pages & pints

npr:

After years of not understanding coffee, Jerry Seinfeld says he’s finally discovered the delight of meeting someone over a cup. “You have coffee and for some reason it makes you talk a lot,” he says.

So Jerry Seinfeld Called Us To Talk About Coffee : The Salt

Photo: YouTube

Also, a MUST HEAR: Jerry Seinfeld Scolds Steve Inskeep On The Macchiato

When the comedian asked the NPR host whether he knew what a macchiato is, Inskeep had to confess he didn’t. And this happened during Morning Edition’s “coffee week!” Seinfeld was amused. Inskeep says he’s now going to go try one of the coffee drinks.

theatlantic:

The Touch-Screen Generation

Norman Rockwell never painted Boy Swiping Finger on Screen, and our own vision of a perfect childhood has never adjusted to accommodate that now-common tableau. Add to that our modern fear that every parenting decision may have lasting consequences—that every minute of enrichment lost or mindless entertainment indulged will add up to some permanent handicap in the future—and you have deep guilt and confusion. To date, no body of research has definitively proved that the iPad will make your preschooler smarter or teach her to speak Chinese, or alternatively that it will rust her neural circuitry—the device has been out for only three years, not much more than the time it takes some academics to find funding and gather research subjects. So what’s a parent to do?

Read more. [Images: Erin Patrice O’Brien]

What’s a parent to do? Also, a damn fine research topic.

theatlantic:

Sex, Violence, and Radical Islam: Why ‘Persepolis’ Belongs in Public Schools

So we’re faced with a choice. Do we want to micromanage our schools for ideological purity? Or do we want kids to learn something — even, sometimes, something with which we might disagree? If we want the first, we should keep on as we’re keeping on. If we want the second, we need to stop being so worried that teachers might teach the wrong thing that we don’t let them teach anything at all.

Read more. [Image: Marjane Satrapi]

 

I’m currently reading Seymour Papert’s “The Children’s Machine” (1993) and can’t help but see an overlap. We need to see learners as active and “independent intellectual agents,” not merely empty-vessel students waiting for teachers to fill them with prescribed information.

explore-blog:

Creative environmental nonprofit Do The Green Thing has partnered with 23 celebrated artists and designers to create a poster a day, for 23 consecutive days, until Earth Hour 2013. All posters are available as prints, with proceeds benefiting the DTGT charity.

Pair this one, by Tom Uglow, with a case for the walkable city.

Stunning designs, positive messages

great visual, interesting article, concerning trend.

businessweek:

America’s Shrinking Grocery Bill

In 1984, the average U.S. household spent 16.8 percent of its annual post-tax income on food. By 2011, Americans spent only 11.2 percent. The U.S. devotes less of its income to food than any other country—half as mu ch as households in France and one-fourth of those in India.

Read more at Bloomberg Businessweek 

(via theatlantic)

philosophy via comics! what a great day.

thanks explore-blog for spreading the good word:

Alan Watt’s famous, recently resurfaced lecture on what you would do if money were no object from the golden age of popularizing Eastern philosophy in the West, adapted as a comic by ZenPencils, who have previously given us Neil deGrasse Tyson’s brilliant monologue about the universe.

Complement with how to find your purpose and do what you love and 5½ timeless commencement speeches that teach you to define your own success.

(Source: )

outofprintclothing:

“Our research tells us that there is a very clear link between book ownership and children’s future success in life…” -Jonathan Douglas, Director of the National Literacy Trust

Lit News You Can Use: 1/14/13 - Khaled Hosseini’s new book; BiblioTech – the nation’s first bookless public library system; Happy Meal and a book?

http://outofprintclothing.com/2013/01/lit-news-you-can-use-11413/

What has long been anecdotally confirmed is now scientifically proven! Hooray books!