Weekend Update

This week in #ThingsThatCaughtMyAttention (or “Firefox tabs I have had open for too long and intended to post/ comment on”):

• Photo above is Tito Puente, courtesy of the breathtakingly beautiful slide show at NPR’s “The Best Unknown Music Photographer”.
• While the shameful “Don’t ask, don’t tell” piece of garbage legislation was not repealed, I also read about Ms. Bobbi Ann Finley, the very heterosexual “Military Mistress” who married 9 guys in the military and emptied their bank accounts. Lesson learned? Mainstream media will act outraged by these grand total of 9 men falling prey to a con artist but will only give timid responses to a piece of legislation affecting thousands of (if not more) people.
• Jezebel’s analysis of New York Fashion Week, Diversity by the numbers
• Great Video on “What is Good Design”? 8 Designers give their definition for the UK’s Design Council
• On Monday, I attended TEDxChange and wrote about it, particularly the difference between Marketing and Advertising for Social Causes.
• In other “look who I am comparing myself to” news, The New York Times also has a great piece on TEDxChange
• According to this court ruling in North Carolina, once a sexual encounter has been initiated, consent cannot be withdrawn
• Found out about Culturemondo, a network of people working in cultural services around the world
• Helen Fisher, Biological Antropologist and Rutgers University Professor says “Casual Sex doesn’t exist; every hook up is just an excuse to search for love”. Eh, I won’t touch that statement with a ten foot pole (see above my points about what is by now, an indisputable fact: “I am arrogant and have the nerve to disagree with those who know better”).
• Dutch ethicist Jacob Appel claims that life doesn’t begin at conception, or even at birth (I had troubles with this one as what he proposes and endorses made me very uncomfortablel: euthanasia (with or without parent’s consent) for severely disabled babies/ children).
• Privilege abounds! CNN and Foursquare partner to create a “Healthy Eater Badge” for those who shop at Farmer’s Markets (what will happen to my “Major of KFC” 4sq merit?!) Let’s recap the bare necessities to earn such badge: 1) access to a farmer’s market; 2) funds to shop there 3) a mobile phone with mobile internet access to check into Foursquare; 4) access to a TV with CNN to even know this initiative exists. Hmmm, yes, “Healthy Eater Badge” indeed!
• Found out about Withings, “the first WiFi body scale that automatically records your weight, fatty mass and BMI and auto tweets it on your behalf”. YES! Because after I get my “Healthy Eater Badge”, I want everyone to know what a good non fatty I am! I WANT THE WORLD TO HOLD ME ACCOUNTABLE FOR MY BMI! I WANT TO BE PUBLICLY SHAMED IF I STRAY! #selfesteembedamned
• In “more food related news”, greengrey pointed us  to what has to be the best pumpkin/ pasta combination I’ve seen so far and what is likely to become my dinner tonight
• Read about the “Lords of the Flies: the insect detectives” Where the police and pathologists fail, flies and maggots – and the Natural History Museum’s forensic entomologists – can solve even the most difficult of murders
• Watched this video from Bill Johnson of “A Story is a Promise” about the art of story telling and how to get into “what the story is really about”. Very good points for both fiction and non fiction story development.
• Since we are on the subject of storytelling, I came across ZooBurst, a neat website that “lets anyone easily create his or her own 3D pop-up books. ZooBurst books “live” online and can be experienced using nothing more than a web browser running the Adobe Flash plug-in. Authors can arrange characters and props within a 3D world that can be customized using uploaded artwork or items found in a built-in database of over 10,000 free images and materials”.
• Found this iPhone application to track Israeli settlements in the West Bank (who said technology didn’t have sociopolitical implications?).
• The excellent Paris Review has just opened up its archive, a half-century worth of fascinating interviews with some of the greatest literary figures in modern history. Brain Pickings has selected a nice collection of quotes from it . “The idea that addiction is somehow a psychological illness is, I think, totally ridiculous. It’s as psychological as malaria. It’s a matter of exposure.” ~ William S. Burroughs
• Had a few discussions about ableist language and came across this piece at Feministe, ”Disability Terminology: A Starter Kit for Nondisabled People and the Media“

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