Education

I aspire to teach political science at a university someday, so discussion about learning is particularly interesting to me. Here's one of my favorite speakers on the subject, Taylor Mali, giving some slam poetry about teaching. I have this piece memorized due to how many times I've seen it.

"Curiosity is the very basis of education, and if you tell me that curiosity killed the cat, I say only the cat died nobly." -Arnold Edinborough

"Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn from the learner; put yourself in his place so that you may understand... what he learns and the way he understands it." -Soren Kierkegaard

"In a completely rational society, the best of us would aspire to be teachers, and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have. " -Lee Iacocca

Heritage > wealth; a modern-day calculation

In Australia there's a man named Jeffrey Lee who could make 5 billion dollars with a snap of his fingers, simply by choosing to sell his land, which sits on a tremendously valuable uranium deposit. Lee is the last remaining member of the Djok clan of Australian Aborigines, and this land has been in his family for generations. So despite the fact that he could probably own his own island by tomorrow if he so chose, Lee is holding on to his ancestral land and all the history that goes with it, hoping to pass on this legacy to his children someday.

Read the full story here.

Getting old doesn't mean slowing down

Anthony Mancinelli of New York holds a Guinness World Record as the oldest barber in the world. He's 98 years old, and he's been cutting hair for 86 years... since a time when a shave and a haircut really cost two bits.

Check out the New York Times article here.

If you want to feel very small...

Speaking of astronomy, here's a very cool video by the American Museum of Natural History, giving an overview of what we know about the universe and our place in it.

“Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.” - Douglas Adams

Astronomical pictures

Few subjects fascinate me more than astronomy. If I wasn't studying political science, there are a vast multitude of other fields I'd be choosing from... astronomy easily makes the top ten.

Check out the beautiful images the Hubble Space Telescope has captured at the telescope's website. The image above is of the Crab Nebula; found here, among other gorgeous pictures of nebulae and stars.

Rethink styrofoam cups

I'm not very artistically minded, but I have a great respect for people who can look at an everyday object and see a canvas.

Check out more of Cheeming Boey's exquisite work in this medium here, or his website here.

Probably much more funny for musicians...

This piece of music is just marvelous. Keep an eye out for details like the tempo suggestion "rigatoni," and the opening dynamics indication "msf," meaning mezzo-sforzando, or "somewhat very very loud."

Full view here.

Rethink Africa

Take a look at Binyavanga Wainaina's excellent piece How To Write About Africa for a snarky take on our stereotypes of the continent and its people.

Here's a taste of how Wainaina tackles the general Western failure to conceptualize Africa with an understanding of its complexity, and the nuance it deserves.

"In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book."

Rethink your bad spelling habits

Print out this handy guide for reference, and stop making dumb mistakes.

I want to be a tough mudder

Forget getting a PhD in political science; this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I want to be this guy:

Or this guy:

Check out this great series of photos from the Tough Guy Challenge 2010 in England here at boston.com. The American equivalent is the Tough Mudder competition, website here.