quiddities and agonies of the ruling class - a rolling new york times thread

nah i think those people are pretty terrible

once i had naturally purple duck eggs. neat!

i seen greenish speckled chicken eggs no lie

guyz don't miss her blog

http://www.slowlovelife.com/

Why is it sometimes so hard to enjoy being happy? Just yesterday I got an email from an editor saying he loved the piece I had rather fearfully sent him. I was elated! Joy! Success! But within seconds, I was on to worrying about edits, and other assignments, and the dust balling up in the hallway, and the soot on the windowsills.

My mind spun through the hundred tiny vexing things I had to do, when suddenly I came to a word: STOP. Literally, it loomed up, a cherry red stop sign, filling my brain. STOP?

Yes. That’s when I realized I wasn’t letting myself be happy. Was it superstition? If I’m happy, that means I could become unhappy…. Was it fear? How hard it is to give into happiness. Was it just that unrelenting, driven, monkey mind saying ‘Not good enough! Nothing is ever good enough!’ Whatever the reason, it seemed suddenly absurd. I wasn’t letting myself fill up with the joy of a small accomplishment, I wasn’t giving myself credit for something well done, and I wasn’t simply, well, enjoying the moment. Don’t you love how the word enjoy has the word joy embedded in it? Being in the joy.

that post continues, by the way

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/nyregion/29roommates.html?hpw

Don’t you love how the word enjoy has the word joy embedded in it? Being in the joy.

This is making my head hurt, for real.

And don't you love how the word embedded has the word bed embedded in it?

C/D: white people who have been to a yoga class using the phrase "monkey mind"

, enjoy

eh, monkey mind can be a useful concept sometimes

Don’t you love how the word monkey mind has the word useful concept embedded in it? I am fucking crazy.

you like to fart, you are crazy

that's a good blog--this excerpt and the fact that she stared at a dictionary in awe all afternoon suggests bigger problems than no job:

I kept looking up the word “entropy” in the dictionary, staring in awe at the definitions, they so perfectly captured the spirit of my deranged soul.

its pretty shocking that any unemployment memoir in this day and age wouldn't include the phrase i spent all day online

I think it's just taken as a given

its could all possibly be metaphors for the diff blogs she visited

maybe 'I kept looking up the word “entropy” in the dictionary, staring in awe at the definitions, they so perfectly captured the spirit of my deranged soul.' just means 'I visited ilx'

layup

the blog reads like a 21st century version of the yellow wallpaper

captured the spirit of my deranged soul

Derangement can be a very healthy development for people whose normal range is badly trivialized.

"The tides are sculpted by storms, moons, and winds; they are by turns subtle and violent, yet utterly reliable in the rhythm of their leaving, and returning. And here is a photo i call 'Fucking Turtles'."

haah

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/bloggers-discuss-race-and-the-census/

didn't read, mind you

Grand Hotel Courts Hip With a Dance Party

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/nyregion/12pierre.html

And while the bar offers top-shelf libations — Veuve Clicquot, Johnnie Walkers Black and Blue, Macallan 25 — the budget-minded can easily nurse an $8 beer or one of the $14 specialty cocktails all night long.

the best thing about that article is that "the pierre hotel" is given no explanation or set-up before being deployed as a punchline because the author simply assumes her readers will know exactly what it is

the thing is, they probably do

http://gawker.com/5439146/carles-the-hipster-of-the-decade-is-taking-over-the-new-york-times

this is kinda tendentious right

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/15/fashion/15skin.html

"Is it okay for women to not shave their armpits?" - New York Times, 2010

welp

Diversity on the US Supreme Court, NY Times style

basically, they want SC justices who went to Ivy League schools OTHER THAN Yale and Harvard. because U. Penn or Columbia law grads are keepin' it real ... or something.

I dunno, that's not how I read the article...

At least one name on the short list, Federal Judge Sidney Thomas, of Billings, Mont., looks like an intriguing outsider. He was born in Bozeman, got his law degree at the University of Montana in Missoula and he . . . oh, forget it. He ought to know better than most: the door to the modern Supreme Court is closed to anyone from the wrong school.

i remember the dust-up when Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. many of her critics focused on the fact that she went to Southern Methodist Law and not some Ivy League law school -- never mind that she was at the top of her class at Southern Methodist or any other legal accomplishments. (which isn't to say that there weren't OTHER reasons why she didn't deserve to be appointed to the Supreme Court -- the fact that she was basically the Bush Family's consigliere being one of the most important ones -- just that sniffing about her lack of pedigree isn't one of them).

i did overlook the part about Judge Thomas from Montana -- i looked more at the writer's focus on Justice Douglass (who went to Columbia) and Justice Stevens (who went to Northwestern). frankly, those schools aren't exactly beyond the pale for Presidential appointments to the Supreme Court.

in a sense the dude is more cynical than you are tho - he thinks that the problem is so bad that even a columbia grad would be a miracle

columbia is a pretty big deal though isn't it?

not in the context of the current supreme court!

yeah it's considered a step below Harvard and Yale IIRC - these heirarchies are burned into the brains of anyone in the legal profession - i.e. if you want to teach at, say, SMU, you will have to have a JD from tier (x) but not tier (y) etc

and look hey, our last four presidents have been yale-yale-yaleharvard-harvard

talk about turning into France...

I mean my main point is that he's not arguing that columbia law grads are poor unfortunate souls, he's arguing that the status quo is so absurd that even going to the 3rd or 4th best law school in the country is considered a drawback

xp

and look hey, our last four presidents have been yale-yale-yaleharvard-harvard

Obama went to Columbia.

= progress

well clinton went to georgetown but both finished at harvard/yale

...and then went to harvard law

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89cole_nationale_d%27administration

in a sense the dude is more cynical than you are tho - he thinks that the problem is so bad that even a columbia grad would be a miracle

that may be, and i don't know what really accounts for the Yale/Harvard dominance on the Supreme Court. (it also overlooks that Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justice O'Connor were both Stanford Law grads.) but i also don't think that anyone would go ballistic if the President nominated someone who "only" went to Columbia or Northwestern (which may now be unrepresented on the Supreme Court but are still pretty damn "elite"). i merely find the argument that someone who didn't go to Harvard or Yale Law would be more likely to "keep it real" simply b/c they didn't go to those institutions to be laughable.

i could definitely the pedigree snobs getting the vapors for someone who went to U. Montana Law (or any other law school like that).

sarko notably didn't get accepted to the undergrad school that traditionally comes before ena

pretty sure they gave our justices their appointments as a reward for having to spend three years in shitty cambridge/new haven

I think he didn't go to ena either? xp