US rivers in the contiguous 48 states, assembled in vector ink from public USGS data by Nelson Minar. It’s like elegant porcelain, made of digital water.
I’m amazed both that so much of the continent is covered by rivers, as well by the fact that there’s enormous regions with nothing. Fascinating. Click the link above to explore more.
“We should all be feminists” TedxTalk by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
This talk is honestly just incredible. As a Nigerian and a fellow Igbo as well, it is beyond moving to see someone like Adichie so eloquently articulate and expound on sexism and the virulent power of patriarchy in the world at large and specifically in the context of her life as an Igbo woman growing up in Nigeria as well. She points out the problems we have in Nigerian and Igbo culture today without pulling punches, and links it into these larger systems of oppression that affect woman globally. Oppression being cast as ”tradition” and a “part of our culture” is not excusable and is just wrong, and as she puts it so well:
“So what is the point of culture… culture is really about preservation and continuity of people… culture does not make people; people make culture. So if it is in fact true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we must make it our culture”
She also calls out the fuckery of MOC who blatantly ignore the intersectional experiences of WOC!
This is amazing, and Adichie takes you on a journey with her before hitting homerun after homerun in the second half of the talk.The only bone I have to pick is with her saying that men “should be feminists as well.” I feel like it’s very inappropriate for us as men to colonize female spaces, and a “male feminist” is a useless term for someone who should just say that he is a “man actually trying to be a decent human being” instead.
Besides that, though, and ending by talking about a “masculine male feminist” (cringe) which are points she touches on just right at the end, I absolutely love this and encourage everyone to grab some popcorn and watch it! She calls it like it is, and I’m so proud as an Igbo person as well. Adichie is just so incredible, smart, funny, witty and on point, and I’m going to have to look for some of her books to read now too!
Luke promises, in the first chapter of his gospel, to give an “orderly account” of everything, after he has investigated and considered all the stories from the very beginning. But Luke isn’t only interested in recording the physical miracles, the unexplainable healings, the miraculous multiplying of fish and of loaves. What Luke makes sure to put before us is the miraculous healing of the heart.
See what Hannah sings: “God brings death and God brings life, brings down to the grave and raises up. God brings poverty and God brings wealth; he lowers, he also lifts up. He puts poor people on their feet again; he rekindles burned-out lives with fresh hope, restoring dignity and respect to their lives—a place in the sun!”
And hear Mary’s song: “God knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud. The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold. He embraced his chosen child, Israel; he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.”
Is this a miracle? We could say it depends on who you ask. But I don’t think a single person who has known what it is like to be hungry — or downtrodden, or hurting, or broken, or in need of mercy piled high — none of us would say that it is anything less.
- “For some unexplainable reason, my heart rejoices in the Lord”, my sermon on 1 Samuel 2:1-10
