Magarey Lane: Talking to Kind Strangers

Some people take no mental exercise apart from jumping to conclusions.

— Harold Acton, born on this date in 1994

Perhaps the worst advice to carry out from childhood, beyond old wives’ tales about giving yourself hairy palms, is “don’t talk to strangers.” Indeed, “stranger danger” is such an embodied part of our culture that, whenever some unfamiliar face holds our glance and asks how we are, we take them for a madman, a thief, or a deviant. It’s a way of thinking that has made a lonely crowd of the world, each of us fearful and suspicious of the Other.

Talking to Strangers 

Pope Francis' Gospel Reflections Jesus calls Matthew, showing sinners that he does not look at their past, at their social status, but rather at their future. There's a beautiful saying: “There's no saint without a past nor a sinner without a future”.

St Matthew

Singing to strange women I always thought the best mashup ever was Dvorak's Humoresque and Swanee River.

Greenpeace says recycling actually makes plastics more hazardous to human health.

↩︎ dezeen

Cate Blanchett and director Warwick Thornton are releasing a new movie this week. At the heart of the film called 'The New Boy' is a magical crossover between Indigenous spirituality and Christianity

Dean caught saying Berkeley Law uses ‘unstated affirmative action:’ ‘I’m going to deny I said this’FOX. I wonder what Bourdieu would make of this. Klassik Greig

The Super Connector Who Built Sam Bankman-Fried’s Celebrity World NYT

How Did One Man Steal $2 Billion in Art? GQ

  Africa’s understudied human gut microbiomes could be a rich source of therapeutics

Sex, Analysis, and 40 Communal Apartments on the Upper West Side New York Magazine

The art of keeping Elvis alive in small-town Florida Tampa Bay Times

Watch Aggressive Orcas Target Another Sailing Ship Off the Coast of Europe Field & Stream. Fascinating to watch, but I don’t think it will scale.