the ladybug and the lion

The Moth.

These stories are addicting.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A little late, but this is worth it. 

Child Abuse And Ageing.

Because I think this is fascinating.

On Paternal Grandmothers.

Despite the caveat at the end of this article, I've decided to post it.  In short: 

A little math shows that maternal grandmothers are related to granddaughters and grandsons equally, for an "X-relatedness" of 25 percent. But paternal grandmothers are twice as close to granddaughters (50 percent) and not at all to grandsons (zero percent).

Easterly.

Development also shares another Marxist trait: It aspires to be scientific. Finding the one correct solution to poverty is seen as a scientific problem to be solved by the experts. They are always sure they know the answer, vehemently reject disagreement, and then later change their answers. In psychiatry, this is known as Borderline Personality Disorder. For the Development Experts, it's a way of life. The answer at first was aid-financed investment and industrialization in poor countries, then it was market-oriented government policy reform, then it was fixing institutional problems such as corruption, then it was globalization, then it was the Poverty Reduction Strategy to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

—William Easterly

Poetry.

By Miss Heather Hodges.

Books.

''Undoubtedly there is a right way of reading, so it be sternly subordinated,'' Emerson wrote. Thinking people ''must not be subdued'' by their ''instruments'' -- that is, by their library. They must be the master of it. They must measure a book's testimony against their own; they must alternate their attention to it with an even more passionate and scrupulous attention to the world around them.

—Cristina Nehring

Italia.

This is my home for the next year.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi vowed not to step down after the country's highest court overturned a law granting him immunity from prosecution. "I am the best prime minister ever," said Berlusconi, who is embroiled in corruption and bribery scandals. "I am absolutely the politician most persecuted by prosecutors in the entire history of the world throughout the ages." He added that he had spent "200 million euros on judges... excuse me, on lawyers."

—From Harper's Weekly, 13-10-2009

Creepy.

The things that happen when I'm not around...

Cinque Terre.

Cinque Terre: five towns on the Italian Riviera connected to one another solely by trains, boats, and footpaths.  The foliage and clear waters are reminiscent of the California coastline near Big Sur—cacti and aloe dot the cliffside—but there is a pleasant difference: the crystal blue water is far more accepting of human contact than the chilly Pacific.