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Peg O' The Day: KKK In EMS

 

 

Why the hippocratic oath exists.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photobooth Self-Portrait

 

 

Relish the irony.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video O' The Week : NYC Kids Sing To Firefighters

 

 

Yes, I saw the towers come down and I will always remember and never forget that image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

33 Ways To Stay Creative

 

 

#24. Nice.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Instrument Of One's Own Destruction

 

 

Irony is best underplayed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Netflix This : The Parking Lot Movie

 

 

Over the course of three years filmmaker Meghan Eckman tracked the comings and goings of a solitary parking lot in Charlottesville, Va., chronicling the lives of the attendants who worked there.

Hanging tough as they navigate the range of human emotions––from hope to frustration, from a sense of limitless possibilities to stagnation--the film's subjects illustrate what happens when highly educated brainiacs work in a service industry.

You will enjoy. Have I let you down before?

 

Watch Trailer

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Henry VIII's Propaganda Machine

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In February 1542 King Henry VIII ordered the removal from all books ‘all manner of mention of Thomas Becket or the Bishop of Rome’s name.'

And this is how history comes to be written by the victors.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thoughts From The Royal Wedding

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The wedding of a royal prince and his bride satisfies many desires:

our need for a hero and a heroine,
our need for a happy story and a happy ending,
our need to believe in love.

The British establishment, whether consciously or not, have elevated this ritual to the highest level and deserve praise for the brilliance with which they carry it out.

I can vouch for this. I was at the gates.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Egypt Was A Social Revolution

 

 Nice branding too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amelia Earhart Prenup

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I became sufficiently smitten with Amelia Earhart while working on a research project about the ill-fated pilot to put her on my 'American heroes' list alongside Ali, and Armstrong. (No, not the pedaler/pedler.)

This prenuptial typed in 1932 from AE to GPP (George Putnam, the publishing heir) outlining the rules of their future marriage only adds to her mystique.

Ask yourself this: Would you marry this girl?

More Earhart documents

 

How Humans Experience Their Food

The rational explanation of an emotional experience.

Umami?

Steve Jobs On Creativity

Where Ideas Come From:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

 

Nixon Punked

Players from the LA Angels douse the crook-in-chief.

Love the team-mate's incredulous look.

Love the 'ban the bomb' T-shirt.

Love the microphones eager to capture Dick's response.

Love to know who had the balls.

No way anyone gets this close to POTUS today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Psychology Of Procrastination

 

I've been trying to write a post about procrastination for a week now, but just haven't been able to get around to it.

Well, why procrastinate today when you can put it off until tomorrow?

Because chronic procrastinators relish the thrill of riding deadlines to the eleventh hour is why. Confronted with a one week deadline people in general split into two camps:

Those who begin immediately, complete the project in three days, then spend the remaining four days fine-tuning, rewriting, and reflecting on the fruits of their labor. (If the deadline's yanked forward two days, no need to panic.)

In the other camp are those who postpone the inevitable then begin only when the tension becomes unbearable.

And that's the riddle's answer right there: procrastinators are adrenaline junkies.

The endorphin release from solving the problem at 11:59pm is a higher high than completing the project days in advance. (As those with Attention Deficit Disorder well know, it's only adrenaline that allows their minds to focus on any given assignment.)

Such brinkmanship however rarely leads to great work; studies have shown that people are less creative when fighting the clock because time pressure means they can't deeply engage with the problem fully. Creativity requires an incubation period; the subconscious mind needs time to soak in a problem and let ideas bubble up.

And although perfectionism is commonly cited as a cause of procrastination––"it'll never be good enough so I never start"––a 1996 study by Robert Slaney found that adaptive perfectionists are in fact less likely to procrastinate than non-perfectionists.

But take heart, the penalties for skipping a deadline aren't what they were: when the first penitentiary at Folsom was built it had neither walls nor fences, just a white line that if you crossed you got shot.

It was called the deadline.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Site 'O The Week : Tweak Today

Have been secretly enjoying Tweak Today for a while now. Every day fans of this site post a suggestion for a new 'mission' and fellow Tweakers vote on the suggestion, then upload their responses.

Missions range from 'Photograph everything that’s in your bag or purse,' (above) to 'Get up early and watch the sunrise. Document,' and 'Close your eyes and draw something. Let us guess what it is.'

You could call it consumer research, but I guess I'm just as nosy as the next guy.

The 'Too Perfect' Theory

At the heart of the Too Perfect theory is the insight that magic works best when the illusions it creates are open-ended enough to invite the viewer into a credibly imperfect world. In every art, the Too Perfect theory helps explain why people are more convinced by an imperfect, “distressed” illusion than by a perfectly realized one.

When special-effects people talk about “selling the shot” in a movie they're making sure it doesn’t look too neatly and cosmetically packaged––that it is not lingered on long enough to be really 'seen.' (All special effects appear handmade when studied closely.)

Perhaps it's why we more readily connect with the more human, more attainable, un-airbrushed Marilyn, beauty spot and all.

Face Research

In his photo composites, South African Mike Mike (sic) explores "the effects of globalization and how current geopolitical forces will affect the human makeup of each individual locus."By layering dozens of photos the result is what he calls The Face Of Tomorrow.

Left to right: London, Hong Kong, Sydney, Istanbul.

The Face Of Tomorrow

 

Climbing As Transcendental Poetry

John Gill––here performing a one-arm front lever––was a mathematician and climber who revolutionized the sport in the 1970's.

He referred to climbing as 'intimacy kinesthetic meditation' saying, "I've always been able to appreciate climbing as a sort of moving meditation. I have routes wired to such a degree that I don't have to think about climbing on a conscious level. I become involved with the flow and the pattern of the climb. I lose touch with who I am and what I am and become part of the rock––I've actually felt at times as though I was weaving in and out of the rock."

Roger Bannister, decades after breaking the four-minute mile, related a similar out-of-body experience: "No longer conscious of my movement, I discovered a new unity with nature. I had found a new source of power and beauty, a source I never dreamed existed."

They were in what today we rather less eloquently call 'the zone.'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Person Roger Bannister

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Do You Have A Cool Walk?

 

 

I was walking down the street with a female friend some time ago and we ran into an acquaintance––a young guy sporting a pressed seventies Pierre Cardin look.

        "That's a cool look," said my friend.
        "Thanks," he replied, just as another guy sauntered past behind us, "But that guy's got a cool walk."

We both glanced over and chuckled with aknowledgement, probably that same chuckle you just had. Because you know exactly what he's talking about:

Some people have a cool walk...and some people just don't.

John Travolta was cool-walking down Broadway in Saturday Night Fever. You wanted his walk; we all wanted that walk. Tony Manero's stride said "I'm sexy as hell, ten feet tall, and bullet-proof."

Laban Movement Analysis––first developed by Rudolf Laban in the early 1900s--recognizes that the way we move both reflects and influences the way we live our lives.

In Bonfires of The Vanities Tom Wolfe painted a character as walking "with a pumping gait known as the pimp roll" and if you take a moment to watch any sidewalk you'll see it.

Urban kids aren't born walking like that, it takes years of practice to refine that street swagger.

Hmmm, perhaps a sneaker company might want to claim 'cool-walking'--seems every kid wants one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Four Minute Mile

The four minute mile.

Athletes had been trying to achieve it since the ancient Greeks.

All the experts said it was impossible: our bone structure was wrong; wind resistance too great; lung capacity inadequate.

Then one man came along and proved all the doctors, the coaches, the naysayers and the countless men who'd tried and failed before him all wrong.

On May the 6th 1954 on the running track at Oxford University, Roger Bannister ran the mile in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds.

Just forty-six days later a second athlete broke the four-minute mile. And the following year, many more.

What happened? The human body didn't suddenly improve, but the human spirit did.

As Bannister recalled half a century later:

"No longer conscious of my movement, I discovered a new unity with nature. I had found a new source of power and beauty, a source I never dreamed existed."

He was in what today we rather less eloquently call 'the zone.'