CALL ME MAGGIE

  • The Feast of St. Francis

    The Feast of St. Francis

    Every year, as my birthday approaches, my spirit returns to the Prayer of St. Francis whose feast day is Oct 04. I know that many of my brothers and sisters in the Ether are not Catholic, but I ask you all to consider this beautiful prayer. Lord, make me an…

  • The Odd Habits and Curious Customs of Famous Writers | Brain Pickings

    The Odd Habits and Curious Customs of Famous Writers | Brain Pickings

    This should be a very interesting read. The article itself gives us a great glimpse at what the book offers. Famous authors are notorious for their daily routines — sometimes outrageous, usually obsessive, invariably peculiar. In Odd Type Writers: From Joyce and Dickens to Wharton and Welty, the Obsessive Habits…

  • Wal-Mart Returning To Full-Time Workers-Obamacare Not Such A Job Killer After All? – Forbes

    Wal-Mart Returning To Full-Time Workers-Obamacare Not Such A Job Killer After All? – Forbes

    Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest employer, announced Monday that 35,000 part-time employees will soon be moved to full-time status, entitling them to the full healthcare benefits that were scheduled to be denied them as a result of Wal-Mart’s efforts to avoid the requirements of Obamacare. While some analysts believe that the…

  • Joseph Gordon-Levitt Takes on Love, Expectation, and Frustration

    Joseph Gordon-Levitt Takes on Love, Expectation, and Frustration

    A superb new film from Joseph Gordon-Levitt with Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore, and Tony Danza. I will say  that it is one of the best movies I have ever seen about what it means to love and to learn how to love. Hands down one of the best. Don  Jon critiques…

  • The Self-Satisfied Strutting of the Idiocracy

    The Self-Satisfied Strutting of the Idiocracy

    …When all’s said and done, one factor in all this is is becoming more and more obvious and yet no one will say it out loud: It’s not merely a Right vs. Left political conflict in America anymore, it’s a Smart vs. Dumb thing! Idiocracy is NOW. via Dangerous Minds…

  • Any Animal That Touches This Lethal Lake Turns to Stone

    Any Animal That Touches This Lethal Lake Turns to Stone

    There’s a deceptively still body of water in Tanzania with a deadly secret—it turns any animal it touches to stone. The rare phenomenon is caused by the chemical makeup of the lake, but the petrified creatures it leaves behind are straight out of a horror film. Photographed by Nick Brandt…

  • Language Log » House of Turds

    Language Log » House of Turds

    Thanks to  my friend Rose K. for pointing out this discussion at the Language Log. All of the comments are worth the read, and for once are not a collection of idiocy that makes a person regret going down into the comment section. The illustration in the online version of…

  • First Trailer for James Franco’s Gay Biopic ‘Sal’

    First Trailer for James Franco’s Gay Biopic ‘Sal’

    Sal follows the final hours in the life of ’50s teen idol and Oscar-nominated actor Sal Mineo, who rose to fame opposite James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause and was murdered at age 37. James Franco, who once starred as James Dean in a TV movie, co-wrote, directed, and co-starred in the biopic,…

  • The Reign Of Morons Is Here | Esquire

    The Reign Of Morons Is Here | Esquire

    We have elected a national legislature in which Louie Gohmert and Michele Bachmann have more power than does the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who has been made a piteous spectacle in the eyes of the country and doesn’t seem to mind that at all. We have elected a…

  • Steal This Research Paper! (You Already Paid for It.) | Mother Jones

    Originally posted on jbrittholbrook: This is an interesting read on the Open Access movement. Here’s the conclusion, with a quote from Michael Eisen that provides some food for thought. In the end, his disdain isn’t directed at the publishers who hoard scientific knowledge so much as at his colleagues who…

  • Inability to govern

    Inability to govern

    Daily News is not my usual go-to paper. But this was too funny. Posted by KWB wandering among the borderlands of the Ether. Related articles Obama in Shutdown Politics Channels Clinton Who Proved a Winner (bloomberg.com) Every government shutdown ever, in one chart (washingtonpost.com) After the Shutdown: The Debt Ceiling…

  • » “Other-Appreciation” :AMSDaily

    » “Other-Appreciation” :AMSDaily

    What I know now, however, is as much as we all work so very hard on “self-appreciation” and “self-improvement” day in and day out, sometimes it is alright to take a few moments to practice “other-appreciation.” via » “Other-Appreciation” :AMSDaily.  

  • Oscar Peterson Trio and Ben Webster – Come Sunday [1972] – YouTube

    Oscar Peterson Trio and Ben Webster – Come Sunday [1972] – YouTube

    NDR Jazz Workshop “Funkhaus Hannover”, Germany – December 14, 1972 Ben Webster – Tenor Sax Oscar Peterson – Piano Niels Henning Ørsted-Pedersen – Bass Tony Inzalaco – Drums Related articles BEN WEBSTER: from Kansas City to Copenhagen (rocketgrants.org) Oscar Peterson Trio – C Jam Blues (seriousmoonlighters.wordpress.com) Piano trio encounters of…

  • Saint Stephen The Ironist « The Dish

    Saint Stephen The Ironist « The Dish

    Some good points from Sullivan on Colbert as an example of what happens when one is capable of intelligence and irony while being a person of faith. If I were to sum up the various forms of popular culture that I have come to love in this century, I’d say…

  • Beyond Savage Politics and Dystopian Nightmares

    Beyond Savage Politics and Dystopian Nightmares

    What kind of society emerges when it is governed by the market-driven assumption that the only value that matters is exchange value, when the common good is denigrated to the status of a mall, and social order is composed only of individuals free to pursue their own interests? What happens…

  • Op-Ed – What’s Wrong With The Republican Party – Don’t Blame Ted Cruz

    Originally posted on The Last Of The Millenniums: Ted Cruz is the result not the cause. So who to blame for a possible Government shutdown. What caused us to get to this point? How about the ‘main stream media’. When people like Chuck Todd tell us that ‘it’s not the…

  • The Myth of Welfare Queens and the Reality of Racism

    The Myth of Welfare Queens and the Reality of Racism

    Fiscal conservative politicians including some Democrats like Bill Clinton have presided over a massive and systematic redistribution of wealth into the 1 percent since the 1980s. For African-Americans this means that we lost over half of our collective and meager net wealth, in just the last five years, due to…

  • Spellbinding experiences

    Spellbinding experiences

    Most everyday experiences are lessons in the inevitable pull of the future: books are replaced with e-books, laptops are replaced with tablet computers, billions of dollars are replaced with trillions of dollars, fresh is replaced with cling-wrapped. When travelling, however, you may find fragile environments that have resisted the future.…