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nypl:
There are some swoon-worthy abstract motifs in our collections.
[Four abstract motifs.] via NYPL Digital Collections.
There are many who consider as an injury to themselves any conduct which they have a distaste for, and resent it as an outrage to their feelings; as a religious bigot, when charged with disregarding the religious feelings of others, has been known to retort that they disregard his feelings, by persisting in their abominable worship or creed. But there is no parity between the feeling of a person for his own opinion, and the feeling of another who is offended at his holding it; no more than between the desire of a thief to take a purse, and the desire of the right owner to keep it. And a person’s taste is as much his own peculiar concern as his opinion or his purse. It is easy for any one to imagine an ideal public, which leaves the freedom and choice of individuals in all uncertain matters undisturbed, and only requires them to abstain from modes of conduct which universal experience has condemned. But where has there been seen a public which set any such limit to its censorship? or when does the public trouble itself about universal experience? In its interferences with personal conduct it is seldom thinking of anything but the enormity of acting or feeling differently from itself; and this standard of judgment, thinly disguised, is held up to mankind as the dictate of religion and philosophy, by nine-tenths of all moralists and speculative writers. These teach that things are right because they are right; because we feel them to be so.
“Would something be lost if autism were banished from the world? Probably. Autistic people have a unique way of looking at the world that lets them solve problems differently from everyone else, and we all benefit from that insight. On the other hand, everyone always gives the same example of this: Temple Grandin. Temple Grandin is pretty great. But I am not sure that her existence alone justifies all of the institutionalizations and seizures and head-banging and everything else.Imagine if a demon offered civilization the following deal: “One in every hundred of your children will be born different. They will feel ordinary sensations as exquisite tortures. Many will never learn to speak; most will never work or have friends or live independently. More than half will consider suicide. Forty percent will be institutionalized, then ceaselessly tyrannized and abused until they die. In exchange, your slaughterhouses will be significantly more efficient.”
I feel like Screwtape would facepalm, then force him into remedial Not-Sounding-Like-An-Obvious-Demon classes.”
“What’s missing from the discussion is a recognition that the choices of feminist sex workers could, in fact, be immoral. By insisting that we respect and value all female choices, choice feminism creates a double-standard which trivializes women’s moral capacities and denies our agency the same kind of significance that we attach to that of men. Male choice remains subject to critique, and men are still expected to take responsibility for the social and political consequences of their actions; only women are exempt.This attitude is profoundly demeaning to women. Generally we will only praise a person for doing something badly if we are impressed that they can do it at all. When a toddler draws his first recognizably humanoid squiggle, the adults present applaud as though it were the Mona Lisa. Choice feminism makes sense only if we honestly think that women, as a group, have such infantile decision-making skills that every time one of us makes a choice the rest have to gather round and pat her on the back.”
A majority of the school’s astronomy faculty, which Dr. Marcy has been a member of since 1999, said in a letter posted online Monday that he should go. “We believe that Geoff Marcy cannot perform the functions of a faculty member,” said the letter, which carried 23 signatures.
But the university administration, which placed him on probation over the summer after an investigation without announcing the decision, defended its approach, saying it left Dr. Marcy on a very tight leash and vulnerable to immediate dismissal if he violates his probation. “The university has imposed real consequences on Professor Geoff Marcy by establishing a zero-tolerance policy regarding future behavior,” said the statement, issued Tuesday by the office of Janet Broughton, Berkeley’s vice provost for the faculty.
If someone tells you “coding is the new literacy” because “computers are everywhere today,” ask them how fuel injection works. By teaching low-level coding, I worry that we are effectively teaching our children the art of automobile repair. A valuable skill — but if automobile manufacturers and engineers are doing their jobs correctly, one that shouldn’t be much concern for average people, who happily use their cars as tools to get things done without ever needing to worry about rebuilding the transmission or even change the oil.There’s nothing wrong with basic exposure to computer science. But it should not come at the expense of fundamental skills such as reading, writing and mathematics — and unfortunately today our schools, with limited time, have tons of pressure on them to convey those basics better.
I’ve known so many programmers who would have been much more successful in their careers if they had only been better writers, better critical thinkers, better back-of-the-envelope estimators, better communicators. And aside from success in careers, we have to ask the broader question: What kinds of people do we want children to grow up to be?
[gallery] Burial in Bradford of the “Jesus Man”:
A local man, Michael Kerrigan, penned a poem for the funeral, A Touch of Jesus, which he read from the pulpit. The Rev Sandra Benham, the vicar of Baildon, the Bradford community where Brindley was known to spend time in a shared house, said: “What can we learn from him? He was a constant witness, always there come rain, shine, snow or hail. He had time for people, he was never in a rush, not caught up in our frenzied world. He simply walked, waved and smiled.”There was an outbreak of spontaneous applause as Brindley’s coffin was borne out of the cathedral bound for a private cremation. Earlier, the congregation sang Jerusalem, which seemed hugely apt for a man whose feet had walked, if not quite since ancient time but certainly an impressive number of decades, not only on England’s mountains green but among Bradford’s dark satanic mills, exuding smiles, kindness and an air of agreeable mystery.
