>Uncanny</h3><p><a href="https://uncannymagazine.com/" rel="nofollow" class="external">Uncanny</a> is the official magazine of Space Unicorns everywhere. They publish a mix of science fiction and fantasy that’s weird and meaty and always beautifully written. They’ve also taken up the <em>Destroy</em> mantel from Lightspeed, with their upcoming <em>Disabled People Destroy Science Fiction </em>successfully kickstarted in July (<a href="https://uncannymagazine.com/disabled-people-destroy-science-fiction-guidelines/" rel="nofollow" class="external">and about to enter its reading period</a> for stories).</p><h3>Daily Science Fiction</h3><p><a href="http://dailysciencefiction.com/" rel="nofollow" class="external">Daily Science Fiction</a> not only publishes all their stories online, but if you sign up for their mailing list they’ll send them directly to your email, one per weekday. Because of the frequency of publication, they mostly publish flash fiction. And it should be noted that even though “science fiction” is in their name, it’s actually a mix of scifi, fantasy, and borderline horror.</p><h3>Apex Magazine</h3><p><a href="https://www.apex-magazine.com/" rel="nofollow" class="external">Apex Magazine</a> tends toward the darker end of the science fiction and fantasy spectrum, sometimes going into borderline horror. But the darkness can be so lovely, and when they step into the light they’re delightfully strange and bitingly beautiful.</p><h3>Escape Pod</h3><p><a href="http://escapepod.org/" rel="nofollow" class="external">Escape Pod</a> is a little different because their emphasis is on publishing audio science fiction in a free-to-download podcast. The text of each story is also available on their website, however. They generally focus on reprints (stories that have been previously published elsewhere, normally more than a year ago) but are the first time publisher of some stories.</p><h3>Shimmer</h3><div><p>Shimmer cover, 2017</p></div><p><a href="https://www.shimmerzine.com/" rel="nofollow" class="external">Shimmer</a> publishes fantasy, science fiction, and some almost-unclassifiable-but-still-definitely-genre stuff, with the emphasis on it having an indefinable but still definite “shimmery” quantity.</p><h3>Strange Horizons</h3><p><a href="http://strangehorizons.com/" rel="nofollow" class="external">Strange Horizons</a> is venerable as online magazines go and tends to look for the different, daring, and unusual. They publish a mix of science fiction, fantasy, and the occasional bit of horror that catches their ear, ranging from the deep to the sublimely ridiculous.</p><h3>Clarkesworld</h3><p><a href="http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/" rel="nofollow" class="external">Clarkesworld</a> is another long-running magazine that has a particular stylistic twist of weirdness to its stories, both science fiction and fantasy. Back issues are easily available on the website under the appropriately named tab.</p><h3>GiGaNoToSaurus</h3><p><a href="http://giganotosaurus.org/" rel="nofollow" class="external">GigaNotoSaurus</a> is a bit of an oddity because it’s not really short fiction as such…it tends to publish novellettes and novellas, really focusing on great fiction that tends to be a bit too long for most of the other venus. Because of the mighty length of most of the stories, they only tend to publish one per month. They publish both fantasy and science fiction.</p><h3><a href="http://Tor.com" rel="nofollow">Tor.com</a></h3><p><a href="https://www.tor.com/" rel="nofollow" class="external">Tor.com</a> has already made its name publishing SFF novellas with its imprint, but it also has a lot of great essays on its site—and regular installments of science fiction short stories and fantasy as well. They’ve got the freedom to do a lot of lengths, so you’ll find both very short and nearly novella-length on the site. Original fiction index <a href="https://www.tor.com/category/all-fiction/original-fiction/" rel="nofollow" class="external">can be found here</a>, labeled for ease of finding the flavor you like.</p><h3>Fireside Fiction</h3><p><a href="https://firesidefiction.com/" rel="nofollow" class="external">Fireside Fiction</a><a href="https://firesidefiction.com/" rel="nofollow" class="external"></a> is a very fierce outlet with a strong point of view (check out their <a href="https://firesidefiction.com/values" rel="nofollow" class="external">statement of values</a>, which is A+) that does absolutely ferocious science fiction and fantasy. They do quite a bit of flash fiction to go along with their short stories. Also worthy of noting that since 2015 they have been <a href="https://firesidefiction.com/blackspecfic" rel="nofollow" class="external">commissioning yearly reports</a> on the representation of Black authors in speculative fiction to track the very real underrepresentation problem.</p><h3>Terraform</h3><p><a href="https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/topic/terraform" rel="nofollow" class="external">Terraform</a> is a project of Motherboard that focuses on science fiction short stories, particularly near-future work. What they publish has a broad tonal range even if it’s one of the most focused in terms of its genre.</p><p>If you’re looking for a place to check out science fiction short story reviews (also fantasy and horror) to get recommendations or ideas on other places to look, I heartily recommend Charles Payseur’s <a href="http://quicksipreviews.blogspot.co.uk/" rel="nofollow" class="external">Quick Sip Reviews</a>. Natalie Luhrs has a short fiction review series <a href="http://www.pretty-terrible.com/category/book-reviews/in-short/" rel="nofollow" class="external">at her blog</a>. <a href="https://locusmag.com/category/reviews/short-fiction/" rel="nofollow" class="external">Locus Online</a> also does short fiction issue reviews.</p><p>Also worth noting: Book Riot has a great list of <a href="https://bookriot.com/2017/06/22/science-fiction-short-story-collections-by-authors-of-color/" rel="nofollow" class="external">science fiction short story collections by authors of color</a> that you might want to check out!</p><div><p>Sign up for our Science Fiction/Fantasy newsletter and watch your TBR explode.</p></div><small>By signing up you agree to our Terms of Service</small><hr /><hr /></div></div>Reaching people on the internet2017-10-26T19:42:49.571000ZMatthew Inmanhttp://theoatmeal.com/comics/reaching_people<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/reaching-people-on-t/5970616:4bfcbb">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/5970616.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> The Oatmeal - Comics by Matthew Inman:</b>
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I miss the old days.
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<a href="http://theoatmeal.com/comics/reaching_people"><img alt="Reaching people on the internet" class="border0" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/theoatmeal-img/thumbnails/reaching_people.png" /></a><p></p><a href="http://theoatmeal.com/comics/reaching_people">View</a>Sturm und drang, Mike Hollingshead2017-05-05T05:08:09.502000Zpeteskihttp://isnthappiness.com/?p=18269<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/sturm-und-drang-mike/4013:591ab7">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/4013.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> This isnt happiness:</b>
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(also a glimpse into my nightmares)
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<p><img src="http://ift.tt/2ogC3cW" /></p>
<p><img src="http://ift.tt/2p4iCB7" /></p>
<p><img src="http://ift.tt/2ogrYwh" /></p>
<p><img src="http://ift.tt/2p3X088" /></p>
<p>Sturm und drang, <a href="http://ift.tt/2oY8o5p" target="_blank">Mike Hollingshead</a></p>S-Town Podcast2017-03-29T05:15:34.271000Zhttps://stownpodcast.org/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/s-town-podcast/6615202:6d1146">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/6615202.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> S-Town:</b>
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This podcast is unbelievably good.
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<div><div><p><strong>John despises his Alabama town and decides to do something about it. He asks</strong> a reporter to investigate the son of a wealthy family who’s allegedly been bragging that he got away with murder. But then someone else ends up dead,
sparking a nasty feud, a hunt for hidden treasure, and an unearthing of the mysteries of one man’s life.</p></div></div>Chat Systems2017-03-27T13:21:49.253000Zhttps://xkcd.com/1810/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/chat-systems/5994357:2ea1fa">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/5994357.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> xkcd.com.</b>
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<img alt="I'm one of the few Instagram users who connects solely through the Unix 'talk' gateway." src="https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/chat_systems.png" title="I'm one of the few Instagram users who connects solely through the Unix 'talk' gateway." />The Council of Elrond2017-03-27T13:17:37.274000Zhttp://existentialcomics.com/comic/175<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/the-council-of-elron/5275170:14b696">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/5275170.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Existential Comics.</b>
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<img alt="On second thought, maybe I'll just use the ring real quick to put down this communist revolution. In fact, maybe I should work with Sauron to stamp out communism everywhere..." src="http://static.existentialcomics.com/comics/councilOfElrond3.png" title="" />Strange Beasts on Vimeo2017-03-25T04:43:54.662000Zhttps://vimeo.com/209070629<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/strange-beasts-on-vi/6104301:72e078">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/6104301.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Vimeo / Vimeo Staff Picks.</b>
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<div><iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/209070629" width="640" height="390" frameborder="0"></iframe><div><div dir="auto"><p>A sci-fi short about augmented reality.<br />"Strange Beasts" is an augmented reality game. It allows you to create and grow your own virtual pet. How far can it go?</p><p>Written, directed and produced by Magali Barbé. Co-produced by: Red Knuckles, Peanut.<br /><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5638002/" rel="nofollow" class="external">imdb.com/title/tt5638002/</a></p><p>If you're curious about the process...<br /><a href="http://magalibarbe.com/" rel="nofollow" class="external">magalibarbe.com/</a></p><p>CAST & CREW<br />staring: Timothy RENOUF and Poppy POLIVNICK<br />music and sound design: Pierre VEDOVATO<br />director of photography: Anthony GUIRY<br />first assistant: Amélie GUYOT<br />second assistant: Vincent AUPETIT<br />sound recordist: Michael CHUBB<br />makeup and hair: Bridget CROTTY and Rachael THOMAS<br />runner: Tyrone PAUL<br />VFX supervisor: Peregrine McCAFFERTY<br />creatures artist: Dean FRATER<br />creatures designer: Jonathan Djob NKONDO<br />rigger: Maickel PASTA<br />animators: Joffrey ZEITOUNI and Philippe MOINE<br />rendering and compositing: Mario UCCI and Rick THIELE at Red Knuckles<br />tracking: PEANUT<br />color artist: Lewis CROSSFIELD at Electric Theatre Collective<br />extra creatures: Andriy HRMALYUK and Ramtin AHMAD<br />special thanks: Fabrice LE NEZET, Ardith BIRCHALL, Cressida POLIVNINCK, Marc POLIVNICK, Mary HESKEL, Elvis BAPTISTE.</p></div></div></div>Lin-Manuel Miranda Made You a Playlist to Help With Your Writer's Block2017-03-22T13:33:21.115000ZPatrick Allanhttp://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/XgrXPrKPya0/lin-manuel-miranda-made-you-a-playlist-to-help-with-you-1793499384<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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<td rowspan="2" style="padding: 6px;width: 36px;white-space:nowrap" width="36" valign="top"><img src="https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/1fdc74cc0280366a02a97ee553f66208" style="width: 36px; height: 36px; border-radius: 4px;"></td>
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/lin-manuel-miranda-m/4311755:ea9e8a">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/4311755.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Lifehacker.</b>
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<img src="https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--JU_TyQz7--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/ww05dqjjfl1mck9cwq9z.jpg" /><p>If you’re having some trouble getting your ideas down on paper, this playlist from the multi-talented <a href="http://www.linmanuel.com/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Lin-Manuel Miranda</a> of <em>Hamilton</em> fame will help get those creative juices flowing.<br /></p><p><a href="http://lifehacker.com/lin-manuel-miranda-made-you-a-playlist-to-help-with-you-1793499384">Read more...</a></p><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~4/XgrXPrKPya0" width="1" />A Beautiful Longhaired Tuxedo Cat Goes Nighty Night All by Herself In a Tiny Human-Styled Bed2017-03-22T13:25:56.765000ZLori Dornhttp://feeds.laughingsquid.com/~r/laughingsquid/~3/oulys7U5dR0/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/a-beautiful-longhair/602394:d95de5">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/602394.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Laughing Squid.</b>
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<p><iframe allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" height="422" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/psGDf2VrvK8" width="750"></iframe></p>
<p>When her humans go to bed, a beautiful longhaired tuxedo cat named <a href="https://www.instagram.com/sophielovestuna/">Sophie</a> knows that it’s also time for her to go nighty-night. At whatever time they decide, Sophie puts herself to <a href="https://youtu.be/psGDf2VrvK8">sleep on her tiny human styled bed</a> that has everything she needs to get a good night’s sleep, including at least one human who’s <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/BQtwl9iFZI0/">always willing</a> to tuck her in.</p>
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<p>via <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/604v1g/cat_puts_herself_to_sleep_in_tiny_human_bed/">reddit</a></p>
<h3 class="jp-relatedposts-headline"><em>Related Laughing Squid Posts</em></h3><ul class="jp-relatedposts"><li><a href="http://laughingsquid.com/rhea-the-naked-birdie-a-tiny-lovebird-who-lost-all-her-feathers-keeps-warm-in-hand-knitted-sweaters/" title="Rhea the Naked Birdie, A Tiny Lovebird Who Lost All Her Feathers Keeps Warm in Hand Knitted Sweaters">Rhea the Naked Birdie, A Tiny Lovebird Who Lost All Her Feathers Keeps Warm in Hand Knitted Sweaters</a></li><li><a href="http://laughingsquid.com/nala-the-long-haired-cat-gets-bonked-on-the-nose-during-a-snowball-fight-with-her-beloved-human/" title="Nala the Long-Haired Cat Gets Bonked On the Nose During a Snowball Fight With Her Beloved Human">Nala the Long-Haired Cat Gets Bonked On the Nose During a Snowball Fight With Her Beloved Human</a></li><li><a href="http://laughingsquid.com/a-musical-tabby-cat-gazes-lovingly-at-his-musician-human-whenever-they-play-piano-together/" title="A Musical Tabby Cat Gazes Lovingly at His Musician Human Whenever They Play Piano Together">A Musical Tabby Cat Gazes Lovingly at His Musician Human Whenever They Play Piano Together</a></li></ul><img alt="" height="1" src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/laughingsquid/~4/oulys7U5dR0" width="1" /><script async defer src="https://platform.instagram.com/en_US/embeds.js"></script><script>(function(){if(window.instgrm)window.instgrm.Embeds.process()})()</script>Trump budget plan cuts the arts2017-03-18T19:22:28.108000Zhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/with-elimination-of-nea-and-neh-trumps-budget-is-worst-case-scenario-for-arts-groups/2017/03/15/5291645a-09bb-11e7-a15f-a58d4a988474_story.html?utm_term=.ae14a9d9189f<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/trump-budget-plan-cu/0:7139b5">shared this story</a>
:</b>
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Not surprised in the least, but disappointed all the same.
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<div><div> <p>A community orchestra performance, a new work from an emerging playwright, art therapy for a returning veteran, local ­library classes in Braille, free standardized-test preparation, and Bert and Ernie. Thousands of such programs could be gutted under President Trump’s proposed budget.</p> <p>The budget plan, which calls for the elimination of four independent cultural agencies — the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — also would radically reshape the nation’s cultural infrastructure.</p> <p>Although the budgets of the four organizations slated for elimination are negligible as a percentage of the larger federal budget, they play a vital role in a cultural economy built on a system of federal stimulus. Federal dollars are used to leverage state, local and private funding that supports a complex network of arts organizations, educational entities, museums, libraries and public broadcasting affiliates.</p> <p> <em>[<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-presidential-budget-2018-proposal/" title="www.washingtonpost.com" rel="nofollow" class="external">Everything Trump cut in his budget, and what that means</a>]</em> </p> <p>For decades, arts and cultural leaders have fought regular battles to maintain federal funding, and they now find themselves part of a larger, unprecedented attempt to dismantle the federal government’s role in American life. As they struggle to explain why they deserve federal dollars, other federal departments and agencies are fighting for their share, which in turn could put increased strain on philanthropic funding for a large range of social services, including health care and education.</p><div><p> <span> (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)</span> </p><p>
<span>President Trump just released his budget plan for the next fiscal year, which proposes some big changes in government spending. Here's a look at what agencies are helped and hurt by the proposal.</span>
<span>President Trump just released his budget plan for the next fiscal year, which proposes some big changes in government spending.</span>
(Video: Jenny Starrs/Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
</p></div> <p>The president’s budget would eliminate the NEA’s $148 million budget, the NEH’s $148 million budget and the CPB’s $445 million budget, as well as $230 million for the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which supports libraries and museums across the country. Additional cuts could affect the Smithsonian Institution and the National Gallery of Art.</p> <p>“The idea that civil society is going to step in and take up all these shortfalls is far-fetched,” said Suzanne Nossel, the executive director of PEN, an organization of writers and editors that focuses on free expression. PEN has organized a petition with more than 200,000 signatures calling for the preservation of the NEA and NEH.</p> <p>Not all cultural sectors would be equally hard hit, at least not initially. But all of them would be forced to rethink how to survive, and what they would be able to preserve of their fundamental mission. </p> <p> <em>[<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2017/01/19/arts-leaders-react-to-possible-trump-call-for-eliminating-cultural-programs-not-this-again/?utm_term=.0245c019db6d" title="www.washingtonpost.com" rel="nofollow" class="external">Arts leaders react to possible cuts to cultural programs</a>]</em> </p> <p>“The Corporation for Public Broadcasting money is actually crucial to keeping stations alive,” said Patricia Aufderheide, founder of the Center for Media and Social Impact at American University. “That is what pays for the electric bill, that is what pays for upgrades in the equipment. Without that money, I think there are very few stations that are going to operate purely on donations.”</p> <p> Aufderheide sits on the board of the Independent Television Service, which was created by Congress to produce and distribute documentaries for public television stations, including the critically esteemed “Independent Lens” series. Aufderheide said the cuts would significantly harm the independent programming that gives voice to marginalized or minority communities without access to other funding or broadcast platforms.</p> <p>Robert Lynch, head of Americans for the Arts, an organization that was instrumental in helping to create the NEA more than 50 years ago, worries about small arts groups that face a daily struggle to stay afloat. His group regularly researches the state of the arts economy and has found that many groups operate at the edge of solvency. In 2013, for example, 42 percent of nonprofit arts groups operated at a loss. </p><div><span>What's getting cut in Trump's budget</span></div> <p>“There are a few arts organizations at the top that are very, very stable, but most of them are struggling every day,” Lynch said. “They are not bottom-line driven; they are mission driven, trying to do something good, something for the public.” Cuts, he said, might soon be felt by smaller groups. “Any interruption in that fragile ecosystem has an effect.” </p> <p> <em>[<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/trumps-budget-would-slash-scientific-and-medical-research/2017/03/15/d3261f98-0998-11e7-a15f-a58d4a988474_story.html?utm_term=.1a982e72646c" title="www.washingtonpost.com" rel="nofollow" class="external">Trump’s not only going after the arts. Expect a seismic disruption in medical and science research.</a>]</em> </p> <p>Over the years, the federal government’s cultural funders have become increasingly horizontal, spreading funds widely throughout all 50 states. “The NEA is the only funder in the country that makes arts grants in every congressional district,” said Marc Scorca, president and chief executive of Opera America, a national service group. That outreach has traditionally helped the agency maintain support in Congress across party lines, and it has been a powerful incentive for states to maintain their own arts agencies.</p> <p>Last year, the NEA sent $47 million to 50 states and five jurisdictions, funds that helped to leverage $368 million from state governments. Together, those funds were distributed through 24,000 grants, according to the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA). </p> <p>“The NEA doesn’t tell states what they have to do with [the funds]. The NEA says these are for your state priorities, and that makes them uniquely powerful,” said Kelly Barsdate, chief program and planning officer at the NASAA. “It’s a true model of how the federal government can work in effective concert with the states.”</p> <p>Those state grants are crucial to arts organizations, including those that help young actors get their first roles and young writers develop their voices, said Edgar Dobie, executive director of Washington’s Arena Stage, which has been awarded grants of $30,000 to $50,000 in recent years.</p> <p>“It’s the R&D the field needs,” Dobie said. “It’s so shortsighted to say it’s not as important as a new helicopter.”</p> <p>Although all states would suffer under the proposed budget, poor and rural communities would be hardest hit, according to the NASAA. About 25 percent of NEA block-grant funds go to rural communities and 54 percent to low-income areas.</p> <p>“We are gravely concerned about the impact on rural areas, low-income areas, school­children, seniors and veterans,” ­Barsdate said.</p> <p>The loss of NEA funding would cripple Vermont’s Poetry Out Loud competition, a statewide poetry recitation program that involves 5,500 students, about 25 percent of Vermont high-schoolers. The finals are broadcast on public television, said Alex Aldrich, executive director of the Vermont Arts Council, and the winner goes on to the national competition.</p> <p>“More students participate than play organized high school football,” Aldrich said, adding that NEA funds account for 45 percent of the arts council’s budget. “This program cuts across all ethnic, socio-economic and religious lines, which is where the arts strength lies.”</p> <p>Trump’s proposal will meet stiff — and bipartisan — opposition in Congress. If the president’s goal is the wholesale elimination of these agencies, he will need Congress to repeal the legislation that created them. </p> <p>“A budget document is merely a blueprint. It does not appropriate any funding at all,” said Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.), co-chairman of both the Congressional Arts Caucus and the Congressional Humanities Caucus. “I will be working as hard as I can, internally and publicly, to make sure these programs are funded. All of my peers have arts venues in their districts. This affects all states and all congressional districts.”</p> <div><div><div><div><p>Today's Headlines newsletter</p><p>The day's most important stories.</p></div><p>Please provide a valid email address. </p><p> </p></div></div></div><p>Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who was one of 24 lawmakers who wrote to Trump last month in support of the cultural agencies, said the budget proposal is a “huge and irresponsible mistake” that would have widespread consequences. She vowed to fight the cuts.</p> <p>The NEA and NEH, she said, “make it so parents and teachers who don’t live in big cities or don’t have the most resources can still take their children to learn from and be inspired by history museums, art exhibits, and music and theater performances.</p> <p>“Congress must look out for the millions of American families that can’t always travel to big cities to visit a museum when they want to learn about art and history.”</p> <p>It is difficult to compare total arts spending in the United States to that of other advanced nations, given the complexity of the federal budget and the number of programs that might be considered arts-related (including military bands and educational efforts). But per capita federal funding for the arts through the NEA is minuscule compared with that in such countries as Finland, France and Germany.</p> <p>But the United States has a unique arts funding system that has proved effective in the past 52 years at growing the larger arts economy. NEA funds, for example, are predicated on matching funds from state arts agencies, a powerful incentive to states to keep local arts funding alive. That has helped spur the creation of state arts councils in all 50 states, as well as about 5,000 funding groups at the local level.</p> </div></div>Creamy Cashew Butternut Squash Soup Recipe2017-03-18T18:37:14.961000Zhttps://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1014339-creamy-cashew-butternut-squash-soup?smid=fb-nytdining&smtyp=cur<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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Yum! Going to try this soon.
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</a><div><p>Excellent soup. The only modification was to bloom the spices for 30 seconds prior to adding the rest of the ingredients.</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/76801485" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>As a person who is deathly allergic to cashews, I really don't recommend playing the "secret ingredient" game described in the article. Tree nuts are a common allergen, and that would be a really good way to put somebody in the hospital, or worse.</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/976975" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>Try this as a garnish: about 1/2 cup each unsweetened coconut flakes and cashew bits, teaspoon of mustard seeds and optional but delish 10-15 fresh curry leaves cut in ribbons.<br /><br />Toast cashews and coconut separately. I use the microwave about one minute each. <br /><br />Heat 1/2 tablespoon oil over medium heat in a small skillet for 2 minutes, throw in mustard seeds and cook 'til they pop, remove from heat stir in curry leaves then coconut and cashews. Takes about 5 minutes.</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/49509567" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>Roasted my squash. Used 2 lbs of cooked squash. Followed the recipe using homemade turkey stock. It was delicious. Added broth gradually to maintain the consistency we prefer. A definite keeper.</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/70428523" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>Finally a recipe that gets the spices right on! Just enough to give a lovely, subtle flavor. I used the whole 14 oz can of light coconut milk - delicious. Rosemary sprig at the end adds the perfect final fragrance.</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/34486355" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>Roasted the butternut squash and followed the recipe. Wow, this recipe is delicious!</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/71799471" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>Love this! Roasted the squash (eliminates the second simmer and easier to handle the squash), also no coconut milk (too many calories and fat). I'm on a no-salt diet, and even with no salt anywhere, this soup is spicy and delicious! I had 1/4 less squash than called for, but I used the full spice measurements - great!</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/70133187" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>Does this soup freeze well?</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/71757848" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>Question for anyone...are we talking about canned coconut milk or the pasteurized milk in the dairy section? Does it matter?</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/74290258" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>Heck ya. I couldn't find butternut squash in my grocery store for some reason so I used sweet potato. Still bangin'. Also I browned butter before putting onions in. Definitely gonna make this again. PS it scales down well</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/69512304" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>I followed the recipe exactly. I had thought about roasting the squash first, but didn't feel like doing the extra step (in fact, I was surprised and then relieved that it didn't call for pre-roasting). I thought it was a phenomenal recipe, and so incredibly easy. I'm looking forward to reheating it this week to see how the flavors come together. <br /><br />I like others' suggestions to roast the squash and use an apple. If I have more time/energy, I'll do that next time.</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/76561723" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>I followed the suggestions of others and roasted the butternut squash for 45 minutes at 350. Someone said this soup needed a lot of salt in the reviews, maybe it's because I used store bought vegetable stock but I only added maybe a teaspoon and it was perfect. I used 2 pounds of diced squash, not a 2 pound total sized squash.</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/20404792" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>This was wonderful. As others did, I also roasted the squash first for about 45 minutes. After sautéing the onion and roasted cashews, I added a grated apple to the mix. Since I was out of garlic and rosemary, they were omitted this time as well as the salt. I used a 15 oz can of Thai coconut milk. I also lightly sautéed red onion and baby spinach; which I put on top of the soup (from another recipe). What a delicious soup!</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/16676361" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>I used am immersion blender. It's much less work. Served as a starter for company, so cooked through step 2, left on stove top until ready to reheat (about 2 hours). Began step 3 about 20 min before sitting down to eat. Everyone liked it. I followed the recipe. It needs a lot of salt.</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/74048252" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>Absolutely love this soap. I have a family with lots of dietary restrictions. RA need to stay away from nightshades so I did not use the Curry and used a bit more pepper, garlic, and a little ginger. I left out the coconut milk all together (high fat content, calorie counter) blended it in a nutria-blast this gave it a better consistency then the blender. Thanks</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/9383232" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>I belatedly realized I didn't have coconut milk and substituted evaporated, which did create the right texture. The flavor was still very good.</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/71171816" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>Very nice. Also briefly sautéed the spices in the oil (used safflower oil) before adding the liquid and squash. Added a little cayenne at the end and garnished with chopped cilantro.</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/48306849" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>this is amazing. made it exactly as written.</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/71183403" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>Fantastic recipe! I made this tonight with a few changes. My local market sells packages of butternut squash that they skin and chop daily. I tossed the chunked squash in olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted in a 400 degree oven for about 50 minutes with a peeled apple, turning halfway, until golden brown. I used coconut oil instead of olive oil to cook the onions and added the spice mixture to the onion and cashew mixture and let it bloom before adding the garlic.</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/69797551" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>Wow. This recipe is bomb! The only thing I changed is that I threw an overripe apple in there, which added a bit of sweetness. I also used homemade chicken broth, which I think always makes a big difference for soups like this one. I was skeptical about the cashews at first, but they add texture and extra body to the soup, which is great. Will definitely make again!</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/73209705" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>Thank you so much for the phenomenal recipe Dawn! I made it this evening and it definitely won't be the first time. The blend of spices is terrific and I love that it is dairy free.</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/65092681" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>Turned out very well-- I added about a tablespoon of honey for the final few minutes, which seemed to bring out the sweetness of the squash. I will definitely make this again!</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/69245642" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>I don't like to peel butternut squash if I don't have to. Options: microwave unpeeled pieces in a covered bowl or add the pieces to the soup and cook until tender. When cooled enough to handle, scoop out the pulp and continue with the recipe.</p><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/55778592" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>I always roast squash for soup. It gives it a rich flavor, and is much easier than peeling and chopping.</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/69560472" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>I agree with Ingrid. Cut the squash in half, remove the seeds and roast for 45 min to 1 hour at 350 (or until soft enough to scoop out with a spoon. Acorn squash would work equally well in this soup.</p></div></div></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/4857045" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>I use reduced fat coconut milk.</p></div></div></div></div><div><div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/71183403" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>Fantastic recipe! I made this tonight with a few changes. My local market sells packages of butternut squash that they skin and chop daily. I tossed the chunked squash in olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted in a 400 degree oven for about 50 minutes with a peeled apple, turning halfway, until golden brown. I used coconut oil instead of olive oil to cook the onions and added the spice mixture to the onion and cashew mixture and let it bloom before adding the garlic.</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/69560472" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>I agree with Ingrid. Cut the squash in half, remove the seeds and roast for 45 min to 1 hour at 350 (or until soft enough to scoop out with a spoon. Acorn squash would work equally well in this soup.</p></div></div><div><a href="https://cooking.nytimes.com/55778592" rel="nofollow" class="external">
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</a><div><p>I always roast squash for soup. It gives it a rich flavor, and is much easier than peeling and chopping.</p></div></div></div></div><div><div><p>Private Notes are notes that only you can see. <span>Leave a Private Note</span>.</p><p><em>For example: "Made for Alex's birthday. Next time double the recipe."</em></p></div></div></div></div><p>Show More Notes</p></div>
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</span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span></p><div><a title="Close" rel="nofollow" class="external"></a><div><div><p>Signed in as <strong>cygnoir</strong></p><p>Share this story on NewsBlur</p><div><div><img src="http://data:image/png;charset=utf-8;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAACAAAAAgCAYAAABzenr0AAAAmklEQVRYCWP8//8/Aymgf1InXg2FeeWMpJjHRIpiWqhlIddQQUFBFK3v379H4RPLGfAQGHXAaAiMhsBoCDD2TezAW7bjKtGGTUkIrwvQfYTL57jESdUPqztGE+GAhwA8DcDiBFcco4ujxzmp+mHmDXgIMJLbJsQVAkOuTTjgUTDqgNEQGA2BAQ8BeF0AK5uJpckt+9HNH/AQAADrSiWz+izdUAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==" title="Loading..." alt="" /><p>Shared stories are on their way...</p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>A Hypnotically Beautiful Animation of a Forgotten Penny Arcade Wooden Doll Endlessly Wandering2017-03-18T18:30:18.627000Zhttp://laughingsquid.com/a-hypnotically-beautiful-animation-of-a-forgotten-penny-arcade-wooden-doll-endlessly-wandering/<table style="border: 1px solid #E0E0E0; margin: 0; padding: 0; background-color: #F0F0F0" valign="top" align="left" cellpadding="0" width="100%">
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cygnoir
<a href="https://cygnoir.newsblur.com/story/a-hypnotically-beaut/602394:96c9d1">shared this story</a>
from <img src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/icons.newsblur.com/602394.png" style="vertical-align: middle;width:16px;height:16px;"> Laughing Squid.</b>
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<div><div><p>by <span><a href="http://laughingsquid.com/author/hrlori/" rel="nofollow" class="external"><span>Lori Dorn</span></a></span> at on </p><div><p>Animator <a href="http://urilotan.com/" rel="nofollow" class="external">Uri Lotan</a> has created an absolutely hypnotic music video for the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/JaneBordeaux.Band/" rel="nofollow" class="external">Jane Bordeaux</a> song <a href="https://vimeo.com/162052542" rel="nofollow" class="external">Ma’agalim</a> (Circles). Throughout the video, a wooden penny arcade doll endlessly wanders into different scenes and exiting quickly, visually representing the lyrics of the song. </p><blockquote><p>Nights turn into days<br />Days turn into years<br />And among them I was going faster in circles<br />Winds are blowing on me<br />Blow on the back of my neck<br />Everything seems too far too big<br />I’m not moving forward<br />It’s the time that drifts away<br />This is another passing train<br />It’s a further tightening rope</p></blockquote><p>translation by <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/xChipsus" rel="nofollow" class="external">xChipsus</a></p><p>via <a href="https://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks/162052542" rel="nofollow" class="external">Vimeo Staff Picks</a></p><div><div><span>Advertisements</span><p>
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The annual Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), a giant video and computer game festival produced by the guys behind the popular online comic Penny Arcade, takes place this weekend in Seattle from August 24th through 26th. This year's keynote speaker is Wil Wheaton and musical guests include MC Frontalot and Jonathan…" rel="nofollow" class="external"><img src="https://i1.wp.com/laughingsquid.com/wp-content/uploads/penny-arcade-expo-2007.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1" width="525" alt="Penny Arcade Expo 2007, A Giant Three Day Game Festival" /></a><h4><a href="http://laughingsquid.com/penny-arcade-expo-2007-a-giant-three-day-game-festival/" title="Penny Arcade Expo 2007, A Giant Three Day Game Festival
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