I recently bumped into this guest post on one of my favorite blogs, The Park Bench. I had no idea anyone else felt this way about learning:

After graduating college, I still underlined sentences in books I read
and wrote in the margins to the point where I can’t loan anything out
these days without checking it first for embarrassing or revealing
notations. I walked down the aisles of office supply stores, delighting
in the tummy thrill I felt at being near shiny paper clips! Post-it
notes shaped like fish! Or folders in all the colors of the rainbow!

Those
toys of the student impart more than just nostalgia. They signal the
aura of school and education and the learning that revitalizes our
senses, wakes up our brains, and changes our perspectives. Learning
forces us to pay more attention and in doing so, start seeing the
things we were taking for granted and embrace their charms again.

I try to explain this phenomenon to some of my friends, but they look at me like I’ve just joined some kind of cult. I don’t understand how people don’t like to learn. How can one sit through an entire class of any subject and not take any notes or pay attention? In high school, I would be astounded at how many student just didn’t care. In college, where most of my classmates are better off financially than I am, I can’t believe my eyes when I see them drift off to sleep during a class that is costing them thousands a year.

For me, learning is not just about wanting to “pay more attenion and in doing so, start seeing the things we were taking for granted.” It is about being aware and informed so that every decision we make is an educated and well-thought one. Whether this is in buying a used car or voting for a president, one is much more likely to be taken advantage of if they have less knowledge backing up their decision.

And learning doesn’t have to take place in school. Check out your local library. As cheesy as it sounds, they’ve got some fantastic stuff there. Go on Project Gutenberg and read something published before the 20th century. Wikipedia the shit out of life. Or, if you’re really lazy, Googling something new is a start.

Just don’t let the world go by making decisions for you. You have just as much right to think for yourself as anyone else.

I’m back home in Massachusetts for the summer , dreaming neon as I wait to get back to the city and my now-comfortable routine… A routine that requires bagel joints to stay open past 5pm or at least exist.

My mum (who bases her votes on the military experience of a given candidate) likes to blare right-winged radio loud enough to remind herself of why she sometimes strays to the left with her votes on issues like civil liberties. This, combined with the the fact that I’m stuck in a fellow suburb that can’t be pronounced correctly on the first try, means that I’m currently hearing the whole “pregnancy pact” story from Gloucester at least twenty minutes every hour.

Didn’t you hear? Diablo Cody personally knocked up over a dozen teenagers.

That’s right. There’s been no end to the banter on talk radio, blogs, and those coffee shops you go up intending to get a quick egg and toast order but slowly walk out of when you realize its clientèle consists entirely of 80+ year-old men. The conclusion is unanimous: the supposed pregnancy pact fulfilled by over a half-dozen teenagers in Gloucester, MA is a result of their enjoying the Cody-penned teen pregnancy comedy, Juno. It’s funny to hear the same folks that praised Jason Reitman’s indie hit for its implicit pro-life message bashing it just as fervently as a brainwasher of innocent children’s minds.

I could give the usual counter-argument to this ridiculous assumption that media affects our children’s actions: parents should be watching these films with their kids or sheltering them, parents are responsible for monitoring their kids’ behaviors, etc. etc…. But really, I don’t see the point in this case because personally I found nothing offensive in the movie in question.

This brings me to real topic of this post, the top five reasons Diablo Cody didn’t get your child pregnant:

1. Juno in no ways “glamorizes pregnancy.” While the protagonist herself is hip beyond imagination (she has a hamburger phone!), it’s clear that she goes through an extremely emotional ordeal in choosing to go through with her pregnancy. There are no glamorous shots of her holding her child, no instances where she seems happy about the fact that she is pregnant itself, and certainly no high-fives from friends who made a pact that they’d get pregnant together so that they could by matching strollers in school colors.
2. Juno doesn’t keep or even interact with her baby. The adult woman with a home and a secure job is shown as the ideal parent in the end.
3. Even adult parenthood isn’t glamorized. The relationship between Jennifer Garner and Jason Bateman is torn apart because even with all of their financial resources they weren’t ready to handle raising a child together.
4. The pregnancy in the film is unplanned. Michael Cera wasn’t looking for an heir.
5. As a female, Cody doesn’t have sperm.

From the New York Times

 ”Khun Sa, the publicity-loving Golden Triangle drug lord who thrived in the region’s kill-or-be-killed cauldron of ethnic rivalries and heroin-financed private armies, has died at age 73 in Yangon, Myanmar, according to an officer in the militia he once led.”

One of the best things about living in an urban environment is witnessing the insane ideas of entertainment some people come up with. My current favorite is the indoor “drive-in” theater where they provide the car. If you were complaining about $11 tickets at the Times Square Loews, check out these babies at $75 a pop.

Of course, it’s fine establishments like this that keep us from reading even more boring news, like our friends over in the Land of The Office, Scranton, PA. According to this article, I  should be a seasoned jailbird right now.

Sometimes I love The Onion.

Sometimes it’s difficult to be a Red Sox fan in the middle of New York City. It requires keeping your head down in crowded places, toning down or eliminating the wearing of fan gear, and occasionally stepping up to the plate in barroom brawls. But it’s great when the Yankees hand you a gem like losing in a humiliating 4-game streak. Now the Yank fans can sulk, their heads lowering to avert the eyes of the now triumphant Soxites.

And, of course, the Sox fans will remember another four-game streak during which the Yankees kicked the bucket in the most embarrassing manner.

Things that made me smile:

 This Moooooose

This Workplace

This Man: