December 2011
80 posts
This Day In History: December 31st 1904: The first... →
todayinhistory: On this day in 1904, the first New Year’s Eve celebrations in Times Square (then Longacre Square) in New York City took place. It was organised by the owners of the New York Times newspaper to celebrate their move to the Square. The event was marked with a fireworks display, with almost…
Dec 31st
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The Paradox of Hedonism
“The impulse toward pleasure can be self-defeating. We fail to attain pleasures if we deliberately seek them.” This is the essence of what the moral philosopher Henry Sidgwick in the The Methods of Ethics called the paradox of hedonism. This came to mind as I was considering the necessity for all of us to be resourceful, self sustaining learners for life. Learning doesn’t just stop when the...
Dec 30th
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Coal smoke and kippers
The farmers’ market is full of strange squash and gourds and pumpkins of every color , shape and size. Autumn - mists and melancoly, falling leaves and nostalgia - is a time for memories. Mists that burn off by mid-morning and skeins of geese and migrating birds. Dark evenings when you can still play outside exhilarated by the chill, and the smell of coal fires and grilled kippers for...
Dec 30th
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“IBM has predicted the future, and it contains mind-reading machines and the...”
– IBM’s Five Best Predictions in Tech for the Next Five Years
Dec 29th
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Homophobia in school staff rooms should have been... →
Dec 29th
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Seth's Blog: "It's always been this way" →
It’s always been this way - except it hasn’t. Get used to it.
Dec 29th
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“How do I get a job lobbying the U.S. government...
To: The Upper Ones, From: The Strategy Committee, Re: The Alarming Behavior of College Students The committee has been reconvened in haste to respond to a disturbing new trend: the uprisings by students on elite college campuses. Across the Ivy League the young people whom our Wall Street division once subjugated with ease are becoming troublesome. Our good friends at Goldman Sachs, to cite...
Dec 29th
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Dec 29th
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‘You don’t suffer from Asperger’s, you suffer... →
poughkeepsieday: Girls on the Spectrum: Q&A with the Author of Aspergirls Is Asperger syndrome really less common in girls and women, or are females just better than males at masking autistic symptoms? Rudy Simone, a San Francisco singer, writer and stand-up comic, didn’t learn…
Dec 29th
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Dec 29th
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Dec 28th
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Dec 28th
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Helen Frankenthaler Dies at 83
Helen Frankenthaler, Painter and Printmaker, Dies at 83 by Reid Singer on December 27, 2011  Image via NYdailynews.com Helen Frankenthaler, one of the earliest and most influential contributors to the Abstract Expressionist movement, has died at the age of 83. In an interview with the The New York Times, Frankenthaler’s longtime assistant, Maureen St. Onge, said that she had been ill for...
Dec 28th
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Dec 28th
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Dec 27th
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The Road Ahead
Dec 27th
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Lost in translation
Dec 27th
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The Hormone Surge of Middle Childhood
By NATALIE ANGIER Published: December 26, 2011  VIEWED superficially, the part of youth that the psychologist Jean Piaget called middle childhood looks tame and uneventful, a quiet patch of road on the otherwise hairpin highway to adulthood. …. Said to begin around 5 or 6, when toddlerhood has ended and even the most protractedly breast-fed children have been weaned, and to end when the teen...
Dec 27th
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Dec 27th
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Dec 26th
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Dec 26th
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Dec 26th
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Dec 26th
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Central Park North
Dec 26th
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This Day In History: November 30th 1936: The... →
todayinhistory: (Before the fire) On this day in 1936, the Crystal Palace in London was completely destroyed by a fire. The Palace was originally erected in Hyde Park to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace’s 990,000 square feet of…
Dec 26th
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The (true) story of Agincourt and the Middle...
Claim:   The ‘middle finger salute’ is derived from the defiant gestures of English archers whose fingers had been severed by the French at the Battle of Agincourt. Status:   False. http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/pluckyew.asp
Dec 26th
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Dec 26th
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She Finds Refuge in Art →
Leironica Hawkins, who is homeless and has Asperger’s syndrome, fought back her panic and created a comic book about the ailment.
Dec 26th
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Dec 26th
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Dec 26th
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Dec 25th
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"Key Lime Pie" - three and a half minutes of...
Dec 25th
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Alf Garnett argues politics Christmas 1966
Thirty five years since this was shown on Boxing Day 1966. And the BBC switchboards were jammed with complaints.
Dec 25th
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An atheist at Christmas: Oh come all ye faithless →
Dec 25th
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Remembrance Day: 'I'm an old man, I am supposed to... →
The losses of war leave holes in families for generations: The first world war left 360,000 children fatherless. Very few now survive, the youngest are in their 90s. These are the last of those who lost a father in the trenches of the western front, on the beaches of Gallipoli or in the deserts of the Middle East. Their stories of suffering and loss are as valid as those of the soldiers, but...
Dec 25th
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Alf Garnett argues Politics at Christmas
From ‘Till Death Us Do Part BBC Comedy.
Dec 25th
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Principals Protest Role of Testing in Evaluations →
pdslibrarian: “She said one good thing about the new evaluation system was that it had united teachers, principals and administrators in their contempt for the state education department.” Oh, snap! If even the principals are getting angry, you know things are bad. From the NYT.
Dec 25th
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Dec 25th
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Dec 25th
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The Compass Point: Bad Online Behavior Jeopardizes... →
poughkeepsieday: Stellar transcripts aside, students now have to worry about an increasing number of colleges peering at their social-networking pages online—and potentially denying their applications because of what they find there. The number of college-admissions officials using Facebook and other…
Dec 25th
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"The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous...
…and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason to stay ashore.” - Vincent Van Gogh The Value of Water - The Cathedral of St. John the Divine, NYC.
Dec 24th
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A boat in Galway, Ireland
Dec 24th
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Cottage on the west coast of Ireland
Dec 24th
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Oscar Wilde lounging on a rock in Merrion Square...
Dec 24th
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Dec 24th
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Dec 24th
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Dec 24th
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Abandoned house in the Yorkshire Dales
Dec 23rd
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A barbaric yawp
Dec 23rd
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Hudson Valley farm in Winter
Dec 23rd