I'll say this.

A good friend of mine was a teacher for a decent stretch of time, and focused on teaching autistic children. She found it extremely rewarding but that's inconsequential and completely besides the point. She always had a lot to say about how happy and full the lives of her students were. I remember when my wife and I were looking at having a kid, and I was talking to her about my fears that at our age there was a higher probability of genetic issues resulting in things like Downs Syndrome. I will always remember the distinct lack of time that elapsed in her reply, coupled with her nakedly honest response asking why that would even matter, -that children with Down syndrome where just as awesome and capable of radical happiness as any other.

I still think about that jarring moment to this day.

I've been really enjoying my last couple evenings listening to some music recs from cgod.

It's late in life, but I'm happy I finally realized that when it comes to effortless weekday evening meals, boneless chicken thighs are one order of magnitude better than boneless chicken breasts, which are totally for basic bitches. I actually feel a bit foolish for not knowing this important truth years earlier but whatever I'm good now.

When you have given all you can to the point of breaking yourself, you have not failed her.

My wife's sister just died from cancer. She was in hospice for mere weeks, and between her husband, myself, my wife, my wife's sister, my wife's brother, and both of her parents, there weren't enough of us to give her all of the care she needed. We all gave her every bit of what we could. We were looking into a full time nurse right up till the end.

I'm sure you already are looking at it this way, but it's worth being mindful (meditating if you will) of the fact that in taking care of yourself, you'll be ensuring that you can take care of her to the best of your ability.

After nine months of programming exclusively on HBO, the shows also will be available free on PBS, its home for the last 45 years.

Ok, I can get behind this. Content still makes it to PBS to be freely distributed, without much delay (9 months is quick for programming that isn't topical). And I'm sure this enables much more programming in line with their mission to be created.

Terrifying headline. Not too shabby with context.

Try setting your main page to if for a couple weeks. It mainlines you right to where the action is. Not the headlines, -the conversation. Not just the comments, -the latest comments.

It makes the whole Hubski experience more immediate and lively feeling. Instead of seeing a page of links with some various number of shares that you then regard and decide whether you want to click, you see your folks talking, and oh yeah, they're talking right now so you can just jump right into a live convo.

I was watching the live stream of this. Horrifying. Then you stop and consider that weapons like these are deployed against innocent people like them all the time. We're only now getting to the point where the ability of innocents to transmit in real-time what is being done to them is hitting critical mass.

Thank god.

If this does not remain an option I'm quitting Hubski.

First off, congratulations brother.

Here is my concept for a name, -sorry for the ugly mockup but I drew it with my fat finger on a tiny iPhone screen.

No Wave Coffee:

Name is kind of a double entendre. The logo represents three layers: sand, smooth water, and sky. It references a mellow, placid place to hang out. It reinforces coffee as a relaxing ritual when you already are or promises to get you closer to that when you're hectic and on the go.That's the top level. "No-wave" is also a tongue in cheek reference to all of the third-wave coffee shops that have been popping up all over the country (that have been both praised for their dedication to great coffee and ridiculed for going over the top in this by haters). On this level you're saying "I'm not a third wave, or any wave shop. I'm just here making good coffee." This lets you do two things: 1. It gets a nod from the haters because you're bringing the concept of a coffee shop "back down to Earth" so to speak, but at the same time, you're completely speaking to those people who do care about third-wave shop's dedication to the best product. By referencing third-wave you're telling all those people "Yup, I know what's up, don't worry, I got you covered." You're not going to reference the third wave movement in your name then turn around and serve shit. You message both camps at the same time and give then what they want. Everybody else (vast majority) doesn't even realize you're doing this and just views it at the surface level.

Logo might be better with an orange half-sun setting on the ocean part. Orange would work in the color scheme.

All in all, No Wave Coffee stands for the best coffee you can get without pretense.

Edit: It could also work on a third level as a lot of people don't know this, but there actually is surfing round Portalnd. Why not.

I think you and Spike miss the mark in the sense that gentrification is primarily about economic status and not skin color.

Unfortunately, no matter the effort I make to respect the existing character and culture of the neighborhood, I am dilution. Each time a house goes up for sale, my wife and hope that the new people aren't white.

You are dilution, but you are economic dilution. Property values closer to your city center have been rising and pushing outward. Don't get me wrong, economic status correlates strongly with skin color in our country, but this dilution could have occurred by a well-to-to (and is I'm sure) black family or yourself and the results would be the same for the lower income minority (or majority) traditional residents of the neighborhood you are in, especially if they are renters.

Again, you can't ignore the correlation between wealth and cultural background, but what is really happening is that wealthier people are driving up property values in neighborhoods they descend on, pushing poor and blue collar residents out. When you're a rich professional that just bought an apartment in the South Bronx and your neighbor is playing bass, you're going to complain no matter what color your skin is, -because hey, you paid a lot of money for this place and you're entitled.

And when you look at the "problem" as it really is, it's easy to see how intractable it is. How do you stop a free market from pricing assets like buildings, and if you could, to what design and end exactly. This correlation between wealth and race causes confusion on the issue of gentrification. Like, is the goal to preserve a locale for poor and blue collar people of all colors, just the colors that lived there before, or do we not care about their income and we're cool with rich people moving in as long as they are a diverse group? And those questions absolutely have to be answered if you plan on doing anything because you're going to have to intentionally intervene in the market with laws or regulations. For me, the "crime" is being committed against poor and working class people and their statistical skin color becomes the face of it all. But wealth attracts wealth; I don't know how you stop it if it's right to stop it at all. You're so right in saying it's a tough issue.

From the article:

And why does it take an influx of white New Yorkers in the south Bronx, in Harlem, in Bed Stuy, in Crown Heights for the facilities to get better?

It doesn't take white New Yorkers. It takes wealthy New Yorkers. It's worth looking at though, why it takes wealthy New Yorkers, and why more wealthy New Yorkers are white.

Thank you wasoxygen.

I got more of a sense of being on the ground from reading that than from any account I've read anywhere. You really captured the frenetic uncertainty of the situation so well.

Great opening context as well, and finally, that was a great shot of the mosque interior.

And of course, the last pic...a nice shout-out.

You've framed this all wrong.

See, I too care about the weather a bit too much. I paid twenty dollars for this weather app on my phone and considered it a steal: http://radarscope.tv/products/

But why did I do this and why do I care? Is it because I'm old? Fuck no. I need the absolute highest resolution, up to date, and comprehensive weather information at my fingertips because I ride a motherfuckin motorcycle. Fast. Every drop of rain on the road could mean the difference between life and death the way I roll. Every driver squinting towards me into the sun as they turn right onto the road in front of me heading East at dusk is a potentially blind slab of steel dropping itself into my path. Every sudden dip in the temperature could mean the difference between making it home and getting stranded.

I love weather because I live on the edge.

Don't you own a motorcycle? You could totally use this reason too.

Full disclosure, I ride a Harley so I don't really live on the edge at all. They are so slow. Sucks to get rained on though. That part is true at least.

Happy New year to all of you. Thenewgreen, it's 12:51 and I think you've been typing that since 12:01. Please tell me you aren't on a smartphone ;)

Just finished watching a collage of NYC ball drops since 1976. Sorta wishing I could go back in time where at least the crowds in Time Square weren't covered in advertising. Such is life. Seeing all the "in-camera" crowd wearing ridiculous blue foam Nivea branded top hats was a bit much for me. Who could have guessed just how pervasive advertising had gotten in what feels like such a short time.

Hope everyone is heading into 2014 with the wind at their back.

I feel like I'm trapped in a surreal, absurd alternate universe. Corporations don't believe in God.

The marrying of legal constructions designed for commerce and the people that work for and own them has gone too far.

After the ridiculous expansion of corporate personhood under Citezen's United I am no longer assuaged that the absurd is not the possible under this court though.

Ok, sorry for the brevity (on my phone here), but was awesome meeting all of you. What a great time and what great conversation. Thanks for that.

As much as I think Rand Paul is a nitwit I'd probably vote for him at this point.

You have NO IDEA how much it pains me that I am beginning to agree with this. I would not want to live in a country that enacted all he argues for at all but he's one of the only horses in town when it comes to our privacy, which has been absolutely demolished. I mean, it's already gone. We only have privacy in the sense that nobody cares enough to glance at us at this particular moment. They're fine with this, because they have recorded all of our previous moments.

It's the same problem the social progressives (read: religious right) have been facing (and will increasingly face) with the Republicans.

The short answer is "No, if you want to avoid handing control to the Republicans, who are infinitely worse."

I think the best thing to do is brand yourself within the party and nibble away from the bottom up. The Tea Party did this to great effect, and shifted the Republican party even further to the right by knocking down more regional House slots. They still ran as Republicans but they were branded Republicans and the brand meant something.

It's worth keeping in mind that while the Tea Party succeeded in moving the Republicans to the right and not splintering the vote in the Dem's favor by going 3rd party in head to head races, their strategy still cost the Republicans dearly in some races. They are still grappling with the pros and cons of the swollen Tea Party ranks.

But it was the most effective branded ideological shift I've seen executed in my memory. They had a lot of billionaire and media help though. They weren't as grass roots as they claimed to be.

Edit: I once heard a Green Party candidate running for a local seat speak. I shit you not he worked himself into a frenzy and at one point started yelling "And we will rise up with our Green brothers and sisters in Germany and...." I mean, he lost me before that, but I was half expecting a Heil Hitler. I've seen many Greens reference Germany and it makes me infer that there must be a really strong Green party presence there. Makes me not even go near considering a domestic Green candidate. It's bad enough they are making a platform out of a single issue without forgetting who they are representing.

I don't think it's bad at all. You know, it's not about the number of users, it's about the right users. I'm sorry, but a 'thoughtful web' is going to have some text.

I have a long way to go, but I'm excited to go there.

Keep going when you do. I was just having a drink last night with a friend of mine who I've known for quite some time. I learned something new about him, -that he had a full-ride photography scholarship to the most prestigious (and crazy expensive) art and design school in our area. He ended up losing it because he was only interested in photography and their program asked students to master disparate disciplines before they had a chance to dive into their core curriculum. He felt he could not draw, paint, etc and did terribly in non-photography classes, so his grades suffered and he lost a full ride scholarship as a result.

Frankly I could tell that he was a bit sad looking back. I think if he could go back and do it again he would, -this time focusing and trusting that what he was being taught was all to the good of his discipline. He was certainly capable enough to have done it the first time around, despite what he said.

It was actually composition itself, which you mention above, that I used as an example of knowledge from one discipline informing another. I always try and at least pay some attention to composition, even when snapping quick candids on a crappy cell phone at family gatherings. This small investment of attention often ends up with people specifically requesting .jpegs to print and frame, etc. It's fun to work at something with the goal of doing it better.

Haha. They really did their research. That is some hard hitting journalism!