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Welcome to this week in the Minnesota Blog Cabin.
Below, you will find a selection of stories and pictures posted this week by the Blog Cabin community.
Please let MinnPost know if you have — or know of — a blog that you think should be featured on the site. Email JHansen[at]MinnPost.com, or Twitter @MNBlogCabin.
“Say you were a costume designer for an action movie. You spend a few nights at the drawing board, tasked with deciding what the bad guy should look like. You’re playing with various robes, futuristic sunglasses, maniacal haircuts, all manner of headdress. You come up with a rendering that looks exactly like Gaddafi. If you took the illustration to the director, you’d be chided. Scolded. Berated. Maybe even fired.”
“He then explained that the ‘scientists’ who don’t play that game are the real heros of science today. In fact, he claimed that the typical global warming debunking ‘researcher’ is, in fact, a modern day Copernicus because they speak ‘truth’ to power. Maybe Beck does this every day. It’s the first time I heard it.”
“I am by no means a flashy dresser, so when I chose to wear a pair of bright red shorts to work last Thursday, it drew some major attention. My fiancée purchased the shorts — ‘They were only $10,’ she said — and though I’m told they’re fashionable, I never would have purchased them on my own. My style is to fashion what meat and potatoes is to fine cuisine.”
“Working in a homeless center preschool, I don’t see a normal classroom of kids — it’s a class cauldron and education crucible. A place where somedays I’m hopeful, but every day I see how challenges in our schools arise out of a complex set of circumstances that aren’t addressed by simplistic “solutions” and analysis like this.
M started his time on the playground sitting on the bench because of earlier infractions. When a teacher released him, he asked me if I’d give him a shoulder ride, as I’d been doing for the other kids.
Okay, I said, but first, let’s talk. I want you to do a better job of listening to your teachers. I want you to stop pushing and hitting other kids. (I could already see his eyes wandering.) Can you do that? Will you try to make better choices in class this afternoon?
After some work, I got him to repeat what I had asked and secured a promise that he would do better the rest of the day.
Within five minutes after his shoulder ride, M slugged me hard in the crotch. I’m not even sure I can say why.”
“When it comes to the daily posts Barack Obama puts on Facebook, I know that with how busy Barack Obama is as President, he may not be responsible for every single Facebook update.”
“The clock goes off at a pre-set time, maybe launching a radio station that fills the air with familiar patter and music that you’ve come to rely on. You wander to the bathroom where the tap has hot water waiting and you can start your day on a schedule. If you timed it right there’s time for a cup of coffee from Colombia, maybe a banana from Costa Rica or a swallow of orange juice from Brazil. You might have some processed food taken from a box and reheated in a Chinese made appliance.
These are the systems you’ve come to rely on – as much as the systems have come to rely on you to be part of them.”
“With the first revision to the second quarter 2011 GDP figure due on Friday, we can only expect the very worst. But that’s not all there is to this problem. A look back at how far it has all been revised down shows just how bad things have been for the last decade – and how policy makers never saw it happening.”
“This move may have been calculated at least in part to diminish the impact of Jobs’ departure on Apple’s stock. Obviously, there will be a short-term decline in the stock price, but if investors see Apple succeeding with someone else in the CEO’s chair, the idea of Apple without Jobs at all may not be so devastating when it comes to that.”
