{"id":5164,"date":"2012-01-22T10:30:15","date_gmt":"2012-01-22T18:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/?p=5164"},"modified":"2012-01-22T11:16:29","modified_gmt":"2012-01-22T19:16:29","slug":"the-sunday-diigo-links-post-weekly-155","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/2012\/01\/22\/the-sunday-diigo-links-post-weekly-155\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sunday Diigo Links Post (weekly)"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"diigo-linkroll\">\n<li>\n<p class=\"diigo-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlanticcities.com\/arts-and-lifestyle\/2012\/01\/landscape-absurdism-urban-prairie-st-louis\/964\">Landscape Absurdism: An Urban Prairie in St. Louis &#8211; Arts &amp; Lifestyle &#8211; The Atlantic Cities<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"diigo-description\">Not as powerful, perhaps, as photos of Detroit&#8217;s ruins, these aerial shots of nature overtaking formerly built-up urban areas is startling in its own way:<br \/>\nQUOTE<br \/>\nAs with many industrial cities in America at the time, post-war St. Louis experienced a rapid decline of its inner city. Desperately seeking solutions before the decay could absorb downtown, local planners and politicians saw slum clearance as the best option.<\/p>\n<p>Decades later, the results are nothing to celebrate. An aggressive demolition policy failed to create a better neighborhood. Instead, it led to a different kind of stigmatized inner city. The chaotic, dirty and declining urban condition of the mid-20th century gave way to the urban prairie of the 21st.<br \/>\nUNQUOTE<\/p>\n<p class=\"diigo-tags\"><span>tags:<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/atlantic_cities\">atlantic_cities<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/st_louis\">st_louis<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/slums\">slums<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/urban_renewal\">urban_renewal<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/urban_forest\">urban_forest<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"diigo-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theatlanticcities.com\/commute\/2012\/01\/tricky-second-wave-urban-highway-removals\/897\">The Tricky Second Wave of Urban Highway Removals &#8211; Commute &#8211; The Atlantic Cities<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"diigo-description\">On retooling old expressways in urban cores:<br \/>\nQUOTE<br \/>\nThe hearings and the public process on these three interventions have revealed a cultural clash: old vs. young, bicyclists vs. solo drivers, yuppies vs. townies, and so on. The fight is in the trenches, in long discussions and blog posts on traffic counts, state modeling and projections, and the methodology of license plate surveys. Everyone&#8217;s voice must be heard, a legacy of the exclusion of citizens in the original construction of the roadways, but seemingly a guarantee of paralysis when it comes to repairing the damage they have caused.<br \/>\nUNQUOTE<\/p>\n<p class=\"diigo-tags\"><span>tags:<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/anthony_flint\">anthony_flint<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/atlantic_cities\">atlantic_cities<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/transportation\">transportation<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/highways\">highways<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/traffic\">traffic<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"diigo-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2012\/01\/of-orbits-and-ice-ages\/?utm_source=alumniaffairs&amp;utm_medium=hagemail&amp;utm_campaign=jan12\">Of orbits and ice ages | Harvard Gazette<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"diigo-description\">On the question of earth&#8217;s changing tilt as a contributor to climate change, don&#8217;t discount CO2 yet:<br \/>\nQUOTE<br \/>\nThough his [Peter Huybers] work suggests that orbital configuration contributes to the loss of glacial ice, Huybers was quick to emphasize that it is only one factor among many.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt could also be that orbital forcing causes a rise is atmospheric CO2, and that it\u2019s the increased CO2 that drives the loss of ice sheets,\u201d he said. \u201cIn all likelihood, both CO2 and increased summer radiation contribute to deglaciation. They\u2019re both expected to push the climate system toward less ice.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnother important aspect to consider is that the orbital configuration we now have is almost exactly where it was 20,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Maximum, but this time we\u2019re near a glacial minimum,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you think about what the difference is between then and now, it\u2019s not the orbital configuration, it\u2019s the CO2. I think that\u2019s important to keep in mind, because it shows that glacial changes are not a simple function of the orbital configuration.\u201d<br \/>\nUNQUOTE<\/p>\n<p class=\"diigo-tags\"><span>tags:<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/harvard_gazette\">harvard_gazette<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/climate_change\">climate_change<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/glaciers\">glaciers<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/peter_huybers\">peter_huybers<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/ice_age\">ice_age<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"diigo-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2012\/01\/15\/opinion\/sunday\/the-rise-of-the-new-groupthink.html?_r=1&amp;pagewanted=all\">The Rise of the New Groupthink &#8211; NYTimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"diigo-description\">Looking forward to reading Susan Cain&#8217;s forthcoming book. Signed, An Introvert.<br \/>\nQUOTE<br \/>\nThe New Groupthink has overtaken our workplaces, our schools and our religious institutions. Anyone who has ever needed noise-canceling headphones in her own office or marked an online calendar with a fake meeting in order to escape yet another real one knows what I\u2019m talking about. Virtually all American workers now spend time on teams and some 70 percent inhabit open-plan offices, in which no one has \u201ca room of one\u2019s own.\u201d During the last decades, the average amount of space allotted to each employee shrank 300 square feet, from 500 square feet in the 1970s to 200 square feet in 2010.<\/p>\n<p>Our schools have also been transformed by the New Groupthink. Today, elementary school classrooms are commonly arranged in pods of desks, the better to foster group learning. Even subjects like math and creative writing are often taught as committee projects. In one fourth-grade classroom I visited in New York City, students engaged in group work were forbidden to ask a question unless every member of the group had the very same question.<br \/>\nUNQUOTE<br \/>\nIf you&#8217;re not mouthing a silent &#8220;ugh!&#8221; at that last paragraph, you&#8217;re not one of us!<br \/>\nCheck out her remarks on the internet:<br \/>\nQUOTE<br \/>\nThe one important exception to this dismal record [of brainstorming&#8217;s failures] is electronic brainstorming, where large groups outperform individuals; and the larger the group the better. The protection of the screen mitigates many problems of group work. This is why the Internet has yielded such wondrous collective creations. Marcel Proust called reading a \u201cmiracle of communication in the midst of solitude,\u201d and that\u2019s what the Internet is, too. It\u2019s a place where we can be alone together \u2014 and this is precisely what gives it power.<br \/>\nUNQUOTE<\/p>\n<p class=\"diigo-tags\"><span>tags:<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/introverts\">introverts<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/susan_cain\">susan_cain<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/nyt\">nyt<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/psychology\">psychology<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/groupthink\">groupthink<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"diigo-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nybooks.com\/articles\/archives\/2011\/dec\/22\/crass-beautiful-eternal-city\/?pagination=false\">The Crass, Beautiful Eternal City by Ingrid D. Rowland | The New York Review of Books<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"diigo-description\">Fascinating article on Robert Hughes&#8217;s take on Rome. The closing section deals with the negative effects of mass tourism.<br \/>\nQUOTE<br \/>\nBut the threats to Rome\u2019s survival did not slink away with the Nazis. Two ruthless forces menace the city today, and Hughes is fierce in attacking them both. One is mass tourism, by now such a significant force in the Roman economy that it seems unlikely to come under control. The other is mass indifference, brought on by the distractions of contemporary life. Indifference is hardly a modern invention. Alaric and the Visigoths rampaged through Rome in 410 without giving a care to its beauties or its cultural significance. The German Landesknecht mercenaries who sacked the city in 1527 occasionally thought of themselves as religious crusaders, but any motives other than bloodlust and greed were really afterthoughts. Steve Jobs and Silvio Berlusconi have taken different tacks; but they, too, are old news in Rome. The ancients were also obsessed with decorative gadgetry, and perhaps an outmoded clepsydra, or water clock, looked as sad to them as an outmoded Mac today. As for Berlusconi\u2019s bimbos, the ancient playwright Terence complained already in the first century BCE about losing his audience to the rope dancer in the theater next door.<br \/>\nUNQUOTE<\/p>\n<p class=\"diigo-tags\"><span>tags:<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/ingrid_rowland\">ingrid_rowland<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/nyrb\">nyrb<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/robert_hughes\">robert_hughes<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/rome\">rome<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/tourism\">tourism<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/arthistory\">arthistory<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"diigo-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.khanacademy.org\/video\/sopa-and-pipa?playlist=New+and+Noteworthy\">SOPA and PIPA | New and Noteworthy | Khan Academy<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"diigo-description\">Brilliant explanation of just how bad SOPA and PIPA are.<\/p>\n<p class=\"diigo-tags\"><span>tags:<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/video\">video<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/khan_academy\">khan_academy<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/sopa\">sopa<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/pipa\">pipa<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/government\">government<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/internet\">internet<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"diigo-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/arts\/critics\/atlarge\/2011\/02\/14\/110214crat_atlarge_gopnik?printable=true\">How the Internet Gets Inside Us : The New Yorker<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"diigo-description\">Great insights from Adam Gopnik. Loved these passages, near the end of the article, especially regarding a technology&#8217;s descent from omnipresence to &#8230;just something:<br \/>\nQUOTE<br \/>\nNow television [once the object of jeremiads about the disintegration of modern life] is the harmless little fireplace over in the corner, where the family gathers to watch \u201cEntourage.\u201d TV isn\u2019t just docile; it\u2019s positively benevolent. This makes you think that what made television so evil back when it was evil was not its essence but its omnipresence. Once it is not everything, it can be merely something. The real demon in the machine is the tirelessness of the user. A meatless Monday has advantages over enforced vegetarianism, because it helps release the pressure on the food system without making undue demands on the eaters. In the same way, an unplugged Sunday is a better idea than turning off the Internet completely, since it demonstrates that we can get along just fine without the screens, if only for a day.<br \/>\nUNQUOTE<br \/>\nAnd: &#8220;Thoughts are bigger than the things that deliver them.&#8221; Truer words (etc etc)&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"diigo-tags\"><span>tags:<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/adam_gopnik\">adam_gopnik<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/newyorker\">newyorker<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/internet\">internet<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/socialcritique\">socialcritique<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"diigo-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com\/2012\/01\/17\/for-god-so-loved-the-1-percent\/?src=me&amp;ref=general\">For God So Loved the 1 Percent &#8230; &#8211; NYTimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"diigo-description\">Illuminating article on how the phrase &#8220;one nation under God&#8221; snuck its way back onto dollars&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Atheism looks better every day&#8230; I mean, &#8220;Christian Libertarianism&#8221;? The implied concept of submission reminds me of *other* religious fundamentalisms, none of which are any good.<br \/>\nQUOTE<br \/>\nChristianity, in Mr. Fifield\u2019s interpretation, closely resembled capitalism, as both were systems in which individuals rose or fell on their own. The welfare state, meanwhile, violated most of the Ten Commandments. It made a \u201cfalse idol\u201d of the federal government, encouraged Americans to covet their neighbors\u2019 possessions, stole from the wealthy and, ultimately, bore false witness by promising what it could never deliver.<\/p>\n<p>Throughout the 1930s and \u201940s, Mr. Fifield and his allies advanced a new blend of conservative religion, economics and politics that one observer aptly anointed \u201cChristian libertarianism.\u201d<br \/>\nQUOTE<\/p>\n<p class=\"diigo-tags\"><span>tags:<\/span> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/nyt\">nyt<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/socialcritique\">socialcritique<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/kevin_kruse\">kevin_kruse<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/religion\">religion<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\/libertarianism\">libertarianism<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"diigo-ps\">Posted from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\">Diigo<\/a>. The rest of my favorite links are <a href=\"http:\/\/www.diigo.com\/user\/lampertina\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Landscape Absurdism: An Urban Prairie in St. Louis &#8211; Arts &amp; Lifestyle &#8211; The Atlantic Cities Not as powerful, perhaps, as photos of Detroit&#8217;s ruins, these aerial shots of nature overtaking formerly built-up urban areas is startling in its own way: QUOTE As with many industrial cities in America at the time, post-war St. Louis [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":311,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[290],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/311"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5164"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5168,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5164\/revisions\/5168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/yulelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}