“As the movie’s first act nears its end point, we spy our heroine in the primal scene of rom-com solitude: curled up on her couch, wearing lounge pants, quaffing her third glass of wine, and excavating an enormous box of Dreyer’s. She is watching the same TV show that he is (whiskey half drained on his coffee table, Chinese takeout in his lap), and although this fact assures us of a destined romance, it is not so useful for the people on the screen. They are alone; their lives are grim. The show they’re watching seems, from the explosive flickering, to be about the invasion of Poland.”
Why Are So Many Americans Single? on The New Yorker
I love The New Yorker.
Advice from Mother Jones journalists’ “In Case of Arrest” card: “don’t say nothin’ to nobody.”
You’d be surprised, these things come in handy.
![“In Sri Lanka in 2001, while covering the conflict between government forces and the rebel Tamil Tigers, Marie was struck by shrapnel. Undaunted by the loss of her left eye, she wore a black eye-patch from then on, which became something of a trademark. When I interviewed her shortly afterwards, she told me how she had walked 30 miles through jungle with her Tamil guides to evade government troops, an example of the effort she put into her work.
It was after the loss of her eye that she spelled out her reason for covering wars. She wrote of the importance of telling people what really happens and about “humanity in extremis, pushed to the unendurable”. She continued: “My job is to bear witness. I have never been interested in knowing what make of plane had just bombed a village or whether the artillery that fired at it was 120mm or 155mm.” She wrote about people so that others might understand the truth.
Marie sometimes did more than merely write. In 1999, in East Timor, she was credited with saving the lives of 1,500 women and children who were besieged in a compound by Indonesian-backed forces. She refused to leave them, waving goodbye to 22 journalist colleagues as she stayed on with an unarmed UN force in order to help highlight their plight by reporting to the world, in her paper and on global television. The publicity was rewarded when they were evacuated to safety after four tense days.
This was the essence of Marie’s approach to reporting. She was not interested in the politics, strategy or weaponry; only the effects on the people she regarded as innocents.” [via The Guardian]
Photo from Reuters](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lztg5pjBpn1qa1h4so1_r1_1280.jpg)
“In Sri Lanka in 2001, while covering the conflict between government forces and the rebel Tamil Tigers, Marie was struck by shrapnel. Undaunted by the loss of her left eye, she wore a black eye-patch from then on, which became something of a trademark. When I interviewed her shortly afterwards, she told me how she had walked 30 miles through jungle with her Tamil guides to evade government troops, an example of the effort she put into her work.
It was after the loss of her eye that she spelled out her reason for covering wars. She wrote of the importance of telling people what really happens and about “humanity in extremis, pushed to the unendurable”. She continued: “My job is to bear witness. I have never been interested in knowing what make of plane had just bombed a village or whether the artillery that fired at it was 120mm or 155mm.” She wrote about people so that others might understand the truth.
Marie sometimes did more than merely write. In 1999, in East Timor, she was credited with saving the lives of 1,500 women and children who were besieged in a compound by Indonesian-backed forces. She refused to leave them, waving goodbye to 22 journalist colleagues as she stayed on with an unarmed UN force in order to help highlight their plight by reporting to the world, in her paper and on global television. The publicity was rewarded when they were evacuated to safety after four tense days.
This was the essence of Marie’s approach to reporting. She was not interested in the politics, strategy or weaponry; only the effects on the people she regarded as innocents.” [via The Guardian]
Photo from Reuters
“A popular gripe among advocates is that too much is spent on awareness campaigns — walks, races, rallies — at the expense of research. (And really, when Snuggies go pink, haven’t we hit our awareness saturation point?) There’s a case to be made for that, of course, but there’s another explanation, one that exposes an ugly, even blasphemous truth of the movement: Breast cancer has made a lot of people very wealthy. The fact is, thousands of people earn a handsome living extending their proverbial pink tin cups, baiting their benefactors with the promise of a cure, as if one were realistically in sight. They divert press, volunteers, and public interest away from other, more legitimate organizations, to say nothing of the money they raise, which, despite the best intentions of donors, doesn’t always go where it’s supposed to.”
The Big Business of Breast Cancer: great Marie Claire story from last year about the Komen Foundation that I would’ve never have read (considering how rarely I read Marie Claire) if it wasn’t for their social media faux pas. I’m glad my general aversion towards consumerism charity made it so I never bought anything pink ribbon anyhow.![youngmanhattanite:
joshsternberg:
imwithkanye:
The ‘Today’ Show Producer on Keeping Matt Lauer Happy | New York Magazine
“Matt has, sort of, I don’t want to describe it as highbrow, but sensitivity about his journalistic credentials. He only wants to go after what he perceives as really important stories. Did he want to do Kim Kardashian filing for divorce? Absolutely not. He hates the seedy, gossipy stuff—but he has to do it.”
[Workplace Confidential]
Things journalists do for money…
There is no god.
;_; Who will rescue you, Matt?!](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxjyvzKznx1qanm80o1_500.jpg)
The ‘Today’ Show Producer on Keeping Matt Lauer Happy | New York Magazine
“Matt has, sort of, I don’t want to describe it as highbrow, but sensitivity about his journalistic credentials. He only wants to go after what he perceives as really important stories. Did he want to do Kim Kardashian filing for divorce? Absolutely not. He hates the seedy, gossipy stuff—but he has to do it.”
Things journalists do for money…
There is no god.
;_; Who will rescue you, Matt?!
How Not to Write About Africa - Binyavanga Wainaina - narrated by Djimon Hounsou
I was really liking this until the (RED) campaign thing at the end popped up, which made me feel like this had all been a ploy to be like “avoid every stereotype about Africa - poverty analyses, terrible dictators, starving children, majestic animals and its ilk… EXCEPT AIDS. NEVER STOP CORRELATING AFRICA WITH AIDS. ALSO, BUY STUFF TO STOP AIDS.”
Still, I’ll pretend I blinked that last second and pass this on, because it’s always good to call out writing cliches.
“We’re all born wanting the freedom to imagine a better and more beautiful future. But modern America has become a place so drearily confining and predictable that it chokes the life out of that built-in desire. Everything from our pop culture to our economy to our politics feels oppressive and unresponsive. We see 10 million commercials a day, and every day is the same life-killing chase for money, money and more money; the only thing that changes from minute to minute is that every tick of the clock brings with it another space-age vendor dreaming up some new way to try to sell you something or reach into your pocket. The relentless sameness of the two-party political system is beginning to feel like a Jacob’s Ladder nightmare with no end; we’re entering another turn on the four-year merry-go-round, and the thought of having to try to get excited about yet another minor quadrennial shift in the direction of one or the other pole of alienating corporate full-of-shitness is enough to make anyone want to smash his own hand flat with a hammer.”
(via joshuanguyen)
The man can be hyperbolic, but this is an accurate statement.
(via creeperstatus)
Yep, it’s a real thing.
