Entries categorized as ‘doing good’
Tomorrow I get on a plane to Vegas and head to the Netroots Nation 2010 convention. (For those who don’t know, NN is a yearly gathering of progressive bloggers and activists. Kind of like AWP for liberal bloggers.)
Anyone else going? If you are, stop by the UFCW’s booth in the exhibition hall and say hi, or come to the panel we’ve put together on immigration reform, Immigration Reform’s Strange Bedfellow’s. I’ll be cheeping and twittering tweets as well.
What I will not be doing is enjoying the 106 degree temperatures and icky Vegas-ness of Vegas. Sigh. The things we do for the greater good.
Categories: doing good · politics
I really do try to post every single (week)day, because if I ever give myself permission to slack on anything, I find I tend to run right away with that slack. So, you know, discipline. It’s important and stuff. Like every military dad says in every 80s movie.
But don’t send me away to the Academy just yet. I can explain! Very last minute, i got shipped up to Boston for a big worker rally/march. It was incredibly cool to be marching with these workers who marching because the company cut their health care off. Some of these workers have wives in advanced pregnancy, some have sick kids–and this company (Shaw’s, if you’re on the East Coast) doesn’t care. It’s just plain corporate greed, and it felt awesome to stand beside these workers who are fighting for what’s right–who marched sixty miles to show how hard they’ll fight. More people need to do that today, when giant corporations are taking advantage of the recession to screw working people even more. (If you want to know more about the workers and sign the petition to Shaw’s, check out the Justice at Shaw’s website .)
Anyway, I’m on the train back to DC, and I’m super pumped because I brought my copy of American Gymnopedies and I’m going to crack that baby open once I’ve finished some work, and I’m also listening the National’s new amazing album and eating an Auntie Anne’s pretzel. Not a bad way to close out the week.
Have a good Memorial Day weekend, everybody!
Categories: Books · doing good
May 12, 2010 · Comments Off
Most short people actually–really!–like being short. Or they should, anyway. That’s the premise of a new book, Short: Walking Tall When You’re Not Tall at All, by John Schwartz.
From the Times article:
The idea that “short kids have social problems,” as Mr. Schwartz puts it, is largely a myth, eagerly embraced by makers of human growth hormone.
“When Eli Lilly was telling the government that it should be allowed to sell its growth hormone to kids who were simply small,” he writes, “it presented studies that supposedly showed that short kids are prone to teasing and bullying and ‘exclusion’ and they suffer from ‘social isolation’ and a ‘perception of lower competence.’ ”
But David E. Sandberg, a psychologist at the University of Michigan, reports that “short kids actually cope pretty well with being small.” In a study of hundreds of children in the Buffalo area, Dr. Sandberg found there was no real problem with being short and “there is little benefit to being tall.”
This is good news for the children my husband and I will someday have, since they’re destined to be short. I’ve certainly never minded being short very much, except at concerts. Well, and rallies, and pretty much any public event. And I did always want to stand on a riser. Sometimes I’d love to sweep through a room like Kate Hepburn, all bangles and wide-legged pants and flowing shirt cuffs. But these are minor, minor issues in the course of life.
But here’s the real secret to happiness, fellow short people. FIND A GOOD TAILOR. No I am not kidding. Find one now and suck it up and pay for it and your clothes will all look glorious on you. And you will be happy. At least, if you’re shallow and vain like me.
Categories: Books · doing good · fashion
May 5, 2010 · Comments Off
Categories: doing good · history · politics · smart people
April 7, 2010 · Comments Off
I’m sure you’ve heard all about this by now, but if not, just know two things: Constance McMillen is a hero, and Fulton, Mississippi must be one of the shittiest places in America to live.
Categories: doing good · politics · stuff that sucks
February 2, 2010 · Comments Off
I’m still kind of pissed at Obama for killing the moonshot program. But, still…science! Liberal Democrats (read: baby-killing atheist devil-worshipping porn-spewing corruptors of children and peddlers of logic) still believe in science, and in funding it.
Now, of course, let’s see if a single Republican does.
Categories: doing good · smart people
January 31, 2010 · Comments Off
This is a great piece. Especially this:
He was a treasure and an inspiration. That he was considered radical says way more about this society than it does about him.
Absolutely.
Categories: doing good · history · smart people
January 19, 2010 · Comments Off
This is from PANK’s blog; please consider giving (and getting!) in this wonderfully suggested way:
We often plead for our readers to support small press literary publishing by purchasing magazines and entering contests and buying the books of the writers they love. We would like to make the same plea today for your support of something very unliterary — the relief efforts in Haiti in the wake of Wednesday’s earthquake.
PANK Magazine has a very personal connection to the events in Haiti through the person of our much beloved associate editor, Roxane Gay. Roxane recommends both the International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders as possible recipients for your generosity. If it helps to grease your wallet, PANK Magazine will donate all direct sales of its magazines and chapbook (purchased here) between 1/13/10 and 2/13/10 between those two charities.
Every little bit counts. Please consider donating.
Categories: doing good · literary mags
