Look out for the girl...

Maureen Johnson: SHELTER FOR OKLAHOMA

Tue, 21 May 2013 17:56:01 -0500

In the past, I’ve done some fundraising for Shelterbox when disaster has struck. Shelterbox is going to Oklahoma to aid the people who lost their homes, so I am fundraising again, and asking for your help.

What Shelterbox does is make up these LARGE GREEN BOXES that contain high-quality tents…

"You don’t have to get a job that makes others feel comfortable about what they perceive as your..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 10:40:47 -0500

“You don’t have to get a job that makes others feel comfortable about what they perceive as your success. You don’t have to explain what you plan to do with your life. You don’t have to justify your education by demonstrating its financial rewards. You don’t have to maintain an impeccable credit score. Anyone who expects you to do any of those things has no sense of history or economics or science or the arts. You have to pay your electric bill. You have to be kind. You have to give it all you got. You have to find people who love you truly and love them back with the same truth. But that’s all.”

- Cheryl Strayed (via laughitout-v)

this is social anxiety summed up in two gifs

Fri, 17 May 2013 05:36:20 -0500

this is social anxiety summed up in two gifs

connoisseurofkisses: Paul Rudd dancing In love. Would marry.

Wed, 15 May 2013 22:51:34 -0500

connoisseurofkisses:

Paul Rudd dancing

In love. Would marry.

hclib: Gratia Alta Countryman (top) 1892 An image of Gratia...

Mon, 13 May 2013 16:54:21 -0500

hclib:

Gratia Alta Countryman (top) 1892

An image of Gratia (later director of Minneapolis Public Library and founder of Hennepin County Library) soon after she was hired by Minneapolis Public Library, posing in the library art gallery with fellow MPL staff.

Although she was engaged to marry Horace Winchell he ended up marrying another woman. They remained friends until he died. Gratia later entered into a “Boston Marriage” with librarian Marie Todd from 1902 until Marie’s death in 1940. Gratia wrote this to Marie in 1901, “Thee says in a letter just received that thee is staking everything on the chance of being with me, and I know thee is coming for love’s sake. But not staking, dear, there is no gamble in loving, there are only profits…”

Marie noticed a homeless boy at the library in 1917, Wellington Wilson. He spent many Saturdays and most school days in the children’s area of the downtown library reading books. Gratia looked into his background and realized he needed a foster home and volunteered to be his foster mother. She wrote, “We have taken a homeless little boy to live with us. He is nearly eight years old and bright and affectionate. We have grown very fond of him in the four weeks we have had him…if he turns out to be as nice a child as he seems, I may possibly adopt him.” After his adoption in 1918, Gratia and “Aunt Marie” both raised Wellington. He later wrote,”In those years, my mother was the disciplinarian while Aunt Marie was the arbitrator. One might say my mother performed the masculine role and Aunt Marie the feminine.” Wellington Countryman later married and had a daughter, Alta Marie Countryman in 1939.

This information is drawn from Jane Pejsa’s Gratia Countryman: her life, her loves and her library.

odditiesoflife: Glass Beach, Northern California From 1950 to...

Fri, 10 May 2013 21:17:48 -0500

odditiesoflife:

Glass Beach, Northern California

From 1950 to 1967, residents of Fort Bragg, California chose to dispose of their waste by hurling it off the cliffs above a beach. No object was too toxic or too large such as household appliances, automobiles, and all matter of trash were tossed into the crashing waves below, eventually earning it the name The Dumps. Then in 1967, city leaders closed and reclaimed the beach. Various cleanup programs were undertaken.

Over the next several decades, the pounding waves cleaned the beach by breaking down everything but glass turning the sand into a sparkling, multicolored bed of smooth glass stones. The California Department of Parks and Recreation purchased the land and incorporated it into MacKerricher State Park in 2002.

fishingboatproceeds: Hey, bro, cool story. DFTBA sells a bunch...

Wed, 08 May 2013 16:13:34 -0500

fishingboatproceeds:

Hey, bro, cool story.

DFTBA sells a bunch of shirts, and we market to ugly people and nerdy people and small people and big people and pretty people and we’re doing okay and plus we don’t need physical stores with LITERALLY THE WORST MUSIC EVER CREATED BY HUMANS PLAYING AT EAR-BLEEDING VOLUME SO THAT ALL OF YOUR PURPORTEDLY COOL AND BEAUTIFUL EMPLOYEES ARE MADE DEAF BY THEIR WORKING CONDITIONS.

So that’s another way of doing it.

Also I hate your jeans.

zackisontumblr: i have 3 moods: skips every song on my ipod lets the music play without...

Sun, 05 May 2013 22:02:05 -0500

zackisontumblr:

i have 3 moods:

skips every song on my ipod

lets the music play without interruption

plays the same song on repeat for days

jtotheizzoe: PBS Meets The Avengers - Here to save you from...

Thu, 02 May 2013 23:05:32 -0500

jtotheizzoe:

PBS Meets The Avengers - Here to save you from crappy TV

Bob Ross, Bill Nye, Mr. Rogers, and Carl Sagan are united to pilot the spaceship of the mind away from the mind-numbing reality of today’s reality programming.

“Some people just want to watch the world learn.”

I really can’t tell you how happy I am to get to work for PBS. Like, I’m giddy watching this. These are my dudes. I feel like a Junior Avenger. We … ARE … PBS!!!

nbcparksandrec: That’s right. It’s Waffle Wednesday! WAFFLE...

Wed, 01 May 2013 16:34:47 -0500

nbcparksandrec:

That’s right. It’s Waffle Wednesday!

WAFFLE WEDNESDAY EVERY DAY

Neil Gaiman: Neil Gaiman ponders what causes a book to be classified for children and recieves a standing ovation at TXLA

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 18:39:19 -0500

Neil Gaiman: Neil Gaiman ponders what causes a book to be classified for children and recieves a standing ovation at TXLA:

hipmamajenn:

It’s not always easy to entertain a room full of librarians, especially in Texas. A group of librarians can be split into thirds. One group fits into the stereotypical, up-tight old coot who whispers “SHHH,” and longs for the good-old-days. The second group consists of…

rocketrictic: That’s their job as a human being

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 13:33:47 -0500

rocketrictic:

That’s their job as a human being

pumasport: It’s peaceful down here. Don’t bother us. how do I...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 16:24:29 -0500

pumasport:

It’s peaceful down here. Don’t bother us.

how do I get this effect on my ceiling? specifically, on the ceiling of my ballroom in my imaginary palace

"What grinds me the most is that we’re sending kids out into the world who don’t know how to balance..."

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 11:20:43 -0500

“

What grinds me the most is that we’re sending kids out into the world who don’t know how to balance a checkbook, who don’t know how to apply for a loan, don’t even know how to properly fill out a job application, but because they know the quadratic formula we consider them prepared for the world?

With that said, I’ll admit even I can see how looking at the equation x – 3 = 19 and knowing x = 22 can be useful. I’ll even say knowing x = 7 and y = 8 in a problem like 9x – 6y = 15 can be helpful. But seriously, do we all need to know how to simplify (x – 3)(x – 3i)??

And the joke is, no one can continue their education unless they do. A student living in California cannot get into a four-year college unless they pass Algebra 2 in high school. A future psychologist can’t become a psychologist, a future lawyer can’t become a lawyer, and I can’t become a journalist unless each of us has a basic understanding of engineering.

Of course, engineers and scientists use this shit all the time, and I applaud them! But they don’t take years of theater arts appreciation courses, because a scientist or an engineer doesn’t need to know that The Phantom of the Opera was the longest-running Broadway musical of all time. Get my point?

The board of education should sit down with universities and high schools alike and create options for students. Let us take business classes that substitute all the same credits as algebra. I guarantee a semester of learning how to start a small business would benefit people much more than knowing: ax^2 + bx + c = 0

”

- Chris Colfer, Struck by Lightning: The Carson Phillips Journal (x)

because what math is teaching you isn’t simplifying (x-3)(x-3i) it is teaching you reasoning and critical thinking and a new language and a new way of looking at and talking about the world. It is teaching you creativity and not giving up and approaching problems as things to be explored and discovered and reinterpreted and analyzed and broken up and gone through while enjoying the process. math, in short, is teaching you how to live

The Official White House Tumblr: The White House, Tumbling Things

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 11:07:46 -0500

The Official White House Tumblr: The White House, Tumbling Things:

whitehouse:

We see some great things here at the White House every day, and sharing that stuff with you is one of the best parts of our jobs. That’s why we’re launching a Tumblr. We’ll post things like the best quotes from President Obama, or video of young scientists visiting the White House for the science…

never before realized what a brilliant hashtag potus is.

darienlibrary: Happy Friday afternoon y’all.

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 21:43:58 -0500

darienlibrary:

Happy Friday afternoon y’all.

Photo

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 22:46:29 -0500

"You’re not like the others. I’ve seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. When I said..."

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 06:16:08 -0500

“You’re not like the others. I’ve seen a few; I know. When I talk, you look at me. When I said something about the moon, you looked at the moon, last night. The others would never do that. The others would walk off and leave me talking. Or threaten me. No one has time anymore for anyone else. You’re one of the few who put up with me.”

- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (via sickur)

copperbadge: Today the Chicago Tribune bought the Boston Globe...

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 20:39:51 -0500

copperbadge:

Today the Chicago Tribune bought the Boston Globe a pizza lunch.

Eff all y’all, I will tear up over pizza if I want to.

two great towns

tballardbrown: Must Love Rocks: Stonehenge Is Seeking a...

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 16:35:22 -0500

tballardbrown:

Must Love Rocks: Stonehenge Is Seeking a ‘General Manager’ - via @The Atlantic

Photo: Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain (by jay galvin)

I can imagine the interview

Them: How will you preserve the staggering historical significance of these great stones but also keep up with the modern age?

Me: Well, first thing I’d like to do is rearrange them. They’re all wonky and off - I think we need to pull them apart, line them up neatly, and maybe have local schoolchildren paint them whimsically.