Chaff & Grain Together

This blog is an eclectic collection of interesting things I've found on Tumblr, the rest of the web, and beyond. Its name is taken from this quote by Dinah Craik: "Oh, the comfort — the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person — having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are, chaff and grain together; certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and then with the breath of kindness blow the rest away."

[chaffandgrain]

If You Fix This, You Fix a Big Piece of the Climate Puzzle 

There’s no single solution for climate change, but there is one that would be more effective than others. What do you think it is?

[chaffandgrain]

A Theory Strikes Out: Weighted Bats Don’t Quicken the Swing

Warming up with the 24-ounce weight is supposed to increase bat speed in a sport where a split second can mean the difference between a hit and a whiff. 

But swinging a loaded bat like Mike Trout or a bunch of bats at once like Babe Ruth or a sledgehammer like Willie Stargell or a steel rod like Frank Thomas, or really, anything other than a normal game bat, probably isn’t helping a batter’s swing, and may be hurting it. 

Studies conducted over several decades have concluded that the ritual popular among professionals and emulated by amateurs doesn’t increase bat speed. It may actually slow it down. 

 “The best is your own bat,” said Coop DeRenne, a hitting consultant who began researching bat speed in the 1980s.

[mapsontheweb]

Europe divided by LA’s GDP.

[azspot]

Public schools are run by democratically elected school boards. Privately run charter and voucher schools often are run by appointees. They aren’t beholden to the public who provide the tax dollars they need to operate. They are beholden to the limited group of people who would profit from them economically. This is a terrible model for public schools. It gives very little back to the taxpayer. It gives less value to the student.

Why Schools Should NOT Be Run Like Businesses (via azspot)

[austinkleon]

100 things that made my year

[howstuffworks]

The Way We Think About Sugar Is Going To Change

[chaffandgrain]

Why we shouldn’t judge a country by its GDP

Analysts, reporters, and “big thinkers” everywhere love to talk about Gross Domestic Product. It has become the yardstick by which we measure a country’s success. But, argues Michael Green, GDP isn’t the best way to measure a good society. His alternative? The Social Progress Index.

[chaffandgrain]

Why Therapists Should Talk Politics

Sometimes, the patient is depressed because the world is unjust.

“I’m meeting my boss later,” my patient said. “I’m worried she’s going to tell me I’m not pulling my weight, and that I should volunteer to work more hours to show my commitment.”

This tension had been building at her job for months, and she feared that there would be a tacit threat in this meeting: work longer hours, uncompensated, or we will push you out. She was already finding it hard to spend so much time away from home. But she couldn’t afford to risk unemployment.

“What am I supposed to tell my children?” she asked, breaking down.

My stomach knotted. Such worries among my patients are becoming so common, so persistent, that I find myself focusing less and less on problems and neuroses that are specific to individual patients, and more and more on what is happening to the fabric of daily life.

[purplebuddhaproject]

Instead of saying “I don’t have time” try saying “it’s not a priority,” and see how that feels. Often, that’s a perfectly adequate explanation. I have time to iron my sheets, I just don’t want to. But other things are harder. Try it: “I’m not going to edit your résumé, sweetie, because it’s not a priority.” “I don’t go to the doctor because my health is not a priority.” If these phrases don’t sit well, that’s the point. Changing our language reminds us that time is a choice. If we don’t like how we’re spending an hour, we can choose differently.

Laura Vanderkam in the Wall Street Journal

[abcnews-deactivated20251106]

WATCH: As war ravages Syria, the light is literally being replaced by the darkness.

[climateadaptation-deactivated20]

Proof he’s the Science Guy: Bill Nye is changing his mind about GMOs

Bull Nye changed his mind about GMOs after reading the science. You should too.

Over the years, as peer-reviewed scientific studies on GMOs have piled up, scientific organizations ranging from the National Academy of Sciences to the World Health Organization have analyzed them and reached similar conclusions: GMOs on the market today are no riskier for your health than their non-GMO equivalents.

A recent analysis of the scientific literature also found that GMO crops haven’t been worse for the environment than their non-GMO counterparts and, in some cases, have been better, for instance by reducing pesticide use. That finding echoes a 2010 NAS report that said GMO crops, generally speaking, “have had fewer adverse effects on the environment than non-GE crops produced conventionally.”

[chaffandgrain]

Forget teaching how to code. You’d be better off teaching this simple tech skill instead.

[chaffandgrain]

A Giant Picture of Snow Cover across the United States in February 2015. 

(Click through to compare maps from 2013 and 2014.)

[insteadofwatchingtv]

Why Vaccines Work

[micdotcom]

Minnesota shows exactly why we should raise taxes on the rich 

Over the past four years, Minnesota has undergone a series of policy reforms that most of the corporate world decries: It has imposed higher taxes on the wealthy and raised the minimum wage. Guess what happened to their economy?

[laughingsquid]

Archer Lars Anderson Fires Three Arrows in 0.6 Seconds and Shoots Arrows Fired at Him Out of the Air

[chaffandgrain]

The American political debate has transformed radically over the last month.

The recovery is not complete — wages remain stubbornly suppressed — but this fact itself suggests an upside: The absence of higher pay is also the absence of any kind of inflationary pressure that might cause the Federal Reserve to apply the brakes to the recovery. This in turn suggests job growth is not finished. The 2016 elections could well take place against a backdrop of full employment. The entire predicate of the Republican argument since 2009 — that Obama’s massive expansion of spending, taxes, and regulation has snuffed out job creators’ incentive or ability to work their capitalistic magic — will be moot.

In 1996, the recovery was still embryonic enough that Bob Dole could lamely assert that Americans were suffering from “the Clinton crunch.” Four years later, George W. Bush had to acknowledge widespread prosperity, while casting himself as the ideological heir to Clinton’s moderate policies and running on “honor and dignity.” That is the sort of reversal currently under way.

(via)