nickel slots

Yet another interesting piece over at the Opinionator, this time from Barbara Dafoe Whitehead. She's talking about how the advent of slot machines in more and more communities is really a detriment to the poor.


I'm not much of a gambler, and I'm not saying that that's necessarily a virtue. There are some cases where being less risk averse is better. Some might say that the losses of a gambler are on their own head. But as someone who has spent far too much time playing computer solitaire in the last couple of days, I can't really get down on anyone else's compulsions. Read the article and see if you don't feel like these businesses are preying on people's weaknesses. You can read it HERE .

A thoughtful piece by Jon Mooallam on our interaction with wildlife and how our ability and desire to intervene and not to intervene is on the Opinionater. It involves a nest of baby Bald Eagles. I think one of the most interesting aspects of it was the historical context. We tend to think that our feelings for wild animals are innate, but it seems more likely that they are just the reflection of a current fashion.

World Penguin Day

It's World Penguin Day and it turns out that these adorable creatures need our help. You can go to the Pew Charitable Trusts website to take a fun quiz on "What's Your Penguin Style?"


After that you can sign a quick petition to help them get the marine sanctuaries they so desperately need.

Here's their interactive penguin Who's Who as well.


I'm an Adele penguin, although I had to kind of fib about having any sense of style at all.

What to do about the Heartbeat bug

I just got a link from my web provider, which was not affected by the bug, to Mashable, where they have a list of popular sites that may need new password protection, and I thought I'd pass it along. Here, then,  is the Heartbeat Hit List.


Oh, yeah--and here's a concise, readable article about the problem from Mashable as well.

Why I love actors

Especially those who are spontaneous...

If a rising tide lifts all boats, what happens when the tide goes out?

I thought this was an interesting article on the downward drift of American labor which I picked up on Wonkblog out of the Washington Post. It's called "This is what a job in the U.S.'s new manufacturing industry looks like" and was written by Lydia Depillis. For some reason I'm always fascinated to read about what things are like in the contemporary American workplace, especially for those without Union protection. There's a familiar depressing feeling about them, even if it's an industry you've never worked in.

Ancient Lives

Sure, you've got time on your hands--even in California, it's still winter. Or, more accurately, suddenly winter. So what better thing to do than to head over to Ancient Lives and help transcribe a few papyri? When you get to the sight you can click explore or above where it says transcribe. You don't have to know any ancient languages either. I believe that it is sort of a crowd sourcing model, where a lot of people make their best guess and this helps them with the answer. A fascinating idea, and probably at least as entertaining as solitaire.