Salon.com Life | Raped by statute

Salon.com Life | Raped by statute

I've been finding Ayelet Waldman's pieces compelling in Salon.

I think there must be something unhealthy about the fact that so much of what I read online that's in the category of news is so tragic. Here's a more in depth presentation of the Matthey Limon case's implications and background from the Boston Phoenix.

Salon.com Books | The gay/hipster index

The Flight of the Creative Class: The New Global Competition for Talent

I'm dying to read this, but it's not happening anytime too soon. The salon interview gave me a good taste of what's inside though. It's an interesting read.

Stop Bolton

Stop Bolton

Considering I'm in policy school, I should be more up on what's going on with the UN Ambassador nomination. This site illustrates why John Bolton is not a good choice.

I will have to make an active effort to follow all related events in much greater detail, because I will be working at UNHCR in Geneva this summer!

Friends, please feel free to send or post any interesting articles that I should be paying attention to.

Best-
Leo

The Man Date

This article from the New York Times is hilarious and oddly disturbing. It underscores some fascinating gender dynamics in our society. I think it's also interesting because it actually demonstrates that the ways we interact are dynamic, and that our society is constantly renegotiating what constitute masculinity and maleness.

FOCUS: Overfishing -- Local to Global

FOCUS: Overfishing -- Local to Global

As usual, totally fascinating and a useful resource, but overwhelming and depressing.

"According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, overfishing is leading to a humanitarian and ecological crisis.

The report finds that over 70 percent of fish species are being caught at a rate faster than they reproduce, leading to the near-depletion of many commercial fish stocks."

Short term individual gain triumphs again...

link after link

So there's been a string of links with blurbs for quite some time. For whatever reason, there's something oddly exposing about writing something more online. Somehow it's easier to express outrage about the world and cite the many examples compared to trying to convey something more complicated in an elegant way. Or post something benign regarding penguins.

I've cancelled my New York Times subscription, and I need to reconfigure AvantGo on my Palm, so I'm oddly disconnected from the intricacies of the world. I have no television, and I only spend the occasional half hour glazed over in the graduate lounge, so there's been kind of a removal from contemporary news and culture that is somewhat pleaseing. A scan of the NYT headlines online, the occasional in depth salon article, both managing to convey something about the world around, offer only the smallest slice.

I feel physically frenetic, and it manifests in chugging coffee, aggressive nailbiting, just not being able to sit still. I ran down the canal trail the other day when it was still perfectly beautiful, a "9" out of "10" for fitness according to weather.com. It was beautiful and peaceful around, and I managed to stomp out some of the intensity that's been churning about.

In a sense it's reasonable to feel like the world's an unsetting place. I'm in a policy/urban planning program, and it's clear that from a fairly objective standpoint, there are a lot of parts of our society that need a lot of work. And while there are arguably some nice aspects of Princeton including the aforementioned canal trail (used for to ship goods before the era of the train I learned in Planning Methods this past week), there's also the fact that it's an affluent suburb filled with some of the most privileged, entitled, and oblivious people in the world.

Sometimes writing things out helps clarify thoughts. Other times, it just looks like the same crap that we've all seen and thought before...

SAN FRANCISCO / Gated homes in the Tenderloin / Residents make their city cul-de-sac a place where doors can be open

SAN FRANCISCO / Gated homes in the Tenderloin / Residents make their city cul-de-sac a place where doors can be open

I would have thought never in San Francisco... You can understand it, but it's still surprising that they could get approval.