05w44:1 Happy Halloween Posted October 31st, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 44 number 1 (happy halloween) ——————————————————————— Shock Sites | Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shock_sites “A shock site is a website which aims to offend as many people as possible, generally by showing offensive images. It should be noted that the descriptions on this page are very graphical representations of the sites themselves, so those easily offended may be advised to not read this article further (other than making a note of the sites mentioned, for safety).” Ogrish.com | Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogrish.com “Ogrish.com typically receives between 150,000 and 200,000 unique visitors every day, sometimes peaking at 750,000 per day.” —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Monday 31 October 2005 @ 7:38 AM
05w40:2 Letter from St. John's Posted October 6th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 40 number 2 (letter from st. john’s) ——————————————————————— Letter from St. John’s 03 | Craig Francis Power http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com/stjohns/ “What is wrong with Newfoundland? You may have noticed that since the initial outcry over Gordon Laurin’s firing things have been unsettlingly quiet in St. John’s. For a few days, there was a great deal of local and even (gasp) national news coverage of Laurin’s dismissal, and there was also a real sense of the art community pulling together during a rough period. Despite how disheartening Laurin’s firing was, we were all in this fight together. We were really pissed off. It felt good. That seems like a long time ago. […] There hasn’t been a word from any of the local arts organizations about Laurin’s firing since. […] Part of the problem with this tiny art community in St. John’s is that the people who are here REALLY want to remain for the rest of their lives. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that there are about six art jobs in this town, and if you want one of them someday, you’d better not be too critical of anything. You certainly should not embarrass a corporation like The Rooms, who could at some future point supply you with a cushy government job with a dynamite pension and benefits to boot.” —————————————- http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com To remove or add yourself to this list, go here emailed by Timothy on Thursday 06 October 2005 @ 3:15 PM
05w40:1 Happy World Posted October 5th, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 40 number 1 (happy world) ——————————————————————— A New Measure of Well-Being From a Happy Little Kingdom | Andrew C. Revkin http://tinyurl.com/e2tbm “The gross domestic product, or G.D.P., is routinely used as shorthand for the well-being of a nation. But the small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan has been trying out a different idea. In 1972, concerned about the problems afflicting other developing countries that focused only on economic growth, Bhutan’s newly crowned leader, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, decided to make his nation’s priority not its G.D.P. but its G.N.H., or gross national happiness. […] [Recently] about 400 people from more than a dozen countries … gathered … to consider new ways to define and assess prosperity. The meeting, held at St. Francis Xavier University in northern Nova Scotia, was a mix of soft ideals and hard-nosed number crunching. Many participants insisted that the focus on commerce and consumption that dominated the 20th century need not be the norm in the 21st century. Among the attendees were three dozen representatives from Bhutan. […] In Canada, Hans Messinger, the director of industry measures and analysis for Statistics Canada, has been working informally with about 20 other economists and social scientists to develop that country’s first national index of well-being. […] Later this year, the Canadian group plans to release a first attempt at an index – an assessment of community health, living standards and people’s division of time among work, family, voluntarism and other activities. Over the next several years, the team plans to integrate those findings with measurements of education, environmental quality, ‘community vitality’ and the responsiveness of government. Similar initiatives are under way in Australia and New Zealand.” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Wednesday 05 October 2005 @ 2:05 PM
05w39:1 Everybody must get stoned Posted October 1st, 2005 by timothy. 0 Comments Good Reads Mailing List | 2005 week 39 number 1 (everybody must get stoned) ——————————————————————— The ’60s Trap | David Greenberg http://www.slate.com/default.aspx?id=2125915&nav/tap1 “No Direction Home, Martin Scorsese’s documentary about Bob Dylan’s early years, is but the latest item in a flood tide of Dylanalia that, in trying to pay due homage to America’s most important rock artist, constricts his four-decade career to its first six years. […] Though delightful to watch … the documentary wallows in baby boomer nostalgia. […] Despite subsequent droughts and misfires, Dylan has since turned out some brilliant albums – from Desire in the 1970s to Infidels and Oh Mercy at either end of the 1980s to Time Out of Mind a few years ago – that approach his greatest work and surpass much of the folkie stuff that still draws so much giddy attention. So, why have we been so quick to ignore the bulk of his career? One part of the answer is that Dylan shares a problem with the 1960s as a whole: Scholarship and popular commentary alike are shaped by the baby boomers who lived through the period and have never quite transcended their own youthful enthusiasms. As Rick Perlstein noted in Lingua Franca several years ago, the preponderance of boomers in the historical profession – and, he might have added, in the culture overall – has made it hard for younger voices to gain a hearing for ideas that argue with the prevailing, familiar tale of the decade.” A Less Fashionable War | Charles Shaw http://tinyurl.com/bran7 “Thirty years ago Gore Vidal noted that ‘roughly 80% of police work in the United States has to do with the regulation of our private morals – controlling what we drink, eat, smoke, put into our veins – with whom and how we have sex or gamble.’ Then there were roughly 250,000 prisoners in the nation. Today there is more than 2 million, with another million in county jails awaiting trial or sentencing, and another roughly 3 million under ‘correctional supervision’ on probation or parole. The total national cost of incarceration then was $4 billion annually; today it’s $64 billion, with another $20 billion in federal money and $22-24 billion in money from state governments earmarked for waging the so-called ‘War on Drugs.’ Nationally, around 60% or more of these prisoners are drug criminals. Yet, throughout all this time and expense there has not been the slightest decrease in either drug use or supply.” —————————————- Long links made short by using TinyURL (http://www.tinyurl.com) To remove or add yourself to this list, go here http://goodreads.timothycomeau.com emailed by Timothy on Saturday 01 October 2005 @ 6:13 PM
