This gives new meaning to the phrase “liar liar pants on fire” …
via esquire.com
“Put it in English!” My campaign against jargon
At a recent meeting for Metro Parks, the Director of the Zoo mentioned something about the zoo's "charismatic mega-vertebrates." As in walruses and polar bears and tigers. Charismatic mega-vertebrates, if you are a zookeeper, is a very useful classification. It describes a certain kind of animal that crosses biological distinctions of taxonomy: ie, big animals people want to see. But outside of that particular setting, the jargon makes absolutely no sense. I wouldn't tell you in normal conversation that you should get to the zoo to see the baby charismatic mega-vertebrates. They're baby tigers. Calling them anything else would be Read more…
Domestic Conflict, Explained By Stock Photos, from @knguyen at the Bygone Bureau
 Conflicts are even more difficult when more than two people involved. Here, Ellen and Andrew argue about what to do with the small girl that wandered in their home. via bygonebureau.com These descriptions of what’s going on in stock photographs are hilarious.
This Park’s For People
I was recommended Edward Abbey's "Desert Solitaire" before our trip to Utah in June. It's a memoir of Abbey's time as a ranger at Arches National Park. Mary read it before the trip, and everywhere we went at Arches she'd mention something about Abbey. I read it after the trip and really loved it. The experience of the park in the 1960s was very different than the park today. Abbey's vision of a National Park is that all visitors should be greeted by a 50 foot tall statue of Smokey the Bear that says this: A noble vision, to be Read more…
Priority Overload
Gmail's touting a new feature called Priority Inbox. You can see their (kind of funny) video about the product here: [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nt3gE9dGHQ?wmode=transparent] I understand where they're coming from, but this is still the wrong solution to the problem. Allow me to pull out a little GTD here … The problem with sorting by importance, as Priority Inbox does, is that the reason people feel stressed is because so much is important. And, by deferring the less important stuff to later, there's a greater likelihood it will become important down the line. If you only deal with emergencies, then … you'll Read more…
Books Panel this Wednesday!
I'm really looking forward to our books panel this Wednesday. Some familiar names from Tacoma (Tom Llewellyn of Beautiful Angle and local author, sweet pea of Kings Books, and Neel Parikh of the Pierce County Library system) will join the publisher of the Mountaineers Kate Rogers and Sheryn Hana of the Book Publishers Network to discuss the future of books. RSVP today by emailing office@cityclubtacoma.org. Mention you saw it on my blog and we'll welcome you at the member rate.
On Nostalgia
I ran into this quote on Andrew Sullivan's blog and was really struck by it. It's an excerpt from an interview with Matt Novak, who posts images of what people used to think the future would look like. Nostalgia as a symptom of fear is far too broad of an idea, and frankly I regret saying it so matter of factly. There is an important distinction I feel that we should make between personal nostalgia and societal nostalgia. Personal nostalgia is that smell of your first teddy bear or the feeling of your first kiss. Personal nostalgia is a wonderful Read more…
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