meeting in the aisle

Weekend Reader - links I loved

I know it’s not the weekend, but I felt like bringing you some link love anyway. Here’s the seven links I loved most last week:

* Liberia, When Darkness Falls is an astonishing account of the war in Liberia by photojournalist Gregory Stemn. Be warned, the images are confronting.

* It’s official, sleep is more important than food. This is not news for someone like me who struggles to catch enough Zzzzs on a regular basis:

“even small amounts of sleep deprivation take a significant toll on our health, our mood, our cognitive capacity and our productivity.

Many of the effects we suffer are invisible. Insufficient sleep, for example, deeply impairs our ability to consolidate and stabilize learning that occurs during the waking day. In other words, it wreaks havoc on our memory.” - Tony Schwarz.

* If you had to guess the most generous country towards refugees in the world, who would you pick? - Chris Blattman.

* Now that I’m standing in front of classrooms full of students on a regular basis as part of my day job, I take my hat off to teachers who do it all the time, and I have a whole lot of empathy for the incredible hours teachers can work - Amy Letter.

* Every time I buy bottled water a little bit more of my self respect dies. Particularly after I’ve reminded myself, again, why bottled water sucks:

“some 2.7 million tons of petroleum-derived plastic are used to bottle water around the world every year” - Scientific American

* I recently rewatched Walk the Line and fell back in love with Johnny Cash, not that we’d ever really been estranged. But it is a good time to discover Johnny Cash’s cover of The Beatle’s “In My Life” - Something Changed.

* I didn’t like it the first time I saw it, and I still don’t like it after a second, but you might. This is what the most typical person on earth looks like today - National Geographic.

[image: St Kilda in the dying sunshine]

Weekend reader - links I loved

Cartoon: Hugh McLeod on giving up booze - inspiration for the holiday season…

I don’t know about you but I’m mad about the holiday season. In celebration, I’ve thrown together a mixed bag of links from this week which is as all over the place as I’ve been, but in a good way. Less work-related stuff, more fun.

Happy Holidays!

Taylor Orci on how she realised perhaps the system exists for a reason (but not until after she’d taken a pee test for an ex-con):

Honestly I wanted to back out, but I didn’t want to put her out. And also — her name may have been Lilly, and she may have gotten happy about eating turkey sandwiches and stuff, but she was still an EX-CON. Who KNEW what she was capable of? Then it hit me: I was her pee bitch. -

‘Tis the season to be generous, so who are Australia’s greatest philanthropists?

But analysis of giving by postcode has shown us that overall, it is people in the middle and lower socio-economic areas that give more as a percentage of their income.  In a sense Australia’s greatest philanthropists are to be found in places such as Toowoomba and Frankston, not Toorak or Potts Point. - Tim Costello, World Vision.

There are days when I know just how terrible multi-tasking is for me (email, SMS, twitter, phone calls, meetings…), and then there are days where I think it’s all ok. But really, I don’t think it is. And science agrees with me: You can’t multi-task, so stop trying

Remote distractions, the ones aided by technology, are often unaware of current demands on us. People who call you at work, send you emails, or fire off texts can’t see how busy you are with your current task. Nor can Twitter feeds or email alerts. As a result, every communication is an important one that interrupts you. - Paul Atchley, Ph.D. for Harvard Business School (via PSFK)

Are there any books you really wish you hadn’t read? Join in the conversation at HTML Giant. My contribution is Three Dog Night by Peter Goldsworthy - awful cliched sexist rubbish from a usually masterful writer. A close second would be anything by Phillip Roth.

I agree with Thought Catalog on the oft-overlooked Beatles songs. It is refreshing to see a list on the fab four that doesn’t include the same old same old. Dig a Pony and I don’t want to spoil the party hit the spot in particular.

I don’t play video games so I have no idea if this commentary on the way video game makers design characters is true, but I have seen Lara Croft, so…. - Kotaku

Let’s have a round of applause for the repeal of the ridiculous Don’t Ask Don’t Tell laws in the USA this week:

Barack Obama signed a landmark law today that allows gay people to serve openly for the first time in America’s armed forces. Fulfilling a campaign pledge, Obama said…”No longer will tens of thousands of Americans in uniform be asked to live a lie.” - The Guardian

I don’t know how I feel about this article proclaiming to discuss the difficulties of being single vs the difficulties of being in a monogamous relationship, but a couple of quotes are worth repeating:

On being single:

“A normal person with normal amounts of charisma and social ability cannot just walk into a bar and happen upon a relationship when he or she desires to do so”

“…you notice that when someone touches your arm as some sort of polite gesture you’re highly – almost inappropriately – aware of it.”

On the relationship:

“The person you once pined over and were thrilled about and with whom all your interactions felt so easy and graceful has turned into a difficult, staunch, adversary who has suddenly become many things that you do not want to deal with because dealing with them means a step into extreme discomfort, hours of talking and attempting to see the world through someone else’s perception…

Your partner’s so-called ‘issues’ are so closely connected to your partner’s personality that they’re actually informing it – both the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ parts.”

But overall? I’d say it’s the good stuff about being single and being in a relationship that make the alternative seem so hard.

Want more? Here are the things I couldn’t squeeze in: the Sady Doyle #Mooreandme #Assange saga - Playing the media can be a dangerous game, as yet another footballer scandal shows - Oh no, I’m giving books for Chrismtas! - “Characters are in books, you’re not going to have lunch with them”

Weekend reader - links I loved

This week’s links is brought to you by the holiday season. Here’s to a bit of R&R!

I love this approach to life:

The world is my museum, displaying my collections on loan. (via Something Changed)

Do you like attending your own events? Sometimes, I really don’t. This might be why.

The reason movies work so well is because they’re entertainment.  People like to be entertained.  No matter what type of event you’re holding, it’s important to realize your first job is to entertain.

It is absolutely that time of year - The Time of the List - which I love because, frankly, I love lists. Let’s start with one of my favourite Melbourne bloggers, Lisa Dempster and her list of Top Rockin’ People for 2010.

Who wouldn’t want a poetry mix tape for Christmas? - Adam Ford

Did you hear about the garment workers who died in a factory fire in Bangladesh this week? Sometimes it’s all too easy to forget that’s where our clothes come from. This is not an anti-globalisation comment, just a nudge to remember what working conditions are still like for so many.

Some futures I thought I might have by Emma Barrie struck a chord. I still dream of futures. Worryingly, they’re becoming even more obscure than Matthew Perry thinking there would be another cup.

Are these the coolest bookstores ever? (via Dan Weiss at The Rumpus)

So Jonathan Franzen went on Oprah, huh. - The Paris Review

Collaborative consumption? Yes please! - Rachel Botsman on TED

Want to know what George Orwell was doing 70 years ago to the day? The George Orwell Prize is publishing his diaries in exactly this way. 1940 was not such a good year:

He said that in the siege of Warsaw 95 per cent of the houses were damaged and about 25 per cent demolished.  All services, electricity, water, etc., broke down, and towards the end people had no defence whatever against the aeroplanes and, what was worse, the artillery.  He described people rushing out to cut bits off a horse killed by shell-fire, then being driven back by fresh shells, then rushing out again. - George Orwell.

Speaking of WWII, how are e-reader sales of Mein Kampf doing? - The Awl

A survival guide for the 26-35 age range in 2011- Thought Catalog

Be a freelancer. Because working for yourself is the American/Global Dream. In today’s economy, though, be advised that what freelancing actually means is a) abusing food stamps, unemployment and food banks, b) being a barista, c) accepting the money your parents offer and d) having one (two if you’re lucky) client(s) that result in about 15% of (what you tell others is) your monthly income.

[image: daily cartoon at New Matilda]

Weekend reader - links I loved

Let’s start with a letter to Santa by Saul Williams:

And who says I understand how to fight disingenuous governance, poverty or hate? I’m just saying I understand the importance of counterculture, of those who prefer boom over pop. Hardcore. Underground. The ones who dare to question and expose, who put their lives at risk… Those who stand up and speak out even when the masses seem apathetically addicted to the status quo, which is probably good for business. And I’m not anti-good business. I’m just for new business models. And new fashion models, while you’re at it. They don’t have to be so skinny!
             - (via Champagne Candy)

Just because she isn’t saying no…doesn’t mean she is saying yes is a Canadian anti-rape campaign discussed here by Rachel Hills:

There’s a big difference between sharing a couple of glasses of wine on a date - or flirting with someone who’s had a few vodka mixers at a club - and deliberately pursuing someone who is stumbling around wasted or passed out on the couch…

Have you heard about the new Oscar-buzz movie Black Swan starring one of my favourite actresses Natalie Portman? Here’s why I’m not going to see it (Jezebel).

Here’s what the average American thinks is spent on foreign aid (or if you prefer to watch over reading, here is Peter Singer talking about this issue).

There’s a new bottom billion, according to Andy Sumner from the Institute for Development Studies, and they live in middle-income countries, not low-income countries. Look out  for the implications for aid budgets.

What makes countries corrupt? Richard Florida, The Atlantic:

If we really want to combat corruption we must deal with the broader and much harder challenges of economic development. When less developed nations begin to leverage their knowledge, skills, and human capital to raise their levels of economic output, then the battle is already won.

When is a movement a movement?

Getting 50,000 people to join a Facebook group is impressive…but it’s not a movement. - Samba

The Cancun climate talks are in danger of collapsing, reports The Guardian.

These cartoons depicting the relationship of Belgium and The Congo are …arresting. That might not even be the right word, so take a look and come up with a better one - Africa is a country.

p.s. I know it’s not cool, but I love Christmas

Weekend reader - links I loved

This week’s collation of things I loved from my little corner of the webiverse is brought to you by hayfever hell. Antihistimines required.

• I wax and wane between liking commentaries on “what the internet is doing to us.” I found this so achingly sad and alarmingly resonant for me:

To be on the internet is to never be alone. I haven’t succumbed to amorphous feelings of isolation since sophomore year of college. For years now, this has been a pillar of my dignity, a tenant of my self-respect. Sophomore year of college was the last time I remember attending a party I didn’t want to go to in spite of myself, the last time I remember choosing people I didn’t really like over solitude. How dumb of me to think that I don’t do this online every day now.

- Alice Gregory, Sad as hell (via Something Changed)

• In keeping with the theme of our generation and the internet, Zadie Smith has weighed in. Predictably, she finds social media wanting for its contraction of our selves. I don’t agree, and neither does Jessica Au:

“Our Twitter handles and Facebook profiles carefully crafted characters – they are our aspirational selves, selective autobiographies in 140 characters or less – and as such can never be said to be a complete loss of privacy”.
- Jessica Au, Meanland.

• Do you read Sugar? You should. She’s a goddess.

• Meanwhile, has torture become just a matter of taste?

“What we choose to define as torture is now just another policy disagreement, like extending the Bush tax cuts or picking a caterer.”
- Dahlia Lithwick for Slate (via The Awl)

• Have you ever wondered how authors feel about their book covers? 

“The Arabic on the cover, she said, had made her nervous when reading in public. She knew it was shameful, but she covered up the Arabic whenever she read the book outside her house. The cover, she admitted, helped her recognise the depths of her own fears and prejudices. That’s the moment I realised that this bold and powerful cover beautifully mirrors the aims of the pages within.”
- Author Moustafa Bayoumi at Creative Industries (via Meanjin)

• I am conflicted about direct giving schemes which encourage you to buy a family a water kit, or mosquito net, because I think the best form of giving is a regular donation. But I still really do find them appealling. Even more so after watching Where’s my goat?

• Speaking of giving, do you think giving is hard too?

“Doing good is harder than it looks. Good intentions are not enough…As I look forward to the future of philanthropy, both mine and others’, it’s an exciting picture. There will be new discoveries about the nature of giving, and as the nonprofit sector grows daily more interested in measuring impact, the number of opportunities to give effectively grows with it.
- Ian Turner at Give Well (via Poverty Action)

• Calling all public speakers, please don’t do this! - Chris Brogan

• My my, Google sounds like a good place to work. Still.

• Also, do you write letters and words and phrases that form poetry? Overland would like to hear from you. Hey, you might even win.

And finally, according to Laughing Squid:

Weekend reader - links I loved

Have you seen the 50 viral images the web shared in 2010 yet?

How to teach creative thinking seems like a good skill to learn (PSFK)

Always wondered how successful people started? Opening Lines takes a look the beginning of the people we all now know.

This cover letter from Hunter S. Thompson should have been required reading for my twenty year-old self. (via The Rumpus)

A brave and beautiful blog post about a traumatic pregnancy experience by Jessica Valenti, in which she explains why she is in the midst of a “new normal”

Emergencies may better be seen as occasions for fresh starts and rethinking. Because they take life and make death vivid for those who survive emergencies, they properly prompt people to appraise lives that are nearly cut short. - Tom Sorrel, NYT

With all this war, it is easy to forget the complexity of Afghanistan, but these images of the other side of Afghanistan help (NPR).

Freakonomics wants me to ask, do I buy because I bleed? Which puts a whole new spin on the Dorothy Porter poetry I bought with money earmarked for food.

Which brings me to Dorothy Porter’s advice to aspiring writers:

When planning my next book I decided I would please myself entirely – and that is the advice I give to any aspiring writers this afternoon – please yourself. I wanted ingredients that stank to high heaven of badness. I wanted graphic sex. I wanted explicit perversion. I wanted putrid language. I wanted stenching murder. I wanted to pour out my heart.

Well said.

btw - R U OK?

[image: sunflower, for the beautiful soul in my life who the sun is hiding from right now]