Fear, but loathing no more?

[yourlibrarian]

1) Gays, genre shows, and the failure of movie stars: Atlantic looks at the U.S. fall season and has some interesting things to say.

2) Gacked from my friend Paula, the Village Voice does an excellent piece about the fear and loathing in Tampa's upcoming Republican Convention, and includes a section on the Daily Show's Asif Mandvi

Comments

[ivy03]

I've actually seen a PayPal option at a Home Depot.

[yourlibrarian]

I saw someone else comment about another option, so maybe they've had earlier partnerships.

[theadaze]

Thank you for the link about childhood/adulthood creativity. The topic is always interesting, even though there's not really any new information in there.
Also, I can't help but think that adults are doing a disservice to their children's creativity by drowning their childhood activities in an overabundance of complicated toys, tv-shows and games. Since children are creative and imaginative, they shouldn't need so many useless accessories to entertain themselves. I don't have any studies to back this up (except my own frustrated observations, heh), but to me it seems that children are becoming much more dependent on outside stimulus in their playing, instead of finding the inspiration from their own imagination. I wonder how this is going to affect their adulthood creativity.

[yourlibrarian]

You're not the first person to complain about that, I know I remember hearing someone discussing their book about childhood education discussing the problem with toys that do too much (and children become bored with them that much faster). Honestly, so many kids have too much too soon in all sorts of ways. It makes me glad I grew up when I did -- the ridiculous production that has become children's parties is another good example.

[theadaze]

Yeah, the toys that do too much is a real problem - they don't leave any room for your own imagination.

I don't really know much about children's parties, maybe they're more common in the US? I only had two elaborate (more than a cake in the kitchen) birthday parties when I was a kid; one was in a forest full of huge rocks formed by glacial ice and one was in a mine museum 100 metres below ground. Apparently my parents thought those were good places for a child's birthday party. I have to say I agree, now and then. :D