How to humanize and preserve the abandoned underground spaces of New York

How do you humanize and preserve the abandoned underground spaces of New York? If you are artist and urban explorer Miru Kim, here's what you do:

Kim explores industrial ruins underneath New York and then photographs herself in them, nude -- to bring these massive, dangerous, hidden spaces into sharp focus.

Kim was featured at a recent TED talk. I was skeptical when I first read about her concept, but now I'm sold. Ebonmuse previously posted on another artist's urban spelunking, minus the beautiful nude woman. See here.

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Susi Neunmalklug explains the evolution!

Tis a pity we don't make things like this in the U.S. Neun = 9, Mal = times, Klug = smart. So Susi Neunmalklug translates into Susie Smartypants. Yeah. Ask a linguist or etymologist about the evolution of vernacular. So, imagine a religion teacher coming in to your class and explaining where we come from to kids who were raised to know better. Anyway, this video is wa-ay cute, and has English subtitles. Tip of the mustache to Pharyngula

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Pregnant women breakdancing?

Pregnant woman were out in droves to breakdance to draw attention to a good cause. It happened in London in September 2008. The stats say it all: every day 1,400 women die in labor and child birth. Here's the video: BTW, at the end of the video, you'll hear that the women who were actually breakdancing were not actually pregnant.

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Isaac Asimov talks with Bill Moyers

This video was created many years ago--based on Moyers' description of the American space program, it was probably made in the early to mid 1960's. I had never before seen any video of Asimov (though I have read some of his writings), and I found this video (part of an episode from "Bill Moyers World") to be engaging. The topics: science and education. I also found what appears to be a full transcript of the interview at Harpers Magazine, which contains some additional information, including this exchange on the power and limits of science:

MOYERS: What's the real knowledge?

ASIMOV: We can't be absolutely certain. Science doesn't purvey absolute truth. Science is a mechanism, a way of trying to improve your knowledge of nature. It's a system for testing your thoughts against the universe and seeing whether they match. This works not just for the ordinary aspects of science, but for all of life. I should think people would want to know that what they know is truly what the universe is like, or at least as close as they can get to it. We don't pretend that we know everything. In fact, it would be terrible to know everything because there'd be nothing left to learn. But you don't want to be up a blind alley somewhere.

As you might assume, Wikipedia has an informative biography on Asimov. After viewing this video, I looked it up. I especially enjoyed his comment on religion:

In his last volume of autobiography, Asimov wrote, "If I were not an atheist, I would believe in a God who would choose to save people on the basis of the totality of their lives and not the pattern of their words. I think he would prefer an honest and righteous atheist to a TV preacher whose every word is God, God, God, and whose every deed is foul, foul, foul." The same memoir states his belief that Hell is "the drooling dream of a sadist" crudely affixed to an all-merciful God; if even human governments were willing to curtail cruel and unusual punishments, wondered Asimov, why would punishment in the afterlife not be restricted to a limited term? Asimov rejected the idea that a human belief or action could merit infinite punishment. If an afterlife of just deserts existed, he claimed, the longest and most severe punishment would be reserved for those who "slandered God by inventing Hell."

Continue ReadingIsaac Asimov talks with Bill Moyers