.will

Paul Baribeau - Christmas Lights

Sat, 25 Dec 2010 05:32:44 -0500

Christmas Lights by Paul Baribeau
Download now or listen on posterous

christmas lights.mp3 (2444 KB)

fresh snow on the suburbs

staying at my parents

it hasn’t been a good year

but things are all right here

sleeping in the spare room

that used to be my bedroom

even though I’m home now

I feel completely homeless

I’m looking at the moon

shining on the snow

and everything was blue

except the Christmas lights

walking round the basement

where my band used to practice

sometimes I don’t want to make new friends

sometimes I just miss my old friends

but I’m seeing someone new now

she calms my heart down

but I’m too scared to tell her

how crazy I can get sometimes

I’m looking at the moon

shining on the snow

and everything was blue

except the Christmas lights

I never feel better after I cry

I spent 6 months of my life just wanting to die

I’m learning how to be alone without be lonely

learning how to be lonely without losing my mind

I’m looking at the moon

shining on the snow

and everything was blue

except the Christmas lights

See the full gallery on posterous

The amazing hereditary inheritance

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 15:08:36 -0500

My uncle(s) are awesome!

On the refrigerator white board:

To whom it may concern, i would like to know why there s a decomposed rodent on top of the pourch.

Love,
Addison

The management of this house is under no obligation to explain it’s actions to it’s tenants.

Sincerely,
The Management

BBC News - Alcohol 'more harmful than heroin' says Prof David Nutt

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 10:20:22 -0400

546

via 7bbc.co.uk

BBC News - Sleep loss 'worse for extroverts'

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 10:12:04 -0400

suggesting it is “social stimulation” that tires out the parts of the extroverts’ brains linked to alertness.

via bbc.co.uk

Max Levine Ensemble - Summer, Like the Season

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 17:53:01 -0400

Summer, Like The Season by The Max Levine Ensemble
Download now or listen on posterous

SummerLikeTheSeason.mp3 (3148 KB)

A song to close out the season.

it’s too late now to think of what you could have been,

she said as she braved the cooling air,

and though you’ll try, you’ll never escape that feeling,

there’s a place you’d rather be, but you’re not there.

she said:

seasons change, as well as youthful minds,

just how long do you think you can cling to these vines?

her name was Summer.

and I said “you’re asking questions

you know well there’s no answers to,

the kind that get answered for you.”

countdown to a meltdown, might as well run for your life.

for it’s depleting and receding like the early morning tide.

well I just smile, I got time.

her name was Summer, and she changed just like the season,

and she left without a reason, and she was gone.

but then came Autumn, but her beauty was deceiving,

amidst the colors it was freezing and she died.

and she died.

NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA….

"Life"

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 10:56:01 -0400

via i.imgur.com

Op-Ed Columnist - Moonshine or the Kids? - NYTimes.com

Sun, 29 Aug 2010 23:02:33 -0400

if the poorest families spent as much money educating their children as they do on wine, cigarettes and prostitutes, their children’s prospects would be transformed. Much suffering is caused not only by low incomes, but also by shortsighted private spending decisions by heads of households.

via nytimes.com

Tim Wise - The Pathology of White Privilege

Sat, 21 Aug 2010 19:30:31 -0400

via video.google.com

Somewhere in there Tim Wise briefly mentions white history month is every month not explicitly designated otherwise. This is obvious as he points out. However, he claims this is why there is no need for a white history month. I would suggest the opposite. Because such a month is implicit is exactly why it should be explicit. If students and media were to try to celebrate it, there would be nothing special. This could draw more attention to the hegemony of white culture.

Posted via email from PeerReviewedorNot | Comment »

[Documentary] Class Dismissed: How TV Frames the Working Class

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 10:49:09 -0400

via youtube.com

Untitled

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 22:35:48 -0400

“Self-sufficiency: we call that poverty these days” -

Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen

Mon, 21 Jun 2010 00:01:33 -0400

via ted.com

Important to watch. “North” v “South” or industrialized v developing dichotomy is a 1960s hold over. It is misleading today.

The follow up is linked below. He swallows a sword at the end. http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_reveals_new_insights_on_poverty.html

The End of Men - Magazine - The Atlantic

Sat, 12 Jun 2010 12:44:36 -0400

Yes, the U.S. still has a wage gap, one that can be convincingly explained—at least in part—by discrimination. Yes, women still do most of the child care. And yes, the upper reaches of society are still dominated by men. But given the power of the forces pushing at the economy, this setup feels like the last gasp of a dying age rather than the permanent establishment.

via theatlantic.com

You Are Not So Smart

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:50:41 -0400

There are anecdotal accounts of people seeing the prisoners of concentration camps for the first time and assuming they must have been terrible criminals. The first place the mind goes is the place where the world is just.

Why do you do this?

via youarenotsosmart.com

The article address the consequences of the just-world fallacy that is apparently innate. The ill, rape victims, and the impoverished deserve their misfortune. The fortunate, wealthy, and recognized are so because of their character and action. Meritocracy is a baseline for interpretation (rationalizing) and naturally extends to places (sex victims) it clearly doesn’t belong. Not so clearly, it may be that merit is always an inappropriate perspective. Malcolm Gladwell has something to say here (Outliers).

I like this perspective on the demonizing of rape victims. It’s not a process of patriarchy. It is the result of a natural cognitive fallacy. It’s Hanlon’s Razor: “never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”

Also, Why does the author say “Why do _you_ do this?” Should it not be “Why do _we_ do this?”

You Are Not So Smart

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:48:25 -0400

There are anecdotal accounts of people seeing the prisoners of concentration camps for the first time and assuming they must have been terrible criminals. The first place the mind goes is the place where the world is just.

Why do you do this?

via youarenotsosmart.com

You Are Not So Smart

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 15:46:06 -0400

There are anecdotal accounts of people seeing the prisoners of concentration camps for the first time and assuming they must have been terrible criminals. The first place the mind goes is the place where the world is just.

Why do you do this?

via youarenotsosmart.com

Also, Why does the author say “Why do _you_ do this?” Should it not be “Why do _we_ do this?”

Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. ~ Voltaire : quotes

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 20:56:31 -0400

Life is a shipwreck but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats. ~ Voltaire

via reddit.com

RSA Animate - The Empathic Civilisation

Mon, 31 May 2010 22:51:31 -0400

via youtube.com

This video, further endorsing my world view: “act always with empathy,” is impressive both in illustration and message.

Though, despite having long adopting an at least similar perspective, my understanding is weak. Why does utilitarianism conflict with empathy?

True Lies | The New Republic

Mon, 31 May 2010 22:02:34 -0400

Thus Kuran emphasizes an important and often neglected fact: that private pressure can impair liberty, and obstacles to free speech and honest interchange often come from our fellow citizens. The desire to protect one’s reputation, by declining to say things that other people think bizarre or offensive, is deeply rooted in human beings; and so Kuran finds a crucial distinction between a person’s private preferences (what he actually wants) and his public preferences (what he says, in public, that he wants).

via tnr.com

Take this in context of the discussion of Facebook privacy. The more open Facebook identities become, the more repressive the site becomes. It’s a bit counter-intuitive. The quantity of information broadcast is inversely related to liberty, at least when the author can be held accountable to ‘eir preference.

Is free speech only liberating when it is anonymous? Without associating the taboo with the person, the internet is at it’s most infamous. Unfortunately, there is no stretch in likening the anonymous actions of the unaccountable to that exemplified by road-raged drivers. Apparently, people, liberated, are jerks without empathy. Is my misanthropic bias showing?

Waking Life - Fear or Laziness?

Tue, 25 May 2010 23:30:07 -0400

via youtube.com

the movie (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0243017/) was posted in it’s entirety and linked on reddit. http://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/c7ypa/waking_life_full_watch_disc…. This scene and the one comparing internalization and social mannerisms to the behavior of ants have not left my discourse in the three years since I first saw them.