A fascinating post by a woman who converted to Islam but then left the faith and is now blogging about her experiences.
The restructuring of Spain’s banking sector is slaughtering small and medium-sized businesses. Should we expect to see the same here?
Three Potato Salad with Arugula: a perfectly beautiful and healthy recipe for this time of the year. If you never tried purple potatoes, I highly recommend. They bring joy to many different dishes.
A great post on the food policy. Finally, somebody is trying to attract everybody’s attention to how unhealthy the food we eat is. Instead of quasi-progressive blabber on fat acceptance, let’s have a movement of no acceptance to the junk we are being sold under the guise of food.
Where the supermarket sushi come from.
Child abuse in India. I believe the numbers would be very similar in my country which is why I agree with the author of the OP that this is not all that culture-specific an issue.
Every generation gets the Sherlock Holmes it deserves. Does everybody agree that the recent film versions of Sherlock Holmes are horrible?
“Even President Obama, when talking about education, seems to put it purely in terms of job training. Can’t our higher education reflect higher values?” Good point that is not made nearly often enough.
Please read this shocking post about the abusive and exploitative practices of a place called Antioch University. I think it should be renamed into “Anti-Learning University.” Why do people hand their money over to these crooks when they can attend a much cheaper state university like mine where they will get a real education?
Be careful with whom you pity. They might turn out to be very cuckoo.
I’m fascinated by these reports on life in North Korea because they remind me of how the horribly destructive system we started in my part of the world is still poisoning the lives of many people in completely different cultures.
Why ultra-Othodox Jews are anti-Internet. The article is a lot more interesting than the title, I promise.
A great post on how we are likely to copy the pattern of our parents’ personal life because that’s the only one we know. Remember, people, just telling yourself, “I never want to become like my mother!” is not going to work.
“When admissions offices take race into consideration it is defined as “affirmative-action” and therefore a betrayal of American ideals of meritocracy; when they take where your parents went to school into consideration it is simply a legacy admission, protecting the unique “traditions” of each school. Schools take lots of things into consideration: but somehow the act of taking race into consideration gets picked out, put into a separate category of decision making, and subjected to a separate critique and logic than do those processes which benefit white people.” Let’s discuss this! How do you feel about legacy admission?
A beautiful erotic picture of my favorite dessert. Are there too many food-related links in this link encyclopedia? I think it’s a sign I’m hungry.
Clarissa's Blog 
Thanks for the link, Clarissa.
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You are welcome!
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I am so glad my university got rid of legacy admissions. I think it is stupid to expect your kids to go to a university just because you went there decades ago.
Affirmative action, I’m not against in principle but it has to be done right. In my state we had a lot minorities from poor high schools getting affirmative action into the top state schools. Then they would flunk out a year later. I think if you want to have more minorities in college you have to reform the high school and middle schools.
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In my years as a filmmaker in Hollywood, I’ve attended numerous meetings devoted to making Sherlock Holmes movies; invariably none of the producers in the room have ever actually read Doyle.
I am shocked. Wouldn’t reading the original text be the 1st requirement?
I watched the latest Holmes film and was put off by action parts (explosions, etc.) As for his wondering whether Holmes is inherently better as a book than a movie, I read all Holmes stories, loved them, but loved Russian Soviet Holmes movies not less. They’re among my most favorite movies ever and it’s a pity they aren’t really available to foreign audiences, like the article’s writer.
I did find 1 point he made curious:
I would argue further that social, cultural, and political views and perspectives within the stories themselves — their points of view and narrative styles — would also point to the time and circumstances of each film’s creation
Interesting how Soviet reality affected movies like Holmes or The Three Musketeers. Would love to read such a post. May be you, as a literary critic, would want to write on the topic? I can only think of Holmes being a decent person & that while the movies had action parts, they focused on thought, which I loved. Why would focus on action be anti-Soviet? Or was there less focus on it in US of that era too, before the development of special effects?
AS FOR legacy admission: I find the idea to be the direct opposite of the ideas of meritocracy, (American) individualism and “pull yourself with your bootstraps” (mainly?) conservative rhetoric. Cancel this current aristocracy supporting practice and see how many will be ready to start pulling without whining themselves. I bet on a minority.
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Just for fun, I posted Zoe & Anna Kick Ass & Take Names, the conclusion of my vampire play. (This post also contains links to the other parts for anyone who hasn’t read the earlier sections.) I suspect I am writing them a sequel this summer.
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No affirmative action, no legacy admissions. Meritocracy is the best solution.
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