Posts I like
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What an amazing road trip. Look forward to seeing you again, Arizona #cycling #roadies #prescottvalley #arizona #bikeporn #bmw
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“Introns in ancient premRNAs evolved from group II self-splicing introns through progressive loss of internal RNA structures, which concurrently...”
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“You’re not the type to date, you’re the type to get married to.”
I hate the sound of that.
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The Selfish Gene
Struggle for existence. Individual like a pawn in a game, to be sacrificed when the greater interest of the species as a whole...
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Happy Friday 13th! Come get a #tattoo (Taken with Instagram at Saints and Sinners Tattoo Shop)
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Life Through My Eyes. Fun old skool video camera tattoo I did today on Phillip. Good times.
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Seriously / Love Monday: No TV
When we packed our stuff in July and moved to Phoenix, it was my decision to leave the big, clunky,...
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Since today is Election Day, and there was no class… we decided to drive at least 100 miles away from the Otis block to La Jolla to enjoy Louis...
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Happy Halloween..poor Monster was shoved into the Lobster costume for 5 minutes, far to long in his book - the one shot where he looks happy and...
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Canterbury Arch (by wittap)
“Traders and salesmen would boast about ‘ripping the face off’ their clients — structuring and selling complicated deals that clients did not understand but that generated huge profits for the bank that was brokering the trade.”
From the book 13 Bankers
“Published in 1911, Kandinsky’s book compares the spiritual life of humanity to a pyramid—the artist has a mission to lead others to the pinnacle with his work. The point of the pyramid is those few, great artists. It is a spiritual pyramid, advancing and ascending slowly even if it sometimes appears immobile. During decadent periods, the soul sinks to the bottom of the pyramid; humanity searches only for external success, ignoring spiritual forces.”
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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
All progress depends on the unreasonable man.
”George Bernard Shaw
“Until you have seen the Sistine Chapel, you can have no adequate conception of what man is capable of accomplishing”
Goethe
Art is what truly matters in the end - not commerce. If commerce serves art, so much the better, but all too often it is its enemy.
the most successful, egalitarian social program in history: Mandatory Literacy
Every American child is required by law to attend 12 years of school. According to the US Census bureau, 98% of these children attended public schools in 2010.
These laws were passed and the public school system formed in response to the industrial revolution, wich required litterate workers. US illiteracy fell from 20% in 1870 to just .6% in 1979, the last year the government studied it:
http://nces.ed.gov/naal/lit_history.asp
Of particular interest is what happened to the African American Literacy rate: In 1870, 79.9% of American Blacks couldn’t read or write. By 1979, that number had fallen to just 1.6%
Far from being the disaster it’s all too often portrayed as, the American public education system represents a triumph of what the Right calls “social engineering” - and remember: It’s mandatory. Such a program could never be implemented today.
Without an informed, literate population, democracy fails.
Without literate workers, business fails.
The freedom and wealth of this country were built to an enormous degree by the literate products of mandatory public education.
The United States rose to technological dominance because of people educated by public schools.
Minorities benefitted the most, gaining near equity with whites.
And now, half the country seems determined to tear down the public education system, one of the most successful, egalitarian social programs in history.
“I spent the next year hoping I would meet a gaunt, orange-haired architect who would rape me. Or failing that, and architect who would rape me. Or failing that, an architect.”
Nora Ephron, After reading “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand
