My earliest memories of my mom were of her multi-tasking - preparing dinner while checking on homework and housework; clearing the dinner plates while setting out bowls for breakfast; making sure we ate our breakfast while lining up bread, lunch meats, apples, and snacks assembly-line style so we could make our lunches...
Salmon at Maroubra Beach. Picture: Glenn
“WE LIVE IN AN AGE IN WHICH IT IS NO LONGER POSSIBLE TO BE FUNNY. THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN IMAGINE, NO MATTER HOW LUDICROUS, THAT WILL NOT PROMPTLY BE ENACTED BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES, PROBABLY BY SOMEONE WELL KNOWN,” Tom Wolfe wrote in 1989. He might have added, or by a very well known institution
What are click farms? A shadowy internet industry is booming in China Yahoo Finance
He is vain as a peacock and as cheap as a saloon story ..."
Three anthropologists, caught in a gin-fueled, malarial fog, believed they had cracked the riddle of culture. They hadn't Cultures
Moving from western Sydney to Queensland opened my eyes to racism — and my own culture
What are click farms? A shadowy internet industry is booming in China Yahoo Finance
An Author Explains The Most Overrated Novel
In short, Sarah Moss says, “I think it’s called the Great American Novel.” Zing! – The Guardian (UK)
He is vain as a peacock and as cheap as a saloon story ..."
Having a constant pool of unemployed workers is deliberate policy
New Books
When his fiancée wanted to try mesmerism, Hawthorne panicked: “There would be an intrusion into thy holy of holies — and the intruder would not be thy husband!”... husband
Essays & Opinions
When Max Weber began his talk "Politics as a Vocation," he did so with ambivalence. "This lecture," he said, "will necessarily disappoint you" Weber
The Author Of ‘How To Train Your Dragon’ Says Books Are Better For The Brain Than Movies
Cressida Cowell, laureate for children’s literature and a writer whose fame has greatly benefitted from film and TV, says, “Books are a kind of transformative magic that offer magical things that films aren’t as good at creating in children: empathy, creativity and intelligence.” – The Guardian (UK
Why It’s Not Good To Invite A Writer Into Your House
Is it a good idea to invite someone into your home whose occupation it is to observe everything? The writer as host might be no better. Even the most thoughtful guest will undoubtedly interfere with the writer’s productivity during the visit. – The New York Times
What Libraries Mean To The American Dream
Last year, an economics professor suggested killing off the public library and replacing it with Amazon. The backlash was swift – and it’s ongoing. Why? Libraries are free, providing a refuge for everyone, and helping those disenfranchised gain more and more agency – and more: “Libraries are the cornerstones of democracy, where all people—regardless of income, race and religion—are welcome. To me, they’re also the one place where I truly feel at home.” – LitHub
Oxford University Press Blog: “Idioms, especially if we add proverbs and familiar quotations to them, are a shoreless ocean. Especially numerous are so-called gnomic sayings (aphorisms) like make hay while the sun shines, better safe than sorry, and a friend in need is a friend indeed. Their age is usually hard or even impossible to determine. Since most of them reflect people’s universal experience, they may be very old. In contrast, such undecipherable phrases as kick the bucket, put a spoke in someone’s wheel, or cut the mustard are fairly recent. At least they presuppose the existence of buckets, spokes, wheels, and the cultivation of mustard. (This type of reasoning is called relative chronology and sometimes yields useful results.)…”
