A shining moment in the marriage of culture and commerce.

Edgar Allan Poe, born in Boston in 1809. When he was two, both his parents died from tuberculosis. Poe lived most of his life in poverty and sometimes in misery. He would work and work on a poem only to sell it to a newspaper for a few dollars. In 1836, Poe married his 14-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. She was sick with tuberculosis, and they had no money to pay for heat so Poe trained their cat to sit on her lap to keep her warm. Virginia's mother lived with the couple as well, and Poe was trying to care for them both with almost no money. When he did get money, he often spent it on alcohol. His biggest problem was that he wasn't paid enough money for what he wrote; in 1845, he sold the poem 'The Raven' to a newspaper for $15.

-The Writer's Almanac

Douchie Poe fans have a mock funeral in recompense for his dying drunk on a Baltimore street.

More proof that pot will save the world.

In this case, a correlative activity, watching TV, as opposed to those associated with alcohol or uppers, can be beneficial to society.

This little ditty is from SeedMagazine.

"With all the negative impacts of TV, it might make you wonder whether TV offers any benefits at all. The pseudonymous neuroscience blogger “Neurocritic” found one studyshowing a benefit of television: People say they’re less lonely when they watch. As with the Dunton study, this is just a self-reported correlation, but if TV really makes people less lonely, that’s inarguably a plus.

But there may be more tangible benefits to TV, especially in developing nations. Daniel Hawes, a PhD candidate in applied at the University of Minnesota, discusses a study of a thousand villages in Tamil Nadu, India. The researchers found that shortly after the introduction of TV into a village, the standing of women improved dramatically. Villagers were more likely to say it was wrong for a husband to beat his wife, and women had greater autonomy and lower rates of pregnancy.

This makes some sense—in the US, the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and 70s followed shortly after the nation-wide explosion of television ownership in the 1950s. It’s quite conceivable that TV’s power to induce social change—by giving people more access to information—is universal.

Paradoxically, while TV may be harmful to an individual’s mental and physical well-being, on the aggregate it could be beneficial to society. Perhaps, as with so many other things, the best advice might be to watch TV—but only in moderation. For more on the impact of TV and other technologies, visit ResearchBlogging.org."

The org mentioned, while not visually stimulating, has some interesting posts.

I say we put Pat Robertson and Rush in boat going to Haiti.

Could argue that to understand the want of relative deprivation necessitates the acknowledgement, acceptance of relative privilege.



"Pat Robertson told his audience in the wake of the earthquake the "true story" that Haiti "swore a pact to the devil" to get "free from the French" and "ever since, they have been cursed." You heard that right. According to Robertson, the Haitian people are cursed and were hit by this horrible disaster because they made a pact with the devil for their freedom." - Media Matters

Kind of makes the Xmas day "underwear bomber" not seem so terror-fying. If there is a god, to quote a friend, "what an asshole."

UN guy: "Exactly what Haiti doesn't need, after all it's been through."

The really fucked-up thing is this might be the only thing that might make the city better. The chance to rebuild seemingly more significant than New Orleans, after Katrina. There will be more resources pouring into the place than ever have, or would, before now. The hurricanes, weather-related or political, of Haiti haven't brought out such an apparently immense response. This seemingly could be on par with a full scale invasion. If the government, only hanging on by a thread before the quake, is undone, the US/UN will have to take over. Martial law could be instated, suspending the country's constitution. This could be parlayed into calls for a constitutional convention of some sort that would be a proxy for installing an even more international friendly government, with US/UN troops remaining for some time.

Nation building anyone? We're doing a bang up job in Iraq and Afghanistan (that's only half sarcasm, and half hope). Though, to my knowledge there's no insurgency in Haiti--yet. And like Katrina, there's a mass exodus of the, presumably, poorer residents of the city.

Some semblance of normalcy, says Clinton. But maybe their normal shouldn't be returned to them, why not make it better?

IMF dude seems to agree, he says "something totally new...at the national level" is needed and the "piece meal approach...is not enough to get rid of the problems of the country."

Last time US troops in Haiti on this scale?

Don't quite get the bodies in the road to protest a slow response, almost ironic.