https://blue.feedland.org/?river=http://data.feedland.org/blue/feeds/ksmith.xml It's just a feed for now Thu, 13 Jul 2023 12:09:02 GMT feedland v0.5.59 https://cyber.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html Thu, 13 Jul 2023 12:09:02 GMT ksmith Thu, July 13, 2023 8:09 AM EDT <p>Suffering women doubted by medical professionals, an institution masking its failures, and a staffer at the center of the chaos.</p> <p>The Retrievals is a gripping nonfiction account of an Ivy League fertility clinic operating without effective pain control during invasive procedures for extracting eggs from women who sought to have a baby. </p> <p>The Retrievals promises five episodes, releasing on Thursdays. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/29/podcasts/serial-the-retrievals-yale-fertility-clinic.html">https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/29/podcasts/serial-the-retrievals-yale-fertility-clinic.html</a></p> Thu, 13 Jul 2023 12:09:02 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=54795 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=54795 Suffering women doubted by medical professionals, an institution masking its failures, and a staffer at the center of the chaos. The Retrievals is a gripping nonfiction account of an Ivy League fertility clinic operating without effective pain control during invasive procedures for extracting eggs from women who sought to have a baby. The Retrievals promises five episodes, releasing on Thursdays. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/29/podcasts/serial-the-retrievals-yale-fertility-clinic.html <p>Someone gave me a 1985 book by Carol Herselle Krinsky called <strong>Synagogues of Europe</strong>. Each of the first few pages I open and skim at random contain sentences or paragraphs like this:</p> <p>&quot;The vestibule is to receive the Jewish gravestones retrieved from German street-paving operations, which used the stones . . . .&quot;</p> <p>&quot;. . . . If the building can be maintained properly, it will continue to represent a socio-political and architectural history that is all but obliterated elsewhere.&quot; (211)</p> Wed, 12 Jul 2023 20:24:22 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=53746 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=53746 Someone gave me a 1985 book by Carol Herselle Krinsky called **Synagogues of Europe**. Each of the first few pages I open and skim at random contain sentences or paragraphs like this: "The vestibule is to receive the Jewish gravestones retrieved from German street-paving operations, which used the stones . . . ." ". . . . If the building can be maintained properly, it will continue to represent a socio-political and architectural history that is all but obliterated elsewhere." (211) <p>If memory serves me, Gandhi directed his closest associates to take turns cleaning the latrines. They were to discontinue their society’s custom of chaining certain groups to undesirable tasks while distancing themselves from those lowly people and their degrading labors.</p> <p>After his assassination, those associates began to say, &quot;Well, of course about cleaning latrines Gandhi had been speaking metaphorically.”</p> Wed, 12 Jul 2023 03:02:19 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=52682 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=52682 If memory serves me, Gandhi directed his closest associates to take turns cleaning the latrines. They were to discontinue their society’s custom of chaining certain groups to undesirable tasks while distancing themselves from those lowly people and their degrading labors. After his assassination, those associates began to say, "Well, of course about cleaning latrines Gandhi had been speaking metaphorically.” <p>I recently posted a picture of Grant&#39;s Tomb on social media, and a good number of people roughly my age responded by riffing on old &quot;Who&#39;s buried in Grant&#39;s Tomb?&quot; jokes. I remember that these jokes were a thing decades back, but I can&#39;t remember the source of these jokes.</p> <p>Two things come to mind. a) I guess that one of the main mechanisms of culture is riffing, ad-libbing playfully on previously existing materials. b) Lots of cultural materials are founded on sources lost in the haze of time, and we may not entirely know what we&#39;re riffing on.</p> <p>I guess that means that a lot of cultural work is closer to play than work, and it&#39;s informal, even sloppy. A lot of the time it&#39;s jazz played by amateurs, I guess.</p> Mon, 10 Jul 2023 18:52:12 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=50879 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=50879 I recently posted a picture of Grant's Tomb on social media, and a good number of people roughly my age responded by riffing on old "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" jokes. I remember that these jokes were a thing decades back, but I can't remember the source of these jokes. Two things come to mind. a) I guess that one of the main mechanisms of culture is riffing, ad-libbing playfully on previously existing materials. b) Lots of cultural materials are founded on sources lost in the haze of time, and we may not entirely know what we're riffing on. I guess that means that a lot of cultural work is closer to play than work, and it's informal, even sloppy. A lot of the time it's jazz played by amateurs, I guess. <p>I recently posted a picture of Grant&#39;s Tomb on social media, and a good number of people roughly my age responded by riffing on old &quot;Who&#39;s buried in Grant&#39;s Tomb?&quot; jokes. I remember that these jokes were a thing decades back, but I can&#39;t remember the source of these jokes.</p> <p>Two things come to mind. a) I guess that one of the main mechanisms of culture is riffing, ad-libbing playfully on previously existing materials. b) Lots of cultural materials are founded on sources lost in the haze of time, and we may not entirely know what we&#39;re riffing on.</p> <p>I guess that means that a lot of cultural work is closer to play than work, and it&#39;s informal, even sloppy. A lot of the time it&#39;s jazz played by amateurs, I guess.</p> Mon, 10 Jul 2023 18:50:21 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=50877 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=50877 I recently posted a picture of Grant's Tomb on social media, and a good number of people roughly my age responded by riffing on old "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" jokes. I remember that these jokes were a thing decades back, but I can't remember the source of these jokes. Two things come to mind. a) I guess that one of the main mechanisms of culture is riffing, ad-libbing playfully on previously existing materials. b) Lots of cultural materials are founded on sources lost in the haze of time, and we may not entirely know what we're riffing on. I guess that means that a lot of cultural work is closer to play than work, and it's informal, even sloppy. A lot of the time it's jazz played by amateurs, I guess. <p>I recently posted a picture of Grant&#39;s Tomb on social media, and a good number of people roughly my age responded by riffing on old &quot;Who&#39;s buried in Grant&#39;s Tomb?&quot; jokes. I remember that these jokes were a thing decades back, but I can&#39;t remember the source of these jokes.</p> <p>Two things come to mind. a) I guess that one of the main mechanisms of culture is riffing, ad-libbing playfully on previously existing materials. b) Lots of cultural materials are founded on sources lost in the haze of time, and we may not entirely know what we&#39;re riffing on.</p> <p>I guess that means that a lot of cultural work is closer to play than work, and it&#39;s informal, even sloppy. A lot of the time it&#39;s jazz played by amateurs, I guess.</p> Mon, 10 Jul 2023 18:47:44 GMT https://blue.feedland.org/?item=50874 https://blue.feedland.org/?item=50874 I recently posted a picture of Grant's Tomb on social media, and a good number of people roughly my age responded by riffing on old "Who's buried in Grant's Tomb?" jokes. I remember that these jokes were a thing decades back, but I can't remember the source of these jokes. Two things come to mind. a) I guess that one of the main mechanisms of culture is riffing, ad-libbing playfully on previously existing materials. b) Lots of cultural materials are founded on sources lost in the haze of time, and we may not entirely know what we're riffing on. I guess that means that a lot of cultural work is closer to play than work, and it's informal, even sloppy. A lot of the time it's jazz played by amateurs, I guess.