What really matters at the end of life

Stephen Fry Would Like to Remind You That You Have No Free Will We all have them: cultural figures whom, beyond any single thing they’ve done, we’re just kind of glad to have around, and whose sensibility seems to jibe in some fundamental way with our own. I remember when Stephen Fry started to become such a figure for me. I was a teenage Anglophile, sitting at home on a slow afternoon — this would have been the late ’90s — and watching a rerun of the British sketch-comedy show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” (Judge me not.) Nothing Changes If Nothing Changes: #firstdayfirstimage Does anyone really believe that we live in a post-race or a post-gender world? For those who value diversity, freedom of speech, social progress and a commitment to a vibrantly engaged culture of the arts, these seem like dark days. When considering the current condition of equal representation in the business world, the art world and in the canons of art history, is there any proof that rectification of the pervasive under representation of women, people of color, gay, trans or other marginalized groups actually gets better over time? Here are some statistics:

What do food expiration dates actually mean? Things may change in regard to expiration dates on food. Read this article from NPR and find out how and why. Also read, Why food labels don't mean what you think! Kent State photo- the lifelong burden of being a national symbol click 2x Last May, when Mary Ann Vecchio watched the video of George Floyd’s dying moments, she felt herself plummet through time and space — to a day almost exactly 50 years earlier. On that afternoon in 1970, the world was just as riveted by an image that showed the life draining out of a young man on the ground, this one a black-and-white still photo. Mary Ann was at the center of that photo, her arms raised in anguish, begging for help. That photo, of her kneeling over the body of Kent State University student Jeffrey Miller, is one of the most important images of the 20th century.

Climate crisis: our children face wars over food and water, EU deputy warns Older people will have to make sacrifices in the fight against climate change or today’s children will face a future of fighting wars for water and food, the EU’s deputy chief has warned. Frans Timmermans, vice-president of the EU commission, said that if social policy and climate policy are not combined, to share fairly the costs and benefits of creating a low-carbon economy, the world will face a backlash from people who fear losing jobs or income, stoked by populist politicians and fossil fuel interests. He said: “It’s not just an urgent matter – it’s a difficult matter. We have to transform our economy. There are huge benefits, but it’s a huge challenge.

How to talk to kids about sex Rose Wong Today, it’s not enough to have one birds-and-the-bees talk; it needs to be an open, ongoing conversation. Author and activist Christa Desir explains why and how. The first few times I talked to high school students about sexual assault, when we got to the Q & A section, I was inundated with what I call the “Does that count?” question.

Joni Mitchell Library - Joni Mitchell Dug Deep to Make Her Dark Masterpiece ‘Blue’: Daily Beast, October 22, 2017 As 1970 drew to a close, Joni did one more major benefit concert, Amchitka, supporting the launch of a fledgling environmental organization, Greenpeace, which was protesting nuclear weapons tests in Amchitka, Alaska. Joining her there, as a surprise guest, was a young James Taylor, who, for a brief but crucial time, would be Joni's old man (though not "My Old Man" of her song, a keepsake from her romance with Graham Nash). The two were both regulars at the Troubadour, a West Hollywood club on La Cienega that became famous as a launching pad for a generation of singer-songwriters.

Physics explains why time passes faster as you age Mind time and clock time are two totally different things. They flow at varying rates. The chronological passage of the hours, days, and years on clocks and calendars is a steady, measurable phenomenon. Yet our perception of time shifts constantly, depending on the activities we’re engaged in, our age, and even how much rest we get. An upcoming paper in the journal European Review by Duke University mechanical engineering professor Adrian Bejan, explains the physics behind changing senses of time and reveals why the years seem to fly by the older we get.

Need a fresh perspective? See the world like a horse, dog or cat Raúl Soria Every weekday for the month of January, TED Ideas is publishing a new post in a series called “How to Be a Better Human,” containing a helpful piece of advice from a speaker in the TED community. To see all the posts, click here. We are not alone. On Earth, that is. While it may seem laughably obvious to say that, in many ways we humans act like we’re the only inhabitants. A New Kind of Information-Coding Seen in the Human Brain For decades, neuroscientists have treated the brain somewhat like a Geiger counter: The rate at which neurons fire is taken as a measure of activity, just as a Geiger counter’s click rate indicates the strength of radiation. But new research suggests the brain may be more like a musical instrument. When you play the piano, how often you hit the keys matters, but the precise timing of the notes is also essential to the melody. For the first time, Jacobs and two coauthors spied neurons in the human brain encoding spatial information through the timing, rather than rate, of their firing.

Palestinian American: Criticizing Israel doesn't make me antisemitic I may not live in Palestine, but the trauma I have to go through in order to go see my family and friends is painful and enraging. To be Palestinian is to be perpetually gaslit. Each and every day, choices are made that all but ensure that the imbalance of power and continued oppression lives in perpetuity. From the nearly $4 billion per year handed over from the United States government to the Israeli government with no humanitarian strings attached to the propaganda machine of the Netanyahu regime – the Israeli government has no motivation to stop oppressing and brutalizing my people. This situation isn't complicated. In fact, it’s only 73 years old.

A Black Writer Found Tolerance in France, and a Different Racism When William Gardner Smith submitted what would be his final novel, THE STONE FACE (New York Review Books, paper, $16.95), to a French publisher, his friend and biographer LeRoy Hodges recalled, the editor told Smith it was “very courageous to have written the book, but we can’t publish it in France.” How could a courageous novel by an established writer have met with such immediate dismissal? In America, “The Stone Face” (1963) had been accepted by Farrar, Straus, like Smith’s three previous novels. Why not France? The answer is more complicated than the rejection.

America’s gun obsession is rooted in slavery Bodies are piling up all over the second amendment as two of America’s pandemics converge. The “plague of gun violence” and the inability to mount an effective response, even in the wake of multiple mass shootings, is, unfortunately, rooted in the other pandemic gripping the United States: anti-Blackness and the sense that African Americans are a dangerous threat that can only be neutralized or stopped by a well-armed white citizenry. For too long, the second amendment has been portrayed with a founding fathers aura swaddled in the stars and stripes.

Woman Gets Shamed For Breastfeeding Son In Public, Thousands Of People Stand Up For Her It is not uncommon for a natural activity to be turned into a social taboo. In many ways, the female body is particularly laden with rules and regulations attempting to control our life experiences. Often we must oblige, or we are viewed as “divergent,” “rebellious,” or even “disobedient.” Well, one woman had just about enough of the breastfeeding shaming from both a specific woman, and society, so she decided to do something about it. Ashley Kaidel was enjoying a meal at a restaurant when her baby starting showing signs of hunger. So, Ashley began to breastfeed her child at the table, but another woman began to shame Kaidel with her eyes, darting looks of disgust.