Late Nights with Earl Grey and Other Stories

ocean skimming: Summer Solstice by Stacie Cassarino

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 13:27:58 -0500

ocean skimming: Summer Solstice by Stacie Cassarino :

I wanted to see where beauty comes from
without you in the world, hauling my heart
across sixty acres of northeast meadow,
my pockets filling with flowers.
Then I remembered,
it’s you I miss in the brightness
and body of every living name:
rattlebox, yarrow, wild vetch.
You are the…

woodendreams: (by David Gn Photography)

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 04:58:39 -0500

woodendreams:

(by David Gn Photography)

Fractal broccoli (by Captain Tenneal)

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 15:07:54 -0500

Fractal broccoli (by Captain Tenneal)

How many Mount Holyoke students does it take to change a lightbulb?

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 01:27:04 -0500

bokugairu:

One—she calls a Smithie to do it.

"Smith supremacy"

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 00:23:10 -0500

““Smith supremacy””

- Jonathan Hirsh, Glee Club (via professorquotes)

One month until I'm in Oxford

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 16:21:02 -0500

that’s flipping crazy. let’s not think about all the stuff I have to do before I leave!

stfuconservatives: thedailywhat: Important Internet Milestone...

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 11:38:38 -0500

stfuconservatives:

thedailywhat:

Important Internet Milestone of the Day: It’s official: Rick Perry’s homophobic campaign ad has more dislikes than Rebecca Black’s “Friday” (embiggen), making it the most hated video in YouTube history.

Congrats, Rick. No one has ever deserved anything more than you deserve this.

[youtube.]

Impressive. Great work everyone.

Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates Health Insurance -In 1798

Sun, 04 Dec 2011 01:33:22 -0500

Congress Passes Socialized Medicine and Mandates Health Insurance -In 1798:

feministslut:

In July of 1798, Congress passed – and President John Adams signed - “An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen.” The law authorized the creation of a government operated marine hospital service and mandated that privately employed sailors be required to purchase health care insurance.

Keep in mind that the 5th Congress did not really need to struggle over the intentions of the drafters of the Constitutions in creating this Act as many of its members were the drafters of the Constitution.

emphasis mine.

brodloymorgon: i wonder anybody does anything at oxford but...

Sat, 03 Dec 2011 19:52:44 -0500

brodloymorgon:

i wonder anybody does anything at oxford but dream and remember, the place is so beautiful. one almost expects the people to sing instead of speaking. it is all… like an opera.

WB YEATS

thedailyfeed: Photographer Mark Laita peeks into the strange...

Sun, 27 Nov 2011 13:37:37 -0500

thedailyfeed:

Photographer Mark Laita peeks into the strange and surreal world of life underwater in his new book “Sea.”

47 days. Damn.

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 09:31:32 -0500

47 days. Damn.

Second time today

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 12:16:56 -0500

that I heard a Republican say on national news that the first major thing they would try to cut from the federal government, were they elected, was the DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION. Talk about screwy family values.

"The assertion that Europe’s crisis proves that the welfare state doesn’t work comes from many..."

Fri, 11 Nov 2011 23:44:47 -0500

“

The assertion that Europe’s crisis proves that the welfare state doesn’t work comes from many Republicans. For example, Mitt Romney has accused President Obama of taking his inspiration from European “socialist democrats” and asserted that “Europe isn’t working in Europe.” The idea, presumably, is that the crisis countries are in trouble because they’re groaning under the burden of high government spending. But the facts say otherwise.

It’s true that all European countries have more generous social benefits — including universal health care — and higher government spending than America does. But the nations now in crisis don’t have bigger welfare states than the nations doing well — if anything, the correlation runs the other way. Sweden, with its famously high benefits, is a star performer, one of the few countries whose G.D.P. is now higher than it was before the crisis. Meanwhile, before the crisis, “social expenditure” — spending on welfare-state programs — was lower, as a percentage of national income, in all of the nations now in trouble than in Germany, let alone Sweden.

Oh, and Canada, which has universal health care and much more generous aid to the poor than the United States, has weathered the crisis better than we have.

The euro crisis, then, says nothing about the sustainability of the welfare state. But does it make the case for belt-tightening in a depressed economy?

You hear that claim all the time. America, we’re told, had better slash spending right away or we’ll end up like Greece or Italy. Again, however, the facts tell a different story.

First, if you look around the world you see that the big determining factor for interest rates isn’t the level of government debt but whether a government borrows in its own currency. Japan is much more deeply in debt than Italy, but the interest rate on long-term Japanese bonds is only about 1 percent to Italy’s 7 percent. Britain’s fiscal prospects look worse than Spain’s, but Britain can borrow at just a bit over 2 percent, while Spain is paying almost 6 percent.

What has happened, it turns out, is that by going on the euro, Spain and Italy in effect reduced themselves to the status of third-world countries that have to borrow in someone else’s currency, with all the loss of flexibility that implies. In particular, since euro-area countries can’t print money even in an emergency, they’re subject to funding disruptions in a way that nations that kept their own currencies aren’t — and the result is what you see right now. America, which borrows in dollars, doesn’t have that problem.

The other thing you need to know is that in the face of the current crisis, austerity has been a failure everywhere it has been tried: no country with significant debts has managed to slash its way back into the good graces of the financial markets. For example, Ireland is the good boy of Europe, having responded to its debt problems with savage austerity that has driven its unemployment rate to 14 percent. Yet the interest rate on Irish bonds is still above 8 percent — worse than Italy.

The moral of the story, then, is to beware of ideologues who are trying to hijack the European crisis on behalf of their agendas. If we listen to those ideologues, all we’ll end up doing is making our own problems — which are different from Europe’s, but arguably just as severe — even worse.

”

- PAUL KRUGMAN, “Legends Of The Fail,” in the New York Times (via verycunninglinguist)

forestparklibrary: On November 8, 1602, Oxfords Bodleian...

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 22:35:52 -0500

forestparklibrary:

On November 8, 1602, Oxfords Bodleian Library (perhaps better known as the library of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry) opened its doors. Starting with a 2,000-volume collection donated by wealthy diplomat Sir Thomas Bodley, the Bodleian now contains over 80 miles of books and serves as the national depository for every book published in the United Kingdom.

The library recieves around 1,000 new volumes daily, and recently built a 11,700 sq m storage facility in Swindon—with an appropriately book-like facade—to store them in. At the current rate of acquisition, this massive new building will reach capacity in less than 20 years.

This fate could have been avoided, perhaps, if the library had stuck to Bodley’s original plan, which decreed that there would be no shelf space for “idle books and riffe raffes.” But then, how fun would that be?

jackinthebod: St. Edmund’s Hall visa information arrived...

Tue, 08 Nov 2011 00:18:24 -0500

jackinthebod:

St. Edmund’s Hall

visa information arrived today!

Except, at Smith College, we’re just finishing up an...

Sat, 29 Oct 2011 16:59:15 -0400

Except, at Smith College, we’re just finishing up an entire class devoted to Moby Dick…

fyeahenglishmajorarmadillo:

[Picture: Background — a six piece pie style colour split, alternating black and grey. Foreground — a picture of an armadillo. Top text: “Only person in Early American Lit class who has read Moby Dick” Bottom text: “Feel like you’ve entered the Twilight Zone”]

verycunninglinguist: loveyourchaos: missgingerlee: timekiller-...

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 10:09:36 -0400

verycunninglinguist:

loveyourchaos:

missgingerlee:

timekiller-s:

itsthemusicpeople:

Rachel Maddow schools Mitt Romney in her man cave on how babies are made and how birth control prevents that because clearly he missed health class thirty years ago, or he’s too busy with the pursuit of his ego to to think about something that affects 51% of the people he “wants” to represent

This is beautiful.

I just need to say that I love her.

I am posting this to both my tumblrs because even those of you who follow me for fitness or Harry Potter-related reasons NEED to watch this.

love,

baby Maddow

Recent Women's College Problem

Fri, 21 Oct 2011 09:11:08 -0400

womenscollegeproblems:

Ignorant people. http://wesleyanargus.com/2011/10/10/wesleyan-v-wellesley/

Mod Insert: Ironically, I happened to go to the same high school as the girl who is the editor for this section of the Wesleyan Argus. I messaged her when I told her I had like 5 submissions on this subject, and she said that it had been the reaction elsewhere as well. Here’s to free speech, ladies and gents…

Oh, dear. Seven Sisters solidarity.

OurPresidents: The Department of Education Was Created 32 Years...

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 19:00:52 -0400

Classroom, 6/1972, EPA photo

Classroom 1941, Bureau of Indian Affairs

Tule Lake Relocation Center pupil, 1942

"S. Pittsburg Colored School", 1948

Elementary school children writing, 1976

OurPresidents:

The Department of Education Was Created 32 Years Ago, Today

On October 17, 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed into law the Department of Education Organization Act. The ED opened officially in May, 1980.

On this education anniversary, it seems fitting to look at some of America’s classrooms from decades past. Plus, it wouldn’t be right not to give a big shout out to all the teachers out there. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

More for kids and teachers at the Presidential Libraries

woodendreams: (by panafoot)

Sun, 16 Oct 2011 10:39:56 -0400

woodendreams:

(by panafoot)