“The largest effect is that of Fox News: all else being equal, someone who watched only Fox News would be expected to answer just 1.04 domestic questions correctly — a figure which is significantly worse than if they had reported watching no media at all.”

Survey: NPR’s listeners best-informed, Fox viewers worst-informed | Poynter.

Proposed test for dating compatibility: “Hallelujah”

I think this would make an excellent question for determining dating compatibility. It’s also a great Saturday project.

Please rank (in terms of awesomeness) the following performances of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelulujah.” Explain your rankings.

a) Leonard Cohen

b) Jeff Buckley

c) Rufus Wainwright

d) John Cale

e) K. D. Lang

Feel free to color outside the lines in your answers.

Notes: There are many possible answers and this is intentionally a difficult question. I have also always believed that covers CAN BE (although are not necessarily) stronger than the original, just so you don’t think I’m going for the “gotcha” question here.

wrinkledorgan:

The installation artist Tatiana Blass addresses the myth of Homer’s Odyssey. Penelope was the wife of Odysseus and waited twenty years at the beach on her husband while he enjoyed his adventures. In order not to be distracted by annoying admirers of waiting, she looked for meaningful work. She wove a shroud for three years for her stepfather. Penelope promised to select a candidate when she had done, because no one believed in the return of her husband. But secretly she bound parts of the shirt on again at night choose to have no other and to remain faithful to their adventurers.

The installation is located in the chapel of São Paulo Morumbin. Blass lives and works in Brazil. The loom is located where the altar was supposed to be. On one side is a long red carpet spread out throughout the threads that lead into the loom are completely confused on the back. The red yarn is fed through holes in the wall outside, where it covers the whole garden. One wonders, similar to Penelope’s story, whether the piece is being woven or untied.

“It is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the one who hankers after more. What difference does it make how much there is laid away in a man’s safe or in his barns, how many head of stock he grazes or how much capital he puts out at interest, if he is always after what it is another’s and only counts what he has yet to get, never what he has already. You ask what is the proper limit to a person’s wealth? First, having what is essential, and second, what is enough.”

Seneca. Letters from a Stoic. Aylesbury, Bucks, Great Britain: Penguin, 1982.