“ You don’t owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don’t owe it to your mother, you don’t owe it to your children, you don’t owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked “female”. ”
Erin McKean, You Don’t Have to Be Pretty (via larmoyante)
“ [T]he importance of libraries in general is a very good story that is being very badly told. ”
Michael Rosenblum (down the comment thread)
So in a way this whole ordeal sort of begs the all important question: how do we effectively demonstrate the library’s value to demographics that do not necessarily need the library, i.e. rich white dudes? This case is even more complicated, as he seems to be a wealthy white man with a truly skewed view of poverty and access. I’m not sure we care whether or not this person ever steps foot in a library (I certainly do not), but I don’t think it serves us to alienate those folks with cash and a national audience.
(via thelifeguardlibrarian)
Seattle’s vision of an urban food oasis is going forward. A seven-acre plot of land in the city’s Beacon Hill neighborhood will be planted with hundreds of different kinds of edibles: walnut and chestnut trees; blueberry and raspberry bushes; fruit trees, including apples and pears; exotics like pineapple, yuzu citrus, guava, persimmons, honeyberries, and lingonberries; herbs; and more. All will be available for public plucking to anyone who wanders into the city’s first food forest.
“This is totally innovative, and has never been done before in a public park,” Margarett Harrison, lead landscape architect for the Beacon Food Forest project, tells TakePart. Harrison is working on construction and permit drawings now and expects to break ground this summer.
The concept of a food forest certainly pushes the envelope on urban agriculture and is grounded in the concept of permaculture, which means it will be perennial and self-sustaining, like a forest is in the wild. Not only is this forest Seattle’s first large-scale permaculture project, but it’s also believed to be the first of its kind in the nation.
IS DIS LOVE IS DIS LOVE IS DIS LOVE IS DIS LOVE DAT I’M FEELING
“For those who have purchased tickets on the Spanish train booking website Renfe, you are probably cringing in recollection of your experiences. For those who are heading to Spain in the future but have yet to purchase tickets, you probably have heard the rumors about how bad the service is. For those who do not know what I am talking about, you’re about to have an eye opening experience. Buying tickets on Renfe is quite possibly one of the worst travel experiences one can have…”
“ Called a “real-life Lara Croft” by the New York Times, Salak has traveled solo to almost every continent, visiting some of the world’s most remote places, including locations in Madagascar, Mozambique, Bangladesh, Papua New Guinea, and Borneo. She was the first documented person to kayak solo 600 miles down West Africa’s Niger River. She was also the first woman to traverse Papua New Guinea. And a 700-milencycling trip carried her across Alaska to the Arctic Ocean. Next she’s eager to cross Mongolia on horseback. “The freedom and sheer beauty of riding ponies across a huge country with five time zones is very appealing,” she says. Her penchant for low-tech solo travel hearkens to an earlier era of exploration. “I have so much respect for those old explorers—the hardships they endured and the extraordinary things they were able to accomplish given their circumstances. It may be more frightening to travel alone, but by going into my fear I come out feeling so much more empowered. ”
