February 19, 2016

Emma Watson and bell hooks Talk Feminism in Paper Magazine

Engaging with feminism, there is this kind of bubble now that goes off in my head where these really negative thoughts about myself hit where I'm able to combat them in a very rational and quick way. I can see it now in a way that's different. I guess if I could give women anything through feminism -- or you're asking about power -- it would just be, to be able to move away, to move through all of that. I see so many women struggling with issues of self-esteem. They know and they hear it and they read it in magazines and books all the time that self-love is really important, but it's really hard to actually do -- [via boingboing]
posted by cgc373 at 8:02 PM PST - 13 comments

Pee-wee's Big Holiday

Pee-Wee Herman is coming back - and he's going on his first vacation.
posted by divabat at 7:53 PM PST - 46 comments

What sparked the Cambrian explosion?

An evolutionary burst 540 million years ago filled the seas with an astonishing diversity of animals. The trigger behind that revolution is finally coming into focus , according to the journal Nature. [more inside]
posted by MoonOrb at 7:49 PM PST - 38 comments

"Obama's face has been etched out"

A short video tour of the library at Guantanamo.
posted by anothermug at 6:10 PM PST - 4 comments

Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus.

Umberto Eco, the Italian semiotician, author, and critic, has died at age 84.
posted by freelanceastro at 4:23 PM PST - 186 comments

The artist who dared to paint Ireland's great famine.

"Between 1845 and 1852, Ireland lost more than a quarter of its population to starvation, disease and emigration, while its English overlords hemmed, hawed and, in at least one prominent case, cited God’s will as justification. And yet there is just one painting known to exist that captured the famine as it was unfolding: “An Irish Peasant Family Discovering the Blight of Their Store,” which depicts a family peeling away the hay and earth protecting its “store” of harvested potatoes, only to find the dark of rot." [more inside]
posted by acrasis at 4:04 PM PST - 9 comments

It's A Deal

BBC: David Cameron says a deal struck with EU leaders will give the UK "special status" and he will campaign with his "heart and soul" to stay in the union. The PM said the agreement, reached late on Friday after two days of talks in Brussels, would include a seven-year "emergency brake" on welfare payments. He added the deal included changes to EU treaties and would be presented to his cabinet on Saturday at 10:00 GMT. EU exit campaigners said the "hollow" deal offered only "very minor changes". [more inside]
posted by marienbad at 3:53 PM PST - 72 comments

"That is really the thrill of my career."

Steve Martin Performed Stand-up Last Night for the First Time in 35 Years "I'll be honest with you, right off the top, because I'm a little upset with the Beacon Theatre," one joke began. "I was backstage and I used the restroom. And there was a sign that read, 'Employees Must Wash hands.'" Pause. "And I could not find [pause] one employee [pause] to wash my hands."
posted by Servo5678 at 3:39 PM PST - 51 comments

Electioneering on the campaign trail

Old and new data-driven efforts implicate mind control (get out the tin foil hats) [more inside]
posted by jiblets at 3:19 PM PST - 27 comments

Astronaut ice cream is a lie

Astronaut ice cream is a lie (SLYT)
posted by Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug at 2:50 PM PST - 46 comments

Choose Life.

Twenty years of Trainspotting [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:56 PM PST - 50 comments

The Vinyl Frontier

Brazilian businessman Zero Freitas owns over six million records, a collection which he intends to catalogue for public use and transform into a vast listenable archive. Writer and cultural sociologist Dominik Bartmanski visited Freitas’ São Paulo warehouse for a rare interview with the man himself.
posted by Rumple at 12:40 PM PST - 10 comments

Pantsula: It is a defiance, a statement to say 'We can outlive poverty'

Pantsula is a form of energetic dancing that originated in black townships of South Africa during the Apartheid era, and it's still alive and thriving over 60 years later, pulling in and spinning out influences to other dance styles from around the world. Pantsula dancers show their moves and tell their history and reason for dancing. [more inside]
posted by filthy light thief at 11:35 AM PST - 8 comments

Spending, Use of Services, Prices, and Health in 13 Countries

U.S. Health Care from a Global Perspective
posted by infini at 11:30 AM PST - 43 comments

The data totaled about 20 gigabytes, compressed.

I have a copy of Amazon. Meaning that, on my hard drive there is a massive chunk of Amazon’s product and reviews database—a listing of nine million or so products and 80 million or so reviews taken from 1996 to 2014. The names of all the books in that chunk, their sales ranks, their categories. Every pair of pants for kids, every sock. All the books about Hitler; all the books about snakes. All the different Lego sets. Whatever.
posted by Chrysostom at 10:58 AM PST - 50 comments

bad roomie (NSFW)

dinner DATE
(You didn't need that, and, trust me, you don't need more, but incase you want more, there's more.)
[more inside]
posted by cjorgensen at 10:34 AM PST - 16 comments

Twenty years of Democracy Now! in review

Twenty years of Democracy Now! (alt link, transcript) Currently an hour-long television and web broadcast, the award-winning news program began on the radio on February 19th, 1996 on the eve of the New Hampshire presidential primary. Previously.
posted by XMLicious at 10:26 AM PST - 38 comments

Alvin Buenaventura (1976-2016)

Alvin Buenaventura, comics publisher, editor, art dealer, and advocate, passed away Feb. 11, 2016 at the tragically young age of 39. [more inside]
posted by Awkward Philip at 10:25 AM PST - 4 comments

The goal is one book a day.

"The Complete Review, “a selectively comprehensive, objectively opinionated survey of books old and new,” sits on the margins of the literary world, where it has flourished for sixteen years. As of last Friday, according to an analog counter on the site’s decidedly unglamorous homepage, it had reviewed three thousand six hundred and eighty-seven books, from a hundred different countries, originally published in sixty-eight different languages—an average of two hundred and thirty books a year. Virtually all of this criticism, and everything else on the Complete Review, is the work of Michael A. Orthofer, a fifty-one-year-old lawyer who was born in Graz, Austria, and brought up in New York City. " [more inside]
posted by the man of twists and turns at 8:48 AM PST - 18 comments

Stand up. Ms. Lee's passing.

Harper Lee, Author of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ Dies at 89 [The New York Times] [more inside]
posted by Fizz at 8:18 AM PST - 133 comments

THE HAIRY PANIC

The rural Australian city of Wangaratta is fighting a particularly heavy accumulation of fast-growing tumbleweed called "hairy panic." Residents have had to clear the several meter-high piles, which have reached roof levle, of hairy panic several times a day. A large vacuum could possibly combat the grass (Panicum effusum), which occurs throughout Australia and New Guinea and can grow up to 70 cm (2' 4") high.
posted by andrewesque at 7:29 AM PST - 59 comments

Epic cat rescue tale

Epic journey of Kunkush - a refugee cat. A story which could have been raised in a lab to strike at the heart of all those on Metafilter who love cats and a good cry. (SLGuardian)
posted by biffa at 6:49 AM PST - 21 comments

Officialish Video for Alicia Keys-No One

Sometimes you have to dance like no one is watching. To Alicia Keys. In the ice and snow. On a dock. You may fall, but you must get up again. (SLYT, awesome, made my day)
posted by nevercalm at 6:47 AM PST - 23 comments

Also, It Rattles

Melisandre at a Baby Shower - Late Night with Seth Meyers.
posted by veedubya at 6:37 AM PST - 17 comments

In one case -- a girl fell in love with a donkey

Ophelia feels that Hamlet is acting strangely. So she hires Titus and Dronicus, private investigators, to find out what's going on. (A three episode web series on youtube.)
posted by JustKeepSwimming at 6:09 AM PST - 4 comments

Side by Side by Sondheim and Reich

Reich and Sondheim: In Conversation and Performance (2:04:46). Composers Stephen Sondheim and Steve Reich in conversation on stage at the Lincoln Center in New York, interspersed with performances of their work. A summary from the Hollywood Reporter is here, including a list of all pieces played.
posted by rollick at 6:03 AM PST - 5 comments

The Dumbest Boy Alive

In May 2008, on a Friday afternoon, on a bodybuilding forum, a debate started: If you're doing something "every other day", does that mean you do it 3.5 or 4 times in a week? How many days are even in a week anyway? 7? 8? 0? Jon Bois details this discussion in the latest episode of Pretty Good.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 5:23 AM PST - 76 comments

Chandra Brambra, Chandra Chandra Bendram

Please enjoy this gloriously kitschy 2001 performance of a house-pop song entitled "7th Element," by Russian singer Vitas. (Vitas previously on MeFi, singing a um, pretty different repertoire.) [more inside]
posted by en forme de poire at 3:04 AM PST - 12 comments

Patti Smith’s Eternal Flame

“No matter what anybody thinks about any of them,” said Patti Smith, “every record I’ve done has been done with the same amount of care, anguish, pain, suffering, and joy. We never threw a record together. Each record was done really seriously, as if our life depended on it.”
Alan Light interviews Patti Smith, discussing her life and work. [more inside]
posted by Blasdelb at 2:46 AM PST - 7 comments

Something New From This Old House

Starting on March 24, 2016, long-running historic house restoration public television show This Old House will begin a 10-episode arc with something completely new -- a brand new pre-constructed, energy-efficient house modeled after other Massachusetts North Shore houses from the late 1700s. A video preview of the project [2m5s]
posted by hippybear at 2:02 AM PST - 39 comments

The possessed has been delivered

Andrzej Zulawski, the legendary Polish cult director, has died at the age of 75 after a long battle with cancer. A non-conformist visionary of world cinema, his approach to storytelling is idiosyncratic and characterised by explosions of violence, sexuality, and despair. The actors in his movies have played out the most intensely high-pitched emotions in cinema history which inspired the French to coin the term 'Żuławskien', meaning 'over the top'. [more inside]
posted by sapagan at 1:01 AM PST - 9 comments

The Perfect Democratic Stump Speech (sl538)

We asked Democratic speechwriter Jeff Nussbaum to write a totally pandering stump speech for an imaginary Democratic presidential candidate — one who espouses only positions that a majority of Democrats agree with (we also did the same with Republicans). Here’s the speech he wrote, including notes to explain his phrasing, behind-the-scenes tips on appealing to Democratic voters and the data he used to decide which positions to take.
posted by Going To Maine at 12:57 AM PST - 8 comments

The Gilded Age, Henry George, the Land Value Tax and the Progressive Era

Kim-Mai Cutler: Nothing Like This Has Ever Happened Before - "San Francisco Bay Area poverty rates in all nine counties have increased in the last economic cycle, even with the Facebook and Twitter IPOs and private tech boom. The main transfer mechanism is land and housing costs, as rising rents and evictions push service and other low-wage workers to the brink. [Henry] George's solution was a single land tax that would replace all other government revenue sources. If an owner wanted to develop their property to make it more useful or productive, George argued that they should have the right to keep the value from those efforts. But increases in the value of underlying land were created by — and ultimately belonged to — the public at large." (previously: 1,2,3) [more inside]
posted by kliuless at 12:21 AM PST - 33 comments

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