the tweney review

Underground city? No, it’s a storm drain project somewhere in Japan. (via Anil Dash)

Kids! Put these on your textbooks!

This textbook contains material on gravity. Gravity is a theory, not a fact, regarding a force that cannot be directly seen. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.

I’m not sure who’s behind it (the name “Werbach” suggests it might be Kevin or Adam), but these 19 Theses about the Democratic party’s massive failure in the past election sure make sense. Obvious sense, but sense nonetheless.

It’s been clear to me since before the election that progressives have lost control of the national dialog. Conservatives have spent the past four decades organizing think tanks, publishing journals, training politicians, and getting everyone on the same page–while liberals have chased after a long string of incoherent programs without a single defining or uniting vision. The result is that conservatives are well-organized, intellectually appealing, and compelling; we are just a bunch of nice people.

Undoing this intellectual and political deficit will take a long time. I wouldn’t be surprised if it took decades. So where are the progressive think tanks? The progressive journals? The work of building a coherent philosophy is far more important than the Democrats believe. The Republicans understand this, and that’s why they’re winning. It’s time for us to get started, now, too.

Useful, practical book on Vipassana (insight) meditation: Mindfulness In Plain English (via Gary Gach

Yesterday Clara and I went to the park. I was unshaven (almost no time for personal hygiene in our nonstop weekend schedule), unshowered (ditto), baseball cap pulled down over my messy hair, clothes slightly splattered with food from one of Clara’s meals earlier in the day, shoes still stained with mud from a visit to the pumpkin farm last month. And then, in the bathroom, C. wiped her wet hands on my pants, so I got to emerge from the bathroom with a big wet spot right on my crotch. My humiliation is complete–I am now totally uncool. If the teenaged Clara ever asks me, a few years from now, when I became such a dork, I will point to this day.

Thanks to ReadyMade magazine, I’m now a T-shirt-folding ninja. Here’s the video that shows how you, too, can fold a shirt in 3 seconds and amaze your family and friends. (Old news, I know, but laundry time makes me feel so badass now that I just can’t resist sharing with the few of you who haven’t heard about this yet.)

Apparently I’m a scholar — or at least some people think so. If so, it’s news to me–but the citations are sure flattering!

Personally, I like turning off the monitor and just typing blind for awhile.
43 Folders: Hack your way out of writer’s block

What if we turned everything that’s currently red into purple?

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” ~Philip K. Dick

… and some other choice irreligious quotes from George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Abraham Lincoln, on this useful page: Evolution vs. Intelligent Design Theory