Friday, May 27, 2011

the Crossover

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Happy 70th Birthday, Mr. Bob Dylan.
Apparently his site is struggling under the weight of the thousands of well-wishers this morning.

Hiroshima: the lost photographs (designobserver)

Monday, May 23, 2011

Go to China, Young Scientist (Washington Post)
"As public funding for science and technology shrinks, it just isn’t possible for people who want to become scientists in America to actually become scientists. So when a friend of mine who recently received her PhD in molecular biology asked for some career advice, the answer was easy. Go to China, I told her."

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

"Bad Education" (n+1)
Excellent article from n+1 examines the student loan bubble, in which banks and colleges take advantage of students to an extent never before seen in higher education.

"high and increasing college costs mean students need to take out more loans, more loans mean more securities lenders can package and sell, more selling means lenders can offer more loans with the capital they raise, which means colleges can continue to raise costs. The result is over $800 billion in outstanding student debt, over 30 percent of it securitized, and the federal government directly or indirectly on the hook for almost all of it."

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

The One-Percenters (by Roger Ebert)
"Day after day I read stories that make me angry. Wanton consumption is glorified. Corruption is rewarded. Ordinary people see their real income dropping, their houses sold out from under them, their pensions plundered, their unions legislated against, their health care still under attack. Yes, people in Wisconsin and Ohio have risen up to protest these realities, but why has there not been more outrage?"

Sunday, May 08, 2011

"Don't do it"
the Nation on grad school.
Over the past twenty years, in other words—or really, over the past forty—what has happened in academia is what has happened throughout the American economy. Good, secure, well-paid positions—tenured appointments in the academy, union jobs on the factory floor—are being replaced by temporary, low-wage employment.

Wednesday, May 04, 2011

The Dying Sea (designobserver)
For decades now the Aral Sea — technically a lake, bordered by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and once, at 26,000 square miles, the fourth largest on the planet — has been slowly dying; geologists estimate that it is now one-tenth its former size.  

 Star Wars Propaganda Posters