Lots in the news this week regarding soldiers: the Fort Hood massacre and also Veteran’s Day. In honor of all the brave men and women who have lost their lives, and also in remembrance of their families, Thursday Cartoons are a double feature.
Also, in case I haven’t mentioned it recently, I get almost all my cartoons from Daryl Cagle’s Political Cartoonists Index.
The newest issue of New Global Studies (Vol. 3 Issue 2) is now available. I’ve already downloaded two articles and a book review. Enjoy!
My best friend and I are attempting to put together a List of books spanning the entirety of human history, knowledge and literature. One of the potential books for the List is The 10 000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution, by Cochran and Harpending. 
Although I don’t agree with all of their conclusions (they actually argue more on the side that evolution advanced civilization far more than civilization advanced evolution), they make some excellent points, many of which revolve around tipping points, phase transitions, and of course, fitness landscapes and levels. Cochran and Harpending make their argument by looking at the past, without extending it into the future, but of course human evolution will continue in starts and stops. I think we are approaching such a time when evolution may need to make a few leaps forward in order for humans to survive.
I’ve spent July, August and September 1. moving, 2. leaving my job and going on vacation and 3. starting grad school at Georgetown University where I 4. and building this blog for my program. Needless to say, this has kept me pretty busy, especially since it’s been forever since I’ve be on a student schedule, which requires a completely different level of discipline than work and 1-2 nonprofits do. I’m not settling in as quickly as I’d like, and my classes (I’m taking 4) are overall somewhat more difficult than I expected (again, being disciplined (or not being, rather)) but I’m getting there. I also haven’t had reliable internet (we just upgraded our router, so hopefully) and we’re still doing Ikea runs every weekend in an attempt to put this place together before our October housewarming party. But I will start blogging again, mostly because I have to.
I have the option to post to DemocracyandSociety.com as I’d like, and I probably will once I get more confident in world affairs again, but in the meantime, my Networks and International Development class (easily my favorite class, but that’s another post), requires a blog post every week on a topic related to that week’s reading. That blog is protected, but my better posts will find their way over here. I’ll also get back into reading AllAfrica.com as part of my weekly reading for my African Development class. In other words, my almost complete avoidance of the news and blogging begun last year in August is finally coming to a (slightly forced) end. I’m glad this is the case, because I really did miss it, but couldn’t quite find the time or motivation to get back into the habit. Blogging, even on a weekly, rather than daily, schedule, is a time-consuming process that doesn’t have nearly the same immediate appeal as the pub or napping or Project Runway, even as the longer-term benefits can (hopefully) be more substantive.
That’s probably all I’m going to say for now since I still also need to overcome my reversion to extreme introversion and also need to stop procrastinating on my class blog post by doing everything else.
I’m still trying to track down the name of the photographer who took the picture I’m using as my header here and on Twitter. So far I’ve found multiple references to it, but no credits. The best I can figure out is that it was taken in Dubai.
If anyone has any more information, I’d love to know.
Thanks.
Right now, being an everyday idealist means holding the sometimes impossible belief that I can actually get myself organized. It’s the little things – the everyday things – that make us who we are.
We had a snow day Monday. My company allows for remote access and working from home, so while I’m not currently set up for our remote access program (won’t run on Mac, and need to fix my old PC), I did sign into my email. Just keeping on top of my email for the project I’m working on takes a good chunk of my day, so this actually did count as work, but not being in the office allowed me to make a big pot of tea, do the dishes, clean my bathroom, and do some cooking for the rest of the week. It was also my most productive, or at least most meaningful day, in quite some time.
I still didn’t catch up on the fact sheets I really need to write, and I didn’t address all of my emails, but I got a chance to sort thru the massive pile of YPFP emails I had been neglecting, clean out my personal email accounts, and do some work on the YPFP Annual Conference. I also chatted most of the day on and off with a friend, and in doing so, accomplished some serious thinking about how I’m spending my time. My conclusion: I am a workaholic, and I hate my job. Read the rest of this entry »
