Articles Like This

Remind me of why, as a pretentious 7 year old, I was so desperate to be an archaeologist:

Finding the lost city

Here's a teaser line: "With some caveats, El Dorado really did exist" (Neil Whitehead, anthropologist).

Your Weekend Cerebrality

This article is pithy and thought-provoking, and reminds me anew why I so treasure the Arts & Letters Daily website. For the record - it's a compendium of articles/book reviews/essays/opinion pieces culled from a WIDE variety of sources - and very balanced in terms of bias.

Delbanco's comment "Academics certainly talk a lot about social justice, but how credible are we when, for instance, our wealthiest and most prestigious universities admit such a minuscule percentage of students (often fewer than 10 percent) from low-income families?" struck me in particular, because it seems like such a good microcosmic statement for what we've all been guilty of, at least once in our lives (in mine, probably a thousand times over, something in which I take no pride). We wish people all sorts of well - but we don't really want to like, live near them if they don't fit in with our self-satisfied perceptions of what is 'right', politically, socially...economically. I know I have run my mouth a hundred times over about inequalities and the like, and yet - how often have I actually *done* something about it, something real?

I'm not trying to be a downer this morning, at all - if anything, I thought this article was actually optimistic and a bit of a clarion call; a reminder that we don't exist in our own personal vacuum,

Textbook Companies = Not In California, Apparently

Right now first grade is learning about calendars, days of the week, etc. One of the grammar exercises was to correct the under-capitalized months in various sentences. Sentences such as: "It rains in March"

"In December, it snows".

As I told Bean, um, not really, not where you live, kiddo. Sorry.

I Believe There Is Malt Powder In The Cupboard

And this girl is going to make Montreal-style bagels. Because they are the only real bagels. I spit on your New York bagels.

Let the flame wars begin.