The Globalism Notebook

In 1970, Ernie reached #16 on the Billboard Hot 100 with the timeless hit "Rubber Duckie."

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 17:55:30 -0500

Is it possible to green the Gras?

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 17:53:58 -0500

Some green-thinking locals want New Orleans to recycle the tons of plastic necklaces that go flying during parades. But skeptics say it’ll never happen.

Useful… ilovecharts: Tea Time

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 17:51:13 -0500

Useful…

ilovecharts:

Tea Time

ilovecharts: nevver: Pleated Jeans Tonight. Ha! So...

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 22:21:41 -0500

ilovecharts:

nevver:

Pleated Jeans

Tonight.

Ha! So true…

motherjones: coolchicksfromhistory: Joan Trumpauer Mulholland,...

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 22:09:19 -0500

motherjones:

coolchicksfromhistory:

Joan Trumpauer Mulholland, 1961.

Joan, a 19 year old Freedom Rider, was sentenced to two months in prison for her involvement in the integration of a Jackson, Mississippi bound train. She served more than the required two months because each addition day reduced her $200 fine by $3.

In the Fall of 1961, Joan transferred from Duke University to historically black Tougaloo Southern Christian College because she felt integration should be a two way street.

Today Joan is a retired teaching assistant living in Virginia and mother to five sons. After the 2008 election she brought her Obama pin to the grave of Medgar Evers.

Everything about this.

Get ready for the dragon babies!

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 22:06:24 -0500

Get ready for the dragon babies!:

Year of the dragon, that is. Interesting how this story ties culture and economics into one tidy knot.

11 Sounds Future Generations May Never Get to Hear

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 19:00:51 -0500

Flash cubes! Wow, that takes me back. I also remember my grandfather’s then-advanced camera from the 80’s that had an onboard talking light meter that would chirp “too dark, too dark”.

mentalflossr:

From the flash cube to the TV channel selector, how many of these sounds are you familiar with?

Ashley Whitworth / Shutterstock.com

paris wanderings, part one

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 18:57:46 -0500

My friend reinasaur’s delightful sketches. Paris is so awesome. I can’t wait to go back again someday. :-)

A selection from the journal that kept me company in Paris.

Land of the wasted talent

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 22:20:41 -0500

Land of the wasted talent:

Fascinating though somewhat disheartening article from The Economist warning us that “Japanese firms face a demographic catastrophe. The solution is to treat women better.” The author seems to suggest that exploiting “cheap” immigrant nannies is part of the answer, which mars the overall argument for equitable treatment of (white collar) working women.

dadsaretheoriginalhipster: Your dad wore Warby Parker glasses...

Sat, 12 Nov 2011 21:53:16 -0500

dadsaretheoriginalhipster:

Your dad wore Warby Parker glasses before you did and he has the dog tags to prove it. His eye wear swag was government issued sex appeal, which made him the Marine Sergeant of style. The moniker “BCG’s” never applied to his frames because ladies formed lines to let him take a look. From Virginia to the Viet Cong, he showed the world a new kind of street style – his enlisted swag.

So hipsters, when you’re trying on your box full of frames in Photobooth on your Mac and you’re trying to decide which pair makes you look most ironic, remember this…

Your dad earned his style from being bad… at seeing that is.

Thank to all the Veterans today for your service and sacrifice. Special thanks to Frank too (pictured above).

motherjones: Happy Marathon Sunday! This is what the first...

Sun, 06 Nov 2011 22:21:32 -0500

motherjones:

Happy Marathon Sunday! This is what the first Olympic marathon looked like. The pants were probably a bad idea.

But it’s not all fun and games. As Kate Sheppard explains, today’s marathons also leave behind record-breaking environmental footprints. Even if you go barefoot.

"For as long as the culture of business has been an integral part of American life, it has also been..."

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 21:05:42 -0400

“For as long as the culture of business has been an integral part of American life, it has also been frowned upon by important sectors of our society. Among our intellectuals especially, the business world has been the subject of many brutal caricatures, portraying corporations large and small, and the people who run them, as heartless, soulless agents of greed. These caricatures have shaped our implicit understanding of the nature of the business world, so much that they have come to pass for conventional wisdom.”

- Algis Valiunas, for National Affairs (via utnereader)

An MFA Degree For Designers Who Want To Change The World

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 21:00:35 -0400

An MFA Degree For Designers Who Want To Change The World:

So you want to change the world? Cynics may send you off to Wall Street or a white-shoe law firm. Those with gumption will look for another way. The new Master’s of Fine Arts in Design for Social Innovation has opened its doors just for them.

“We’re adamant this not be a program where people sit in a classroom and talk about how great it’s going to be when they go out and change the world,” says program chair Cheryl Heller at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York, and a board member of PopTech. “It is helping designers go beyond self-expression, which is how most designers are taught, and how to put [design] into practice to create a change.”

You know what would be awesome?

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 20:57:44 -0400

motherjones:

Is if people got as pissed off about new bank debit-card fees (and overdraft fees, and ATM fees, and transaction fees, and credit card fees) as they did about a Netflix price hike.

laughingsquid: HTML for Babies, Book Introduces Web Design...

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 20:57:12 -0400

laughingsquid:

HTML for Babies, Book Introduces Web Design Concepts to Babies

Could a Pay-as-You-Go Model Convince People to Go Solar?

Sat, 01 Oct 2011 20:55:48 -0400

Could a Pay-as-You-Go Model Convince People to Go Solar?:

poptech:

Paul Needham is interested in why and how people buy things. As a doctoral student at Cambridge, he specialized in a field of economics that asked questions like “What does it cost a buyer to find a seller?” Does the buyer have to travel a great distance, for instance? Does she have to pay a fee to a middle man? So when he started thinking about energy access—how to improve the way people in places without strong electricity infrastructure get their power—one of the questions he asked himself was “Why don’t I own solar panels?”

GOOD profiles 2011 Social Innovation Fellow Paul Needham who founded Simpa Networks, which sells high quality solar energy systems on a pay-as-you-go basis to underserved people in emerging markets.

Data Philanthropy is Good for Business

Thu, 22 Sep 2011 17:53:50 -0400

Data Philanthropy is Good for Business:

The digital revolution of the first decade of the 21st century now has all of us producing vast amounts of data, just by going about our daily lives. Today we are swimming in an ocean of data, most of which didn’t exist even a few years ago. One of the defining challenges of the second decade will be to harness this new “unnatural resource” for both commercial profit and public good.

A great deal of the “big data” out there is user-generated content available on the open web — news stories, blogs, social networks, etc. But a great deal of it isn’t. Instead, it’s what’s called “massive passive data” or “data exhaust.” It’s the personal data corporations collect about what products their customers buy and about how they use digital services. Corporations today are mining this data to gain a real-time understanding of their customers, identify new markets, and make investment decisions. This is the data that powers business, which the World Economic Forum has described as a new asset class.

"SIR – I must object in the strongest terms to the use of the oxymoronic neologism, “bottomless..."

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 10:12:50 -0400

“SIR – I must object in the strongest terms to the use of the oxymoronic neologism, “bottomless shallows”, in a Banyan column. Please inform your Mr Banyan that oxymorons must be stamped out wherever found, and are particularly galling in a newspaper of your standing and heritage. I am certain that Messrs Samuel Johnson, Walter Bagehot and Henry Watson Fowler are all spinning in their respective graves at this slight, albeit at different speeds. You know well how lapses like this affect school truancy, foment social disorder and encourage a preference for margarine on one’s scones. Sin not again.”

- An Economist reader reminds us of our responsibilities. And rightly so. (via theeconomist)

globalvoices: Chennai fishermen take part in the mapping of...

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 10:10:49 -0400

globalvoices:

Chennai fishermen take part in the mapping of their livelihoods, as part of the Rising Voices Transparent Chennai participatory mapping project.

Click here for information of the fishing community’s living spaces (scroll down for English).

flavorpill: Mead writes, “Are the disturbances which vex our...

Sat, 03 Sep 2011 20:16:15 -0400

flavorpill:

Mead writes, “Are the disturbances which vex our adolescents due to the nature of adolescence itself or to the civilization? Under different conditions does adolescence present a different picture?” During her time in Samoa, Mead, then only a 23-year-old budding anthropologist, lived with and interviewed a group of Samoan women and girls, aged 9 to 20, about their upbringings, hopes, and fears, concluding that Samoans were better off psychologically than their American counterparts. Which, as you can guess, didn’t sit well with some, and sparked the never ending “nature vs. nurture” debate.

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