The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
An Exotic Dancer Demonstrates That Her Underwear Was Too Large To Have Exposed Herself, After Undercover Police Officers Arrested Her In Florida
Dorothy Counts – The First Black Girl To Attend An All-White School In The United States – Being Teased And Taunted By Her White Male Peers At Charlotte’s Harry Harding High School, 1957
Austrian Boy Receives New Shoes During WWII
Jewish Prisoners After Being Liberated From A Death Train, 1945
The Graves Of A Catholic Woman And Her Protestant Husband, Holland, 1888
A Lone Man Refusing To Do The Nazi Salute, 1936
Job Hunting In 1930’s
German Soldiers React To Footage Of Concentration Camps, 1945
Residents Of West Berlin Show Children To Their Grandparents Who Reside On The Eastern Side, 1961
Acrobats Balance On Top Of The Empire State Building, 1934
Mafia Boss Joe Masseria Lays Dead On A Brooklyn Restaurant Floor Holding The Ace Of Spades, 1931
Lesbian Couple At Le Monocle, Paris, 1932
The Most Beautiful Suicide – Evelyn Mchale Leapt To Her Death From The Empire State Building, 1947
The Remains Of The Astronaut Vladimir Komarov, A Man Who Fell From Space, 1967
Race Organizers Attempt To Stop Kathrine Switzer From Competing In The Boston Marathon. She Became The First Woman To Finish The Race, 1967
Harold Whittles Hearing Sound For The First Time, 1974
Nikola Tesla Sitting In His Laboratory With His “Magnifying Transmitter”
“We know that there is no help for us but from one another, that no hand will save us if we do not reach out our hand. And the hand that you reach out is empty, as mine is. You have nothing. You possess nothing. You own nothing. You are free. All you have is what you are, and what you give.”—
| Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
Ursula Le Guin has died, today. I have three of her books on my desk or bedside, right now: her translation of the Tao Te Ching, her collection of short fiction, Compass Rose, and The Left Hand Of Darkness.
“For what it’s worth: It’s never too late to be whoever you want to be. I hope you live a life you’re proud of, and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over.”—
Penelope Gazin and Kate Dwyer respond to the biases of tech startup land by creating a fake male cofounder, Kevin, at Witchsy:
After setting out to build Witchsy, it didn’t take long for them to notice a pattern: In many cases, the outside developers and graphic designers they enlisted to help often took a condescending tone over email. These collaborators, who were almost always male, were often short, slow to respond, and vaguely disrespectful in correspondence. In response to one request, a developer started an email with the words “Okay, girls…”
That’s when Gazin and Dwyer introduced a third cofounder: Keith Mann, an aptly named fictional character who could communicate with outsiders over email.
“It was like night and day,” says Dwyer. “It would take me days to get a response, but Keith could not only get a response and a status update, but also be asked if he wanted anything else or if there was anything else that Keith needed help with.”
Dwyer and Gazin continued to deploy Keith regularly when interacting with outsiders and found that the change in tone wasn’t just an anomaly. In exchange after exchange, the perceived involvement of a man seemed to have an effect on people’s assumptions about Witchsy and colored how they interacted with the budding business. One developer in particular seemed to show more deference to Keith than he did to Dwyer or Gazin, right down to the basics of human interaction.
“Whenever he spoke to Keith, he always addressed Keith by name,” says Gazin. “Whenever he spoke to us, he never used our names.”
Rather than deterring them, these types of encounters just gave Gazin and Dwyer more motivation to push forward, and an opportunity to have some fun at the expense of tech bro masculinity everywhere.
“I think we could have gotten pretty bent out of shape about that,” Dwyer says. “Wow, are people really going to talk to this imaginary man with more respect than us? But we were like, you know what, this is clearly just part of this world that we’re in right now. We want this and want to make this happen.”
It should seem obvious that meritocracy — a system in which the most talented and capable, the best educated, those who score highest on the tests, are put in leading positions — is better than plutocracy, gerontocracy, aristocracy and, perhaps, even the rule of the majority, democracy.
But Europe’s meritocratic elites aren’t hated simply because of populists’ bigoted stupidity or the confusion of ordinary people.
Michael Young, the British sociologist who in the middle of the last century coined the term “meritocracy,” would not be surprised by the turn of events. He was the first to explain that even though “meritocracy” might sound good to most people, a meritocratic society would be a disaster. It would create a society of selfish and arrogant winners, and angry and desperate losers. The triumph of meritocracy, Young understood, would lead to a loss of political community.
What makes meritocrats so unbearable to their critics is not so much their success but their insistence that they have succeeded because they worked harder than others, because they happened to be more qualified than others and because they passed the tests that others failed.
[…]
Unlike a century ago, today’s popular leaders aren’t interested in nationalizing industries. Instead, they promise to nationalize the elites.
This is what the populists are raging against. A figure like Obama – an icon of meritocratic cosmopolitanism – will see his policies unwound by anti-elite know-nothings who owe their power not to technical or logical skills, but a visceral connection to the disenfranchised losers of an unequal system, his standing pulled down by a mob of those left behind when the elite headed off to universities, great jobs, and membership in a globalist culture.
The 75 most common words make up 40% of occurrences
The 200 most common words make up 50% of occurrences
The 524 most common words make up 60% of occurrences
The 1257 most common words make up 70% of occurrences
The 2925 most common words make up 80% of occurrences
The 7444 most common words make up 90% of occurrences
The 13374 most common words make up 95% of occurrences
The 25508 most common words make up 99% of occurrences
This article has an excellent summary on how to rapidly learn a new language within 90 days.
We can begin with studying the first 600 words. Of course chucking is an effective way to memorize words readily. Here’s a list to translate into the language you desire to learn that I grabbed from here! :)
EXPRESSIONS OF POLITENESS (about 50 expressions)
‘Yes’ and ‘no’: yes, no, absolutely, no way, exactly.
Question words: when? where? how? how much? how many? why? what? who? which? whose?
Apologizing: excuse me, sorry to interrupt, well now, I’m afraid so, I’m afraid not.
Meeting and parting: good morning, good afternoon, good evening, hello, goodbye, cheers, see you later, pleased to meet you, nice to have met.
Interjections: please, thank you, don’t mention it, sorry, it’ll be done, I agree, congratulations, thank heavens, nonsense.
Space: into, out of, outside, towards, away from,
behind, in front of, beside, next to, between, above, on top of, below,
under, underneath, near to, a long way from, through.
Time: after, ago, before, during, since, until.
DETERMINERS (about 80 words)
Articles and numbers: a, the; nos. 0–20; nos. 30–100; nos. 200–1000; last, next, 1st–12th.
Demonstrative: this, that.
Possessive: my, your, his, her, its, our, their.
Quantifiers: all, some, no, any, many, much, more, less, a few, several, whole, a little, a lot of.
Universal: everyone, everybody, everything, each, both, all, one, another.
Indefinite: someone, somebody, something, some, a few, a little, more, less; anyone, anybody, anything, any, either, much, many.
Negative: no-one, nobody, nothing, none, neither.
ADVERBS (about 60 words)
Place: here, there, above, over, below, in front, behind,
nearby, a long way away, inside, outside, to the right, to the left,
somewhere, anywhere, everywhere, nowhere, home, upstairs, downstairs.
Time: now, soon, immediately, quickly, finally,
again, once, for a long time, today, generally, sometimes, always,
often, before, after, early, late, never, not yet, still, already, then
(=at that time), then (=next), yesterday, tomorrow, tonight.
Quantifiers: a little, about (=approximately), almost, at least, completely, very, enough, exactly, just, not, too much, more, less.
Manner: also, especially, gradually, of course,
only, otherwise, perhaps, probably, quite, so, then (=therefore), too
(=also), unfortunately, very much, well.
CONJUNCTIONS (about 30 words)
Coordinating: and, but, or; as, than, like.
Time & Place: when, while, before, after, since (=time), until; where.
I love it too! I love it mostly because it makes me feel less overwhelmed. When you break it down like this, everything seems so much more manageable. Like, hey, I could memorize 20 words at a time (even if ‘at a time’ varies wildly for me), and just do that like ten times. That’s a HUGE chunk of a language.
(And since I have the habit of doing languages that are similar to ones I’m already familiar with, the grammar part usually comes pretty easy, too.)
As a writer, this also strikes me as useful to know if you are constructing a language.
The plan for my improbable possible campaign for president has two critical initial steps: FIRST, raise $1M by Labor Day. SECOND, qualify for the debates.
“This is not just about social justice but paying high wages is also smart business. When wages are low, uncertainty dogs the marketplace and growth is weak. But when pay is high and steady business is more secure because workers earn enough to become good customers. They can afford to buy Model Ts.”—
Medicare turns fifty next week. It was signed into law July 30,
1965 – the crowning achievement of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. It’s more popular than ever.
Yet Medicare continues to be blamed
for America’s present and future budget problems.
A few days ago Jeb Bush even suggested phasing it out. Seniors
already receiving benefits should continue to receive them, he said, but
“we need to figure out a way to phase out this program for others and move
to a new system that allows them to have something, because they’re not going
to have anything.”
Bush praised Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to give seniors vouchers
instead. What Bush didn’t say was that Ryan’s vouchers wouldn’t
keep up with increases in medical costs – leaving seniors with less coverage.
Medicare isn’t the problem. In fact, it’s the solution.
Its costs are being pushed upward by the rising costs of
health care overall – which have slowed somewhat since the Affordable Care Act
was introduced but are still rising faster than inflation.
Medicare costs are also rising because of the
growing ranks of boomers becoming eligible for Medicare.
Medicare offers a way to reduce these underlying costs – if
Washington would let it.
Let me explain.
Americans spend more on health care per person than any other
advanced nation and get less for our money. Yearly public and private
healthcare spending is almost two and a half times the average of other
advanced nations.
Yet the typical American lives 78.1 years – less than the
average 80.1 years in other advanced nations. And we have the highest rate of infant mortality of all advanced
nations.
Medical costs continue to rise because doctors and hospitals
still spend too much money on unnecessary tests, drugs, and procedures.
Consider lower back pain, one of the most common ailments of our sedentary society. Almost 95% of it can be relieved
through physical therapy.
But doctors and hospitals often do expensive MRI’s, and then refer
patients to orthopedic surgeons for costly surgery. Why? Physical therapy
doesn’t generate much revenue.
Or say your diabetes, asthma, or heart condition is acting up.
If you seek treatment in a hospital, 20 percent of the time you’re back within
a month.
It would be far less costly if a nurse visited you at home to
make sure you were taking your medications, a common practice in other advanced
nations. But nurses don’t do home visits to Americans with acute conditions because
hospitals aren’t paid for them.
America still spends about over $19 billion a year fixing medical
errors, the worst rate among advanced countries. Such errors are the third major
cause of hospital deaths.
One big reason is we keep patient records on computers that
can’t share the data. Patient records are continuously re-written and then
re-entered into different computers. That leads to lots of mistakes.
Meanwhile, administrative costs account for 15 to 30 percent of
all health care spending in the United States, twice the rate of most other advanced
nations.
Most of this is to collect money: Doctors collecting from hospitals
and insurers, hospitals collecting from insurers, insurers collecting from
companies or policy holders. A third of nursing hours are devoted to documenting what’s done so that insurers have proof.
Cutting back Medicare won’t affect any of this. It will just funnel
more money into the hands of for-profit insurers while limiting the amount of
care seniors receive.
The answer isn’t to shrink Medicare. It’s to grow it –
allowing anyone at any age to join.
Medicare’s administrative costs are in the range of 3 percent.
That’s well below the 5 to 10 percent costs borne by large
companies that self-insure. It’s even further below the administrative costs of
companies in the small-group market (amounting to 25 to 27 percent of
premiums).
And it’s way, way lower than the administrative costs of
individual insurance (40 percent). It’s even far below the 11 percent costs of
private plans under Medicare Advantage, the current private-insurance option
under Medicare.
Meanwhile, as for-profit insurance companies merge into giant behemoths
that reduce consumer choice still further, it’s doubly important to make
Medicare available to all.
Medicare should also be allowed to use its huge bargaining
leverage to negotiate lower rates with pharmaceutical companies – which
Obamacare barred in order to get Big Insurance to go along with the
legislation.
These moves would give more Americans quality health care, slow
rising healthcare costs, help reduce federal budget deficit, and keep Medicare going.
Let me say it again: Medicare isn’t the problem. It’s the
solution.
The last day, on-site at The State Museum of Pennsylvania, witf did a very nice report and interviews with us about our restoration process for both the red fox and gray fox habitat dioramas. Here is the video link.
Suicides among teenagers has been said to increase from 8-11% to now 35%.
College age women today are said to be the most depressed women in history.
It’s said that teens and adults are struggling emotionally because so many people depict their lives and selves as ‘perfect’ on social media, portraying success, wealth, thinness, etc. regardless of whether they have it or not. Upon seeing this, they feel bad about themselves because they’re in the day to day of having to work at life, be at their financial or whatever status, etc.
Photoshop is rampant making everybody from ordinary people to celebrities look as if they’re flawless.
I was out a few weeks ago and only noticed the woman seated with her back facing me because she was in a mini dress yet was fidgeting around and tucking her legs under her on the chair a bit like a little kid. It caught my attention because she was moving around so much, and sitting like that is hard to do in a short dress.
When she got up, I recognized her by her hair only, a somewhat popular fashion blogger. But nothing about her was otherwise the same as shown in her photos – her skin appeared to have acne, it was uneven not smooth and flawless like her photos showed, her nose wasn’t nearly as thin, she wasn’t as tall. She was fidgety, not confident, and looked a little sweaty, not at all ultra poised and cool like the pictures.
It’s understandable to a point. We all want to look and feel good. Nothing wrong with a few little tweaks. But it was kind of amazing to think about the effort it might take, and then I thought about the dozens of women who might look at themselves when they see those photos and feel bad that they’re not that flawless never understanding that neither is she. I solely recognized her because I actually pay attention to fashion blogs for work, nobody else in the room had any idea who she was or even glanced her direction.
People are literally killing themselves about these things, from feeling pressured, depressed, afraid, etc. not to be or have what they think everyone else is or has.
Meanwhile, there are people who have their legs blown off in war torn areas, so many stricken with cancer or suffering from famine, poverty and lack, who would love to have the lives and bodies we all think are less than.
Brands and marketers today are only making the problem worse with their weird lunches, trips, events, etc. where they invite people who they think are ‘influential,’ creating the environment of exclusivity and ‘cool kids’ among what are essentially everyday people. This never makes me want to buy their products, in fact it is usually the opposite because from a customer standpoint it’s a little obnoxious and cheesy.
No less, if you’re feeling the same pressure to have the perfect life, perfect job, perfect success, body, or whatever else, don’t. It’s a huge facade with pretty much everyone, and we’re all walking around in real life with uneven skin, acne, shorter than we’d like to be, fatter than we’d like to be and all kinds of other stuff. Not to mention struggling to earn money, make it in the world, navigate this thing called life. This includes ‘rich’ people.
It’s actually often the people who think they need to present themselves in some way that are really the ones struggling. Most people are bogged down with the day to day. It’s matters enough to some to take the time and effort it takes to do it.
We are all so lucky to have life, working arms and legs, roofs over our heads, warm beds. I know it doesn’t seem like these are big things, but trust me if you lose them – and everyone runs that risk at some point no matter who they are – you learn very quickly.
Nothing wrong with who you are, where you are at, what you are. Don’t let anybody make you feel any other way.
