elanor_x | Entries tagged with best posts series

Best Posts Series § 9

LITERATURE & CULTURE

Conservative Art, Conservative Notions of Culture

I fell in love with HP fanfic "Toujours Pur" by SnorkackCatcher. It is short, but very powerful.
Summary: Mrs Black watches the Quidditch from her private box and reflects on her disappointing sons, the importance of Black family values, and a certain Chaser for the Kenmare Kestrels ...

Huck Finn and democratic self-making

Transformers 4 is the Greatest Film Ever Made About 21st Century America

100 highlights of Special Collections at Bradford University. I was touched by "Reunion and Reconciliation: The Peace Sculpture" by Josefina de Vasconcellos.

I became intrigued by the description of Ian Mortimer's book "Centuries of Change: Which century saw the most change - and why it matters to us." (Haven't read it yet.)

Loved the movie "Tea With Mussolini." Watch the trailer here.

POLITICS – Past and Present

MY FAVORITE POST: battles over ancient bones and modern identities

The Quiet German: The astonishing rise of Angela Merkel, the most powerful woman in the world.

Ta-Nehisi Coates is a national correspondent at The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics, and social issues. (If you're interested in the issue of race in America and/or simply want to discover a good columnist.)

The World's Most Toxic Value System

the forgotten roots of the first world war

MISC.

How air conditioning remade modern America

Science once communicated in a polyglot of tongues, but now English rules alone. How did this happen – and at what cost?

Best Posts Series § 8

This links' post includes several links to truly exceptional sites on what I called "Literature, History, Politics," which I've been gathering for a long time. But, first of all:

"This year marks the 25th anniversary of a mass immigration wave that would ultimately bring more than one million immigrants to Israel from the former Soviet Union." My family has been among those FSU immigrants, that's why I wanted to share those series of posts about how we, FSU immigrants, changed Israel and how Israel changed us.

Literature, History, Politics

At this Psychohistory website (*), in the "Books" section, I was interested in the book "The Origins of War in Child Abuse," especially in "Chapter 6: The Childhood Origins of World War II and the Holocaust." Psychohistory may not give all the answers, but it has led to several important insights, imo.

"Timothy Snyder is Housum Professor of History at Yale and the author of Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin." You may read articles by this famous historian here. He has written a lot about Ukraine and Russia, and even though the most recent article is dated November, 2014, some are more relevant than ever. See, for instance, "Ukraine: The Antidote to Europe’s Fascists?"

Kenan Malik is "a writer, lecturer and broadcaster." His post with "99 of the most relevant essays and reviews" is here. I was especially interested in his posts on Enlightenment (not all of them are included in the above list, f.e. "the enlightenment – and why it still matters" is not) and in his posts on multiculturalism. Regarding the latter, "the failure of multiculturalism" seems to fully express his position.

How Iowa Flattened Literature: with CIA help, writers were enlisted to battle both Communism and eggheaded abstraction. The damage to writing lingers.

"How—and How Not—to Love Mankind." The article discusses the differences between "two great European writers of the nineteenth century, Ivan Turgenev and Karl Marx." I read Turgenev's "Mumu" in childhood, which made the article even more interesting.

He has also written "The Specters Haunting Dresden" and "Modernity’s Uninvited Guest: Civilization makes progress, but evil persists." (In general, I don't agree with many of his opinions, but some of his columns are interesting, and, for somebody from the Middle East, educational regarding how quite many Europeans perceive the developments on their continent.)

Ottomans and Zionists: Blogging about Turkey and Israel, the two most interesting countries in the Middle East.

Articles by Terry Eaglton, "a literary critic, writer and chair in English literature in Lancaster University's department of English and creative writing."

Language

A Linguist On the Story of Gendered Pronouns

Why Is the Mor in Voldemort (and Mordor and Dr. Moreau) So Evil-Sounding?

Photos

52 Powerful Photos Of Women Who Changed History Forever

The Most Astonishing Photos That Won Awards In 2014

Please, comment to let me know whether anybody reads those posts.

(*) "Psychohistory, the science of historical motivations, combines the insights of psychotherapy with the research methodology of the social sciences to understand the emotional origin of the social and political behavior of groups and nations, past and present."

Best Posts Series § 7

POLITICS, HISTORY & CULTURE

If you want to understand Russian - Ukrainian situation, read this article. "When it comes to explaining Russia’s Ukrainian adventurism, the West has attempted to hide behind a wall of myths and hope its problems will just go away."

On Crimes and Punishments and Beccaria. "This [post] addresses why medieval governments and the Church used so much violent torture, not by analyzing the Middle Ages, but by revisiting the first moment that [those questions] were asked by someone else, and thereby entered the central conversation of European thought, with real and wonderful consequences." A truly wonderful post from an historian!

A Week of Groceries In Different Countries [Pictures]

Tales from Dystopia is a series of blog posts of memories of the apartheid era in South Africa.

197: Before It Had A Name. There's the time when you know something is happening, but you're not sure exactly what. The illness […] The era, before it's been given a title. And something changes when the name is given. Stories of that transformation...between what it is now, and what it was before it had a name.

LITERATURE

A Letter from Anton Chekhov To His Brother Nikolay. What defines a cultured person.

The Lack of Female Road Narratives and Why it Matters.

The Appeal of Horror

SCIENCE & ECONOMICS

Scientists have found that memories may be passed down through generations in our DNA

How businesses can ignore large potential markets without going bankrupt.

Competition’s effect on prices. "When competition results in overcapacity and fixed costs are a major cost that must be amortized across the number of units sold, prices rise."

Best Posts Series § 6

LITERATURE & WRITING TIPS

A scholar's take on Realism and Modernism: Part I Part 2 Part 3.

A lesson in logical fallacies, in which each fallacy gets its own biting haiku.

A writer's take on 3 Levels of Conflict necessary for a good story: global (the character against the world), local (between characters) and inner.

Several basic but sometimes helpful writing tips.

POLITICS, SOCIETY, CULTURE & the rest

When climate change becomes a matter of war and peace. Explanation of the economic factor in the Syrian civil war.

Israeli vs. Palestinian narratives. The linked blog is the most extreme Israeli Left, and I disagree with much written in it. However, this column presents the narratives well.

The Politics of Security in a Democracy. Why do politicians tend to overreact to terrorist threats?

THE ROOTS OF HORROR: The Institutionalized Destruction of Innocence -- and of Life Authoritarian parenting: its causes and the far-reaching socio-political effects.

This newly-found blog has many other interesting posts, f.e. "When Life and Happiness Are Not Enough: The Tragedy of the Unborn Self." Are people right to "decry the obsession with narrow self-interest"? Do we really need "noble, higher purpose"?

UNUSUAL PHOTOS

Incredible Self Portraits by 14-Year-Old Photographer. "Zev from Natick, Massachusetts, has taken the photography world by storm with his surreal photo manipulations. Better known by the nickname of ‘fiddle oak’ […] His work seems to mirror the transition from the fairy-tale childhood worlds into more complicated and still unknown ones."

Photo collection of wooden mobile houses looking like "gingerbread Victorian houses on wheels."

See the past like you wouldn't believe. Paris in color 1909-1930. At the page's bottom you can find links to other capsules. I loved the 1909-1915: Color photographs of Imperial Russia.

Best Posts Series § 5

LITERATURE

Culture is a Fiction. "If you think studying "culture" is something different from studying literature, that it leaves literature behind, I have a different perspective for you." And his additional post: Three Kinds of Magic.

Unusual Book Designs. The post is in Russian, but the pictures are the important part. If you want to ask for explanation about a certain book, feel free.

And, in case you missed it before: Books of the Year: The Best Books of 2012. My book recommendations / mini reviews.

SOMETHING SMALL TO THINK ABOUT

Decision fatigue. "Researchers have found that your willpower goes down, as does your ability to make good decisions, when you've had to make a series of decisions over the course of a day. […] President Obama indicated that he's cut his wardrobe down to blue suits and gray suits, so that he can cut down on the time spent deciding. Good call, Mr. President. […] A regular routine isn't limiting to creativity. It's freeing because it conserves your energy to make the important decisions related to your creative life."

The Tradeoff Between Ambition and Happiness. In this case, the main value isn't even in the originality of the post itself, but in beginning this conversation. First of all, with yourself, if you feel it may apply to your life.

Screw Optimism and screw “sanity”. "Optimism is wonderfully adaptive as long as optimists aren’t your leaders or analysts, and don’t run your nuclear power plants […] Likewise I am beyond tired of the excessive stigmatization of anger and hatred."

POLITICS

The problem of “good enough.” “Idealism is the only mindset which produces change. […] The wet noodle mindset of “good enough” has never produced any value for anyone except exploiters and rulers. The willful acceptance and tolerance of evil generates more evil, and has never generated anything but more evil."

Mark Kitto "You'll never be Chinese: Why I'm leaving the country I loved." [From August 8, 2012] An interesting analysis of China's situation, both China's current problems and predictions about the country's future.

The Modern King in the Arab Spring. The point of view of Jordan's Abdullah II, the region's most pro-American Arab leader.

CENTURY OF THE SELF - watch here. "This series is about how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy." I haven't watched it yet, but the series seems interesting.

Corn, Ethanol, Farms, Food and the Logic of the Granary. Discussion of US farm subsidies.

Women & Influence - some powerful facts concerning women in political office.

SOCIETY

For Amusement Only: the life and death of the American arcade. The article also shows that blaming social ills on games is anything but a new phenomenon.

If you are interested in fashion, you may like THREAD FOR THOUGHT blog. "How fashion intersects politics, economics, gender, race, & pop culture."

If you like analyzing pop culture, look at Jane's take on Yeah Yeah Yeah's new video for their single "Sacrilege".

Current Mood: accomplished

This horrible tragedy was on the 1^st page of Israeli newspapers too. Wanted to share some thoughtful posts I read:

February 13, 2013: The School Shooting Pivot Date analyzes people's reactions. “Frantic hyperactivity to mask impotence, frantic hyperactivity to signal to some omnipotent entity that you are trying to make things right– it’s the description for what’s happening now and the definition of obsessional neurosis.”

Can’t Bear to Look: Why the Media is Full of Distorted/Freak Photos of Adam Lanza."If we’re going to learn from this tragedy, especially with all the question marks that exist surrouning mental health, distorting Lanza’s image beyond his already thoroughly internally-distorted self is a bad idea. Rather, it is incumbent on us to try and see him as clearly as we can."

Stop Comparing the United States to Israel. Why presenting Israel "as some sort of shining beacon of what a country with an armed citizenry could be like" is mistaken. I was extremely surprised some people in US thought this about my country. In one of Israeli newspapers they even had a table, comparing US vs. Israeli gun laws, and in Israel laws are significantly stricter.

You Cannot Make Me Own a Gun: What Gun Culture Looks Like. A teacher writes why forcing teachers to carry guns isn't the best idea, and about gun culture of her town in general.

Drew Magary in "Down With Big Gun" offers to target the industry of firearms manufacturing.

Best Posts Series § 4

LITERATURE & WRITING TIPS

A literature prof writes about her "approach to artists who do horrible things in RL" and in the comments discusses the question of art vs. morality: can somebody write a wonderful book serving a horrible ideology or is great art inherently moral?

In case you missed Reviewing Books of the Year post: Best Books of Prose & Verse I read in 2011.

A literature prof on The Rules of Good Academic Writing: here & the next part is here.

The Deerstalker: Where Sherlock Holmes’ Popular Image Came From.

Great SF authors share their biggest writing setbacks — and how they triumphed.

Loved this excerpt (look at the post's end) from Learning to Fall - The Blessings of an Imperfect Life – by Philip Simmons.

The evolution of Harry Potter fandom. "Wand? Check. Robes? Check. House colors? Check. Another summer, another Harry Potter con. I’m an old pro at this—or so I think"

Why I Write. A blogger explains why she blogs & writes, which are 2 different things.

THE TABOO TOPIC: LET'S TALK ABOUT …

Let's Talk About Money and the American Dream. 5 post series, in which Balancing Jane analyzes the concept of the American Dream in its' complexity, from tensions within to possible distortions. Finally! Nowadays money, not sex, is the true Unmentionable in Polite Society topic.

Our Newlywed Money Dilemma.

I've also seen a long discussion on Finances and Relationships here, but it was a discussion, not an analysis, as in Balancing Jane's posts.

HISTORY, SOCIETY, POLITICS & the rest

Archaeological dig at Sobibor extermination camp in Poland reveals what the Nazis tried to hide. "Archaeology is typically associated with the study of ancient history, but … the archaeological site could be used an important tool against Holocaust denial. Haimi believes that, with survivors rapidly dying, it could soon become a key tool for understanding the Holocaust, calling it "the future research tool of the Holocaust."

Why Are Americans More Religious than Europeans?

Olympics: To dip or not to dip? "Most teams briefly lower colors as they pass host nation's leaders at opening ceremony … the US does not, and the century-old saga is a curious one."

Very funny! Bic designed a pen especially for women & ladies shared their impressions. Among my favorites is GadgetChick's sentiment "I am just thankful it was my only my son that grabbed the "Bic For Her" pen, and not my husband too."

The tawdry medical history of soft drinks. I discovered io9 blog only yesterday and it seems to be a worthy read, covering science news, writing advice & more.

Current Mood: calm

Best Posts Series § 3

LITERATURE & WRITING TIPS

On escaping one's context with help of old books. "We acknowledge the ideas of prior cultures relied on their context, but we willfully ignore our own immersion in our context... Even the best stuff still suffers from its immersion in 2012. If you want to see things differently, you have to approach them from radically different contexts."

A literature prof answers "What Is the Value of Fiction?" for her.

"The Trouble With Prince Charming or He Who Trespassed Against Us". Roxane Gay compares 2 modern fairy tales: Twilight and Fifty Shades trilogy. Haven't read either, so didn't know the latter rose out of fan fiction, inspired by Twilight.

Jamie Johnston reviews "one of the best books of any kind I've read in a long time" – the history book that reads like a novel, 'The noble revolt' by John Adamson. "In the space of eighteen months, between the summer of 1640 and the winter of 1641, England came within a hair's breadth of being transformed from an absolute monarchy to a quasi-republic more democratic in some ways than the United Kingdom is even today. It was done with almost no bloodshed, and it was done by a group of barely two dozen men."

Very funny: "Russian Language Harry Potter Fandom is Awesome". Encyclopedia of feminism according to Harry Potter.

How To (Learn To) Scan A Poem

Taking the Mental Leap: Thinking of Yourself as a Writer

How being a librarian helps with editing. A few tips on editing your story.

Many wonderful writing tips, discussions of fantasy genre, etc. HERE. For example, see: Using themes and messages in your writing without being obnoxious.

SOCIETY, CULTURE, SCIENCE & the rest

Several atheists wrote about their approach to Death & experience of grief, and I was moved by "Love in the Present Tense". Another good post. Greta Christina talks of "Comforting Thoughts About Death That Have Nothing To Do With God" & explains why some atheists felt the need for online faith-free grief support group, Grief Beyond Belief. More opinions.

"Depression is Not Sadness". Very illuminating explanation of what depression is.

The Abusive Boyfriend. Not-about-relationships post for both genders. "The abusive boyfriend I'm describing is your unconscious, and Tom has nothing on him, though Tom has, through the hypertrophied intuition of damaged men, figured out how it all works".

Women, anger and status: taking the long view

White Savior Complex & Bloody Hands

The Slow Journey from HPV Infection to Cervical Cancer

32,000 Year-Old Flower Has Rebloomed. There is a picture too! I am usually not interested in plants, but isn't it amazing?

Current Mood: calm

One of plusses of posting infrequently is that with pass of time one can judge better what's worthy to be included. Enjoy and I would love to hear which categories interest you the most!

LITERATURE

David Brin's List of "Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy Tales"
Review of "Snuff" by Terry Pratchett
Review of John Knowles's A Separate Peace

ART

Our Aesthetic Categories: An Interview with Sianne Ngai
From What is Talent (women, gender and art blog) : "Stalking for Art: Sophie Calle, Heather Blackwell, and Willem Popelier"

POLITICS

The Duality of Life in Iran
An American combat veteran, who served in Iraq, writes RE "So the war ended".
From Pearl Harbor to a Robot Economy
The fraying of China’s Hobbesian social contract?
Fact and Opinion in the News.
Marketing Bradley Manning

CULTURE

A fascinating post on how advertisement works: "Luxury Branding The Future Leaders Of The World". The Last Psychiatrist's blog in general looks interesting. He also wrote "The Twilight Movie Review Your Boyfriend Doesn't Want You To Read", which I enjoyed despite being too bored to watch the movie in full.

Woman and Children First. For decades the science of child-rearing was guided by patriarchal ideas, but now the cradle rocks to an older rhythm. Eric Michael Johnson, in conversation with eminent evolutionary biologists Sarah Hrdy and Robert Trivers, explores how Mother Nature and the social network that nurtured our past have been remembered at last.

Achieve happiness by lying to yourself! The dangers of “Positive thinking”.

If you ~~hated~~ enjoyed Frank Miller's "300" (a film RE Spartans), check this.

HISTORY

George Bernard Shaw vs. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on the Titanic disaster. I find GB Shaw's descriptions of "outrageous romantic lying" still relevant today.

I'll end with 3 historical deaths:
The Very Last World War I Veteran Has Died
Lana Peters, Stalin’s Daughter, Dies at 85. The article tells of her unusual life. I read her autobiography, “Twenty Letters to a Friend,” in Russian with great interest long ago.
R.I.P. Ray Bradbury (August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012) - His grandson, Danny Karapetian, shared these words with io9 about his grandfather's passing.

Current Mood: content

Initially proposed as "Weekly Best Posts" feature turned into "Best Posts Series" upon further consideration. Enjoy!

FANDOM / LITERATURE

Newly discovered great blog "Contrary Brin - Speculations on Science, Technology & the Future" writes on the subject I wondered about too – "How to Define Science Fiction" - and tells about the genre's history of development.

oneandthetruth applies the lessons from Dog Whisperer to Potterverse.

sarahtales's new series "Let's Go Gothic", "in which on one Tuesday every month, I will talk about Gothic fiction", and her additional book recs

Rob Goodman, a former English teacher, sees some problems in how symbolism is currently taught in US schools – "The Abuse of Symbolism: Why English teachers love symbolism, and why that’s a problem."

ECONOMICS

The graphs (based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics) of the last 3 recessions may show that Jobless Recoveries are Normal Now.

Professor Mitchell gave a long interview (August 15, 2011) on Debt, Deficits, and Modern Monetary Theory

POLITICS, HISTORY, SOCIETY.

Michael Mehaffy and Nikos A. Salingaros: "The Architect Has No Clothes" Why does modern design tend to look so harsh and feel so unhospitable?

An Anti-Choice group is currently promoting a film which compares abortion to the Holocaust and nominatissima explains how she views it "as a Jew, as the owner of a uterus, as a pro-choicer". I found this post very valuable because of learning historical facts I've never heard of despite being an Israeli Jew.

Should the October Revolution Be Celebrated? - "Around every November 7th, the Russian-speaking blogosphere explodes with discussions as to whether this date should be celebrated. My answer to this question is an unequivocal yes."

Chally at Zero at the Bone researched sources and wrote a series of posts on Alice Mitchell case.
"Alice Mitchell was a white society girl who grew up in Memphis, Tennessee, in the USA, during the late nineteenth century. Very much in love with her fiance, Freda Ward, she’d been devastated when Ward’s family cut off contact between them. Deciding that, if she couldn’t have Ward, neither could anyone else, on 23 January 1892, at nineteen years of age, she slit the throat of seventeen-year-old Freda in the street. And American ideas about sexuality, violence, and the nature of womanhood got shot to hell."

Reading Domestic Violence Awareness Month Blog Carnival, I loved the most Beth Mann's written as a story "The Ghosts of Broken Glass".