The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
— Rudyard Kipling, born in 1865
JIM TREACHER: Mr. Bean Must Be Stopped Before He Defends Free Speech Again.
As with John Cleese, Rowan Atkinson is discovering that the revolution eventually devours its own.
A COOL AND LOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE BICYCLE MENACE: US is now building a giant bike trail that will go coast-to-coast.
On December 16, 2020, Helen Viola Jackson died in Marshfield, Missouri at the age of 101. She was the last known widow of a Civil War veteran, marrying 93-year-old James Bolin in 1936 at the age of 17.
James Bolin was a 93-year-old widower when Jackson’s father volunteered her to stop by his house each day and assist him with chores as she headed home from school.
What Was The Best Movie Of 2020?
Let the Slate Movie Club kickstart that conversation (and perhaps explain where to find all of these so-called best movies of a year when we mostly couldn’t go to the cinema). Start here, and work forward, for discussion of everything from First Cow to Beanpole to Bacarau and so many more. – Slate
New Year, New Space: 10 Statement-Making New Year’s Resolutions for Your Home
The Power Of Talking To Yourself Out Loud
“Like many of us, I talk to myself out loud, though I’m a little unusual in that I often do it in public spaces. Whenever I want to figure out an issue, develop an idea or memorise a text, I turn to this odd work routine. While it’s definitely earned me a reputation in my neighbourhood, it’s also improved my thinking and speaking skills immensely.” – Psyche
The Writer Who Wants Readers To Feel Like Voyeurs
After all, why should we have access to the characters’ sex lives? Raven Leilani, author of Luster, says “I try to portray it in the way that moves me when I see it, when it is awkward and silly, which it often is. To depict it that way is to make it tender; what it looks like when two bodies, especially two bodies that are very different, get to know each other. … For me that is the most enjoyable kind of sex to watch and to read.” – The Guardian (UK)
Inside The Largest Trove Of Nazi Propaganda
Today, one of the world’s largest collections of Nazi propaganda sits in a climate-controlled warehouse at Fort Belvoir, in northern Virginia. Much of it is virulent; most of it is never seen by the public. – The New Yorker
New Device Beams Music Directly To Your Ears Without Headphones
The technology uses a 3-D sensing module and locates and tracks the ear position sending audio via ultrasonic waves to create sound pockets by the user’s ears. Sound can be heard in stereo or a spatial 3-D mode that creates 360-degree sound around the listener, the company said. – Times of Israel
The Virus Isn’t Changing Us, It’s Speeding Up What Was Already Happening
“There are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen,” Vladimir Lenin supposedly observed. It can sound profound and ominous when you read it the first time, but when three books on the coronavirus crisis all quote the same line, it reflects something between an intellectual consensus and a lack of imagination. Still, in the authors’ telling, the crisis didn’t just compress decades of history into 2020; it was also decades in the making.” – Washington Post
A warning to the curious | Alexander Larman | The Critic Magazine