OK, now here goes the potential story. We did fiscal austerity, it was self-defeating, that was a major factor, and we ended up in…a better budget situation than we had been expecting?
via Have we seen self-defeating austerity in the United States?.
So I decided to focus on the quirkiest requests and shoot them in a Flemish Baroque still-life style because I felt that there was a direct connection between the themes in these types of paintings and the riders: the idea of time passing and the ultimate mortality of a musician’s career as the limelight inevitably fades—they only have a short time in which they are able to make these demands and have them fulfilled.
via Henry Hargreavess Photos of What Famous Musicians Eat Backstage | VICE United States.
The Boy Scouts proposal would create a situation where a gay youth could become a scout and then be forced to resign when he becomes an adult.
via Boy Scouts proposal: let in gay youth, keep out gay adults | Reuters.
I was becoming growingly aware that when I heard about someone stabbing a man – “They reckon I stabbed him 47 times,” or about pouring boiling, sugary water over someone or about saving up stale piss to throw, there I was nodding and making notes and thinking, “Oh thats good, I might be able to use that in a novel”.
via In prison, education is a route to self-respect | Education | The Guardian.
A four-night trip on Carnival’s Imagination, leaving Miami on April 22, costs $149 a person, including meals and some beverages, according to the cruise company’s website yesterday. The lowest nightly rate at the budget-priced Motel 6 chain was $39.99, according to an online ad
via Carnival Offers Motel 6 Price for Caribbean After Triumph – Bloomberg.
One of the most consistent pieces of advice I found was to stick to names of one or two syllables, which quickly catch a puppy’s attention.
via The Art of Naming a Dog – NYTimes.com.
It says here that there is something ridiculous about worrying too much about what to name your dog. I say this because dogs do not speak English. They really don’t. I have one. Believe me.
People will tell you that you should choose a name that is simple, as expressed by the advice excerpted above. People will tell you to use hard syllables. People will tell you to use sibilant ones. I am telling you, Relax.
Scene from the Warner Brothers cartoon, “Dog Gone South.”
The No. 1 thing a dog listens for is a friendly, familiar voice, period. What makes it work for the dog is that it is never only listening. I read a book once in which the author referred to dogs as “master observers.” Which sounds stupid, and which always makes me laugh. But I believe it is true: Your dog knows about half of what you are planning to communicate before you even deliver any of your carefully chosen, vetted-by-TV-personalities commands.
Try this experiment with a friend’s dog. In as warm and jovial a tone as you can muster, call to the dog in gibberish. Better, call to the dog using insults. As long as your appear to be welcoming, the dog doesn’t care what you say.
My dog, who is basically a simple-minded, food-obsessed nervous wreck, knows when it is time to go outside, to play with a ball and to go to bed. Most of the time, I don’t address her by name; I say, “C’mon.” She gets it.
But of course I have a rule for naming a dog. I prefer names with a Southern pedigree. My first dog was Scarlett. Dog No. 2 is Maybelle. I keep joking with my wife that I will name Dog No. 3, if it’s a boy, Gen. Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard — and I am not joking. (The woman at the vet’s office will probably misspell it, anyway.)
Really, my rule for naming a dog is, Choose a name with dignity. Mostly this is for the dog. Here is an animal that has to sleep on the floor; is compelled to defecate out of doors, in front of people, and never exactly where it wants to; and is served the same bland food every day. The least you can do is ignore the impulse to name it Snickers. Partly the idea of dignity is for you, the owner. Imagine yourself standing in slippers, in two feet of snow, calling to your dog as it romps disobediently up and down the street. What do you want your neighbors to hear?
Gains in efficiency will follow from coordinated traffic management protocols, too. Once vehicles communicate with each other traffic through intersections and merges will flow much more smoothly than permitted by today’s traffic signals, stop signs and merging lanes, leading to substantial gains in travel time a partial, human-mediated step in this direction is explored in this article.
They then reprimanded the dog to produce a “sad” reaction, causing the animal to pull a mournful expression with eyes cast down. Surprise, generated using a jack-in-the box, caused the dog to wrinkle the top of its head into something akin to a frown. Medicine that Mal did not like was produced to stimulate disgust – flattened ears – and nail trimmers, which Mal also disliked, were brandished to create fear, causing the ears to prick up and the whites of the eyes to show.
via Scientists prove you really can tell what your dog is feeling by looking at its face – Telegraph.
…lifesaving social instincts didn’t readily lend themselves to exploration, artistic expression, romance, inventiveness and experimentation — the other human drives that make for a vibrant civilization.To free up those, we needed something that would suppress the rigid social codes that kept our clans safe and alive. We needed something that, on occasion, would let us break free from our biological herd imperative — or at least let us suppress our angst when we did.We needed beer.
via How Beer Gave Us Civilization – NYTimes.com.
“Rob was iconic in the 1980s, but more importantly, he is even more well known now because of The West Wing, Brothers & Sisters and Parks and Recreation,” Cascio tells The Hollywood Reporter. “So in a way, Rob Lowe represents the best of this particular project in that he can reflect knowingly on the 1980s because he was part of it, but also he is part of our contemporary culture and that’s what this series is all about…”
via Rob Lowe To Narrate Nat Geo Miniseries The 80s: The Decade That Made Us Exclusive.
