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writer, singer, webwrangler, blogger, comedy tragic | about.me/vivsmythe

  • Eek! the geek meme

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    This one’s really got legs – all my US e-mates who don’t even usually do memes are doing this one. Behold, I am a Modern, Cool Nerd 82% Nerd, 65% Geek, 26% Dork

  • Public schools not challenging enough?

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    In all the angst about education, the Literature Wars and the History Wars and is public education running down beyond hope, I find this excerpt from my son’s state high school newsletter encouraging.

    These are the research projects chosen by the 6 students doing Extension History for their HSC this year:

      Does the evidence from the ancient town of Pompeii support that it was built for the wealthy?
      Explain the philosophies of Michel Foucault and their impact on the development of Post-Modernism
      Assess the effects of Gorbachev’s reforms on the collapse of the USSR
      Evaluate the differing interpretations of the causes of Alexander the Great’s death.
      Does History end with Liberal Democracy?
      What are the differing interpretations of the 1951 seventeen point agreement?
      What are the objectives of historians who have written about the Holocaust?

  • How to squander goodwill amongst the liberated

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    Ties to GOP Trumped Know-How Among Staff Sent to Rebuild Iraq: Rajiv Chandrasekaran, summarising part of his book Imperial Life in the Emerald City, argues that one large contributor to the current distrust and militancy amongst Iraqis is the way that the Bush Administration chose people to oversee the transition from dictatorship to democracy under the aegis of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Jim O’Beirne of the Pentagon vetted who went, and the people he passed as suitable were mostly not qualified experts in the Middle-East or post-conflict reconstruction, but they were known Bush loyalists:

    A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance — but had applied for a White House job — was sent to reopen Baghdad’s stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq’s $13 billion budget, even though they didn’t have a background in accounting.

    The decision to send the loyal and the willing instead of the best and the brightest

  • Underweight mammals

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    starving horse

    starving dog

    skinny model

    In the first two instances, people look and say “starving” and “cruelty” and “neglect” and someone gets prosecuted.

  • Growing Up Different: Temple Grandin’s experiences with autism (and mine)

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    The whole article speaks to me about my experiences raising my autistic son, but this section especially:

    AUTISTIC TACTILE PROBLEMS

    I pulled away when people tried to hug me, because being touched sent an overwhelming tidal wave of stimulation through my body. I wanted to feel the comforting feeling of being held, but then when somebody held me, the effect on my nervous system was overwhelming.

    Small itches and scratches that most people ignored were torture. A scratchy petticoat was like sandpaper rubbing my skin raw.

  • Sat’dy arvo abouttohaveanap-blogging

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    White Heather blended Scotch is better balanced than the Black Douglas for a similiar price.

    Glenfarclas 15yo single malt is a superior mid-palate and lingering mouthfeel to the Macallan’s 18yo for 2/3 the price.

    That is all

  • Tutu on Darfur

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    Last week Desmond Tutu wrote a piece for the The Sunday Times to mark the International Day of Action for Darfur on the 17th September. I didn’t know about that Day of Action, despite our fundraising for MSF in Darfur on Larvatus Prodeo not long ago: how many of us did?

    Tutu’s article, A blind eye to genocide, makes for uncomfortable reading:

    In Darfur 2m people have been ethnically cleansed since 2003, women and girls are systematically raped and tortured daily, there is cholera in the refugee camps and the violence is spilling into next door Chad, and all without the attention, or response, it deserves.

  • Opinions from strangers

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    I’m finding the various drive-by parenting “concerns” about Bindi Irwin interesting following her speech at her father’s memorial service. Oh, the pressure’s too much, she’s too poised (must be in denial, how sad), blah blah blah.

    None of us know her, or the family, just because they’re on TV. Her upbringing has been entirely different from the way any of us are bringing up our kids because of the wildlife warrior

  • Unca Tim, what’s a dystopia?

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    Has this Melburnian dilettante read Huxley’s novel and resents the quoted phrase below as a slur on hir beloved reality TV? Or does sie, as I suspect, hate reality TV and inadvertently revealed that sie hasn’t read the novel and doesn’t recognise the contextual meaning of the title phrase? Can anyone untangle these antecedents at all?

    “the brave new world of reality TV”?!?

    lordy”¦ someone get me a bucket, i think i’m going to hurl.

    80’s music is one thing, i’m quite fond of a lot of it even when it’s second time round & really not quite as good as it was first time around. calling reality TV a “brave new world” is”¦ well”¦ words fail me.
    Posted by pache on 2006 09 20 at 06:19 PM “¢ permalink

  • Bloggers gone wild! (with Clinton) alleged by idiots

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    Before reading this article, open this link to this picture and guess what has got conservative bloggers all up in arms about a blatant sexual display for the benefit of Bill Clinton. Can’t see anything obvious? Join the reality-based club.

    Background: A group of liberal polibloggers were invited to meet with ex-President Bill Clinton for lunch and a low-key brainstorm on policy and blogging. When first reports and photos were released, a few people noticed there weren’t any bloggers of colour there, and the impression this gave and the reasons why it happened without being corrected were starting to be debated.

    Enter Ann Althouse, an “ex-liberal” law professor and blogger, who looked at a picture of the smiling group at the lunch meeting, noticed that a young woman with long dark hair was standing in front of Clinton, and made a sniggering allusion which didn’t actually mention Monica Lewinsky, as she knew damn well that her commentors would pick it up.