Category: Manhattan

Last Week in October

Controversy in California: whether the Chinese American kids learn to write simplified Chinese characters or traditional characters – which has some political implications (complicated, when you consider the whole China v. Taiwan thing).

“What Lawyers Can Learn from Sisyphus” – interesting article on how to persist in the face of difficulty. Then again, it’s not often that I see a reference to Sisyphus.

What a sad possible outcome about Amelia Earheart. Of course, crash landing on a coral reef would be a likelier outcome than, say, what Star Trek: Voyager once proposed had happened to her (kidnapped by aliens, of course).

Slate’s Ad Report Card column by Seth Stevenson analyzes tat Levi’s commercial, which has someone narrating a Walt Whitman poem amidst arty cinematography and – of course – people wearing Levi jeans.

Well, as seen in the video below, there was the weird thing at Grand Central, last year-ish, as a complement to the dancing at a Belgian train station.

Pre-Halloween Weekend

Pu-er tea as an investment. Really?

There’s something poignant about reading this NY Times article on Neil Simon, as he’s in his 80’s and as his “Brighton Beach Memoirs” and “Broadway Bound” are being revived.

The age of the internet isn’t making it easy when we post pictures of ourselves and our kids, and this article about the topic makes me wonder about posting any pictures on-line, when or if they get appropriated without our permission (or reminds me that we should read the fine print better).

This looks like a yummy recipe for Apple Cider Doughnuts; just ignore the calories. I’m not a cook or a fryer even, but this is tempting.

A little behind on this, but it’s the 10th anniversary of Alton Brown’s “Good Eats” on Food Network; interesting item about it on NPR radio.

Well, the video below was a thing for a Belgian reality tv show, in a train station in Belgium. This was quite entertaining! I’m imagining if this could happen at Grand Central.

How hysterical. Plus, the Belgians have as much weird taste in tv as anyone else. Ahhh.

Almost Friday

Hat tip from www.refdesk.com: thought of the day – “Everything terrible is something that needs our love.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

Reading this NY Times article about how Mandarin is the trend in Chinatown hasn’t exactly convinced me of giving up on one day improving my Cantonese or trying to stop getting Cantonese and Toisanese confused; it’s not like Mandarin’s going to help me communicate with my relatives. Plus… this isn’t surprising news to me; guess the NY Times wanted to put their imprimatur on this trend in Chinese dialects in NYC.

Prof. Tim Wu of Columbia Law on fair use in copyright law for Slate readers, in light of the developments in the Obama Hope artwork case; fair use always confuses people.

The latest Explainer column on Slate ponders on copyright law in China, in light of Chinese writers being displaced with the Google scanning project (notably, Chinese copyright law doesn’t exactly have fair use theory).

The NY Times on the Cookie Diet… my response is a resounding sarcastic “Yeah, right” to the concept of a cookie diet (I like cake, but it’s not like I’m going to lose weight eating cake). And, I liked how the article closes with these lines:

“For weight loss to stick, you have to be able to settle into an eating pattern that you can adhere to over time,” said Suzanne Havala Hobbs, a clinical associate professor at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. “That eating pattern needs to provide you with all the nutrients you need while holding calories in balance with the number you expend.

“Diets with a gimmick,” she added, “aren’t harmful for a short period of time. But they’re not likely to cause a meaningful change in behavior that will enable you to keep your weight at an optimal level.”

Her advice? “Keep a food diary, cut your portion sizes, cut out the junk and enlist support from family and friends. Start walking — daily. You’ll be better off.”