July 9, 2015
In spite of old Kentucky.
Jon Chait, New York Magazine: The Party of Andrew Jackson vs. the Party of Obama
Downplaying or ignoring Jackson’s conservatism, while conjuring a liberal ideology on his behalf, served a partisan interest for 20th-century Democrats. But there are also honest reasons that may have led historians like Schlesinger astray. From the standpoint of the 20th century, the United States had evolved into a two-party system in which the more liberal of the two parties had its strongest base in the Deep South. As this felt to many to be the inevitable direction of American politics, it seemed natural to peer back at the 19th century and see those coalitions in protean form. Despite its conservative views on race and suspicion of Washington, the white South probably appeared like a plausible base for the development of a liberal party. From the standpoint of the 21st century, things look very different.[more inside]
What We Comment About When We Comment About Commenting
Queer women's web magazine Autostraddle, one of the few sites where it's safe to break the rule of "don't read the comments", muses about online commenting culture and how the move to social media commentary affects communities on comment-heavy sites like itself.
Raccoon in the City
A raccoon died on the streets of Toronto. Once Twitter got wind of it, the people began to mourn even spawning his own hashtag. City Councillor Norm Kelly (formally Deputy Mayor during the Ford days) got into the fun, tweeting the memorial progress. Then, the city came and took away our fun. Toronto has always had an interesting love/hate relationship with the raccoon. They seem to be everywhere, in the green spaces, in our garbage and even up a condo tower mid-construction. Earlier this year, Toronto Mayor John Tory announced the war on Raccoon Nation, introducing a new organics bin designed to foil them. The city of Toronto produced a jazzy surveillance video of raccoons testing the new bin. Also, there is a Toronto raccoon that tweets his waddling adventures, as well as the occasional defecation. Toronto raccoons previously on mefi.
A delight almost physical
At last: Read the first chapter of Harper Lee's Go Set a Watchman. First impressions from Jason Steger of Melbourne's Age newspaper.
The Most Beautiful Things
Thick clouds of dust and gas prevent our eyes from seeing much of our Milky Way galaxy. But infrared light travels through that dust easily. Using infrared light, the Spitzer Space Telescope has been taking high-resolution images of our galactic center since 2003. Combining over 400,000 of those images in multiple wavelengths of light reveals a new view of our galaxy. Floating along the Milky Way (in 4k60p if your computer can handle it).
"Mark Bittman Ee-eats wee-eeds! Mark Bittman Ee-eats wee-eeds!"
"Yeah, and I heard he eats them out of cracks in the sidewalk! In Berkeley!"
"You mean weeds like this? So gross!"
"I don't know... I sorta like them, too."
"You're such a weirdo."
"You mean weeds like this? So gross!"
"I don't know... I sorta like them, too."
"You're such a weirdo."
You know, for kids
Dr. Dave Southall is an engineer who makes things, like monowheels, mini-monowheels, water bottle jetpacks, racing mowers, racing bars stools, uniboards, and other fun things.
The Thing Of Evil
Stephen King has a Corgi puppy. Your early weekend dose of cute. Her name is Molly, but he refers to her as The Thing Of Evil. (His Twitter is unsurprisingly kind of awesome)
Real-life vampires with real-life problems
A new study investigates the experiences of self-identified vampires in disclosing their identity to helping professionals.
The study seeks to understand the experiences and concerns of people self-identifying as vampires who are faced with the choice of disclosing their identity to professionals such as social workers and counselors when seeking help for various issues.
The actual journal article in Critical Social Work can be found here.
We say YO HO! But we don't say "ho!" Because "ho" is disrespectful, yo!
"For the last year and a half I've been told I'm paranoid, I'm nuts...
...that my insecurities will kill me one day." On Monday, Irish fitness blogger Emma Murphy posted a video of herself to facebook, still sporting the black eye given to her by her partner three days earlier when he punched her in the face. The mother-of-two talked about her decision to leave him after prolonged abuse, and encouraged other women to escape their own abusive relationships.
The video has been watched more than 7 million times in three days, and her story has made headlines in Ireland and around the world. [more inside]
The video has been watched more than 7 million times in three days, and her story has made headlines in Ireland and around the world. [more inside]
A box of magic
The Magic Chocolate Flower Dessert was created by Portuguese pastry chef Joaquim Sousa. Here he demonstrates how to make it. (Via)
Swapped at birth times two
The Mixed-Up Brothers of Bogotá:
After a hospital error, two pairs of Colombian identical twins were raised as two pairs of fraternal twins. This is the story of how they found one another — and of what happened next.A fascinating and improbable tale of coincidence, family, class, and genetics. [SLNYT]
Trickle-up debt
Democratic presidential candidate Martin O'Malley has a plan for providing debt-free access to a college degree for all students within five years. [more inside]
Maybe White People Really Don't See Race — Maybe That's The Problem
For the majority of white people, race is something that happens to other people. Whiteness is a default that needs no name — all deviations must be categorized and given a "race." If race is always something that happens to other people, how are you able to see the part you play in the system?An essay by Ijeoma Oluo (previously, previouslier) for Scenarios USA. [more inside]
"Napoleon wore his sideways"
Would you like A black felt bicorne hat, worn by the Emperor Napoleon, or a lock of
Hair from the Mane of Buonaparte's favourite white Charger, or perhaps an Original hand blown bottle … with a crowned 'N' enclosed in laurel wreath, no label, level of liquid is 8 in. (20 cm) below base of cork? Well, you just missed your chance.
No. 21: Who is making all this coffee?
What I Assume Honoré de Balzac Thought After Drinking Each of His 50 Daily Cups of Coffee (SLNewYorker) [more inside]
They're Not Used Very Often
*During the course of reporting this story, The Verge's parent company..
Website, profiled While the rest of the content industry on the web coalesces around platforms, The Awl chases a small, "indielectual" readership. Why are the most important people in media reading The Awl? [more inside]
The Uncanny Wormhole
DeepDream, Google's code for visualizing neural networks, is being used like some unholy Lovecraftian Instagram Filter to produce disturbing, surrealistic photos and videos,including upping the psychedelic ante in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Many, many of the photos and videos are Not Safe For Life, Work, or Sanity. Almost all of them are very weird, especially the food ones.
Will Graham would never, ever judge you for ordering the salad.
BRB Drooling
Kate Young makes recipes for her virtual Little Library Cafe, reimagining meals from her favourite fiction and writing about the significance each book has in her life. More at Young's website, The Little Library Cafe.
The Contentious Legacy of William Gaddis
He also convincingly pitches Gaddis as an exemplar of what Thoreau called “the memorable interval” between “the language heard” and “the language read,” which he describes as “a reserved and select expression” that is “too significant to be heard by the ear, which we must be born again in order to speak.” This is a beautiful reiteration of how Gaddis’ novels, which sometimes contain nothing but dialogue for pages on end, echo the idea that “America itself can be regarded as nothing more, or less, than the speech of Americans.” --Jonathon Sturgeon reviews Joseph Tabbi's new biography of William Gaddis [more inside]
MetaFilter is http://🍕💩.ws/🍑🍞🍩🐨🎨🍪
James Tate, 1943-2015
"Solar winds were my starting point"
Pluto, the Renewer is a short orchestral piece by English composer Colin Matthews, commissioned by the Hallé Orchestra as an addition to Gustav Holst's suite, The Planets. Program notes by the composer. Matthews commented on the piece, and Pluto's place, in an NPR interview a few years ago. The BBC's Discovering Music gives a good discussion of Holst's original suite (which you can listen to here).
Ghost Schools
"Over and over, the United States has touted education — for which it has spent more than $1 billion — as one of its premier successes in Afghanistan, a signature achievement that helped win over ordinary Afghans and dissuade a future generation of Taliban recruits.... ut a BuzzFeed News investigation — the first comprehensive journalistic reckoning, based on visits to schools across the country, internal U.S. and Afghan databases and documents, and more than 150 interviews — has found those claims to be massively exaggerated, riddled with ghost schools, teachers, and students that exist only on paper. The American effort to educate Afghanistan’s children was hollowed out by corruption and by short-term political and military goals that, time and again, took precedence over building a viable school system. And the U.S. government has known for years that it has been peddling hype."
I scream, you scream
Summer's upon us, and that means it's time to wallow in delicious ice cream over at Serious Eats. Learn how to make sorbet, sherbet, gelato, fro-yo, and soft serve.
While you're at it, mix in the best ways to swirl in chocolate, nuts, and booze. Top it off with myth-dispelling advice from the pros on when to use corn syrup, age an ice cream base, add eggs to a recipe, incorporate a stabilizer, and create a smoky finish.
If the ice cream sounds like too much work, make a no-churn Key Lime Pie instead. For you vegans out there, we've got something for you too.
I JOKE, I DIE, I JOKE AGAIN!
Be terrifying.
Vanity Fair profiles Kelly Sue DeConnick, writer of the comics Captain Marvel, Pretty Deadly, and Bitch Planet.
The Internet History Sourcebooks
The Internet History Sourcebooks Project is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted historical texts presented cleanly (without advertising or excessive layout) for educational use. The main sourcebooks cover ancient, medieval, and modern history. Subsidiary sourcebooks cover African, East Asian, Global, Indian, Islamic, Jewish, Lesbian and Gay, Science, and Women's history.
Both shoulders, a new haircut and not pushed to the back.
It won't be important to everyone, most people probably won't even notice it, but Facebook's icons are changing, in more than one case specifically so that the woman isn't "quite literally in the shadow of the man". [more inside]
"Budget 2015: Benefit changes to hit 13m families, claims IFS"
BBC: "Thirteen million UK families will lose an average of £260 a year due to the freeze in working-age benefits, says the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS)." BBC: Benefit Changes, who will be affected? "Hundreds of thousands of UK families will be affected by cuts of £12bn in the UK's welfare budget announced by the chancellor." BBC: Budget Calculator.
Rihanna Unchained
"[I]t is her flipping of masculinist scripts—the reclaiming of chauvinistic language, the cartoonish and flippant treatment of violence, her insistence on getting paid for her labor, and her reenactment of machismo through her hyper-feminine fashionista presentation (replete with an all-girl posse)—that makes the BBHMM video [NSFW] much more layered than a simple woman-hating narrative, as some have labeled it." [more inside]
The Cookie Conundrum
Writing at FiveThirtyEight.com, Sam Dean argues that until very recently, there has been no way to meaningfully measure web traffic. For advertisers and site owners, "just having a number that everyone can point to as an acceptable proxy of reality is more important than how accurate that number may be." [more inside]
The're everywhere
Back in 1987 Apple looked forward to the far future of 1997 (SLYT)
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