March 8, 2018
[Post] [Is] [Made]
A Poli-graph
The women who lived with the CIA
Margaret Scattergood and Florence Thorne were living in Langley, Virginia when the CIA moved in. The women reached an agreement with the federal government, wherein they sold their house to the Agency to be part of its compound, but could live in it for the rest of their lives. However, Margaret was a Quaker and "considered the organization’s mission to be in violation of her pacifist beliefs. She used her trust fund to financially contribute to antiwar causes. She lobbied Congress to cut the US Intelligence and military budgets. In the 1980s Margaret opened her home to Sandinistas from Nicaragua, while CIA supported the opposition.... More than once, Sandinistas arrived at the CIA’s main entrance in search of the Calvert Estate." [more inside]
It's not a live album
Carla Bley and her jazz band were in Europe in 1977 and they stopped by a studio in Munich to record 40-odd minutes of music [YT playlist] which was released in 1978 as The Carla Bley Band - European Tour 1977. The 4 pieces on the recording are fun, inventive, surprising, and sometimes even thrilling. Side A: Rose And Sad Song, Wrong Key Donkey [more inside]
Spike Jonze! FKA Twigs! Dancing!
Ball Breakers
The life of a female billiards player is built on long hours, bad pay, and frequent travel. But at least you don’t have to share the table with men.
Lard Pour Lard
FATBERG is focused on the construction and growth of a floating island of fat. Fat performs a unique and vital function as an energy reserve, stored within the body for times of scarcity. And yet, from a western perspective, fat has lost this function. It is stored and stored some more, but rarely used for its original purpose. Fat simply is.
We are going to hang in there until it works
“...it’s not really about shooting people at all.”
Splatoon 2’s non-violent gameplay makes it a truly subversive shooter [Evening Standard] “Where the likes of Call of Duty and Battlefield bring gritty and visceral warfare to the gaming landscape, Nintendo has once again shown its mastery in giving a creative all-ages spin on an established genre. Splatoon keeps the addictive gameplay of third-person shooters intact — select a weapon, run around a map, aim accurately and pull the trigger — but gives it an eyeball-frazzlingly colourful overhaul and removes character conflict from the equation. Rather than bullets, Splatoon’s tools are filled with neon-hued inks, and instead of battling enemy players the multiplayer mode sees teams tasked with spraying as much of the game map as possible with their team colour. The characters aren’t soldiers either — they’re vaguely elfish childlike creatures called Inklings, who for some reason can turn into squids and swim through their own coloured ink.” [YouTube][Game Trailer] [more inside]
An interesting definition of the word 'retire'
Guardian: Extreme frugality allowed me to retire at 32 – and regain control of my life. "Elizabeth Willard Thames abandoned a successful career in the city and embraced frugality to create a more meaningful life. It enabled her to retire at 32 with her family to a homestead in the Vermont woods" ... "It’s easy to discount your partner’s contributions until you’re standing side by side in the kitchen, watching them chop vegetables for forty-five minutes just to cook you up a stir-fry you love for dinner." (Caution for repeated use of the word 'frugality', and a 'tough crowd' Guardian comments section)
At 4am, the glamour of cowboy life loses some of its attraction
I don't call myself a cowboy… That’s not a title you can just bestow on yourself, it’s something other people have to give you the recognition for. The popular saying is if someone the asks you if you’re a cowboy, you say “No, but I’ll do till one comes along.”My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys, a Musical Documentary with Waylon Jennings.
How many murders can a police informer get away with?
Last year Northern Irish paramilitary Gary Haggarty pleaded guilty to hundreds of violent crimes, including many killings – while working for the British state.
How to Raise a Boy
New York Magazine’s cover for their latest issue is a package of stories that attempts 29 answers to a question that has grown both "more impossible and more urgent following the Parkland shooting, the president, and #MeToo." How to Raise a Boy. [more inside]
"SHAWN, WHERE’S THE TAPE?! SHOW THE WORLD THE TAPE, SHAWN."
Steve Francis: I Got a Story to Tell: I damn near cried when I got taken by the Grizzlies at No. 2. I was not about to go up to freezing-ass Canada, so far away from my family, when they were about to move the franchise anyway. I’m sorry but … actually, I’m really not even sorry. Everybody sees the business of basketball now. That team was gone. The only thing I’m sorry about is that I went up there and gave probably the rudest press conference in NBA history before they traded me. [slPlayersTribune] [Previously]
A sound public health approach can reduce this deadly toll
In response to the student movement against gun violence, the American Public Health Association has opened access to all of the published research, commentaries, and essays on public health and firearms. that have appeared in the American Journal of Public Health. [more inside]
Overlooked and Underrated
"Since 1851, obituaries in the New York Times have been dominated by white men. Now, we're adding the stories of 15 remarkable women."
For International Women's Day, in an attempt to redress its history of sexism, the New York Times is running a set of belated obituaries of women they failed to memorialize when they died. They plan to write more, and ask for suggestions.
"House-positivity is seen as bizarre."
"...a blancmange of ineptitude and misogyny..."
“Do you live local, around here somewhere?” “Yeah,” she replies, doing most of the talking. “Ah, that’s nice,” Richard stumbles aimlessly in a script he wrote in advance of filming his imaginary wank fantasy. “Do you spend a lot of time in this area?” Seriously. That’s his follow-up to asking if she lives here. “I do, yeah,” the confused human replies, once again just dominating the conversation, as Richard begins telling the person who briefly agreed she knows the area that there’s a coffee shop around the corner.Rock Paper Shotgun reviews PUA Video Game "Super Seducer." by John Walker [TW: All the worst PUA shit imaginable]
“Homosexuality is Stalin’s Atom Bomb To Destory America”
“Information has come to our attention that you are homosexual. What comment do you care to make?” During the Lavender Scare, LGBTQ+ military and government personnel were targeted en masse — especially women, Airman Second Class Helen James was one of them. Navy recruit and Drag King Rusty Brown gives an oral history of the panic and paranoia at the time. (PDF) MAKING GAY HISTORY podcast and transcript on the founders of Daughters of Bilitis, the first advocacy organization for lesbians in 1955. [more inside]
Reminder: Nunberg was less than a Scaramucci ago
It seems very fitting that Merriam-Webster chose this week to add "dumpster fire" to the dictionary.
Some of the choice chunks of flaming refuse today:Mother Jones releases its first excerpt of Michael Isikoff and David Corn's upcoming book Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin's War on America and the Election of Donald Trump
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The WaPo discovers that Erik Prince may have misspoken about the reasons for his January 2017 vacation in the Seychelles.
Hope Hicks has some email trouble.
As questions swirl around his NDA with adult film entrepreneur Stormy Daniels,
the president is less than pleased with his press secretary's handling of the isssue.
The president has expressed mild interest in the discussions his staff have been having with the special counsel.
Some of the choice chunks of flaming refuse today:
Plogging: picking up trash while jogging, walking, biking or boating
Erik Ahlström was annoyed by the litter he saw in his new hometown of Stockholm, and set about to make picking up trash into a semi-competitive sport. Thus "plogga" was born, mixing the words "plocka" and "jogga," or "pick up" and "jogging" (Google auto-translate). Plogging is big on instagram, as documented by Buzzfeed, and Metro.co.uk’s resident fitness expert, Miranda Larbi, said plogging is similar to interval training and mobility training. Plogging has gained international interest in running communities, but it's not just about jogging. As noted in Teen Vogue You can pick up trash while walking your dog or heading anywhere, or while biking or even boating.
Slivers of Science in Homer's 'The Odyssey'
The "magical" herbs described in Homer's encounter with Circe may have been based on real plants. Also, a four and a half minute video depicting this theory.
"Readers make the best sleuths."
Yesterday marked the launch of Crimereads, Literary Hub's new site dedicated to mystery, thrillers, and true crime. A welcome letter from the editors can be found here.
What have you forgotten?
When and why we forget childhood events I remember things from my childhood but they seem to be ones that upset me. I rarely recall happy moments!
A shoe, a bottle of Benedictine, and bones
After re-examining bones found on the South Pacific island of Nikumaroro in 1940, and comparing them to written and photographic records of her physical measurements, University of Tennessee professor Richard L. Jantz believes these bones belong to famed aviator Amelia Earhart, saying that her measurements were “more similar to the Nikumaroro bones than 99 [percent] of individuals in a large reference sample,” thus supporting the long-held theory that Earhart died a castaway on the island. [more inside]
How two photographers unknowingly shot the same millisecond in time
Unbeknownst to each other, photographers Ron Risman and Eric Gendron happened to take almost the same photograph of waves crashing around the Whaleback Lighthouse in New Hampshire, USA. [more inside]
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