Ascending Coherence

Things I'm thinking about while waiting for Fourier to come into vogue.

Nov 8, 2009 2:49pm
Sally Forth, 11/7/2009

Sally Forth, 11/7/2009
Nov 6, 2009 7:43pm
“ Stop watching cable TV news and listening to politicians. Using them as a gauge of how divided we are is like using the National Hockey League to estimate the level of violence in America. ” -

Steve Chapman

via Change of Subject
Nov 6, 2009 7:40pm

The Preventive Care Predicament

Our political system is a lot more comfortable talking about health care than about health. We’ll pay enormous amounts of money to treat diabetics, but we don’t do much to change people’s diets to prevent diabetes. That’s a strange use of resources: Focusing on health-care coverage without doing more to address the factors, such as diet, that determine our health is a bit like buying fire insurance while ignoring the fact that you have a gas stove and a large fireplace in a wood cabin. A dry wood cabin.

Many big employers and insurers are trying to move heaven and earth to encourage their employees/members to eat healthier/exercise/etc.  It’s really, really hard.
Nov 6, 2009 7:36pm

Consider the Hypochondriac

It is the dismaying opaqueness of human flesh that drives us to anxiety and despair. What in God’s name is going on in there? Why are our bodies not made with hinged flaps or transparent panels, so that we can have a look? Why must we exist in perpetual uncertainty (only ended by death) as to whether we are well or ill? John Donne speaks of illness as an invader, which sets up a kingdom and conceals ‘secrets of State, by which it will proceed, and not be bound to declare them’.
Nov 4, 2009 7:19pm
10/31/2009 Family Circus. I would have clipped it for my “Family Circus Wall of Shame” if I was still keeping that up. Billy, I can’t help but notice you are trick or treating alone.  Wonder why? Better, from Mark Paglia, in McSweeney’s: “Famous Authors Narrate the Funny Pages” The Family Circusby William Faulkner “Incest and miscegenation!” Pa yelled as he entered the room where Billy and Dolly sat. Billy fled through the doorway, too panicked for ratiocination, and wound a peregrinating dotted line around the yard and by P.J., the deaf and dumb youngest brother.

10/31/2009 Family Circus. I would have clipped it for my “Family Circus Wall of Shame” if I was still keeping that up. Billy, I can’t help but notice you are trick or treating alone.  Wonder why?

Better, from Mark Paglia, in McSweeney’s: “Famous Authors Narrate the Funny Pages”

The Family Circus
by William Faulkner

“Incest and miscegenation!” Pa yelled as he entered the room where Billy and Dolly sat. Billy fled through the doorway, too panicked for ratiocination, and wound a peregrinating dotted line around the yard and by P.J., the deaf and dumb youngest brother.
Nov 3, 2009 8:22pm

merlin:

SUGAR - “If I Can’t Change Your Mind”

I very dearly love Copper Blue. And, how much do I love Bob in a cardigan? Yes. Very much, thanks.

That compressy acoustic guitar sound’s all Pixy Stix and unrequited crushes. Just perfect.

Aw, I had to reblog this for nebraskagasm.
Nov 3, 2009 4:26pm
Before she traded in the puppies for white diamonds.

Before she traded in the puppies for white diamonds.
Oct 30, 2009 10:33pm

forjosh:

Sita Sings the Blues— now on YouTube.

(via Open Culture)
Oct 27, 2009 9:58pm
“ Surely the most visually arresting of the band of eccentrics was, to use Louisa’s description, a “bland, bearded Englishman” by the name of Samuel Bower “who expected to be saved by eating uncooked food.” Mr. Bower had another interesting proclivity. Whereas [Bronson] Alcott saw enemies in cotton and wool, Bower took the doctrine of abstention a step further and espoused naturism, claiming that clothes themselves were an obstacle to spiritual growth. Some uncertainty exists as to how freely Bower was permitted to indulge his disdain for clothing at Fruitlands. By some accounts, he bared all only during strolls after sundown; it has also been suggested that he was pressured into the compromise of draping himself with a sheet. In any event, the mental image of Bower, sheeted or sheetless, in daily contact with the real-life counterparts of Marmee and the March sisters, beggars the imagination. ” - John Matteson, in Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father.  This is from the chapter on Fruitlands, the Utopian community Bronson co-founded in 1843.  Louisa was around 11 years old then.
Oct 27, 2009 9:46pm
via the Persephone Post

via the Persephone Post
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