In my life this week I celebrated two years of San Francisco living, saw "I'll Be" singer Edwin McCain play an intimate acoustic set at Yoshi's on Fillmore and had my interview with LGBTQ activist Ash Beckham picked up by gay news blog AfterEllen.
Through all of that I still managed to unearth some seriously share-worthy shiz, which I've posted below.
Have joy.
ARTICLE: "Requiem For A Dream" by Larissa MacFarquhar
Computer programmer Aaron Swartz, famous for helping develop the Web feed format RSS and the social news site Reddit, committed suicide earlier this year at the age of 26. In the March 11th issue of The New Yorker, staff writer Larissa MacFarquhar takes an in-depth look at Aaron's career, the causes he was fighting for and his battle with depression.
Since his death, his family and closest friends have tried to hone his story into a message, in order to direct the public sadness and anger aroused by his suicide to political purposes. They have done this because it is what he would have wanted, and because it is a way to extract some good from the event. They tell people that the experience of being prosecuted is annihilatingly brutal, and that prosecutors can pursue with terrible weapons defendants who have caused little harm. One of the corollaries of this message is that Swartz did not kill himself; he was murdered by the government. But this claim is for public consumption, and the people closest to him do not really believe it. They believe that he would not have killed himself without the prosecutors, but they feel that there is something missing from this account—some further fact, a key, that will make sense of what he did.
CLIP: "Will McAvoy Rant" on The Newsroom
Aaron Sorkin.
Need I say more?
GIF COLLECTION: 25 Ways To Live Like Karen Walker
Go to here.
Now!
HEADLINE: Another Anti-Gay Pope
From The Huffington Post:
Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a 76-year-old Argentinean, was chosen as the first Latin American pope on Wednesday. He will lead the world's 1.2 billion Catholics as Pope Francis. While his selection may be historic, it may also mean more of the same when it comes to gay rights in the Catholic Church.
Pope Francis is a conservative who is anti-gay marriage and anti-gay adoption. He has described same-sex marriage as the work of the devil and a "destructive attack on God's plan." He has also said that gay adoption is a form of discrimination against children.
IMAGE: Oakland Zoo Meerkat Pups
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From The San Francisco Chronicle:
The Oakland Zoo is welcoming three new pups to its meerkat exhibit, officials announced Sunday.
The pups, named Ayo, Rufaro and Nandi, are nearly six weeks old and bring the size of the zoo's existing meerkat mob to eight, according to zoo officials.
The litter is the first successful one among the meerkats in more than a year.
Meerkat pups are very fragile and it is not uncommon for members of a meerkat mob to kill pups, but the mob has taken good care of this litter so far, according to zoo officials.
"It has been wonderful watching the mob raise the pups," said Victor Alm, zoological manager. "It has truly been a collective effort and all the adults are taking their turns caring for and teaching the new pups their different roles and jobs needed to be a productive meerkat."
PRESENTATION: "People Are Getting Smarter..."
Alexander Macris, general manager of The Escapist magazine, took the stage at TEDx Binghamton recently to discuss the dumbing down of American content.
Below are just a few of the mind-blowing stats explained during his 17-minute presentation.
- More Americans could read at the 10th grade level in 1949 than can even read at the 6th grade level today.
- The percentage of adults who read for pleasure is decreasing by 7% every year.
- Americans aged 15 to 24 spend an average of two hours per day watching TV and seven minutes per day reading for pleasure.
QUOTE: Nora Ephron on Youth
"Oh, how I regret not having worn a bikini for the entire year I was twenty-six. If anyone young is reading this, go, right this minute, put on a bikini, and don't take it off until you're thirty-four."
Nora Ephron
TWEET: Farts by Shahrouz
That is crazy.
VIDEO: "Billy Joel invites student onstage"
That just happened.
WEBSITE: Artist Caitlin Kuhwald's Portfolio
I happened across Caitlin's booth at a craft fair last week and immediately fell in love with her stuff. Although she's most often commissioned to draw magazine features, if I ever get rich I'm gonna hire Caitlin to illustrate my dream journal.
Note: (Almost) every Friday I gather an assortment of the most bizarre, heartfelt, hilarious, inspiring and thought-provoking bits of media I can find and share them on this web log. Past editions of "Friday Faves" can be found here.
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