I thought the ending paragraph of this article was nice. I like asterisks and footnotes.

“Writing with or about metaphors is not dancing with the stars, but dancing with asterisks—pointers to the figurative understructure of our supposedly literal language. The more we stay sensitive to that, the better we dance. As the Chinese say, “It’s hard to dismount from a tiger,” and every metaphor starts out as a wild beast, waiting to be tamed by usage.

Metaphor is a huge topic. As someone interested in poetry and “meaning making” in general  the concept is one I continue to think and learn about. The online comments which follow this article were very interesting to me. They actually made me want to give the book being reviewed,I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World by James Geary, a second look.

My daughter “invited” me to connect with Google+ yesterday.

This is the first article I cross posted from Facebook (and now my blog):

Why We Need the New News Environment to be Chaotic « Clay Shirky

I found this article helpful. Shirky explains his understanding of how newspapers and journalism work(ed) and how the old ways fail to operate in the new environment.

He concludes that “markets supply less news than democracy demands.” This makes sense to me. “But even in their worst days, newspapers supported the minority of journalists reporting actual news, for the minority of citizens who cared. In return, the people who followed sports or celebrities, or clipped recipes and coupons, got to live in a town where the City Council was marginally less likely to be corrupt.”

He doesn’t see a clear solution. Points toward subsidization by foundations, non-profit situations…. mentions that while some Europeans do subsidize media with public dollars this really doesn’t fly in the good old U.S. of A.

He also startled me with this reminder: “Someone who turns 19 this year will have not one adult memory of the 20th century…” Good to remember.

Rethinking Addiction’s Roots, and Its Treatment – NYTimes.com

This article helped me do some re-thinking myself. First of all, it hadn’t occurred to me how some medical professionals would dismiss addiction as a social construct and not be open to its physical aspects.  Also comparing addiction to diseases like asthma, hypertension and diabetes is helpful when thinking about the idea that addicts are never “cured,” but learn to live with their condition.

After decades of hard-fought progress, black economic gains were reversed in Great Recession – The Washington Post

The struggle continues.

Underpaid Judges? – NYTimes.com

And speaking of morality, this letter writer makes a point that occurs to me often about service to the public (this applies to judges but also politicians, governmental workers, all citizens really), namely whatever happened to the importance of the public good?

Facundo Cabral, Argentine Singer-Songwriter, Dies at 74 – NYTimes.com

I find obituaries can tell some very enlightening and wonderful stories. I didn’t know this guy’s work (I listened to his song, “No Soy de Aquí, ni Soy de Allá” (“I’m Not From Here, I’m Not From There” on Youtube with this link. If you do so, be aware that the first 4 minutes or so are him talking in Spanish about his ideas). But, I like what I read in his obit about his life.

“A bomb makes more noise than a caress, but for each bomb that destroys, there are millions of caresses that nourish life.”

Facundo Cabral

I continue to enjoy sitting by the pool and reading these books as well. Life is good.