Ed's slipper - tumblr

In this tumblr, I will: (a) share posts from Ed's slipper, (b) reblog cool or funny stuff and (c) answer questions put to me on here! (or try to)

[imperiumsinefine]

This is like something out of The Thick of It

[astercrash]

More than 12 years on, check out this amazing documentary on the cultural impact of rickrolling

[nomehablen2]

i hate monopoly it is like some old white guy was sitting around and then thought to himself, what if we could make capitalism fun? well you tried and you failed dipshit

[astrophobe-deactivated20131016]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_board_game_Monopoly it was actually created by a Georgist to illustrate the principle that rent makes landlords richer and tenants poorer. She designed it to be incredibly not fun, to show that if you don’t own property you experience an inevitable foreseeable slow dwindling of your resources until you eventually go bankrupt. She figured that through Monopoly people would be so bored and frustrated that they would understand how terrible the system of rent is

Then Parker Brothers patented it, mass-produced it, people bought it because people have terrible taste in games, and the original creator experienced an inevitable foreseeable slow dwindling of her resources until she died impoverished and obscure

[hestmord]

society is a horrific parody of itself

[blackcollarcitizen-deactivated2]

No wonder this game makes me aggressive

[babayagay]

Her name was Elizabeth Magie and her game was stolen by Charles Darrow.

Darrow went bankrupt after the 1929 Stock Market Crash, so when he saw his neighbors playing the game, he copied down the instructions, and published his own version of the game.

Then he sold it to the Parker Brothers who popularized the game. Darrow became a millionare within the year. Despite this, Hasboro currently lists him as the sole creator on their website.

Magie was amazing, and not just for her game. She liked to mock societal standards of the time through theater and even made national headlines mocking the institution of marriage. She supported herself until her mid 40s, proving that marriage was not the only option for women, before tying the knot herself.

Elizabeth Magie is attributed with this, “Girls have minds, desires, hopes, and ambitons.” Dont forget her name.

[shencomix]

Don’t confuse them.

image / twitter / facebook / patreon

[quandonestprof]

Quand, par réflexe, tu as dit “chuuuut” à la télé

[edsslipper]

Lessons from teaching: In the world

Lessons from teaching: In the world

I get on really well with my students. As I was describing my interactions with them to a friend and colleague a few weeks back, he told me I seemed to be “one of the lads”: jokes are exchanged gladly (so long, of course, as they are not distracting from learning for too long!); I try and share their interests, and they return the favour: some have even started to follow Stoke City! Of course,…

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[edsslipper]

Doubt

A vocation is something extremely personal – and therefore extremely difficult to discuss. Of all the criteria for selection, it is perhaps the most daunting one, because it leads to the question: where do I start? How do I start even contemplating, let alone explaining, a task of the utmost importance? How could Isaiah volunteer himself so eagerly to be a prophet of the Lord? Such certainty,…

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[weareteachers]

[tailspinfr]

Pour mes élèves de Seine Saint-Denis

Lorsque j’ai appris l’attaque de Charlie Hebdo, je rentrais de l’école. Un message, puis deux, sur mon téléphone. Puis je suis restée bloquée sur les chaînes d’information pendant un long moment sans pouvoir rien faire d’autre. Je me suis mise au travail, car c’était un mercredi après-midi et que j’avais des copies à corriger. Des copies de brevet blanc, un sujet d’argumentation : « Pensez-vous que tous les élèves de France ont les mêmes chances de réussir à l’école ? ». J’ai lu, j’ai corrigé, sans être jamais loin de mon écran d’ordinateur. J’ai bu beaucoup de café. L’atmosphère était pesante. J’ai pleuré comme on pleure lorsque toutes les vannes sont ouvertes d’un coup, avec de gros sanglots, des hoquets, le visage rougi. Très vite, j’ai pensé à mes élèves, collégiens et collégiennes, de toutes les couleurs, de toutes les origines. Musulmanes et musulmans, pour beaucoup. Voici ce qui s’est passé le lendemain matin, jeudi 8 janvier, lorsque je suis arrivée au collège de Seine Saint-Denis où je travaille.

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[edsslipper]

Mince pies, Doctor Who and the Queen

Mince pies, Doctor Who and the Queen

What is Christmas to you? A season to be jolly, for sure. A time of rest, generally with at least a couple of days off work. To me, it’s all that; it also means the glorious taste of mince pies, the lush smell of Spice Imperial tea, a generally cheesy Doctor Who special and, obviously, the Queen‘s message. It means feeling warm and comfy, homely. And, yes, it means the birth of Christ, but if I’m…

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[edsslipper]

Rest

So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.

Genesis 2:3 (NRSV)

Very early on in the Bible, we are told that God rests from his work. Realising that his creation was good and complete, he took a day off. This is no trivial day off. It later got enshrined into patterns of living, through the commandment to keep the…

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[edsslipper]

Moving up the ranks

Moving up the ranks

Let me start this post by repeating a story I was told. There was this guy who wanted to get involved in ministry. He envisioned going to the pulpit and told his pastor he wanted a more active role in church. The pastor handed him a broom and asked him to sweep the floor of the church. There are two teachings from this story:

never approach your pastor, or you’ll get landed with a job ;-)

no task…

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[edsslipper]

Sexuality: doing it wrong

Sexuality: doing it wrong

Issues of sexuality are notoriously controversial, and shirted around uncomfortably; especially where homosexuality is concerned. This goes beyond a “no sex, we’re British” attitude. Discussions turn into debates and degenerate into arguments far too easily, and cause rifts that have no reason to be there. Some practices, sadly, reinforce these rifts and lead us to a discourse that is far, far…

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[edsslipper]

That you may believe

That you may believe

A traditional view of the Bible: Jesus performed miracles. They are proof of His power and divinity. The ultimate such proof is His resurrection. The apostles then performed miracles of their own. They are proof of their authority.

Now additionally to this, each miracle recorded in the Gospels has its own story, and each of them has its own, distinctive nugget of wisdom for us. Arguably, the…

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[edsslipper]

6 ways in which sins are like bug bites

6 ways in which sins are like bug bites

‘Tis summer, the season of mosquitoes and other bugs stinging and biting us. In many ways, bug bites are like sins:

Photo: Hardo Müller, reused under CC License

1. They can be debilitating and deadening.For some sins, in particular addictions, this is easier to see (but harder to break out of!); while some menial sins do not seem altogether so bad. But, when we sin, there is that part of us that…

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[edsslipper]

Getting it wrong, or the importance of the resurrection

Getting it wrong, or the importance of the resurrection

Not too many years ago, for an application form, I had to describe my understanding of the Christian faith. More particularly, I was asked to describe how I understood the role of the death of Christ (and, therefore, of his resurrection). This is part of the answer I wrote:

(…) the defeating of death works as a warrant of Jesus’s divine nature and that God can indeed grant us eternal life.

And…

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[edsslipper]

Why ecumenism is bad, too

Why ecumenism is bad, too

Lots of words ending in “ism” are bad. Fundamentalism. Radicalism. Racism. Schism. But they’re certainly not all bad: Altruism. Prism. Arminianism.

Ecumenism is one of the things that gets bandied about as an intrinsically good thing. I’m a massive supporter of it: where possible, things should be done together with other Christians regardless of minor doctrinal differences. If we believe we make…

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