From 'Organized religion 'will be driven toward extinction' in 9 countries, experts predict' by Richard Allen Greene, CNN:
"Organized religion will all but vanish eventually from nine Western-style democracies, a team of mathematicians predict in a new paper based on census data stretching back 100 years.
"It won't die out completely, but "religion will be driven toward extinction" in countries including Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands, they say.
"It will also wither away in Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland and Switzerland, they anticipate."
Showing posts with label Thought. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thought. Show all posts
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Thought: Bookstores
"As paper books become a niche product, niche retailers will be the best place to buy and sell them. Book lovers will always want a place to gather and hear recommendations from a bookseller who knows their reading habits, and their community. . . we may have to go back to shopping for books in stores that let dogs wander through the stacks, and don't even serve coffee."
-Edward McClelland, 'How Borders Lost Its Soul,' Salon.com
While McClelland's piece very much looks back, Jack McKeown and Don Linn look forward at the "supply gap" resulting from the Borders closures in an essay at InVerso. They propose the development of a Neighborhood Bookstore Development Bank, "modeled after a similar initiative that has worked successfully for independent grocery stores. Its mission would be to spearhead the deployment of capital to a new generation of bookstore entrepreneurs, as well as existing booksellers looking to branch out or upgrade their spaces."
From a 2009 piece by Jack McKeown: "A thriving neighborhood bookstore is recognized as a key element in the social, cultural and economic fabric of any community. This is an opinion widely shared by urban planners, government planning boards, Smart Growth advocates, landlords and real estate developers around the country."
I went to see Andre Schiffrin speak at The New School last fall as part of a series of discussions sponsored by n+1. He shared the view of McKeown and Linn, asking the audience if they needed a Duane Reade on every corner, and said, "It's a question of preserving urban civilization."
-Edward McClelland, 'How Borders Lost Its Soul,' Salon.com
While McClelland's piece very much looks back, Jack McKeown and Don Linn look forward at the "supply gap" resulting from the Borders closures in an essay at InVerso. They propose the development of a Neighborhood Bookstore Development Bank, "modeled after a similar initiative that has worked successfully for independent grocery stores. Its mission would be to spearhead the deployment of capital to a new generation of bookstore entrepreneurs, as well as existing booksellers looking to branch out or upgrade their spaces."
From a 2009 piece by Jack McKeown: "A thriving neighborhood bookstore is recognized as a key element in the social, cultural and economic fabric of any community. This is an opinion widely shared by urban planners, government planning boards, Smart Growth advocates, landlords and real estate developers around the country."
I went to see Andre Schiffrin speak at The New School last fall as part of a series of discussions sponsored by n+1. He shared the view of McKeown and Linn, asking the audience if they needed a Duane Reade on every corner, and said, "It's a question of preserving urban civilization."
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Thought(s): Francis Levy
Francis Levy, author of Erotomania: A Romance and the forthcoming Seven Days in Rio has a parody of The New York Times' 'Corrections Column' in The East Hampton Star. Here are some favorites:
"In a front-page story our country was mistakenly identified as United States of America. The correct name is The United States of America."
"In Tuesday’s article about the budget, several erroneous statements were made. Offering Social Security benefits only to those in the highest income brackets in order to stimulate investment while eliminating Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements is not part of the current plan to reduce the trillion-dollar deficit."
"In Tuesday’s edition of Science Times, it was reported that the Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, could create a black hole, which would swallow up the universe. This report was based on rumors among a poll of college art majors and has not been substantiated by particle physicists who have studied the project."
"The Times reported on Thursday that Congress was increasing N.E.A. funding tenfold to bring American arts funding up to the level of France and England. The sentence in question should have read: “Congress has approved a 10 basis points or one-tenth of one-percent increase in arts funding.”"
"In a front-page story our country was mistakenly identified as United States of America. The correct name is The United States of America."
"In Tuesday’s article about the budget, several erroneous statements were made. Offering Social Security benefits only to those in the highest income brackets in order to stimulate investment while eliminating Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements is not part of the current plan to reduce the trillion-dollar deficit."
"In Tuesday’s edition of Science Times, it was reported that the Large Hadron Collider, the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, could create a black hole, which would swallow up the universe. This report was based on rumors among a poll of college art majors and has not been substantiated by particle physicists who have studied the project."
"The Times reported on Thursday that Congress was increasing N.E.A. funding tenfold to bring American arts funding up to the level of France and England. The sentence in question should have read: “Congress has approved a 10 basis points or one-tenth of one-percent increase in arts funding.”"
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Thought: Thomas Frank
From the February 2011 issue of Harper's Magazine. Thomas Frank has just begun a regular column dubbed 'Easy Chair.' I already feel confident saying he's freaking awesome and it's fantastic that he has this forum.
This particular quote is from maybe his second piece, titled "Servile Disobedience," in which he encourages poor people -- the serving class -- to withhold their niceness for a single day:
"For decades we have attacked [the government], redirected it, outsourced it, and filled it with incompetents and cronies. Yes, it still works well enough when we need it to replenish the accounts of investment banks or bang some small country against a wall, but those branches of it designed to help out Americans of "lower socioeconomic status," as the scientists would put it, are now bare. The government fails the people of New Orleans when they are hit by a hurricane, fails to notice the cadmium paint in the marketplace, does a lousy job educating our kids, can't keep the libraries open or the park lawns mowed, overlooks the catastrophic shortcuts taken by its pals in the oil-drilling industry -- and all we can do to express our frustration is elect candidates who promise to hack it down even more."
This particular quote is from maybe his second piece, titled "Servile Disobedience," in which he encourages poor people -- the serving class -- to withhold their niceness for a single day:
"For decades we have attacked [the government], redirected it, outsourced it, and filled it with incompetents and cronies. Yes, it still works well enough when we need it to replenish the accounts of investment banks or bang some small country against a wall, but those branches of it designed to help out Americans of "lower socioeconomic status," as the scientists would put it, are now bare. The government fails the people of New Orleans when they are hit by a hurricane, fails to notice the cadmium paint in the marketplace, does a lousy job educating our kids, can't keep the libraries open or the park lawns mowed, overlooks the catastrophic shortcuts taken by its pals in the oil-drilling industry -- and all we can do to express our frustration is elect candidates who promise to hack it down even more."
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Thought: Coffee House Press & McSweeney's
There's a fantastic, lengthy interview with Allan Kornblum and the rest of the Coffee House Press staff over at The Huffington Post.
The editors dish on the press' history and their relationships with authors, the present state and future of poetry, and the publishing industry at large.
Kornblum: "In December 1969, I was working the midnight-to-eight-thirty shift at the Grand Central Station post office in NYC, and attending poetry workshops at the St. Mark's Church Poetry Project. One evening, the workshop leader told us that we had been asked to help collate the pages of a mimeographed magazine. In one of the back rooms of the old church, we were greeted by a group of 2 x 6 foot tables, each with five stacks of 250 pages. When I completed my assigned portion, I sidled up to the editor, told him how much I liked his magazine, asked if he'd like to see some of my work. He looked off in the distance, sighed and said, "I've always thought poetry should be as hard to break into as the Longshoreman's Union." To hell with him, I thought--I'll start my own. I've always been grateful for that kick in the pants, which can sometimes be far more productive than well-intended encouragement."
Also, McSweeney's announced this week that they're launching a half-page of "games, puzzles, comics, and activities for all ages, available for weekly publication in newspapers across the U.S. and Canada."
The editors dish on the press' history and their relationships with authors, the present state and future of poetry, and the publishing industry at large.
Kornblum: "In December 1969, I was working the midnight-to-eight-thirty shift at the Grand Central Station post office in NYC, and attending poetry workshops at the St. Mark's Church Poetry Project. One evening, the workshop leader told us that we had been asked to help collate the pages of a mimeographed magazine. In one of the back rooms of the old church, we were greeted by a group of 2 x 6 foot tables, each with five stacks of 250 pages. When I completed my assigned portion, I sidled up to the editor, told him how much I liked his magazine, asked if he'd like to see some of my work. He looked off in the distance, sighed and said, "I've always thought poetry should be as hard to break into as the Longshoreman's Union." To hell with him, I thought--I'll start my own. I've always been grateful for that kick in the pants, which can sometimes be far more productive than well-intended encouragement."
Also, McSweeney's announced this week that they're launching a half-page of "games, puzzles, comics, and activities for all ages, available for weekly publication in newspapers across the U.S. and Canada."
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