The 2018 Midterms and the Specter of Voter Suppression
Read: The ‘hubris’ of the Supreme Court’s voting-rights ruling On Saturday, President Donald Trump ensured that the issue would be front and center as Election Day approached. “All levels of government and Law Enforcement are watching carefully for VOTER FRAUD, including during EARLY VOTING,” he tweeted. “Cheat at your own peril. Violators will be subject to maximum penalties, both civil and criminal!”
18 Thought Provoking Questions (You've Been Warned)
Asking yourself thought provoking questions is a form of meditation. As you read the following list, don’t try to force the answer. The whole point of the thought provoking question is that it provokes thought, all by itself. After you read each question, allow your mind to conjure up an answer spontaneously.
More acidic oceans 'will affect all sea life'
Image copyright JAGO-TEAM/GEOMAR All sea life will be affected because carbon dioxide emissions from modern society are making the oceans more acidic, a major new report will say. The eight-year study from more than 250 scientists finds that infant sea creatures will be especially harmed. This means the number of baby cod growing to adulthood could fall to a quarter or even a 12th of today's numbers, the researchers suggest.
The Story of Us: Intro — Wait But Why
This is society. Now let’s zoom in on the left arm. Further. Okay see those skin flaps on the elbow?
Damsel in distress
The damsel in distress or persecuted maiden is a classic theme in world literature, art, film and video games. She is usually a beautiful young woman placed in a dire predicament by a villain or monster and who requires a hero to achieve her rescue. After rescuing her the hero can usually convince the woman to be their wife. She has become a stock character of fiction, particularly of melodrama. Though she is usually human, she can also be of any other species, including fictional or folkloric species; and even divine figures such as an angel, spirit, or deity. The word "damsel" derives from the French demoiselle, meaning "young lady", and the term "damsel in distress" in turn is a translation of the French demoiselle en détresse.
Growing Up Surrounded by Books Has a Lasting Positive Effect on the Brain, Says a New Scientific Study
Image by George Redgrave, via Flickr Commons Somewhere in the annals of the internet--if this sprawling, near-sentient thing we call the internet actually has annals--there is a fine, fine quote by filmmaker John Waters: We need to make books cool again.
The Third Self: Mary Oliver on Time, Concentration, the Artist's Task, and the Central Commitment of the Creative Life
“In the wholeheartedness of concentration,” the poet Jane Hirshfield wrote in her beautiful inquiry into the effortless effort of creativity, “world and self begin to cohere. With that state comes an enlarging: of what may be known, what may be felt, what may be done.” But concentration is indeed a difficult art, art’s art, and its difficulty lies in the constant conciliation of the dissonance between self and world — a difficulty hardly singular to the particular conditions of our time.
30 Things Every Woman Should Have and Should Know by the Time She's 30
If you haven't read the classic life-wisdom list, curl up and do it now—and let the well-known women on these pages keep you company. An exclusive excerpt from Glamour's new book, 30 Things Every Woman Should Have and Should Know by the Time She's 30. We all love a good list, and human history is full of them, from the Ten Commandments and the 95 Theses to the A-list and the best-dressed list. But until 1997, there was no list specifically for women (unless you count the 15 rules for serving your husband in The Good Wife's Guide…which we don't). That's when Glamour columnist Pamela Redmond Satran wrote "30 Things Every Woman Should Have and Should Know by the Time She's 30."
How Native American tribes are bringing back the bison from brink of extinction
On 5,000 hectares of unploughed prairie in north-eastern Montana, hundreds of wild bison roam once again. But this herd is not in a national park or a protected sanctuary – they are on tribal lands. Belonging to the Assiniboine and Sioux tribes of Fort Peck Reservation, the 340 bison is the largest conservation herd in the ongoing bison restoration efforts by North America’s Indigenous people. The bison – or as Native Americans call them, buffalo – are not just “sustenance,” according to Leroy Little Bear, a professor at the University of Lethbridge and a leader in the bison restoration efforts with the Blood Tribe. The continent’s largest land mammal plays a major role in the spiritual and cultural lives of numerous Native American tribes, an “integrated relationship,” he said. Only a couple of hundred years ago, 20 million to 30 million bison lived in vast thundering herds across North America.
The 12 cognitive biases that prevent you from being rational
The human brain is capable of 1016 processes per second, which makes it far more powerful than any computer currently in existence. But that doesn't mean our brains don't have major limitations. The lowly calculator can do math thousands of times better than we can, and our memories are often less than useless — plus, we're subject to cognitive biases, those annoying glitches in our thinking that cause us to make questionable decisions and reach erroneous conclusions.
Spare Rib
Spare Rib was an active part of the emerging Women’s Liberation Movement in the late 20th century. Running from 1972-93, this now iconic magazine challenged the stereotyping and exploitation of women, while supporting collective, realistic solutions to the hurdles women faced. Visitors to this site can explore selected highlights from the magazine; and examine how the magazine was run, why it was started and the issues it dealt with. The full run of Spare Rib magazines can be accessed via
The Mohawks Who Built Manhattan (Photos)
For generations, Mohawk Indians have left their reservations in or near Canada to raise skyscrapers in the heart of New York City. High atop a New York University building one bright September day, Mohawk ironworkers were just setting some steel when the head of the crew heard a big rumble to the north. Suddenly a jet roared overhead, barely 50 feet from the crane they were using to set the steel girders in place. “I looked up and I could see the rivets on the plane, I could read the serial numbers it was so low, and I thought ‘What is he doing going down Broadway?’”
Rebecca Solnit: How Change Happens
We are building something immense together that, though invisible and immaterial, is a structure, one we reside within—or, rather, many overlapping structures. They’re assembled from ideas, visions and values emerging out of conversations, essays, editorials, arguments, slogans, social-media messages, books, protests, and demonstrations. About race, class, gender, sexuality; about nature, power, climate, the interconnectedness of all things; about compassion, generosity, collectivity, communion; about justice, equality, possibility.
A Danish word the world needs to combat stress: Pyt
Danes are some of the happiest people in the world, and they also happen to have a lot of cool words for ways to be happy. You may have heard about “hygge,” which has been the subject of countless books, articles and commercials. Often mistranslated to mean “cozy,” it really describes the process of creating intimacy. But another word “pyt” – which sort of sounds like “pid” – was recently voted the most popular word by Danes, beating out “dvæle” (to linger) and “krænkelsesparat” (ready to take offense).
