biked to union station, north, home, even further north, home once more. i just stepped in a hairball that was so big it felt like wearing a slipper
6/26
this week i
visited tenement museum's kleindeutschland. seward park (first public playground) half-hourly bell to sing the pledge of allegiance. during 1800s, most garments manufactured at home. by 1937, fiorello banned pushcarts. jarmulowsky swanky, nowadays shops boarded up with imitation marble
arrived fashionably late to the american lyceum movement. i would only add that francis collins strikes me a tad burt lancaster moonlight grahammy
questioned my mirror in a tempest of glee: chirality, how is everything with me? [laughs] ya coulda, shoulda, woulda [last & hardest like the buddha]
read..
(1) how poverty is measured impacts who gets classified as impoverished
conclusions drawn by an organization about progress toward their poverty alleviation objectives may in large part depend on how they choose to measure poverty
while the interest in measuring poverty is broadly shared, the approach to defining and measuring poverty is not
the four poverty measurement approaches we compared are "regular" daily per-capita expenditure; the demographic and health surveys' (dhs) wealth index; the poverty probability index (ppi); and anirudh krishna's stages of progress. these approaches reflect a variety of perspectives and relative prioritization of comprehensiveness versus implementation feasibility
correlations are consistently weak
households' poverty rankings differ by an entire quartile on average
all four approaches suggest a conception of poverty based largely on material wealth deficits. this stands in contrast to methodologies that center poverty within notions of limited opportunities or capabilities
calorific minimums
every additional livestock unit a household owns lowers its wealth ranking
novel machine-learning algorithms can increase the availability of predictions of household poverty, but they can only predict poverty vis a vis the existing definition associated with the input data. when these developers do not define the type of poverty they are trying to predict, the intellectual distance between what the algorithm is trying to do and the first-order questions about how poverty is being defined only compounds
none of the poverty measurement approaches we compared appears well-positioned to identify households who fluctuate between barely surviving and stable enough to build new capabilities. households in this intermediate group are often overlooked, despite presenting important implications for policy development. these households can meet their basic needs on some days, but small shocks (e.g., a sick family member or bad harvest) can easily trigger a descent back into survival mode
one study in uganda found that the share of households living below the poverty line fell by 9 percentage points over the 25-y period from 1980 to 2005. this statistic masks the fact that almost one in four (24%) households escaped poverty during this period, while another 15% fell into poverty
so courteous as to be practically indistinguishable from his butler
they invented a treatment for gonorrhoea. their product, argyrol, became a market leader for decades and made barnes rich, then very rich, then an art collector
he acted like a raging bull who occasionally stopped to have his muzzle stroked or his shirt praised while grazing on a piece of lush grass; then he was off on the rampage again
or even rehung differently
shepherds who smell of sheep
mass at lampedusa
his letter on the value of literature quotes..borges
daily phone calls to catholics in gaza
over the next month, tallet's team uncovered more than a thousand fragments of papyrus. they had found, almost by accident, a first-hand account of the men who built the great pyramid of giza
khufu did not invent the pyramid - djoser and his architect, imhotep, designed the step pyramid about a century earlier - but he did come from a family of pyramid builders. his father was responsible for three, culminating in his magnum opus, the red pyramid at dahshur, which is more than a hundred metres tall and is the first true pyramid with smooth sides
the largest granite beams are around seventy tonnes, the weight of an m1 abrams tank
(5) in 2012 facebook had grown to a billion users worldwide - or one in seven people on the planet
the predatory cupidity of zuckerberg, his long-serving chief operating officer sheryl sandberg, and their lieutenants
who asks xi jinping, the president of china, to name his unborn child (xi refuses)
sandberg, however, was so impressed with parscale's work that she wanted to hire him
that slightly shocked, frozen look that people often show in group photos from long ago
the ghastly president andrew johnson ("this is a country for white men," he wrote, "and...as long as i am president, it shall be a government for white men")
alabama established an agricultural college and property rights for married women, and its constitutional convention resolved that ex-slaves could collect pay from their former owners for the period they were kept enslaved after the emancipation proclamation - surely america's first reparations bill
general howard of the freedman's bureau later showed a very different spirit as he led a war against the nez perce people. "the rise of the jim crow south and the conquest of the west, often told as separate stories, were parallel events connected at a fundamental level," sinha writes. general william tecumseh sherman, leader of the union army's march through georgia, was in the field again, declaring, "we must act with vindictive earnestness against the sioux even to the extermination of men, women, and children"
even the great frederick douglass reflected a touch of this spirit when he said that there might be "a deficiency inherent to the latin races" and advocated american annexation of what today is the dominican republic
graduated from yale in 1810 when twenty years old and became an itinerant teacher, teaching farm technology and lecturing on geology in the northeastern states
(8) the american lyceum: its history and contribution to education by cecil b. hayes
the third annual meeting of the national lyceum was opened in new york on may 3, 1833. william a. duer, president of columbia college, was appointed president
all sects in religion and all parties in politics have equal rights and opportunities. sectarian politics and sectarian religion to be emphatically and wholly excluded
the convention might petition congress to insert a new item in taking the next census; viz, to see how many children there are in each state between the ages of 7 and 16 who have received no elementary education
wendell phillips, one of the early lyceum lecturers, is said to have given his lecture on "the lost arts" two thousand times before lyceum audiences
before we have the commodity we want, we must manufacture it
the enthusiasm with which people maintained their lyceums can be better appreciated by recalling the lack of educational institutions, schools, books, magazines, and newspapers and the slow means of communication and travel
the greatest handicap of the system was its loose and ineffective organization. it had no authority
mr. holbrook, who spent much time and money (he was able to do this, being wealthy) in traveling about forming lyceums
(9) article by vladimir putin "on the historical unity of russians and ukranians"
the formula they apply has been known from time immemorial - divide and rule
the process of polonization and latinization began, ousting orthodoxy
but the cossacks were not heard
the name "ukraine" was used more often in the meaning of the old russian word "okraina" (periphery)
underlain by the common faith, shared cultural traditions, and - i would like to emphasize it once again - language similarity
in 1948, zmeyiniy island (snake island) in the black sea became part of ukraine. in 1954, the crimean region of the rsfsr was given to the ukranian ssr, in gross violation of legal norms that were in force at the time
one fact is crystal clear: russia was robbed, indeed
the common tragedy of collectivization and famine of the early 1930s was portrayed as the genocide of the ukranian people
the new "maidan" authorities
russia has done everything to stop fratricide
and what ukraine will be - it is up to its citizens to decide
(10) not an island but a continent
amerigo's two older brothers, antonio and girolamo
starting in the late 1490s vespucci participated in two voyages to the new world that are relatively well-documented in the historical record. two others have been alleged but the evidence is more problematic. traditionally, vespucci's voyages are referred to as the "first" through "fourth", even by historians who dismiss one or more of the trips
they passed two huge rivers (the amazon and the para) which poured freshwater 25 miles (40 km) out to sea
after hispaniola they made a brief slave raid in the bahamas, capturing 232 lucayans, and then returned to spain
at 23° s they found a bay which they named rio de janeiro because it was 1 january 1502
emerson called vespucci a "thief" and "pickle dealer" from seville who managed to get "half the world baptized with his dishonest name"
6/19
this week i
published updated estimates of federal payments to private health insurers covering elderly and disabled americans based on medicare plan quality
await precision medicine personalized assessment exactly how many ice cream sandwiches would be problematic so i might enjoy one less than that
cleaned my floors after they had become too dirty to eat off of, a smart standard no matter where you set it. without metaphors, we're adrift at sea
watched orson welles subterranian viennese flee in bfi's millenium goat the third man, cold war warning contemporaneous with orwell's own lifetime
covet shirt in the second photo, a man has got to see what he can see. rename it sal khan valley after its best idea. n.h.i.e. foie grased a coconut -
read the art of war by niccolo machiavelli, translated by ellis farneworth and introduced by neal wood: imprisoned and tortured early in 1513..with all his reliance upon, and plagiarism of, the ancient sources, machiavelli has done something more..a militia is always an instrument and a bulwark of republicanism..he fails to assign to artillery more than a very minor part in combat..he also slights the potential of a well-ordered force for heavy cavalry; to him cavalry means light cavalry, useful in scouting and skirmishing..a distinction made by aristotle in his criticism of plato's republic, an army acts in unison, while a civil society should be a harmony
to retrieve our lost virtu
rome remained free for four hundred years and sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time
"if they come as ambassadors, they are too many; if as soldiers, too few"
the romans taught their soldiers to thrust rather than cut with their swords, because thrusts are more dangerous and are harder to ward off; he who thrusts does not expose his own body as much, and is readier to redouble than he is to repeat a full stroke
hannibal's army..placed 80 elephants in his front; next to them, his auxiliaries; behind them, his carthaginians; and last of all, his italians, in whom he had but little confidence
not long ago, the grand turk routed the shah of persia and the sultan of syria merely by the use of harquebuses - their explosion struck such terror into his enemies' cavalry that they turned tail and ran away. the spaniards, in their battles with hamilcar, used to place ox-drawn carriages full of flax in the front of their armies; they set fire to the flax as soon as the battle began, and the oxen were so frightened that they rushed in among the enemy and opened their ranks
sulla, who, seeing part of his legions begin to flee before the army of mithridates, rode up to the head of them with a drawn sword in his hand, and cried out, "if anybody should inquire after your general, tell them you left him fighting on the plains of boeotia"
no other alternative but to conquer or to die
joan of arc (1412-1431)
i shall now proceed to say something concerning the guards necessary in a camp, because if that point is not duly attended to, all the rest of our labor and care will be to no purpose
cast lots and put every tenth man to death - this was called "decimation"
everyone knows that our soldiers, instead of imitating the regularity and sobriety of the ancients, are a parcel of intemperate, licentious, and drunken fellows
king pyrrhus used to say that with an army of 15,000 good soldiers, he would fight the whole world
a general ought to endeavor to divide the enemy's strength by making him suspicious of his counselors and confidants..by sparing the possessions of some particular men in whom he confides and not letting their houses or estates be damaged in a time of general plunder and devastation, or by returning their children and other relations when they are taken prisoners without any ransom. thus when hannibal had ravaged and burned all the towns and country around rome, he spared the estate of fabius maximus alone
it is best to call both the innocent and guilty together; for if you summon the offenders alone, they might suspect your design and become contumacious
caesar acquired such reputation for his justice in paying for the wood which he cut down to make palisades for his camps in gaul, that it greatly facilitated the conquest of that province
romans took many towns by suddenly assaulting them on every side, which they called aggredi urbem corona
for dogs, and geese too, have sometimes saved a fortress, as they rescued the capitol at rome when it was besieged by the gauls. when the spartans laid siege to athens, alcibiades ordered that whenever he should hoist a light in the night, every guard should do the same upon pain of severe punishment in case of neglect. the athenian iphicrates, finding a sentinel asleep at his post, immediately killed him and said he had only left him as he found him
such order, discipline, and obedience among them that if there should happen to be a tree full of ripe fruit in the middle of the camp, not one of them would dare to touch it
6/12
this week i
need not verify lyrics when ella sings, fuzzy fuzzy intro. if i were the king of the world, tell you what i'd do: i'd throw away the cars -three dog night
slept on hard floors more than in a bed from high until grad
school surrender to a mattress, my first t-o-f-t-s moment. nowadays i rack up my being a maverick merit badges passing out on top of all the bed's blankets. every sign insists minneapolis/st. paul but feels like wisconsin took a big old bite
guessed luanda correctly with the jeopardy masters, the golden age of this show. and the beauty's that we thought the same during the
prior era too
dethroned dr. peng atop flowingdata. nathan asked if i'm still an independent consultant, i replied "yes" cuz "& piratical lecturer" too much to clarify
prioritize eyes with gaza, what breaks this siege? the israeli military opened fire towards hungry crowds -financial times wednesday #41,959 page 4
adhere to a three onion limit per goodfellas. dio mi tenga it hits you hard just how twisted & corrupted were their souls when
you realize that they didn't have to be gangsters and still could have
eaten all of that good food. when i punched the big red emergency stop button above
the conveyor belt of my culinary experience and made serious inspection
of ingredients, just speaking for my own tongue here, evidently i
like cannellini beans. assunta tenisci (nana-sunta to me) never desired return to italy it's better here rosemarie real sour that i ate a bison burger they should roam free
ordered some spaghetti with marinara sauce and i got egg noodles & ketchup (minneapolis-bread pillsbury dough tummy poke giggle) like a schnook
read our dumb world: atlas of the planet earth (seventy-third edition) by the onion
from the empire state building in new york city, to the statue of liberty in new york city, to times square in new york city, the state of new york is filled with exciting attractions no matter where you look
delaware: a nice first try
unfortunately, as modern society encroaches, federal officials are often forced to put down montanans when they are deemed a danger to humans
for nearly half a century, these territorial leftovers have upheld the proud tradition of giving fourth-graders more state capitals to memorize, while providing the rest of the u.s. the satisfaction of knowing the states are divisible by several leading integers, including 5, 10, and 2
native arawak indians are taken aback at how literally explorer christopher columbus takes their polite request to make himself at home
seeking an easier way to smuggle cocaine onto planes, drug traffickers invent the hollowed-out suitcase
population 11,477,411, and yet they seem to take no pride at all in the fact that it's a palindrome
don't let the generic name fool you - the central african republic provides the same quality of poverty, disease, and corruption as its name-brand african neighbors
1987 the un coaxes morocco and the polisario guerrilla group into peace talks by sending each of them a letter supposedly written by the other side, which apologizes for the way they've been acting and offers to meet up for dinner and ceasefire negotiations later that evening
mali: it took forever to scrape the star off the senegal flag
border doubles for luxembourg 5k run
father of the annoying question. little is known about socrates, as no one could ever get a straight answer out of him
national anthem has a three-syllable rest in the melody, which pakistanis are hoping to someday fill with the words "and kashmir"
the recent discovery of vast oil reserves in kazakhstan promises that this prehistoric land of nomadic horse-eaters may be dictating u.s. foreign policy as early as 2015
though it now occupies no more than a single page in most volumes, mongolia was a great and sprawling atlas entry just a few short centuries ago, covering nearly two-thirds of the book's surface, and stretching from page 52 all the way to page 140
6/5
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