Typography of a quote by Abraham Joshua Heschel I made today - hoping to make a bunch of these in my week off.
Viktor Frankl on why it is necessary to be idealistic and hope for the best in others.
A picture of Henry I goofed around with to put on my desktop.
[Football] turned you into a member of a new community, all brothers together for an hour and half, for not only had you escaped from the clanking machinery of this lesser life, from work, from wages, rent, doles, sick pay, insurance cards, nagging wives, ailing children, bad bosses, idle workmen, but you had escaped with most of your mates and your neighbours, with half the town, cheering together, thumping one another on the shoulders, swapping judgements like Lords of the Earth, having pushed your way through a turnstile into another and altogether more splendid life.
—Writer J.B Priestley on attending football in England in the early 20th century. Stole this excerpt from The Ball is Round by David Goldblatt. I find it to be an incredibly poetic and elegant articulation of why football (or sport in general I suppose) is such a powerful and universal social phenomenon - as an escape into an ‘altogether more splendid life’.
I have come to think that the notion of potential, without the notion of optimism, has very little meaning.
—Martin Seligman, Learned Optimism
Just found this old clip of Colbert tearing apart Republican Senator Jon Kyl and Fox and Friends for their critiques of Planned Parenthood earlier in 2011. Love how he can’t even stay in character for most of his lines. Absolutely hilarious.
Scary chart that suggests a very strong correlation between maternal education level and the chances of success of their children. Based on a study by James Heckman.
Found here:
http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/03/james-heckman-education-achievement-gap
Robert Reich on Democracy and Politics in America
Also worth checking out the accompanying blog post. It’s articulate, straightforward, and (at least in my mind) incredibly hard to refute.
http://robertreich.org/post/13163087845
If there’s a single core message to the Occupier movement it’s that the increasing concentration of income and wealth at the top endangers our democracy. With money comes political power…
The First Amendment is being stood on its head. Money speaks, and an unlimited amount of it can now be spent bribing and cajoling politicians. Yet peaceful assembly is viewed as a public nuisance and removed by force.
This is especially worrisome now that so many Americans are in economic trouble. The jobs recession grinds on, seemingly without end. Homes are being foreclosed upon. Qualified students cannot afford college. Or they’re forced to take on huge debt loads they can’t repay in a jobless economy. Schools are firing teachers. Vital social services are being axed.
The Feynman Series
Recommend watching these short videos of physicist Richard Feynman speaking about science and humanity dubbed over some beautiful imagery - it’s some pretty moving, compelling, and fascinating stuff. As good an argument on behalf of science as anything I’ve seen:
Part 1 - Beauty
Part 2 - Honors
Part 3 - Curiosity
Also worth watching are the Sagan Series (which the Feynman Series emerged out of). They are more focused on space exploration and its merits, but there’s two that I enjoyed about more general science and humanity:
Sagan Series - Part 1 - NASA The Frontier is Everywhere
Sagan Series - Part 3 - A Reassuring Fable (particularly liked this one).
