It's the end of 2012 and my folder full of tabs / bookmarks that I've
been meaning to share is over flowing. The end of a year seems like a
good enough reason to get them all out there for your perusal and it
doesn't hurt that it will help get me up over the 100 post threshold for
2012 either.
We're gonna do this categorically, sort of at least, some other links ended up on twitter; check the sidebar for those or @hcoppola.
And now it's time for Art, and/or art type things that didn't fit in anywhere else. There were fewer of these lying around than the other categories I could come up with. For the most part it's easy to share art stuff so I get to it more often.
Orhan Pamuk built a museum in a house in Istanbul that comes from a book that he wrote and was financed with his Nobel Prize money. I've read two Pamuk books they were both pretty weirdly intense and one was fascinating and the other didn't hold my interest and no I don't recall the title of either.
Jeff Koons taught a bunch of second graders an art class and someone did this delightful little write up.
There is a dude who does photo-drawing mashups and calls them Pencil vs Camera...
It's the end of 2012 and my folder full of tabs / bookmarks that I've
been meaning to share is over flowing. The end of a year seems like a
good enough reason to get them all out there for your perusal and it
doesn't hurt that it will help get me up over the 100 post threshold for
2012 either.
We're gonna do this categorically, sort of at least, some other links ended up on twitter; check the sidebar for those or @hcoppola.
You knew this one would be in here and that it would be a biggie. At least we're gonna tackle Politics early on so there'll be some fun and light stuff to round your evening out with...
Here's everything I have left over from the election. Most of these I read at least some of, some of them had good recommendations and I haven't gotten to yet or just never got to...
Takes on 'post-truth politics' and the lies, dissembling, evasion, and general misleading that took place, for the most part, in the Romney-Ryan camp. Poynter took a round up approach after Ryan's convention speech and called the new level of rebuttal and fact checking from the media interesting and I'd say welcome. Writers at The Nation, Grist, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, along with Brad DeLong and Ezra Klein, Eugene Robinson, and Charlie Pierce all weighed in as well.
Alex Koppelman took an in depth and really interesting look at what Obama and Romney think about American innovation / inventions and the role of government.
Here is the video tribute to Teddy Kennedy from the Dem convention:
There are plenty of other things bouncing around that I haven't gotten to posting though.
There was a post election flurry of stories about the state and future of the filibuster in the Senate including ones from Ezra Klein who's been looking at this for a while now, Dylan Matthews, and Rik Hertzberg (also a filibuster follower).
Frank Rich, bless his heart, spent a week immersed in right-wing media and lived to tell the tale.
The frequently interesting, often fantastic, and nearly always worth reading Ta-Nehisi Coates went long on America's first Black President.
Matt Taibbi, the heir to the good doctor's desk at Rolling Stone, sunk his teeth into the HSBC drug money laundering settlement. You shouldn't be surprised that he was less than pleased with how things played out.
Charlie Pierce said what needed to be said about the dearth of a true pro-choice movement in America.
Occupy kept chugging along as they got involved in Sandy relief and launched Rolling Jubilee which has raised more than $500k and retired retired more than $10 million of debt to date. It's a very interesting idea and project.
Juan Cole and John Cassidy wrote passionate and very important pieces on the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America's surrender to a security state and the extent to which that means that the attacks achieved their goal.
Speaking of values, here is a fascinating look inside Halden Prison and the Norwegian prison system in general. To state the obvious the US is not doing very well when it comes to prisons.
Staying with international stories, this personal reporting from a high ranking Australian soldier on dealing with his issues as he tried to reenter regular society after serving in Afghanistan is something you should read. We have this problem times a whole bunch for American service men and women who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq and we aren't doing a terribly good job of dealing with it or talking about. If this is up your alley make sure that you're reading Tom Ricks regularly.
It's the end of 2012 and my folder full of tabs / bookmarks that I've been meaning to share is over flowing. The end of a year seems like a good enough reason to get them all out there for your perusal and it doesn't hurt that it will help get me up over the 100 post threshold for 2012 either.
We're gonna do this categorically, sort of at least, some other links ended up on twitter; check the sidebar for those or @hcoppola.
First up is Food...
The best history of bourbon that I've read, and arguably the most authoritative one out there was authored by Circuit Judge Boyce F. Martin, Jr. for the US Court of Appeals, Sixth District. It starts on page three with these words "All bourbon is whiskey, but not all whiskey is bourbon." (pdf)
Andy Revkin's students in a Pace University course made this interesting 14 minute doc on how the cork gets in the bottle of wine and the still simmering controversy and competition between corks, synthetic corks, and screw caps in the wine world.
Eric Ripert got in on the new You Tube channel and show movement (which I really need to delve a little deeper into, that's another post though) and this episode with Stanley Tucci is pretty great...
Stay tuned as we close out 2012 and roll into 2013...
Light my seriously cool fire in this BioLite portable camp stove thingy. I've been meaning to put something up about this gadget for quite a little while now. It's ostensibly a camp stove, but really it burns wood and puts out electricity through a USB port. You could use one or even better they have great applications for charging small electric devices off the grid in developing countries around the world with a bigger version.
Here's the camp stove style intro video...
You can learn more about the project on the BioLite website and even pick up a stove for $130. Outside gave it a good review and the BioLite team picked up an epic award with another good review from Gear Junkie. You can also see more videos of the BioLite in action and check out reviews from real world users across the interwebs.
Just in case you need a refresher on the original here it is...
It's wild these days to just pull up a video version on you tube and send it out into the interwebs. Growing up one of my friends had this on tape and we'd have to go over to his house to listen to it. The times they are a changing...
I'm beginning to worry that we may not see any snow this winter here in DC. If we do though, this video will help you understand the science behind those pretty little flakes...
The Onion is mostly thought of as a humor source, but I think they often do their best work in more trying times. As American's we now have the right to "live our lives in complete, stunned horror"...
WASHINGTON—In the wake of yesterday’s gruesome mass shooting that
claimed the lives of 27 people, including 20 schoolchildren, the United
States ratified a new constitutional amendment this afternoon
guaranteeing American citizens the right to live life in a perpetual
state of abject horror. “The provisions of the 28th Amendment will fully
protect the right of all individuals to spend every waking moment
utterly terrified at the thought of a deranged stranger with a
semiautomatic combat rifle gunning them down,” said House Speaker John
Boehner (R-OH), explaining that the measure also permits Americans to
suffer panic attacks anytime their loved ones go to work, school, malls,
or virtually any other public location. “In addition, the new amendment
prevents the government from ever infringing on a citizen’s inalienable
right to lie awake at night visualizing the images of crying children
being ushered out of a school and wondering where it could happen next.”
The new amendment comes on the heels of numerous other proposed changes
to U.S. law, including a highly contested bill that would protect the
right of Americans to ignore a widespread, deadly problem until it is
far too late.
That's the whole thing because I want to be sure you read it. Click through for more Onion coverage of our most recent mass shooting.
Via Kottke, who has been assembling a good round up of important gun violence and control coverage while wondering if The Onion is our most emotionally honest media source. For what it's worth I think he's probably right about that.
To find out what you can do to help make America safer please visit the Brady Campaign.
I am very entertained by Jimmy Fallon these days, dude is legitimately crushing it...
See also pretty much any musical skit from his show.
And then I got caught up in whether to spell it holmes or homes. I went with my first instinct and I would say the l is pretty much silent. You can kill some serious time checking out how other folks choose to spell it on the interwebs if you want though, just sayin...
You may have guessed that I would tend to disagree with much (if not all) of what the Heritage Foundation and now former Senator Jim DeMint have to say. I don't think that either of them do anything to raise the level of discourse in the country or around Washington and I certainly have my doubts about any whether they do any real thinking.
Ezra Klein has a good run down on DeMint's appointment as the head of Heritage and the death of Think Tanks...
To state the obvious, you don’t name Jim DeMint head of your think
tank because you’re trying to improve the quality of your scholarship.
You name DeMint head of your think tank because you’re trying to become
the leader of the conservative wing of the Republican Party.
There’s much that DeMint can bring to his new job as president of the Heritage Foundation.
Deep connections with lawmakers. Genuine respect from the Tea Party. An
immense talent for fundraising. A keen political sense. He might make
the Heritage Foundation, which is already an able and effective
advocate, a much more powerful force in Republican Party politics. But
he will not make it a more respected force in the world of ideas.
There's the kernel of a great idea behind the notion of Think Tanks, that they could develop new and innovative solutions to policy challenges that the nation faces and that politicians in office don't have the time, knowledge, or courage to work on or propose. Instead they seem to operate more like well staffed SuperPAC's these days and it's a shame. Read the whole piece above for a quick look at the situation, it won't take you long.
Not surprisingly Mr. burns is still a bit torn up about President Obama's reelection, but it's time for him to suck it up and help explain the 'fiscal cliff'...
Every once in a while the Simpsons still brings it. Spot on, one might say.
It should go without saying that the opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and should not be taken to reflect the opinions or stances of any organizations associated with him in any way.
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