Week of July 19th

Let's start with some cold, hard, news.

This is utterly absurd to me.  It is as if money is literally worth a different value in different locations.  So many of you are homeowners.  How do you justify it?  And what on earth, Boston?
(Will you come visit me in Topeka?)

Continuing with news of importance-- I was a little disappointed to read that the new season of Scandal will highlight Abby.  Actually (truthfully), when I saw the headline I thought- "who's Abby?"

And do you want a compelling way to prove the popularity of the World Cup.  Check out the impact it had on web based porn.

And I'm starting to cross my fingers that maybe I'll really get to live through our finding life in outer space.  You think?  If we concentrate our efforts really hard in the next 30 years???

Let's talk about art...design...vaginas.

 

Did you see this artist, above, who did her own crowdsourcing to fund her vagina based kayak?  Apparently she has now been arrested for obsenity.
And I had a bit of a debate recently with friends about whether the design for the World Cup stadium in Qatar is actually vagina shaped.  They said no.  I said it looks identical to a plate in Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party.  Personally, I think there is no question about it, but given that the architect says otherwise I'm presenting another view.

This is a really interesting piece on the desegregation of public schools since Brown v Board of ed.  Sixty years have passed.... and you can probably assume not a staggering amount of change.

Some real news, really now-- I am assuming you heard about the Malaysian airline flight that was downed this week.  And Ukraine is saying it can prove that Russian missiles downed the aircraft.  

Can we talk about this for a moment?   A single working mother had her nine-year-old play in the park while she was at work.  She was put in jail.  Had she been at home in her house making dinner, would it have been okay? 

There is a lot of rather depressing Israel/Palestinian news to weed through this week, so instead I'm opting for a feel good piece from NPR-- a shared break-fast meal out of the chaos.

And look-- a pro-testing piece!  I finally found one.  Tests make us smarter, they say.  Blog officially balanced!