I read this joke recently. I’d seen it before:
As a man was driving down the freeway, his car phone rang. Answering, he heard his wife’s voice urgently warning him, “Frank, I just heard on the news that there’s a car going the wrong way on the Interstate. Please be careful!”
“It’s not just ONE car,” said Frank. “It’s HUNDREDS of them!”
It doesn’t ALWAYS happen, but I do TRY to see things from other people’s perspectives. Sometimes, I get a compelling narrative that butts up against my own.
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For whatever reason, I never warmed to the Oscar Best Picture-winning movie Birdman. One of my oldest friends came out of a screening of the film the same day I saw another film, and she had exactly the same reaction as I did.
Yet, in my visit to one of the ABC Wednesday folks, Anita from India, wrote: Five Lessons from Birdman film. Among the observations: not resting on your laurels, and dealing with your inner voice. The piece is a wonderful contemplation, and I liked it much more than the film it touted.
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I didn’t “get” the “what color is this dress” thing. Fortunately, my colleague sent me this story from Wired, which describes the science.
Another colleague noted, regarding the picture above: “Put your finger in the middle – Both panels are same color. It is the fact that the angle and highlighting make you believe the top is in the light and must be darker and the bottom is in the shadow and must be lighter.”
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As a result of our conversation at church about white privilege in January, led by two of our members who are, not incidentally, white, one of my white church friends decided to engage his work colleagues about the topic; the result of this is that they looked at him as though he had three heads. Perhaps another reason why our white friends don’t talk about race.
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The article in Salon with the provocative title Why the right hates American history has some really interesting notations about the change in in the American English language, which were instructive:
Living in the 18th Century, the Founders never would have actually used the word “privacy” out loud or in writing… The reason is simple: “privacy” in 1776 was a code word for toilet functions…
Instead, the word of the day was “security,” and in many ways it meant what we today mean when we say “privacy…”
Similarly, “liberty” was also understood, in one of its dimensions, to mean something close to what today we’d call “privacy.”
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I’m still not going to read the book, thanks to SamuraiFrog’s painful and detailed review. But Jaquandor applauds EL James’s writing process for 50 Shades of Grey. Here’s a defense of its grammar.
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As a business librarian, I am somewhat concerned that Tougher ozone standards could snuff out the recovery, businesses warn. Yet as a human being, I’m very concerned that weaker ozone standards could snuff out life as we know it, scientists warn. What to do, what to do?
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Saturday Night Live had its 40th anniversary special last month. Haven’t watched more than seven minutes of the three-and-a-half-hour program, and I probably won’t. Didn’t watch the weekly show much in the past decade.
Yet I found myself reading several stories ABOUT the special, e.g., ‘Saturday Night Live’: 20 Personal, Funny Tales. Not only is former cast member Gary Kroeger’s observations interesting, so is the rest of his blog; he MAY run for Congress as a Democrat from California.
I enjoyed Norm MacDonald’s tweets; my, he did not fare well in the ranking of all 141 cast members.
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Dustbury cannot decide whether he’s impressed or depressed by the number of YouTube scenes he recognized.
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A favorite quote of the week, from Leonard Nimoy’s Mr. Spock Taught Us Acceptance Is Highly Logical:
“As a young black man and science fiction fan, I strongly identified with Spock’s struggles to fit in with his human coworkers as I struggled to fit in at mostly-white schools and workplaces. And I wouldn’t be surprised if other fans struggling to fit into their communities for different reasons felt the same bond.”
Ah, the 50 shades of beige my white friends turn when I bring up the subject of white privilege. My niece went on and on about how “nobody gave her anything,” etc. etc., and I told her, it’s not about how much money you have in the bank or your student loans. Just look at your blond, blue-eyed self in the mirror. THAT is the face of white privilege. Sometimes I can’t believe her mother and I grew up in the same home.
We loved “Birdman,” but then, we saw it well before the Oscars. Perhaps we didn’t have the same expectations. I think living amongst stage people for so many years might have helped me, as I knew so many Edward Nortons… and too few Michael Keatons.
Finally, I had to comment at the 50 Shades review post, because I was so offended by how poorly written it was. Long story short, I did my usual thing when the library didn’t have a copy available: I went to Barnes and Ignoble, bought a venti mochaccino, and thumbed through their most beat-up copy. Couldn’t stomach the whole thing, but the level of writing was not even on par with the sloppiest Y.A. novels. Truly an amateurish, uninformed take on the whole BDSM scene. I have never been thus inclined as far as the practice goes (talking BDSM, not bad writing, lol), but I know the difference between consenting bondage and sexual abuse. Too bad the author doesn’t.
I am writing a parody of the first page of Fifty Shades. It’ll post in a few days! Hope you laugh as much as I did. Amy
I cleaned up that joke for you:
A man was driving down the highway when his phone rang. Answering, his heard his wife urgently warn him, “Frank, I just heard on the news that there’s a car going the wrong way on the Interstate. Please be careful!”
“It’s not just one car,” said Frank. “It’s HUNDREDS of them!”