June 2010
46 posts
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Sometimes dead is better. →
The link above is about the care given to terminally ill patients, so approach with due caution.
One of the great problems now facing us in modern medicine is that we can prolong life - but we can often not prolong it very well. Certainly I saw this with my own grandmother, whose life slowly dipped into a painful twilight propped up by a full medicine cabinet and frequent emergency trips to the...
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911? I’m calling to report a serious disturbance... →
What the fuck is wrong with people?! I mean, really.
climax in 140 characters or fewer!
me: twitter sex would be kinda disappointing
Jack: @whoever Oh yeah #penetration #thrustharder
me: #cigarette
Jack: #whatalready
me: 140 characters in heaven is better than 70 characters in heaven
Jack: XD @whoever brb #jerkingoffinbathroomnow
me: #sleep #droolonyourshoulder
Jack: #bitchingontheinternet
Lembit Opik says he will stand as London mayor |... →
Hee! This is awesome.
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“There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa...”
– Raymond Chandler, Red Wind
(Edward Hopper, Nighthawks)
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Yet more photography
This time from Daniel van Flymen (http://www.vanflymen.com/). His work has a dreamy quality I find attractive, as for instance here:
Of course, van Flymen’s work does tend toward the annoyingly hipsterish at times, what with his pretty-skinny subjects with their artfully dishevelled hair. In small doses, though, I can appreciate that. And it looks like he does have a bolder vision lurking...
Separate GCSEs for boys and girls - Telegraph →
What a lot of nonsense.
Best Plagiarism Video Evuh – Stephen's Lighthouse →
This is seriously one of the best things I have seen in a while. It almost makes me wish to study at the University of Bergen! I think all of us who are teachers should find ways to show this to our students… Awesome.
who questions the questioner?
Note - this post references transphobia and may have triggering qualities - please exercise due caution.
tealeaves reblogged some photography by L. Weingarten, which I thought interesting enough to make into its own post. My attention was caught by http://lweingarten.com/projects/ques/ which in Weingarten’s words seeks “to make visible the transphobia and gender-baiting that can...
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I've always liked looking at pretty girls.
Though I’m more straight than not - I think the term we’re using these days is heteroflexible, daahhling - I have always had a strong appreciation of other women’s beauty. I like curvaceous, feminine, well dressed women. (All ways I would like to be described myself… Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas.) Here are my picks of famous beautiful women.
Oh Joan! The lips,...
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The title "Daily Fail" doesn't really cover it.
As one might expect from one of our most reactionary newspapers, The Daily Mail has done its absolute best to wriggle away from the clear conclusion of the Saville Report that the events of Bloody Sunday were “unjustified and unjustifiable”. Here are some “highlights” of the Mail’s coverage:
An online headline that David Cameron finds it ‘painful’ to sit...
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Gay kids crowned at Prom →
This is as heartwarming as when Buffy was crowned School Protector, except this is REAL. Way to go, boys, and a BIG high five to their schoolmates for being accepting and their school administration for being tolerant, decent human beings. Hurrah!
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Both unjustified and unjustifiable →
There is plenty you can read online about the Bloody Sunday Inquiry. There are just a few notes I want to make here. My life has been thankfully free of the violence of Northern Ireland, but my…
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Unjustified, and unjustifiable.
All those killed on Bloody Sunday were innocent, according to the Saville Report.
Thirteen marchers were shot dead on 30 January 1972 in Londonderry when British paratroopers opened fire on crowds at a civil rights demonstration.
Fourteen others were wounded, one of whom later died.
My mother, like the rest of her family, grew up in Northern Ireland. I think she won’t mind if I here...
George R R Martin hits HBO. →
Holy crapola, this looks awesome.
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Even business leaders reject HE cuts. →
… The business base in the UK relies on our universities for their skilled workforce and we are increasingly seeing universities provide invaluable consultancy and research support for businesses in their local area. Our businesses increasingly recruit talent worldwide and have a global approach to investing in research and development. Universities in the UK have much to offer —...
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Ripening by Wendell Berry
The longer we are together the larger death grows around us. How many we know by now who are dead! We, who were young, now count the cost of having been. And yet as we know the dead we grow familiar with the world. We, who were young and loved each other ignorantly, now come to know each other in love, married by what we have done, as much as by what we intend. Our hair turns white with our...
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‘We Fight, We Dance’ with Erwin Olaf |... →
Meanwhile, this photography by Erwin Olaf showcases the exceptional discipline and extraordinary level of physical prowess necessary to dance ballet at a professional level. I like ballet that shows sweat and muscle tension, which is why I am more of a modern than classical ballet fan.
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Stephen Delattre by Thomas Sing | Homotography →
I have a great love of modern ballet… partly because it encourages a particular kind of male physicality I find appealing! The following photos of a French ballet dancer are striking for their raw grace. There’s definitely a sense of wild, only-just contained masculinity to them. Warning: partial nudity.
xkcd: Worst-Case Scenario →
"Any reforms must be in the best interest of...
So said David Willetts in a speech today at Oxford Brookes about the future of the HE sector. Troubling aspects of this speech:
No attention paid to the importance of first class research in student learning experience - research and education are not, or should not, be two entirely separate strands
External exams for universities - I think that greater transparency and consistency in the...
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The future of British HE
The UK has a disproportionate number of the best universities in the world. It can boast a diverse system of excellent institutions, that achieve excellence in very different ways. The system has expanded dramatically over the past 30 years, to the point where it plays a significant part in the national economy in its own right. It is a powerful magnet for global talent, and has the potential to...
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows trailer... →
EMO! MAGIC! CAPSLOCK! HURRAH!
FotoCuisine →
I love food blogs. A lot of the good ones are for baking or lovely homestyle food, but this is a bit gourmet whilst still being made in an amateur setting - nice!
CAAAAAKE →
Oh the poor poor white man →
Vince Cable, 3 June 2010:
“Education and learning are of course desirable in their own right. Education for education’s sake – learning how to learn - benefits the economy in the long term. Philistinism is bad economics. It is also fundamentally unacceptable.”
A nice point, Vince. You might therefore consider whether the enormous cuts to HE actually make good business sense… Have a word with the boss?
Plus ça change... →
The television interview was arranged on the day I appeared on the back cover of the newspaper. For a few hours I felt like a star. “Could we get some footage of you kissing people?” asked Channel 7, and I smiled my assent. After work I was met by a cameraman who seemed perplexed by the project but willing to follow me around the Gardens in search of a kiss. The first came easily -...
Speaking out against HE cuts. →
Wholesale cuts across the higher education field, applied without longterm perspective on cumulative effects, or with a real understanding of how research functions, will make the UK an academic backwater. I am very concerned about our future.
To hell with it. →
I jumped on the Tumblr bandwagon. A lot of Tumblr accounts seem incrediby pretentious, but I like the way you can integrate lots of other sites into Tumblr with the greatest of ease. We’ll see how…
May 2010
5 posts
