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YouTube – Go the Fk to Sleep – read by Samuel L. Jackson.

ReadySetGo!

A fun, quick read full of action. Animals in an epic battle over life and death! Available from BeastsofNewYork.com in a variety of formats; ePub version is currently free.

A Photon in the Darkness:

A few years ago, a coalition of business people, fringe medical practitioners and D-list celebrities inaugurated a new movement to blame vaccines for autism under the banner of “Too Many, Too Soon” (meaning “Too many vaccines, too soon in life.”) Their assertion that the large number and early timing of vaccines is causing autism immediately came into conflict with reality, but they have a long history of not letting reality get in their way.

A number of people have again and again rebutted and refuted the claims of this hyper-vocal coalition and to do so again might seem pointless, yet here I am (and here you are, too). We have heard – repeatedly – about outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases and how even what seems like a small drop in vaccine uptake causes a serious decline in “herd immunity” (a term I can’t bring myself to like). Yet there are other people – including at least one board-certified paediatrician – who claim that vaccinations (some or all) are no longer necessary because these diseases are no longer endemic in the US. In the face of such conflicting claims, how can parents make an informed decision?

In the US and most of the industrialised nations – at this moment – the risk of you or your child coming down with a vaccine-preventable disease is very, very low (there are exceptions, such as pertussis, that I will discuss later). A growing number of people are interpreting that to mean that they (or, more precisely, their children) should no longer have to take the vanishingly small risk of vaccination.

To some extent, these vaccine “freeloaders” are correct – as long as the overall population vaccination rate remains high, their risk of death or injury from a vaccine-preventable communicable disease (important distinction) is lower than their risk of death or injury from other causes (e.g. car crash, slip and fall, choking on food). However, as I’ve pointed out in a previous post , the risk of injury or death from the vaccine is still lower than the risk from the disease – even in the face of near-universal vaccination.

More importantly, the risk from the disease grows rapidly as the number and proportion of unvaccinated individuals increase.

One of my best friends reminded me of how great these guys are– can’t believe it took this long for me to pick this one up. Chino and the boys rock it, yet again. Here is a Sade cover for your perusal and enjoyment…

An all instrumental, jam album. Here is “Off the Grid”, which stood out for me.

Would You Hire Your Own Kids? 7 Skills Schools Should be Teaching Them | AlterNet.

Schools aren’t teaching the skills our kids need. Why? May 28, 2010

I’ve spent the last two years researching and writing a new book, The Global Achievement Gap: Why Even Our Best Schools Don’t Teach The New Survival Skills Our Children Need—and What We Can Do About It. I began with several questions: First, in the new global economy, where any job that can be turned into a routine is being either automated or “off-shored,” what skills will our students need to get—and keep—a good job. And what skills are needed for citizenship today? Are these education goals in conflict, I wondered.

With a clearer picture of the skills young people will need, I then set out to learn to what extent we are teaching and testing the skills that matter most. And because we already know that many of our nation’s urban schools are failing, I chose to observe classrooms in some of our most highly regarded suburban schools in order to understand whether our “best” was, in fact, good enough for our children’s future. What I discovered in this journey may come as a surprise to many.

One of my first interviews was with Clay Parker, the President of the Chemical Management Division of BOC Edwards—a company that, among other things, makes the machines and supplies the chemicals for the manufacture of microelectronics devices, including silicon semiconductors and flat panel displays. He’s an engineer by training and the head of a very technical business, so when I asked him about the skills he looks for when he hires young people into the company, I was taken aback by his answer.

“First and foremost, I look for someone who asks good questions,” Parker responded. “Our business is changing, and so the skills our engineers need change rapidly, as well. We can teach them the technical stuff. But for employees to solve problems or to learn new things, they have to know what questions to ask. And we can’t teach them how to ask good questions—how to think. The ability to ask the right questions is the single most important skill.”

“What other skills are you looking for?” I asked, expecting that he’d jump quickly to content expertise.

“I want people who can engage in good discussion—who can look me in the eye and have a give and take.”

“I don’t understand,” I confessed.

“All of our work is done in teams. You have to know how to work well with others. But you also have to know how to engage the customer—to find out what his needs are. If you can’t engage others, then you won’t learn what you need to know.”

The Beat Bee, mysterious cosmic funkanaut of the the intergalactic spaceways, delivers his magic Mixtapes throughout the universe to spread the love and joy of real music! He has chosen Food One and Jane Dope to broadcast his funky signals on planet Earth…and so, we proudly bring you The Beat Bee Sessions…an all-new, (semi) weekly podcast guaranteed to clean the cobwebs out ‘yo mind!

Happened upon Metric through their pop single, “Help I’m Alive”; moved on. However, my son heard it, liked it, wanted to hear it again.

Being raised in the pre-digital music era– yes, I remember and used vinyl, and have an extensive audio tape collection– I still have a predilection for albums as a whole. Also, I am frugal. So, instead of just buying the single for my son’s playlist, I sampled the rest of the album and was pleasantly surprised.

Reminiscent of Berlin, Missing Persons and even Suzanne Vega, I was hooked.

I’m a sucker for powerful, sweet female vocals backed by power chords.

Dicky Barret, of the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, guest vocals for the win!!

via @Templesmith

via @Templesmith

Battles: found these guys via the Couch King.
The Crimea: British indie group, discovered via @warrenellis.
Dinosaur Jr.: started listening late high school/early college. “Start Choppin’” is one of my favorites of all time; inspired me in my playing (both guitar ans bass).
Far: Sacramento boys gone big, fallen, coming back.
Stalking Horses: discovered via @warrenellis, from his 4am podcast series.
(FB users will need to click through to original post to hear samples.)

Tito Mukhopadhyay and his mother, Soma

The Mind Tree

Maybe it is night
Maybe it is day
I can’t be sure
Because I’m not yet feeling the heat of the sun
I am the mind tree
When I had been gifted this mind of mine
I recall his voice very clearly
To you I have given this mind
And you shall be the only kind
No one ever will like you be
And I name you the mind tree
I can’t see or talk
Yet I can imagine
I can hope and I can expect
I am able to feel pain but I cannot cry
So I just be and wait for the pain to subside
I can do nothing but wait
My concerns and worries
Are trapped within me somewhere in my depths
Maybe in my roots
Maybe in my bark
When he comes next who gifted me my mind
I shall ask him for the gift of sight
I doubt his return and
Yet hope for it
Maybe he will
Maybe he will not”
(Beyond the Brain: Mind Tree Poems (excerpts from the book, “Beyond the Silence”) NationalGeographic.com)

A more recent article, aside from the ’causes of’ reporting, and a list of his available works.

I had the fortune to meet Tito and his mother, Soma, early on in my career as a special education teacher, which helped shape my perception of Autism in particular and persons with impairments in general.

Mellow and melancholy– nice for a contemplative mood.
(click through to original post to listen)

No.

The dork is strong with this one. Th’ li’l’ one calls it, “Angry.” We listen to it a lot in the car.

Part of the problem with using stem cells to treat autism is that we don’t know what we are treating. Despite the enthusiastic promotion of various “theories” about what causes autism, there is no generally agreed upon pathology or “lesion” to treat. Even genetic studies fail to show one single genetic cause of autism, suggesting that what we call “autism” is a number of different disorders with a similar (or not so similar) appearance. Injecting stem cells in the vague hope that they will find the problem and fix it is foolish. Stem cells have no more idea of how to “fix” autism than we do – which is to say, “none”.

via Prometheus