Michael Jackson: Dangerous
Thriller was the first album I bought in Germany (for Luis), and Michael Jackson, the boy who refused to grow up and died a few days ago, is one of the reasons I spent so much time in discos back then. He may have remained a boy while we grew up (or tried to), but […]
Question: Where and what is “home”?
http://annehodgson.de/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/home.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download“There’s no place like home.” That was Dorothy’s homesick mantra in the Wizard of Oz, and saying it got her back to Kansas. For her, “home” was where she was from, and where she wanted to be. But I find it quite difficult to say just where home is. […]
The lioness of Iran
Thomas Pierce, Weekend Edition, NPR, via 3quarksdaily: “NPR’s Davar Ardalan interviewed Simin Behbahani, Iran’s national poet, today from Tehran. She’s 82 years-old and one of the most respected figures in modern Iran. She recites two poems inspired by recent events — one dedicated to the people of Iran and another to Neda, the woman whose […]
Blog carneval: No blog is an island
Well, you know, I never really meant to become a blogger. It was all a bit of an accident. You see, I used to keep up individual course (b)logs to post homework and materials. Then one day I decided to get help (wouldn’t be anywhere without help) to build Beautiful Islands, my Moodle site, with […]
That takes the cake
A few days ago I said that a presentation “takes the cake“, meaning it was great. Now I just saw that Macmillan defines “take the cake” like this: take the cake to be the worst, most shocking, or most annoying example of something I’ve heard some ridiculous excuses before, but that takes the cake. Isn’t […]
Bob Ross’ happy little paintings
Whatever this man was taking, I want some. Helmut thinks his paintings will be valuable one day. I’m not so sure. But his boundless optimism and general spaciness will go down in history. Bob Ross (October 29, 1942 – July 4, 1995) was absolutely priceless. He repeatedly stated on the show his belief that everyone […]
Paul Collier: Post-conflict recovery
Paul Collier, former director of the World Bank’s Development Research Group and current director of the the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford, gave a TED presentation at the State Department on rebuilding broken nations. He says when long conflict has wrecked a country, peacekeeping is needed to build security ad hoc, […]
