Enjoy our special posts in the fields of Earth & Planetary Sciences (EPS Blog) and Social Sciences & Arts (SSA Blog)
Credit: Faulkner in 1954, photographed by Carl Van Vechten; via Wikipedia
5 quotes by the American writer William Faulkner
1. "I decline to accept the end of man."
2. "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
3. "The human heart has hidden treasures, In secret kept, in silence sealed; The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, Whose charms were broken if revealed."
Credit: Arthur Schopenhauer, german philosopher, 1788-1860; Getty images
1. "The life of every individual, viewed as a whole and in general, and when only its most significant features are emphasized, is really a tragedy; but gone through in detail it has the character of a comedy."
2. "Truth is no harlot who throws her arms round the neck of him who does not desire her; on the contrary, she is so coy a beauty that even the man who sacrifices everything to her can still not be certain of her favors."
3. "What keeps all living things busy and in motion is the striving to exist. But when existence is secured, they do not know what to do: that is why the second thing that sets them in motion is a striving to get rid of the burden of existence, not to feel it any longer, 'to kill time', i.e. to escape boredom."
Credit: Getty images
Banning scooters may reduce sidewalk congestion and keep would-be riders and pedestrians safer, but it comes at a cost, according to a new study by Georgia Tech researchers. In research examining the impact of Atlanta's 2019 ban on e-scooters and e-bikes in the city, researchers found that average commute times increased by about 10%.
The ban in Atlanta, one of many U.S. cities put in place in response to increased accidents and hospitalizations from micromobility devices, was in effect between 9 p.m. and 4 a.m. A moratorium during peak rush hour would cause even more congestion, the study's lead investigator, Omar Asensio, said. "These are fairly significant congestion effects that most travelers will feel as an unintended consequence of the safety regulation."
Credit: www.fridakahlo.org
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican female artist that produced hundreds of paintings during her lifetime but most importantly she changed the way women were perceived in the 20th-century male-dominated world of art. She was an incredibly pronounced individualist, a feminist, and undoubtedly a great and original painter. In 1929, she married the most distinguished Mexican artist at the time – Diego Rivera. They had a passionate, tempestuous marriage weaved by strong mutual influence, inspiration, jealousy, and betrayal. Their relationship was filled with the full spectrum of emotions, extramarital affairs, and publicity that shocked the world. Despite that, they stayed together until the end, except for a year, which they spend divorced.
The picture The two Fridas is probably the most important and disclosing one in regard to the artist's personality. Her Mexican-European duality, her ideals, and her physical and emotional pain are to be seen for the first time with such great intensity on that canvas.
Below you can enjoy a short video made by the incredible art historian James Payne on the famous painting by Frida Kahlo.
In The Revolt of the Masses, Ortega traces the genesis of the "mass-man" and analyzes his constitution, en route to describing the rise to power and action of the masses in society. Ortega is quite critical of both the masses and the mass-men of which they are made up, contrasting "noble life and common life" and excoriating the barbarism and primitivism he sees in the mass-man.
He does not, however, refer to specific social classes, as has been so commonly misunderstood in the English-speaking world. Ortega states that the mass-man could be from any social background, but his specific target is the bourgeois educated man, the señorito satisfecho (satisfied young man, or Mr. Satisfied), the specialist who believes he has it all and extends the command he has of his subject to others, contemptuous of his ignorance in all of them.
Ortega's summary of what he attempted in the book exemplifies this quite well, while simultaneously providing the author's own views on his work: "In this essay an attempt has been made to sketch a certain type of European, mainly by analyzing his behavior as regards the very civilization into which he was born". This had to be done because that individual "does not represent a new civilisation struggling with a previous one, but a mere negation ..."
