Abortion Rates Higher In ‘Pro-Life’ Countries

October 9

The urge to toy with musical materials, to manipulate a melody playfully by changing its inner rhythm or by substituting pitches or adding new ones mus spring from a deep-seated human instinct because we find its manifestations in all ages and cultures…Leopold Mozart spoke of a force of nature that compels us to ornament; even a peasant, he said, cannot help but adorn his peasant song with graces (Versuch einer ViolinschuleI, chap. 9, par. 1). Musical ornamentation is only one aspect of a general urge to improve life’s experience by embellishing the surroundings as well as oneself. There is ornamentation in the figurative arts, in architecture and landscaping, in fashion, jewelry, make-up, hair-do, perfume, even in rhetoric and of course in the decorative arts, all of which are dedicated to beautifying the environment.

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Performance Practices of the 17^th and 18^th Centuries,

“Problems of Musical Ornamentation”

Frederick Neumann

August 25

Why Are Finland's Schools Successful?

The transformation of the Finns’ education system began some 40 years ago as the key propellent of the country’s economic recovery plan. Educators had little idea it was so successful until 2000, when the first results from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a standardized test given to 15-year-olds in more than 40 global venues, revealed Finnish youth to be the best young readers in the world. Three years later, they led in math. By 2006, Finland was first out of 57 countries (and a few cities) in science. In the 2009 PISA scores released last year, the nation came in second in science, third in reading and sixth in math among nearly half a million students worldwide. “I’m still surprised,” said Arjariita Heikkinen, principal of a Helsinki comprehensive school. “I didn’t realize we were that good.”

(via the-feature)

June 9

"You Left Out the Part About..." -- The Racial Politics of "X-Men: First Class"

whiteboydanceparty:

But as “First Class” roars to its final climatic scene, it appeals to an insidious suspension of disbelief; the heroic mutants of America, bravely opposing bigotry and fear, are revealed as not so much a spectrum of humankind, but as Eagle Scouts from Mayfield. Thus, “First Class” proves itself not merely an incredible film, but an incredible work of American historical fiction. Here is a period piece for our postracial times — in the era of Ella Baker and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the most powerful adversaries of spectacular apartheid are a team of enlightened white dudes.

“First Class” is set in 1962. That was the year South Carolina marked the Civil War centennial by returning the Confederate Flag to the State Capitol; the year the University of Mississippi greeted its first black student, James Meredith, with a lethal race riot; the year George Wallace was elected governor of Alabama.

That was the year a small crowd of Americans gathered at the Lincoln Memorial and commemorated the 100th birthday of the Emancipation Proclamation. Only a single African-American was asked to speak (Thurgood Marshall, added under threat of boycott). In “First Class,” 1962 finds our twin protagonists, Magneto and Professor X, also rallying before the Lincoln Memorial, not for protest or commemoration, but for a game of chess. “First Class” is not blind to societal evils, so much as it works to hold evil at an ocean’s length. The film is rooted in its opposition to the comfortably foreign abomination of Nazism.

This article is fucking beautiful. A must read.

(Source: robotgrizzlybearastronaut)

April 9

The Sleepless Elite

“by Melinda Beck
Thursday, April 7, 2011

provided by

Why some people can run on little sleep and get so much done

For a small group of people — perhaps just 1% to 3% of the population — sleep is a waste of time.

Natural “short sleepers,” as they’re officially known, are night owls and early birds simultaneously. They typically turn in well after midnight, then get up just a few hours later and barrel through the day without needing to take naps or load up on caffeine.”

August 24

The blessing of being sensitive

(via laquimeralinda)

Whoa whoa whoa. Really interesting article!

July 28

alittlebitofeverythingglorious:

dinosaurusrex:(via lumos-maxima)

×

Adams' heirs skeptical about lost negatives claim

“Photos snapped up for $45 may be the lost — and extremely lucrative — work of Ansel Adams”

interesting article

May 20

There are weird similarities between Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy.

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846. John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.
Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860. John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960.
Both were shot in the back of the head in the presence of their wives.
Both wives lost their children while living in the White House.
Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Lincoln’s secretary was named Kennedy.
Both were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson.
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808. Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.
Lincoln was shot at the theater named ‘Ford.’ Kennedy was shot in a car called ‘Lincoln’ made by ‘Ford.’
Lincoln was shot in a theater and his assassin ran and hid in a warehouse. Kennedy was shot from a warehouse and his assassin ran and hid in a theater.
Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials.

- OMG Facts.

May 16

Stop and Hear the Music

Video of Joshua Bell playing in the DC Metro.

The woman at the end :)

January 17

15 Interesting Facts about Dreams

interesting bits of information

alittlebitofeverythingglorious: loveyourchaos: recyclablewords: somethingintellectual:

1. You forget 90% of your dreams. Within 5 minutes of waking, half of your dream is forgotten. Within 10, 90% is gone.

2. Blind people also dream.People who became blind after birth can see images in their dreams. People who are born blind do not see any images, but have dreams equally vivid involving their other senses of sound, smell, touch and emotion.

3. Everybody dreams. Every human being dreams (except in cases of extreme psychological disorder). If you think, you are not dreaming, you just forget your dreams.

4. In our dreams, we only see faces that we already know. Our mind is not inventing faces – in our dreams we see real faces of real people that we have seen during our life but may not know or remember. We have all seen hundreds of thousands of faces throughout our lives, so we have an endless supply of characters for our brain to utilize during our dreams.

5. Not everybody dreams in color. A full 12% of sighted people dream exclusively in black and white. The remaining number dream in full color. Studies from 1915 through to the 1950s maintained that the majority of dreams were in black and white, but these results began to change in the 1960s. Today, only 4.4% of the dreams of under-25 year-olds are in black and white. Recent research has suggested that those changing results may be linked to the switch from black-and-white film and TV to color media.

6. Dreams are symbolic. If you dream about some particular subject it is not often that the dream is about that. Dreams speak in a deeply symbolic language. Whatever symbol your dream picks on it is most unlikely to be a symbol for itself.

7. Emotions; The most common emotion experienced in dreams is anxiety. Negative emotions are more common than positive ones.

8. You can have four to seven dreams in one night.On average, you can dream anywhere from one or two hours every night.

9. Animals dream too.Studies have been done on many different animals, and they all show the same brain waves during dreaming sleep as humans. Watch a dog sleeping sometime. The paws move like they are running and they make yipping sounds as if they are chasing something in a dream.

10. Body Paralysis.

Rapid eye movement (REM) sleep is a normal stage of sleep characterized by rapid movements of the eyes. REM sleep in adult humans typically occupies 20-25% of total sleep, about 90-120 minutes of a night’s sleep.

During REM sleep the body is paralyzed by a mechanism in the brain in order to prevent the movements which occur in the dream from causing the physical body to move. However, it is possible for this mechanism to be triggered before, during, or after normal sleep while the brain awakens.

11. Dream Incorporation.Our mind interprets the external stimuli that our senses are bombarded with when we are asleep and make them a part of our dreams. This means that sometimes, in our dreams, we hear a sound from reality and incorporate it in a way. For example you may be dreaming that you are in a concert, while your brother is playing a guitar during your sleep.

12. Men and women dream differently. Men tend to dream more about other men. Around 70% of the characters in a man’s dream are other men. On the other hand, a woman’s dream contains almost an equal number of men and women. Aside from that, men generally have more aggressive emotions in their dreams than the female lot.

13. Precognitive Dreams.Results of several surveys across large population sets indicate that between 18% and 38% of people have experienced at least one precognitive dream and 70% have experienced déjà vu. The percentage of persons that believe precognitive dreaming is possible is even higher, ranging from 63% to 98%.

14. If you are snoring, then you cannot be dreaming.

15. You can experience an orgasm in your dreams.You can not only have s e x as pleasurable as in your real life while dreaming, but also experience an o r g a s m as strong as a real one, without any wet results. The sensations felt while lucid dreaming (touch, pleasure and etc..) can be as pleasurable and strong (or I believe even stronger) as the sensations experienced in the real world.

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