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Posts tagged ‘pause for sanity’

Nov 26

Pause for Sanity: Happy National Day of Listening!

After you get home from a long day shopping, Middblog encourages you to celebrate the National Day of Listening by sitting down this evening with a friend or relative while they are still in town and listening and even recording them tell a story about their rich past. StoryCorps, who started the national holiday a few years ago, has more information about how to do this.

Another option is to listen to other people’s stories online. Stories about other Middlebury students can be found on Middlebury Magazine’s How Did You Get Here? series.

In addition, there are thousands of stories recorded by StoryCorps archived in the National Library of Congress about Americans from all parts of the country and walks of life. Below is a particularly poignant story to start with (animated by StoryCorps):

Also check out stories at This I Believe (people telling stories about what they believe in on Public Radio) and 1 in 8 million (stories told by New Yorkers about their lives). Read more

Nov 8

Pause for Sanity: A Rally

As most have heard by now, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear took place last weekend on the National Mall in Washington DC. With an estimated 215,000 people in attendance, the rally was billed as a gathering of moderates who are tired of the negativity and pessimism in American society and politics.

Two days prior to the rally, Middlebury Professor of Religion, James Davis, was quoted in an USA Today article on the subject of the rally and civility (coincidentally the topic of his latest book, In Defense of Civility). Davis argues that the rally with its ”call to interreligious civility” is not a new concept but rather one “built into American social and political history.”

As an attendee of the rally, I can say it was a surprisingly civil event. You would think that with tons of people cramming into metro cars, no cell service, and hoards of people in the space of three blocks, panic would ensue. However, I found it to be quite the opposite. Any shoving or pushing was accompanied by a quick apology, conversations arose between strangers, and there was a general sense of positivity and dare I say, patriotism in the crowd.

Seems the idea of “pausing for sanity” is not something unique to MiddBlog but was something the whole country needed as well.

 

Oct 27

5 Comments

Pause for Sanity: Do you Believe in Time Travel?

In this day and age of Photoshop, few images on the internet can garner the attention that this photo has received since making its virtual debut. But more recently, a curious clip from a 1928 Charlie Chaplin film, The Circus, has also reinvigorated the ageless debate of time travel’s existence. Why? The 80-year-old footage seems to feature a woman talking on a mobile phone.

I can hear the ensuing stampede of debunkers, non-believers and skeptics already.

Oct 17

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Pause for Sanity: Changing Education Paradigms

Familiar with the RSA? How about Sir Ken Robinson? Do you have ten minutes? Even if “no” is the answer to all three of these questions, you should still watch this video.

Calling the ADHD epidemic “fictitious” and the current education system a figment of the industrialized, Age of Enlightenment past, Sir Ken Robinson’s arguments are bold and for a liberal arts student, well, perhaps personal.

Is Middlebury College a mere extension of today’s factory line education? Or does the “liberal arts” title speak otherwise?

No doubt, there’s more than one answer–at least in a world beyond the current education system.

Oct 8

2 Comments

Pause for Sanity: A Nobel Manifesto

Liu Xiaobo

Chinese peace activist Liu Xiabo just won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.  As this New York Times article explains, Liu is serving an 11-year jail sentence for using nonviolent means to advocate for human rights and civil freedom in China.

Lu has been politically active for years, but his signature two years ago of Charter 08, a pragmatic manifesto in the spirit of the Declaration of Independence, seems to be the immediate cause for his recent imprisonment.  The wikipedia article on Charter 08 is worth a skim on a Friday afternoon, and Chinese and English versions are of the manifesto are also available online.

I’d love to hear if anyone has a perspective on the manifesto and the Nobel Prize announcement either from the perspective of political theory or contemporary China.  Granted the Chinese government has a pretty incredible spin machine, but isn’t this beyond what can be spun?  Or does the Nobel Prize not mean much in China?  Will this mean the Chinese government will become even more repressive?

If you want to comment but have a stake in not pissing off the Chinese government, feel free to use a pseudonym.  It may seem a little over the top to have to say this, but let’s remember, Lui has 10 more years of Chinese prison ahead of him.

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