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POPSHow the city hurts your brain One of the main forces at work is a stark lack of nature, which is surprisingly beneficial for the brain. Studies have demonstrated, for instance, that hospital patients recover more quickly when they can see trees from their windows, and that women living in public housing are better able to focus when their apartment overlooks a grassy courtyard. Even these fleeting glimpses of nature improve brain performance, it seems, because they provide a mental break from the urban roil
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POPSBeijing's breath-taking new library (Pictures by yours truly) So "Phase II" of the National Library of China just opened down the block from my apartment, and it is absolutely amazing. Filled with open space and natural light, it is gigantic yet personal, with the feeling of a pavilion. Long lines of sight that stretch uninterrupted out into the city blur the division between indoor and outdoor. Their website is also pretty cool - in English, and with lots of digitized collections, making it worthwhile for anyone wanting to learn more about China.
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POPSWANT TO USE IT? PAY FOR IT YOURSELF! Health care (lack of) for the impoverished takes a back seat.
AS if this "Associate Professor" (I am bowled over) does not have to namedrop a school from the city where I first went to school, CHICAGO, he drops "the University that today has added yet another Nobel Prize winner in the sciences for the US" anyway. Three million dollars? If the benefit to the "children" is so great, let the parents of Chicago, the parents of Illinois or, BEST YET, the people who attend such science events, AS I OFTEN DID AT THE AMAZING CHICAGO MUSEUM OF SCIENCE & INDUSTRY pay for it. My parents took me to that museum, with the submarine and the NYC apartment sized washing machine. I think we paid, like, an ADMISSION AT THE DOOR. Last year I could not come CLOSE to paying for the Health care I was prescribed. I could not come close to affording my medication. Frankly, I could not care less about a parent actually having to pay a dollar a child to get into the museum where people suffering FAR WORSE than I am could use that money simply to LIVE AND BREATHE. T
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POPS Lady Secretly Living In Man's Apartment For A Whole Year Well once the missing food planted a seed of suspicion, he installed a nanny cam-type surveillance system. And guess who he found! Fifty-eight-year-old Tatsuko Horikawa, a formerly homeless woman, sleeping in his storage space and walking around his place while he wasn't there. Can you imagine the eerie feeling of realizing food is missing, only to find out someone has been living in your home! How is it even possible to not realize a person is crashing at your place for that long? Are you going to go home and check all your closets? Source
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POPSSmoking Marijuana? Better check your judgement...
...Waking up can appears not so pleasant and even catastrophic. Prosecutors say Brancato and accomplice Steven Armento broke into a basement apartment to steal prescription drugs after a night of drinking at a strip club. Brancato rose to fame in the 1993 movie "A Bronx Tale," playing a young kid from the neighborhood who is torn between two worlds and two men: a local mobster played by Chazz Palminteri and his straight-and-narrow bus-driver father, played by Robert De Niro. Other roles followed, most notably a stint on the second season of "The Sopranos," where he played a bumbling aspiring mobster. His character carried out a series of low-level crimes for the New Jersey mob before being gunned down by Tony Soprano and his sidekick as he tearfully begged for his life. The pills were part of a drug problem that he said began when he was "introduced to marijuana" on the set of "A Bronx Tale." He later became hooked on crack and heroin, he said. He told the jury that
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POPSIt Won't Steal Their Dream Because I could be attracted to men and have successful relationships with them, I could fit into society. But I always knew how it felt to be different and I would hide it just like these guys did. It takes a lot of courage to do what they did and I just don't understand why anyone would care who they love. I don't think I ever will understand it.
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POPSEarthquake Shakes Southern Sweden Haha, funky stuff like this almost never happens here. The biggest news (in Copenhagen) regarding this quake was, that someone's turtle got crushed under a falling cupboard, poor thing, so there are casualties. I'm in Copenhagen at the moment, but my house in Sweden is very close to the epicenter. (No damage though.) It was an exciting day! .:D
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POPS The Departed The clerk, who is licensed to carry a firearm, opened fire, striking Rivera several times, police said. Rivera died 45 minutes later. Criminal records show that Rivera was a hard-core armed robber. He was released from a Florida prison six years ago after serving 14 years for armed robberies in Miami-Dade County, according to records from the Florida Department of Corrections. Last year, Rivera was arrested on charges he was selling cocaine and heroin from his Worcester apartment. He pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute cocaine and heroin and was given a one-year suspended jail sentence and probation. Rivera’s alleged accomplice is still at large. The owner of Big Bob’s declined comment. Worcester District Attorney spokesman Tim Connolly said the investigation is ongoing. As of yesterday, no charges had been filed against the store clerk. Bay State liquor store workers had little sympathy for Rivera.
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POPSDrop Fee Such a sweet guy this tow truck driver. He was on a "Vulture Run". No one had called him out there. It was entirely up to him. What would he really lose by letting her go? Another case of "I, me, me mine", as John Lennon professed.
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POPSAs American Civilization Goes Away - Stealing Jesus So far in 2008, Baby Jesus has appeared in several police reports. At First United Methodist Church in Kittanning, Pa., a baby Jesus was stolen and replaced with a pumpkin. In Eureka Springs, Ark., someone who absconded with a plastic baby Jesus from a public display last week also took the concrete block and chain that was supposed to act as a deterrent. Previously, stolen Jesus figurines have also been defaced with profanity or Satanic symbols.
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POPSPut an end to Yellow Snow We should all take these unwanted wastes of paper to our local phone company offices and dump them in their lobby. But this is a good alternative, too.
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POPSDo You Dare To Prepare ? ? ? "A sustainable economy requires a stabilized population and per capita consumption. In fact, since human population is currently overshooting the earth’s carrying capacity by 20 percent or more, our population and economy are going to have to significantly decrease size before long-term stability can be reached." --- Chuck Burr "Humans are meant to take their modest place in a seamless, stable-state web of living organisms, disturbing that web as little as possible. This would mean sacrifice of present consumption, but it would ensure future survival—which becomes an almost religious objective, perhaps akin to earlier doctrines of “salvation.” People are to be happy not to the extent they dominate their fellow creatures on the earth, but to the extent they lived in balance with them." --- Chuck Burr
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POPSTHE STAIN OF TORTURE One cannot clean the stains off the souls of the perpetrators, only forgiveness will heal the wounds of the victims
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