“Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that some spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, one that is vastly superior to that of man.”

Whether in their inadvertently brilliant reflections on gender politics or in their seemingly simple but profound questions about how the world works, kids have a singular way of stripping the most complex of cultural phenomena down to their bare essence, forcing us to reexamine our layers of assumptions. Take, for instance, the age-old tension between science and religion, which has occupied the minds of luminaries from Galileo to Carl Sagan, as well as some of today’s most renowned scientific minds. The enormous cultural baggage of the question didn’t stop a little girl from New York named Phyllis from posing it to none other than the great Albert Einstein in a 1936 letter found in Dear Professor Einstein: Albert Einstein’s Letters to and from Children (public library) — the same delightful collection that gave us Einstein’s encouraging words to women in science.

The Riverside Church

January 19, 1936

My dear Dr. Einstein,

We have brought up the question: Do scientists pray? in our Sunday school class. It began by asking whether we could believe in both science and religion. We are writing to scientists and other important men, to try and have our own question answered.

We will feel greatly honored if you will answer our question: Do scientists pray, and what do they pray for?

We are in the sixth grade, Miss Ellis’s class.

Respectfully yours,

Phyllis

Only five days later, Einstein wrote back — isn’t it lovely when cultural giants respond to children’s sincere curiosity? — and his answer speaks to the same spiritual quality of science that Carl Sagan extolled decades later and Ptolemy did millennia earlier. Six years prior, Einstein had explored that very subject, in far more complicated language and mind-bending rhetoric, in his legendary conversation with the Indian philosopher Tagore.

January 24, 1936

Dear Phyllis,

I will attempt to reply to your question as simply as I can. Here is my answer:

Scientists believe that every occurrence, including the affairs of human beings, is due to the laws of nature. Therefore a scientist cannot be inclined to believe that the course of events can be influenced by prayer, that is, by a supernaturally manifested wish.

However, we must concede that our actual knowledge of these forces is imperfect, so that in the end the belief in the existence of a final, ultimate spirit rests on a kind of faith. Such belief remains widespread even with the current achievements in science.

But also, everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that some spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, one that is vastly superior to that of man. In this way the pursuit of science leads to a religious feeling of a special sort, which is surely quite different from the religiosity of someone more naive.

With cordial greetings,

your A. Einstein

Complement this with the difference between curiosity and wonder when it comes to science and scripture and Einstein on the secret to learning anything, then treat yourself to Dear Professor Einstein: Albert Einstein’s Letters to and from Children in its heart-warming entirety.

Portrait of Einstein by Yousuf Karsh

Donating = Loving

Bringing you (ad-free) Brain Pickings takes hundreds of hours each month. If you find any joy and stimulation here, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner:

♥ $7 / month♥ $3 / month♥ $10 / month♥ $25 / month

You can also become a one-time patron with a single donation in any amount:

Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s what to expect. Like? Sign up.

Brain Pickings takes 450+ hours a month to curate and edit across the different platforms, and remains banner-free. If it brings you any joy and inspiration, please consider a modest donation – it lets me know I'm doing something right.

Dale and Leilani Neumann are Pentecostal Christians. Their 11 year old daughter, Kara, fell ill. In fact she had (undiagnosed) diabetes. Her parents refused to obtain medical help. Instead they prayed.

‘Kara’s father testified that death was never on their minds.  He testified that he knew Kara was sick but was “never to the alarm of death,” and even after she died, her father thought that Jesus would bring Kara back from the dead, as he did with Lazarus.

The parents and friends testified that the parents took tangible steps to help Kara.  The mother tried to feed Kara soup and water with a syringe, but the liquid just dribbled out of Kara’s mouth.  The father tried to sit Kara up, but she was unable to hold herself up.  At some point, Kara involuntarily urinated on herself while lying unresponsive on the couch, so they carried her upstairs and gave her a quick sponge bath while she lay on the bathroom floor.

At one point, Kara’s maternal grandfather suggested by telephone that they give Kara Pedialyte, a nutritional supplement, in order to maintain the nutrients in her body.  The mother responded that giving Kara Pedialyte would be taking away the glory from God.  Kara’s mother had told another visiting friend that she believed that Kara was under “spiritual attack.”

Friends Althea and Randall Wormgoor testified that they arrived at the Neumanns’ home on Sunday at approximately 1:30 p.m.  The Wormgoors saw that Kara was extremely ill and nonresponsive.  Her eyes were partially open but they believed she needed immediate medical attention.  Randall Wormgoor pulled Kara’s father aside and told him that if it was his daughter, he would take her to the hospital.  The father responded that the idea had crossed his mind, and he had suggested it to his wife, but she believed Kara’s illness was a test of faith for their family and that the Lord would heal Kara….’ [1]

But the Lord did not. Or at least not physically. Kara died from diabetic ketoacidosis. The evidence was that, with conventional medical care, she would have lived.

The parents were prosecuted for reckless homicide. Both were convicted. Both appealed. The appeals were dismissed. Much of the judgment of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, which heard the appeal, is concerned with the construction of local law, and with points about the adequacy of the direction to the jury. But the case raises, very painfully, the perennial questions about parental rights over and duties towards their children, the propriety of state interference with the parent-child relationship, and the degree of respect that should be afforded to religious beliefs.

I hope and presume that few will have any problem in principle with the convictions. But what should be the framework of our thinking about such problems? I suggest the following:

(a)        A child, at least from the moment it is born, is an entity with rights entirely distinct from those of its parents.

(b)        Parents have no rights whatever over their children.

(c)        Parents have a fiduciary duty to act in the best interests of their children. The exercise of that duty is appropriately policed both by the civil and the criminal law.

(d)       What constitutes ‘best interests’ is a question which, at least in theory, is capable of being objectively determined. It is, however, a question whose objective answer has to take account of the circumstances in which the child happens to find itself. That crucially includes the family, and hence the subjective views of the family about what constitutes good living. It does not imply that there is a notional ideal family into which children, having been taken from their birth families, should ideally be transplanted. There are, though, distinct limits to the deference that should be accorded to context. This case is a classic illustration.  

(e)        Parents will usually be in the best position to determine what constitutes their child’s best interests. This is because they are likely to know their child better than other potential determiners. They are also (although this isn’t a point relevant to the reliability of their determination)  likely, because of their parental love and concern, to take particular care to ensure that they act in the child’s best interests. There should accordingly be a presumption that a parent’s decision about a child is a decision in the child’s best interests.

(f)        That presumption is quite easily rebuttable. The status of the parents is simply that of witnesses who unusually well placed to give evidence about where their child’s best interests lie.  

(g)        It is usually relatively easy to determine whether a particular decision will affect a child’s physical integrity. But not always. What about a parent who feeds her child junk food, where she knows or should know that it is harmful, and where it is economically feasible to feed non-junk food. Isn’t she doing something that is not in the child’s best interests? The difference between this and beating a child is only a matter of degree. Should the court be able to interfere? It’s arguable. Indeed I have argued it here.  But in practice, if only to avoid clogging the courts, some threshold criteria have to apply. Not giving your moribund child medical treatment is of course well over the threshold.

(h)        Questions impinging on social and psychological integrity are more difficult. A BMW-driving banker or a homophobic Creationist from Tennessee will daily serve up to their children portions of ideological toxin that are far more damaging than any number of  merely physical bacon double cheeseburgers. Yet one should be very slow to snatch children from an ideologically toxic family, on four grounds: First, the business of snatching is always traumatic, and may well do more harm than continued exposure to the toxins. Second: a decent liberal will doubt her own ability to make the diagnosis of ideological toxicity. Third, even if the diagnosis is made, there will be a deep distaste, based on respect for autonomy and dignity, to prescribe the treatment that it might be thought is necessary. And fourth: although parental rights never trump those of the child, parents do have rights of their own – to family life, for instance, as recognised by the ECHR.

(i)         It may be (it is) intellectually unsatisfactory to draw a neat line between physical and psychiatric welfare. But practically it has to be done.

(j)         As for snatching, so for other sanctions, such as a direction by the court that such and such should be done, or a criminal sanction against the parents.

(k)        Thus in the case of plainly misguided religious belief, a threat to the physical integrity of the child should result in prompt state intervention. Yet some distinctly sub-optimal, psyche-and society-threatening environments will just have to be tolerated. Education, not law, is the only remedy for such ills. It should be unusual, absent physical threats, to cart off the children of fundamentalist missionaries for liberal re-education, or cart off their parents to reflect in a prison cell on the lessons of Enlightenment scholarship.                      

 References

1. Judgment of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, paras 22-25

Remember Mary Chapin Carpenter? Mary is your hard-knock, single aunt, the one who is all, “You look like you need a mojito and a trip to the shooting range,” which are probably the last two things on earth you really need, but somehow it works. She’s fiercely political, feminist, whip-smart. She has a generous, pure authenticity, the kind that died for most people somewhere in the 90s. A couple of years ago, Mary almost died of a pulmonary embolism, and then she lost her father, and then she got divorced, and then she picked up her guitar again because she was fifty-fucking-whatever and life goes on.

I grew up with her music, with Mary telling it like it is–but gently, at nice, uncomplicated dinner parties, the kind with pasta and unintentionally mismatched placemats. I’m going to go ahead and argue that everything that went wrong in our lives can be traced back to that foolish moment where we decided we were too cool for adult contemporary country music.

Therefore, I submit: there is no moment in your life so painful that it cannot be made more bearable by a Mary Chapin Carpenter song.

*

You’re 22 and pulling out of the driveway with a backseat full of trail mix, absolutely convinced that something is going to change–like change is imminent, it’s out there, you’re driving towards it. Somewhere just off the highway in South Dakota. You’ve been sleeping in a single bed shaded by the green hills of Vermont for the past four years. You grew up by the ocean. Seven years from now you’ll live alone for the first time, in an apartment where actual mushrooms protrude from your bathroom ceiling when your upstairs neighbours use the shower, and you will love it and it will feel nothing like home. Mary knows this.

You need: Almost Home (Party Doll and Other Favorites, 1999)
I’m not running, I’m not hiding, I’m not reaching, I’m just resting in the arms of the great wide open.

*

Even if you didn’t get married at age 21 to a man who wants to keep you down, this is for those days when you worry every tiny choice you didn’t even realize you were making has suddenly locked you to a life you’re really not sure about. The woman in this song leaves her husband at 36 and gets a minimum-wage job in the typing pool (!), and it’s the most awesome act of strength. Why has no one made this into a fabulously empowering movie?

You need: He Thinks He’ll Keep Her (Come On Come On, 1992)
Everything is so benign, safest place you’ll ever find–God forbid you change your mind.

*

Do you remember those nights when your friends all said, “Let’s go dancing!” and you thought, when in the entire history of the world has anyone ever really wanted to go dancing? And you ended up face-down on the couch, trying to warm up the half bottle of fridge-chilled red wine by sticking it in your oven? That’s when you listen to this song. It’s important to remember that the world is not always your friend, but you can will it to submit. Also, Mary Chapin Carpenter is a badass–she actually PURRS–and somehow makes the lyric “Hot Dog, I feel lucky tonight” sound irrepressibly cool.

You need: I Feel Lucky (Come On Come On, 1992)
Dwight Yoakam’s in the corner, trying to catch my eye. Lyle Lovett’s right beside me with his hand upon my thigh.

*

Every moment is a decision. Breathing in is a decision, sometimes a very difficult decision, and then you do it, and it feels like a little miracle in your chest. Mary Chapin Carpenter was light-years ahead of the radical vulnerability movement. “Show the world a little light,” she croons. Oh, do.

You need: The Hard Way (Come On Come On, 1992)
We’ve got two lives: one we’re given, and the other one we make.

(Bonus: AMAZING BADASS COUNTRY WOMEN AND SEQUINS in this video.)

*

Before a date. After a date. During a date. While you’re getting ready for a date and you perform a debilitatingly awkward striptease in your mirror to get revved up. Fuck, any other time works too. This is a great song. Mary gets low and sultry here. She’s been hurt before. Maybe the one person she thought would keep her safe decided to head for the hills and then maybe she went dark, built a little house made of yoga classes and all the fragments of all the silly times she said “yes,” and then maybe years passed and one day she realized how much she missed the feeling of removing her heart from its cave and just sort of looking at it, gutted and fish-red and alive. Maybe.

This is the soundtrack for setting up your first OKCupid profile.

You need: Shut Up and Kiss Me (Stones in the Road, 1994)
Love’s as much the symptom, darlin’, as the cure.

*

A hideous Entertainment Weekly profile from 1994 (“Country’s favorite folkie examines the sorrows of single life on her latest album”) names Mary “a spokes-singer for the thirtysomething single woman.” Mmmkay. The piece verbally bullies her into tragedy, at one point calling her a “postmodern spinster” (SHE WAS 36 AT THE TIME) for the loneliness she weaves through her music, and you can feel her bucking against this narrative with everything she’s got. “I don’t want to grow old by myself, but I also believe that if it’s going to happen, it will. I can’t force it,” she says, and the writer clucks back in pity. Mary Chapin Carpenter could crush you like a bug, but she has a heart of gold. Mary Chapin Carpenter wants you to know that you are not alone. Mary Chapin Carpenter says sure, maybe you’re no longer 24 and life hasn’t quite played out the way you imagined it would, and sure, maybe there are times you are deprived of some essential functioning, feel the love you have to give against you like a ghost, but Mary Chapin Carpenter will never let you settle for anything less than you deserve.

You need: Passionate Kisses (Come On Come On, 1992)
Shout it out to the night: “Give me what I deserve, cause it’s my right.”

(This is actually a Lucinda Williams cover, but Mary did it harder and better. Sorry.)

The post A Woman For All Seasons: Mary Chapin Carpenter appeared first on The Toast.

1. You find it’s better to have fewer friends than a bunch of “associates” you barely talk to/know. You’ve had the same group of close friends for years, and it’s really hard for you to let new people into your friend circle.

2. You’re more of a listener, as in you let people speak and finish their thought process before you interrupt them.

3. You always think things through before you do them — ideas, projects, and you don’t really make rash decisions.

4. Nothing annoys you more than when your friends beg you to come out or to stay “just one more hour.” You just want to go home, lay in bed and watch Revenge on Netflix!

5. You always try to avoid conflict. You don’t want to make anybody angry, or wake up anyone’s bad side. But this also means that you keep lots of things to yourself.

6. You’re sort of a perfectionist. And if not a total perfectionist, than you sure don’t like to share your projects or ideas before they are fully thought through or worked out, which means you can sometimes be a slow worker, to the hatred of all the speedy people around you.

7. You don’t like to take the lead.

8. You’re a low talker — not just a “power quiet talker,” which Jack Donaghy invented on 30 Rock.

9. Surprises are not really your thing, and you don’t love walking into unknown situations. You want to know exactly how things are going to go down before you get there so you know what to expect.

10. You get really annoyed when people are constantly asking you why you are so sad all the time. “Why are you sad? What happened? Are you ok?” are always the most annoying questions people can ask you, even if you know they mean no harm.

11. You don’t do meaningless conversations or small talk. What’s the point?

12. You don’t really express your feelings all that well. You expect people to know and understand how you feel already, and this has been a problem in at least one of your most significant relationships.

13. Sometimes you doubt yourself.

14. You have a hard time with one night stands because you’re looking for something of a deeper connection — not necessarily a relationship, but something more meaningful than a bald transaction of sexual congress.

15. Even though you don’t usually speak out, when you do people are often floored by your savvy and ideas. They assumed you were useless.

16. You understand that nothing repairs the soul better than silence.

You should like Thought Catalog on Facebook here.

JetBlue added Fort Lauderdale, FL as the second US city in its network to enjoy non-stop services to San Jose in Costa Rica.

"Dance Apocalyptic" is the second single off of Janelle Monáe's new album (and her first in three years), The Electric Lady, which is due out in September. Billboard called it "the album that will turn the singer from iconoclast to icon," and the Atlantic Records COO told Julianne Escobedo Shepherd it will have "a lot of songs that can get played on mainstream radio." With that poppy guitar riff, this certainly qualifies.

The first Electric Lady release was "Q.U.E.E.N.," a track with Erykah Badu (go watch the video if you haven't yet). In it, Monáe sings, "Am I a freak for dancing around? Am I a freak for getting down?" From Shepherd's story:

With "Q.U.E.E.N.," she says, "I feel like there are constant parallels with me as a woman, being an African-American woman, to what it means for the community that people consider to be queer, the community of immigrants and the Negroid-the combination between the 'N' and the android. All of us have very similar fights with society and oppressors, with those who are not about love, who are more about judging. There are two different types of people: Some people come into this world to judge, some people come into this world to jam. Which one are you? It's a question we should all ask ourselves. My job is to create art that starts a dialogue, to create songs and lyrics that ask society these questions, by using myself as a sacrificial lamb."

[Pitchfork, Billboard excerpt]

---

See more posts by Emma Carmichael

14 comments

The Final Four

I will miss this app. Just so much.

Unironically, unsnarkily, unpunditly. I will really, really miss Google Reader.

Truly outstanding app.

[Update, 1:45 p.m.: Feel like celebrating? Equality NC is hosting a Decision Day event tonight in Raleigh:

TIME AND DATE:
Wednesday, June 26, at 8 PM
Pullen Memorial Baptist Church
1801 Hillsborough St Raleigh, NC 27605

Still much to do in North Carolina.]

Equality North Carolina, the LGBT rights group, has a statement out about the U.S. Supreme Court ruling today that makes two good points: (1) The wicked witch called DOMA is dead, and (2) its death matters most in states where same-sex unions are recognized — but North Carolina, because of Amendment One, is prevented from recognizing them.…

[ Read more ]

[ Subscribe to the comments on this story ]

Thoughtful piece from Cord Jefferson on Kanye West's retrograde attitude towards women (and particularly white women) on his recent album, Yeezus.

Kanye West has never advocated raping anyone. His persistent fixation on conquering white women -- the lure of white women, injuring white men via their women, etc. -- is troublingly retrograde for a multimillionaire who some consider to be the harbinger of a neo-Black Power movement. It ultimately gives lie to the fact that Kanye sees himself as "a god," as he claims on Yeezus, or, as he told Jon Caramanica in that winding New York Times interview, that he is "so credible and so influential and so relevant." I've yet to see a black man who is truly confident in his human worth and his power spend time crowing about ejaculating onto white chicks. What's more, what does it yield West in the end? As Kiese Laymon asked the other day: "Do you think the white men who run these corporations you're critiquing really give a fuck about you dissing, fucking, fisting, choking white women?"

I listened to Yeezus a handful of times when it first came out (and loved it, especially the production and beats) but had to stop because of just this issue. There is undoubtably something critical to be said about race and sex in America, but West's hamfisted lyrics definitely aren't it.

By Leo Babauta

It’s a feeling deep within your heart, one you try to ignore, of heaviness. Of dread and discouragement. Of sadness and guilt and collapse.

I feel this heaviness in my chest when I fail.

It can make me feel like crying. I feel lonely and I want to give up. I want to fall on a bed and shut out the world. But that doesn’t work, because the feeling follows me into bed, and actually intensifies until finally I have to get out of bed to try to escape it.

Failure can hurt.

People get this idea about me, that I am successful and disciplined and gurulike. I’m successful at life, but not in the way people imagine. I’m not disciplined. I’m certainly no guru. I fail, all the time, and the heaviness can come in small doses or big waves, unpredictably.

What do I fail at? Let me count the ways:

• My diet — I eat healthy most of the time, but I overeat when there’s an abundance of yummy food in front of me. I mostly remove that food from my life, but I can’t avoid social situations where the food is right there. When I overeat, I feel fat and bloated and bad about myself.
• Procrastination — I’m actually much better at beating procrastination than I used to be, but sometimes I put off things I don’t feel like doing, for days. I’ve figured out this is because the task has a lot of barriers to actually starting, like needing certain conditions or information that I don’t immediately have.
• Mindful parenting — I’ve made a lot of progress in being a more patient, compassionate father, but there are times when I snap and lose my temper. It’s not horrible, just not great. I always feel bad when I get mad at the kids.
• Expectations — while I’m much better at holding loosely to my expectations, I still have them, and still feel frustrated/disappointed when people or situations don’t meet them.
• Simplicity — I’m not as minimalist as I once was. I still have far, far less than most people, but I allow myself to buy things more than before. Also, I now have an iPhone — it was a Father’s Day gift from Eva. I resisted getting one for 6 years, and now am one of the masses.
• Internet — I use the Internet for work, play, reading, learning, etc. I’m on it more than I should be, and sit too much (though I’m pretty active compared to the average person).
• Learning — I dropped learning languages and programming and other things like this, mostly because I’ve found I just don’t have enough time to seriously learn stuff and still do the other things that are important to me.
• Yoga — I really need some flexibility, and love yoga because it’s meditation and flexibility and a workout all rolled into one. I have not consistently done yoga despite being challenged by my friend Jesse.

I failed at all these things and more.

What Can Be Done

What can you do when you have the heavy feeling of failure in your heart? It’s not always so easy.

The answer, of course, is action. That’s not always easy because when you have the heavy feeling, you don’t feel like taking action.

You take the action anyway. You take it because you know if you don’t, you feel worse, and eventually your life degrades to the point where you don’t respect yourself anymore. You take the action anyway.

Here’s what I do:

• I take a breath. It’s not the end of the world to fail. I just need some space, some distance. I need to see the problem in perspective. When I do, I realize that the failure is pretty minor in the grand scheme of my life, in the grand scheme of the world of lives around me.
• I reframe the failure. Someone once said there isn’t failure, only feedback. That means the failure is just a point of information, a part of the learning process. I like to say, it’s not a failure of me as a person, just a failure of my method. Which means I need to change my method.
• I change the method. If the way I was doing it didn’t work, I need to find a new way. What can I do differently? In some of the cases above, I added some accountability, asked people for help, or looked for inspiration. In some of the other cases, I haven’t changed the method yet, to be honest.
• I take the first step. The problem can be overwhelming, because quite frankly we can’t solve any of this stuff overnight, or even in a few days. We can, however, take one step, right now. One tiny step. And that’s all that matters.

Take one step. Any step.

It lightens the heart. It shows you that things aren’t insurmountable or impossible. It starts to dissolve the discouragement and sadness and pain.

The single step you take today is the antidote to the soul-tearing effects of failure. It helps me, every day.

Last week saw the return of Duck Sauce with the release of new single “It’s You.” It features a barbershop style bit, so it’s only right that the music video takes place in a barbershop. It’s a pretty refreshingly fun video that was a pleasure to watch. It’s pretty fun and care free, just like the song.

Watch it below.

When you've finished a book and you suddenly return to the real world, but the real world feels incomplete or surreal because you're still living in the world of the book.

"I have a really bad book hangover today, I could hardly concentrate at work."

As many of you already know, Google Reader, the popular multi-source news feed (here are all of ours), is getting the Google axe on July 1. We, like many of you, are sad about the death of Reader, but this, too, shall pass! There are plenty of great Reader alternatives out there (check out Lifehacker's guide to five of the best; several of our staffers have already switched to Feedly), and you can always sign up for our weekly newsletters and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

Azote – literally means a whip but can be a person who is attractive or draws a lot of attention
Chocobola – slang for soccer. Actually refers to a round chocolate candy wrapped in aluminum foil decorated to look like a soccer ball.
Deshuesadero – a chop shop for stolen cars
Guamazo – a strong blow, hit or collision
Hacer un MacGyver – to improvise something or something that is makeshift
La Joya – Costa Rica’s National Stadium
Matadero – slang for one of Costa Rica’s famous love motels
Pancista – a person who always roots for the soccer team that wins
Perico – slang for cocaine
Quincho – slang for the man’s name Joaquín
Trono – throne or toilet
Una person 4 por 4 – a versatile person or jack-of-all-trades

Tiquismo (Costa Rican expressions) of the week –
Crecer como la espuma – to rise like foam when a person experiences success quickly
Escoba con enaguas – another name for a woman (insulting)
Huevos de agua – a man that can only procreate girls (vulgar)
Salir de una y se mete en otra – to get out of one jam (problem) and then get stuck in another one
Salvarle la tanda – to get someone out of a jam or help
Tirarse al agua – to make an attempt to achieve something or to “take the plunge”

"Dad Rock" started as a snarky label that music snobs & critics lobbed at aging classic rock-influenced bands like Wilco and The National. Maybe because it’s Fathers’ Day weekend or because I’ll be a new dad next month (if due dates hold true), but I’m joining Jeff Tweedy in embracing the once-derogatory term. Here’s a mix of some modern dad rock, all from the last three years and all of which I happen to love. Download the entire mix here.

01. Wilco - Dawned On Me
02. Father John Misty - Only Son Of A Ladies Man
03. Bon Iver - Towers
04. The Tallest Man On Earth - Wind And Walls
05. Craig Finn - No Future
06. The National - Sea Of Love
07. First Aid Kit - EmmyLou
08. My Morning Jacket - Outta My System
09. Tame Impala - Feels Like We Only Go Backwards
10. Fleet Foxes - Lorelai
11. Titus Andronicus - In A Big City
12. M. Ward - I Get Ideas
13. Alabama Shakes - Be Mine
14. Iron & Wine - The Desert Babbler
15. The Walkmen - Song For Leigh
16. Andrew Bird - Eyeoneye
17. Foxygen - No Destruction
18. The Decemberists - This Is Why We Fight

Listen to this mix on Spotify

Download zip file

If you've ever tried to kick the coffee habit, you are familiar with the symptoms of caffeine withdrawal: headaches, fatigue, irritability, and difficulty concentrating. But the release of the newest version of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) made official what us coffee addicts suspected all along. Caffeine withdrawal can be a mental health disorder.

Jon Caramanica talks with Kanye West about his work, his past, his impending child, and all sorts of other things in the NY Times. I started pulling interesting quotes but stopped when I realized that I was copy/pasting like 96% of the article. So, you only get two:

I sat down with a clothing guy that I won't mention, but hopefully if he reads this article, he knows it's him and knows that out of respect, I didn't mention his name: this guy, he questioned me before I left his office:, "If you've done this, this, and this, why haven't you gone further in fashion?" And I say, "I'm learning." But ultimately, this guy that was talking to me doesn't make Christmas presents, meaning that nobody was asking for his [stuff] as a Christmas present. If you don't make Christmas presents, meaning making something that's so emotionally connected to people, don't talk to me.

And I don't want to ruin the amazing last few paragraphs, but I just had to include this:

I think what Kanye West is going to mean is something similar to what Steve Jobs means. I am undoubtedly, you know, Steve of Internet, downtown, fashion, culture. Period. By a long jump. I honestly feel that because Steve has passed, you know, it's like when Biggie passed and Jay-Z was allowed to become Jay-Z.

On “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” there’s a really affectionate scene where you go and help Kim sort through her clothes.

That was from a place of love. It’s hard when people read things in a lot of different ways. You know, the amount of backlash I got from it is when I decided to not be on the show anymore. And it’s not that I have an issue with the show; I just have an issue with the amount of backlash that I get. Because I just see like, an amazing person that I’m in love with that I want to help.

Did you think differently about family after your mother passed?

Yeah, because my mother was — you know, I have family, but I was with my mother 80 percent of the time. My mom was basically — [pause]

Was your family.

Yeah, that’s all I have to say about that.

Jon Caramanica of the New York Times published an actually epic interview with Kanye "Don't do press, but I get the most press" West this week. The entire thing is quotable, so just go read it with the knowledge that no one on earth is smarter about Kanye West than Kanye West himself. "I love the fact that I’m bad at [things], you know what I’m saying?" he says, of his singing on 808s & Heartbreak. "I’m forever the 35-year-old 5-year-old. I’m forever the 5-year-old of something." Read it here.

Yeezus, Kanye's new album, is out next Tuesday.

---

See more posts by Emma Carmichael

1 comments

...when people take large doses of antioxidants in the form of supplemental vitamins, the balance between free radical production and destruction might tip too much in one direction, causing an unnatural state where the immune system is less able to kill harmful invaders. Researchers call this the antioxidant paradox.

Because studies of large doses of supplemental antioxidants haven’t clearly supported their use, respected organizations responsible for the public’s health do not recommend them for otherwise healthy people.

So why don’t we know about this? Why haven’t Food and Drug Administration officials made sure we are aware of the dangers? The answer is, they can’t.

From Sunday's New York Times: "Don't Take Your Vitamins." Waaaay ahead of you, man.

---

See more posts by Emma Carmichael

21 comments