[gallery] a dream embodied
[gallery] Do I want to see an illustrated version of “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”? I’m thinking it over.
In sum, there is only one type of young person, her parents are super-rich, and they reside in a great big house with expensive PJs and an awesome couch to live on forever. There is, it would seem, no American species more tediously homogenous or more consistently inept than the Millennial generation. That is, perhaps, except for the columnists who write about them.
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Maybe even more than scientific thinking, scientists desperately want the public to appreciate and be engaged with science and technology. Which makes me wonder why we brand people as “anti-science” when they don’t believe in evolution. We almost certainly will not convince creationists to change their beliefs. Attacking them for disagreeing with a single theory makes it harder to engage them in fields outside biology. Given how much we care about public engagement, we must tread carefully here. It doesn’t mean that evolution is not important (it is), or that it should be avoided (it shouldn’t). But a strident, narrow defense of evolution may undermine scientific literacy writ-large. We may detract from our own goals and marginalize people we want to reach. Do we really want to tell people that they are unwelcome in physics and chemistry if they don’t believe in evolution? And do we have to do it so angrily? In evolution and in politics, I wish we could all just try a little tenderness. This with-us-or-against-us mentality does not serve any noble purpose. Dick Cheney should not be our role model.
Anonymously calling someone a coward is the height of self-parody and the pit of self-awareness. Each of these [NFL] personnel men feel perfectly comfortable attacking the mental strength of Jonathan Martin. Not a single one of them is willing to put their name on it. That is because none of them wants to deal with the pain of embarrassing themselves, their organization and the league, nor the pain that might attend their careers.Calling for others to endure pain in one breath, while you duck it in the next is a particularly loathsome form of cowardice. The men who call on Martin to fight Incognito in the locker-room, are also the same men who would ruthlessly cut Martin or Incognito should either be injured in any way that jeopardizes the team’s plans. Perhaps one of these braggarts actually would “go down swinging.” But “down” does not have the same meaning for a general manager as it does for a left tackle. Jeff Ireland can report to work with a broken arm. Jonathan Martin not so much.
The point here is power. As demonstrated by Trotter’s column, Martin has risked his career and millions of dollars by exposing Incognito. There’s a solid argument that Martin’s actions were “brave.” It just isn’t the kind of “brave” immediately empowers the NFL. On the contrary, it’s the kind that threatens it.
[gallery] Gregory and his scribes (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum, 10th century).
The teacher is justified to lead students only if he is and remains a student.
Frankly, the quality of safety provision for students at Hogwarts is totally unacceptable. Despite having a highly qualified, capable and over-worked school nurse, many severe and significant injuries have occured in recent years. The main sport played by the school, entirely internally, is incredibly dangerous and should be reviewed by the HSE immediately. Several injuries from wildlife have occured in recent months, with trees and large flying animals usually to blame - these hazards are not successfully monitored or kept safe by any member of staff other than the groundsman. This kind of Health and Safety brief is not usually in the remit of a groundskeeper, and it is our recommendation that more staff are drafted in to help with this task. There have been several deaths in recent years, all on site. The recent loss of the previous headteacher was a severe blow to the school’s reputation, and many parents have removed their children from the premises. The headmaster’s death went entirely unexplained, though rumours that a pupil murdered him are almost certainly hyperbole. The death of a Year 12 student during an international competition was also kept from the newspapers, and the effects are still being felt across the school. This summer, the school was disrupted by riots and pitched battles between rival sectors of the community. Whether the school was an incidental victim of this outburst of aggression, or an active part of it, is unknown to the inspectors. Siginificant damage was wreaked on the school buildings, with certain wings now closed for repairs. In short, at present Hogwarts is a very unsafe environment for all students and staff.