Saturday, December 03, 2016

Colours of Gypsies: Jervis Bay The Land of Stories

 Gigantic underground bays and oceans could be full of ‘aliens ;-)’


If you think about it, poets are kind of like Yoda (don't pretend you don't love Yoda.) They’re the custodians of deep knowledge, they have a profound understanding of the role words play in human history, they speak in brief and non-linear sentences, and they’re the kind of people you want cheering you on when it seems like the world might actually be coming to an end. Like now, for example. And now, following a presidential election that seems to have done nothing but validate all that is wrong and closed-hearted about the world, poetry can help you heal ...





This Year’s National Book Award-Winning Author: Write The Book That Terrifies You



Colson Whitehead had his idea for The Underground Railroad many years ago, but he says he wasn’t ready to write it until now. “I always have these ideas, and I think, ‘That would be really good; if I was a better writer, I could pull it off.’ And then I try to become a better writer to do it justice.”

And When I Die, I Won’t Stay Dead is a documentary about the American Beat poet Bob Kaufman
 MEISEL | Poetry in a Time of Crisis when every one loves you ..  

11 Poetry Collections That Will Allow You To Heal Right Now


Researchers: Speaking A Second Language Makes Your Brain Smarter



“In recent years, scientists have begun to show that the advantages of bilingualism are even more fundamental than being able to converse with a wider range of people. Being bilingual, it turns out, makes you smarter. It can have a profound effect on your brain, improving cognitive skills not related to language and even shielding against dementia in old age.”

Federal Student Loans: Education Needs to Improve Its Income-Driven Repayment Plan Budget Estimates, GAO-17-22


A new website that accuses nearly 200 college professors of advancing “leftist propaganda in the classroom” and discriminating against conservative students has been criticized as a threat to academic freedom.
The site, Professor Watchlist, which first appeared Nov. 21, says it names those instructors who “advance a radical agenda in lecture halls.”

Whistleblower Protection: Additional Actions Would Improve Recording and Reporting of Appeals Data, GAO-17-110: Published: Nov 28, 2016. Publicly Released: Nov 28, 2016: “How can we better protect federal whistleblowers? The Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2012 seeks to strengthen the rights of and protections for federal whistleblowers. We found that the Merit Systems Protection Board—which rules on whistleblower appeals—received more of these appeals after the act was enacted. We also found weaknesses in their recording and reporting of these appeals. We recommended that MSPB update its data entry user guides and add a quality check to ensure accurate reporting of whistleblower appeals…”





Ten years ago there were only three distillers in Tasmania. Now there are 22, and with sales growing by more than 50 percent in the two years to June 2015, that number is expected to double over the next five years. Still, total revenue from the industry reached just A$20 million last year, a drop in the whisky world’s ocean. Scotch whisky, by comparison, generates 3.95 billion pounds ($4.9 billion) a year, accounting for about a quarter of U.K. food and drink exports.
“The only negative is volume — we can’t keep up with demand,” State Premier Will Hodgman said in an interview in Tasmania’s capital Hobart. “But we want to preserve the integrity of the brand. The bar has been set high and if they want to be competitive, the new entrants will need to prove to be equally high grade.”
As Michael Walsh notes, that’s some serious fundamental transformation German Intelligence Official Arrested in Islamic Terror Plot.


In an interview with the New York Public Library’s Angela Montefinise to mark the occasion of the acquisition of her papers, Dr. Angelou added:
All information belongs to everybody all the time. It should be available. It should be accessible to the child, to the woman, to the man, to the old person, to the semiliterate, to the presidents of universities, to everyone. It should be open.
[…]
Information helps you to see that you’re not alone. That there’s somebody in Mississippi and somebody in Tokyo who all have wept, who’ve all longed and lost, who’ve all been happy. So the library helps you to see, not only that you are not alone, but that you’re not really any different from everyone else. There may be details that are different, but a human being is a human being.