Cocktail night! (Taken with instagram)
Hmph! Not a very cheerful song for a morning when I’m already having gloomy thoughts! Radio.. Why can’t you read my mind?!?!
(Source: Spotify)
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.
She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Or better yet, date a girl who writes.
Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.
She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Or better yet, date a girl who writes.
The Humpbacks are here!!!! :D :D :D
The first humpback of the season has just passed Point Lookout and has put on quite a show! Whale season’s back!! Stradbroke Island, here I come!! :D
Praying the gay away: when religion hijacks science
Religious groups claim “ex-gay” therapies have scientific merit. flickr/michael keith photography
It’s been decades since electroshock therapy or other psychiatric interventions were routinely employed to “treat” homosexuality. These days, reparative therapy is more popular. It involves a combination of therapy and prayer to “cure” homosexuality – praying away the gay, as they say.
A number of high-profile organisations advocate and provide reparative therapy, most notably the (American) National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), which argues that the therapy rests on scientific merit.
Science has long been a battleground for religious and political debate. Abortion debates are a classic example of this. The moral divide between pro-choice and anti-abortion campaigners is so immutable that the debate is increasingly contested on scientific grounds.
Often anti-abortion campaigners will argue their case on the “evidence” that abortion psychologically or physically harms women (rather than on their moral position on abortion). This obscures the religious agenda behind a veneer of scientific objectivity.
Of course, when it comes to homosexuality, religious campaigners similarly accuse gay and lesbian rights campaigners of hiding their agenda behind science.
Evidence demonstrating the success of reparative therapy is valuable to conservative religion. If sexuality is changeable, an argument can be made that homosexuals are made, not born. This allows religious groups to create a scientific platform for resisting the argument that homosexuality is a normal and natural part of humanity, and should not be a point of discrimination. Focus on this point locks debate about homosexuality further into a scientific realm, concentrated on the nature of homosexual attraction rather than the morality of endorsing discrimination.
flickr/leah.jones
There’s very little evidence for the efficacy of reparative therapy. In 2009, the American Psychological Association released a statement renouncing reparative therapy. It cited a dearth of scientific evidence supporting its efficacy and the likelihood that it may cause harm.
The Spitzer study
The main piece of research regularly cited by the so-called “ex-gay movement” is a 2001 paper by Columbia University Professor Robert Spitzer. He interviewed more than 200 people who all self-identified as having increased heterosexual attraction following reparative therapy. But most of the study’s participants were referred by groups running reparative therapy and were presumably highly religious, holding a deep desire to be considered heterosexual.
Despite knowing this, Spitzer concluded that “change in sexual orientation following some forms of reparative therapy does occur in some gay men and lesbians.”
Reparative therapy groups lauded the findings. Spitzer is a high-profile psychiatrist who was instrumental in the American Psychiatric Association’s 1973 decision to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-II). This placed him clearly on the public record for his belief that homosexuality is “normal.”
Spitzer’s distance from religious groups made him a perfect, if not unwitting, spokesperson for reparative therapy. But this was never his intention – people didn’t interpret Spitzer’s research in the way he thought they would.
According to Spitzer, the goal of his study had been to investigate the truth of the claim that no-one had ever changed sexual orientation through therapy. He wasn’t seeking to evaluate the efficacy of ex-gay programs for all people. Rather, given the dominant view was that sexuality couldn’t be altered, he was curious about whether reparative therapy had worked for some people.
But Spitzer was naïve to assume his personal “objective” scientific curiosity would be understood and allow him to remain at a distance from the religious and political agenda in which his research was situated. Essentially, he tried to ignore the key role that scientific research plays in religious debate.
Once in the public domain…
Sptizer publicly denounced his research in a recent interview with web editor for The American Prospect, Gabriel Arana, who himself had experienced reparative therapy.
“In retrospect, I have to admit I think the critiques are largely correct. The findings can be considered evidence for what those who have undergone ex-gay therapy say about it, but nothing more,” he said. Spitzer also acknowledged that failed attempts to rid oneself of homosexual attraction “can be quite harmful.”
But the Archives of Sexual Behaviour hasn’t published a formal retraction of Spitzer’s paper, arguing that a retraction is not appropriate given Spitzer is not claiming he made an error or his data was flawed.
It remains to be seen whether Spitzer’s new stance makes any difference to the role his research plays as an advocacy tool for reparative therapy. Critiques of Spitzer’s method have been widely available for years and there was nothing deceptive or fraudulent about his work that renders it untrustworthy. It’s likely that reparative therapy groups will continue to claim it as evidence.
Scientific and psychological research is a major area in which religious, moral and political debate is contested. It goes without saying that demonstration of rigour in this context holds an added level of importance. But researchers lose control of how their work is interpreted once published. No matter how much a researcher tries to distance herself from this, her work is still part of the game.
This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article.
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
Where knowledge is free
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments
By narrow domestic walls
Where words come out from the depth of truth
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way
Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit
Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
It has been well over 140 years since Rabindranath Tagore was born and over 70 years since he passed on. He wrote during a different era, in a world that is now forgotten. His works however have stood the test of time, and are as relevant in today’s society as they were in the decades past.
Where the Mind is Without Fear - (Chitto Jetha Bhayshunyo in Bengali) - is one of the most famous poems in the subcontinent and has been a favourite of mine from the time I was a child.
Gurudev’s words were meant for the India of his future, but to me the ideals in this poem are something that the whole world can aspire to - today’s world most of all.
I echo his words when I say “Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my world awake”
And then there was an e-freezer! (Taken with Instagram at Building 69 (69))
The Return of Planet Earth!
The BBC is returning to the series that defined nature documentaries for a generation and they’re making it better - the only way they can. BBC Planet Earth returns as a live simulcast that will be broadcast across 140 countries starting the 7th of May.
Unfortunately for everyone in the US and Canada, the press release says that both the countries have been excluded from the simulcast. Sorry folks! Australia gets it first this time!
For details about when and where to watch it, please refer to the press release below:
The most ambitious BBC global wildlife series ever undertaken - Planet Earth Live to air globally in 140 countries
Planet Earth LiveDate: 27.04.2012 Last updated: 27.04.2012 at 09.15
Category: BBC Worldwide
This May the Earth’s most charismatic animals will be followed day and night by award winning BBC Natural History Unit film makers, international wildlife specialists and BBC viewers around the world* - for an epic global animal soap opera Planet Earth Live where nature writes the script.
Click to tweet: The most ambitious BBC global wildlife series ever undertaken #Planetearthlive to air globally in 140 countries http://bbc.in/KfRy4h
Filming in six different time zones, across five diverse continents, in seven locations using spectacular cinematography, real-time filming techniques and up-close HD wildlife footage – the young animals’ struggle for survival during the critical month of May will air across BBC channels around the world. The lives of the Earth’s youngest animals truly hang in the balance over the course of the series including baby elephants in Kenya, black bears in Minnesota, macaque monkeys in Sri Lanka, meerkats in South Africa, grey whales in the Pacific and lion cubs in the Masaai Mara.
Anchored in Southern Kenya, Top Gear’s Richard Hammond will fulfill his childhood dream as he tracks the Marsh pride of lions with specialist camerawoman Sophie Darlington. The group of lions, made famous by the BBC’s Big Cat Diary, are reaching a crucial time in their history thanks to a pride takeover. A lioness has already escaped with the cubs but with limited food, their survival remains threatened.
Meanwhile over 13,000 kilometres away in the wild Northwoods of Minnesota, Julia Bradbury will get up close and personal with one of the most feared predators on the planet – black bears. Julia joins wildlife expert Dr Lynn Rogers as bear families emerge from their dens with new born cubs. On the Pacific coast Julia will also follow the epic migration of grey whales and their calves running the gauntlet of killer whales.
From the team behind the global phenomenon Frozen Planet , Planet Earth Live will simultaneously broadcast to a global audience** via BBC Knowledge (Australia, New Zealand, Africa, Poland, the Nordic Region, Asia and Italy) BBC Entertainment (India), BBC HD (Latin America, the Nordic Region, Poland and Turkey) and in a selection of European countries on the BBC Global iPlayer***.
David Weiland, SVP Programming and TV Channels comments: “We are the only network in the world which can broadcast the biggest wildlife series ever undertaken to an international audience, across multiple platforms. The culmination of ten years development and digital technological innovation from the BBC’s Natural History Unit means our audiences will be a part of this truly global viewing experience, where even the show’s producers don’t know what’s going to happen next, to this cast of truly incredible animals”.
Planet Earth Live is the latest synchronised broadcast from BBC Worldwide, reinforcing the network’s commitment to stage bold and ambitious global television events, showcasing the very best of British programming and UK talent to the World. Following on from The Royal Wedding in 2011, Sport Relief in March 2012; Planet Earth Live is the second global moment for our international audiences to share this year. Planet Earth Live will be closely followed this summer by London Calling - a unique season of programming celebrating the music, fashion, art, culture and history of Britain’s capital city; led by live coverage from the spectacular Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
Notes to Editors:
* Dates and times vary according to territory.
**Live simulcasts:
From Sunday May 6th Planet Earth Live will air simulcast with BBC ONE at 19:50 BST (UK time) on BBC Knowledge (EMEA – Poland, Africa and the Nordic region), BBC Knowledge Australia and New Zealand and BBC HD (the Nordic Region, Poland and Turkey) and then at 20:00 BST (UK time) every Thursday and Sunday for three weeks, with later languaged localised repeats also scheduled.
International versions:
***From Tuesday May 8th BBC Global iPlayer will air Planet Earth Live every Tuesday and Saturday for three weeks in Spain, Portugal, France, Austria, Switzerland, Eire and Italy.
From Wednesday May 16th BBC Knowledge Asia will air Planet Earth Live the languaged version, every Wednesday and Thursday for three weeks.
From Wednesday May 16th BBC Knowledge Italy will air Planet Earth Live the languaged version, every Wednesday for six weeks.
From Thursday May 17th BBC Entertainment India will air Planet Earth Live the languaged version, every Thursday and Friday for three weeks.
From Tuesday June 19th BBC HD Latin America and Brazil will air Planet Earth Live the languaged version, every Thursday and Tuesday for three weeks.
The event excludes the US and Canada.
For further information, please contact:
Charlotte Scarborough
Communications, BBC Worldwide Channels
Tel: +44 (0)208 433 32009
Email: charlotte.scarborough@bbc.com
BBC Worldwide Channels is one of five core BBC Worldwide businesses. Formed in 2005, the business’ diverse portfolio of channel brands provides a global showcase for the best mix of British TV across factual, entertainment, children’s and lifestyle programming. The company is the UK’s leading international broadcaster, operating a network of localised channels that reach over 300 million homes in more than 100 countries around the world.
BBC World News, the BBC’s commercially funded international 24-hour news and information channel, is owned and operated by BBC World News Ltd, a member of the BBC’s commercial group of companies. BBC World News is available in more than 200 countries and territories worldwide, and over 300 million households and 1.8 million hotel rooms. The channel’s content is also available on 136 cruise ships, 40 airlines, 23 mobile phone networks and a number of major online platforms including bbc.com/news. For further information on how to receive BBC World News, download schedules or find out more about the channel, visit bbc.com/tvschedule.
The Battle of the Trident from A Song of Ice and Fire.
(Source: positivelyindecent)
