Yearly Archives: 2010

links for 2010-12-04

  • Olga Kotelko, the 91-Year-Old Track Star – NYTimes.com
    Wow. Intense training can help you fight off aging, but there possibly some genetic component as well. But the fact that she didn't begin her intense training until her 70s leaves me with some hope. I can start now and have some hope of holding on.
    (tags: aging exercise fitness)
  • Are only children happier? – The Week
    "Only children are happier than those with siblings, which may reflect the fact that they endure less bullying — something more than half of kids with siblings in the study reported. "Quarreling siblings increase stress for parents and some [parents] just give up intervening or intervene inconsistently, leaving the field wide open for the bully sibling," says one researcher."
    (tags: siblings families childhood)
Continue Readinglinks for 2010-12-04

Fringe: Better than the X-Files

A smart, funny, brainy show with the strongest female lead I’ve ever seen and interesting story lines. A version of the X-Files done right, and infinitely smarter; It doesn’t go off the rails or take itself so seriously that it’s over blown the way Mulder and Scully did. I don’t know what I can say to get you hooked on my current obsession – Fringe – but I’ll say it, because it’s good.

Can’t remember what caused me to start watching Fringe, but one or two episodes of season 2 got me roped in, and I started getting the first season from Netflix to get caught up. I’ve been saving the current season to watch after I met up with myself in the middle, which turns out to be a mistake, because I should have been watching the show right away so my viewings counted toward the ratings – cable numbers are counted live or if viewed from DVR within 24 hours. Our drastically pared down Fall TV schedule has allowed me to get nearly caught up (I know, I know! But we’re still watching less TV).

If you’re a current viewer or fan, you should know that it’s moving to Friday nights on January 28th. Be sure to follow it, because unless it’s successful there, it’s projected to be canceled. I always manage to find the really good stuff too late and lose it too early.

Continue ReadingFringe: Better than the X-Files

links for 2010-12-03

  • ThinkProgress » Tea Party Nation President Says It ‘Makes A Lot Of Sense’ To Restrict Voting Only To Property Owners
    PHILLIPS: "The Founding Fathers originally said, they put certain restrictions on who gets the right to vote. It wasn’t you were just a citizen and you got to vote. Some of the restrictions, you know, you obviously would not think about today. But one of those was you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense, because if you’re a property owner you actually have a vested stake in the community. If you’re not a property owner, you know, I’m sorry but property owners have a little bit more of a vested interest in the community than non-property owners."
    (tags: voting rights idiots teabaggers)
Continue Readinglinks for 2010-12-03

Nuvo Arts Blog Writer Chi Sherman

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Speaking of things I’ve been remiss in writing about this year – several months ago, our good friend Chi Sherman became a writer for Nuvo Newsweekly (our local alt weekly, for non-Indy residents.) She’s on the arts/writing/entertainment beat writing about all the cool happenings going on about town, and much of our new awareness of what’s going on in Circle City has been due to her articles and reviews. Among the many things we’ve picked up from her writing: we learned about the vibrant local poetry scene, various cool First Fridays events, the twin renaissances of cultural awareness in Irvington and Fountain Square, and what was going down at the Indy Fringe Festival and at the Spirit and Place Festival. We tried to keep up with her at the beginning going with her while she attended events, shows, openings and celebrations, but the schedule was exhausting, and now we just try to attend something with her once a week or so. The girl is busy.

I’ve mentioned Chi a number of times here commonplacebook.com, because she’s not just a good friend but also a respected and award-winning poet and writer in the local scene, with some chapbooks and recordings to her name and a bit of a fan club. It’s not unusual to be out to dinner or an event with her and to have people come up to her and gush about her work. It’s pretty cool the first several times it happens, but after a bit, you kinda wanna eat your dinner. 🙂

In addition to being a moving poet, she’s also downright hilarious — like Dorothy Parker funny — and never fails to make me LOL. Add her blog to your feed reader or regular schedule – you won’t regret it. And if you have tips about something you’re working on in the Arts scene – you want her to write about your stuff. Contact her at her blog, or just ask me. I’ve got pull. 🙂

Continue ReadingNuvo Arts Blog Writer Chi Sherman

Republicans block child nutrition, Catholics protest gay portrait exhibit

An update on things famous assholes are doing to wreck your life. First – more on the GOP being assholes to poor people:

Republicans block child nutrition bill

WASHINGTON – House Republicans have temporarily blocked legislation to feed school meals to thousands more hungry children. Republicans used a procedural maneuver Wednesday to try to amend the $4.5 billion bill, which would give more needy children the opportunity to eat free lunches at school and make those lunches healthier.

House Democrats said the GOP amendment, which would have required background checks for child care workers, was an effort to kill the bill and delayed a final vote on the legislation rather than vote on the amendment.

Because the nutrition bill is identical to legislation passed by the Senate in August, passage would send it to the White House for President Barack Obama’s signature. If the bill were amended, it would be sent back to the Senate with little time left in the legislative session.

And while that’s going on, our old friend William Donohue is up to his old anti-gay hatred:

VIA NPR – Smithsonian Under Fire For Gay Portraiture Exhibit
The Smithsonian Institution is under fire for an exhibition called Hide/Seek that is being touted as the “first major exhibition to focus on sexual difference in the making of modern American portraiture.”

There are some very famous artists represented in the show: Andy Warhol, Walt Whitman and Jasper Johns, among many others. But the work that so far has been the most controversial is a provocative video from 1987 by the late artist David Wojnarowicz called A Fire In My Belly.

Martin Sullivan, director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, says the artist created the piece as a response to the “agony and suffering” of his partner who at the time was dying of AIDS. Using “vivid colors, and some fairly grotesque scenes, it’s more a meditation on the fragility of the human flesh,” Sullivan says.

But included in that meditation is a crucifix — a cross bearing the body of Christ — crawling with ants. The image, according to Catholic League President Bill Donohue, is offensive. He calls the video “hate speech” and says that “the Smithsonian would never have their little ants crawling all over an image of Muhammad.”

Donohue says he complained to members of Congress and the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents. “My principle is very simple,” he says, “If it’s wrong for the government to take the taxpayers’ money to promote religion, why is it OK to take taxpayers’ money to assault religion?”

We don’t need taxpayer money to assault Donohue’s religion – I’ll do it for free! Leave the arts alone, you noxious windbag of hate.

Continue ReadingRepublicans block child nutrition, Catholics protest gay portrait exhibit

The Indiana Humanities Council

Yes, I have gotten really lazy with the blogging, as MJ calls me out in a comment on the last link blog post I just put up.

  • Indiana Humanities Council :: Home Page
    "the Council encourages Hoosiers to think, read ­and talk. How? By creating its own programs, such as Community Conversations, Evenings at the House and Novel Conversations; by providing grants for humanities programs throughout the state; and by providing a space–physically and digitally–for people to connect and converse."

On Nov 29, 2010, MJ commented on links for 2010-11-29
I’d love to know the context for this link. I miss your bloggy-type words that used to wrap around the links. Do you have any of them for this one? Pleeeeeeease?

Yes. Yes, I do….

I decided to look up this not-for-profit the other day because I remembered them from the Pecha Kucha presentations as a part of the Spirit and Place festival that took place in November. I failed to blog about those, too.

Pecha Kucha is a lightning-fast presentation – 20 slides, and 20 seconds of explanation about each of them. It started in Tokyo in 2003 as a way for designers to present their work, and became instantly popular there. Organizations around the world have taken up the style of presentation. This past year I did one myself at work presenting on how the new ways that fonts can be displayed on websites. Yes, I really should get a hold of the video of that an put it here on my blog, too, because I was really proud of how it came out. Lazy lazy blogger. Bad me.

There is an Indianapolis organization that hosts a Pecha Kucha competition – presenters give an idea for a not-for-profit business they’d like to start, voting happens and the winner is awarded prize money to start the business. The competition we witnessed in November was apparently the 11th one in Indianapolis. Blow me down – I had no idea it was even going on. How does this shit managed to sneak by me? I’m curious and (I thought) reasonably well-informed as to the goings on in town, but this is something I hadn’t heard of until this year.

I went to the presentation with Stephanie and MJ, and noticed that the Indiana Humanities Council was one of the sponsors. That one made me go HMMM? also. I haven’t heard of them before that event, but this group seems right up my ally; promoting reading and the arts. Who are these people doing stuff I’m interested in and not informing me about it? Sheesh, man.

IHC has a very beautiful website, and I poked around on it trying to figure out how long the organization has been around, without quite putting my finger on the answer. They have a blog on the site – that would be the “think.read.talk” tab on the site – that goes back to March of 2010, but that only indicates the blog page was started then. There’s not indication in the “about” materials of when the organization formed, or it’s history. They have some big league people on their board of directors.

And notably most of all – they’re located in my neighborhood – Old Northside – in the Meredith Nicholson house. I didn’t realize that house was still in existence – a good chunk of the historically significant houses in Old Northside have been torn down, unfortunately. Meredith Nicholson was an nationally prominent author in the late 1800s and early 1900s in Indianapolis, and a pal of James Whitcomb Riley. He lived in the house at 1500 North Delaware Street while writing most of his books, including the The House of a Thousand Candles the most famous of his works and one I read just last year.

We’ve been living in the neighborhood for almost 5 years and we’ve toured or visited pretty much every significant house in the neighborhood. Most of them are discussed or linked to on the neighborhood website, but this one hasn’t been discussed much. Odd.

So – the Indiana Humanities Council. They have first Fridays events, although it looks like there isn’t one is scheduled for December. [First Fridays is a art tour that takes place on the First Friday of every month, sponsored by the Indiana Downtown Artists and Dealers Association – something that I’ve also failed to write about, although we went to several First Friday events this summer. Lazy blogger. No cookies for me.]

We need to go, MJ, to one of these IHC event dealios. Because I have clearly been out of touch with what’s going on in the city for some time. And I need to get up to speed.

2022-03-12 Update: I live 5 blocks from the Indiana Humanities House and I still have not visited there. So yeah, I really got on that one.
Continue ReadingThe Indiana Humanities Council