traveling with infants & the recycling sham

real thoughts, questionable news...

I watched Ready Player One on the airplane back from Brasil earlier this week, and as I couldn’t help be dwell on the sadness of the metaverse. I waited until the last line of the film to get some satisfaction that I was not the only one with this stream of thought. The closing line read… “that was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it's also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is real.”

In sum, go outside. Everything gets better when you go outside.

Cole

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what we are reading…

The Scammer (New York Magazine)

Danielle Miller walked into Rikers Island at 3 a.m. in the dead of winter, shivering in a flimsy Missoni cover-up, Hervé Léger bathing suit, and Valentino Rockstud heels, carrying a Prada purse — the outfit she’d been wearing when she was arrested on a warrant related to a credit-card scam. She fell asleep under a pile of coats and woke up surrounded by a dozen other detainees in the same filthy holding cell, waiting for what would happen next. The daughter of wealthy Manhattan parents and a graduate of the prestigious Horace Mann School, she was ill-prepared for a place like Rikers, but she did have one advantage: She knew how to make friends. (more)

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Maine Stirring Up the Recycling Paradigm (The New York Times)

Recycling, that feel-good moment when people put their paper and plastic in special bins, was a headache for municipal governments even in good times. And, only a small amount was actually getting recycled. Then, five years ago, China stopped buying most of America’s recycling, and dozens of cities across the United States suspended or weakened their recycling programs. Now, Maine has implemented a new law that could transform the way packaging is recycled by requiring manufacturers, rather than taxpayers, to cover the cost. Nearly a dozen states have been considering similar regulations and Oregon is about to sign its own version in coming weeks. (more)

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Stevie Nicks Is Still Living Her Dreams (The New Yorker)

I first met Stevie Nicks in 2013, when I was about to turn seventeen. At the time, I was editing Rookie, an online magazine for teen girls, and I had recently given a tedxTeen talk critiquing a trend of superficially “strong” female characters in pop culture. I am sure the video would embarrass me now, but I stand by its concluding line: “Just be Stevie Nicks.” A few months later, I heard from Nicks’s management team. Her cousin had sent her the video of my talk, and she wanted to invite me to a Fleetwood Mac show. At the concert, in Chicago, I bawled listening to Nicks sing her otherworldly songs and was stunned when I heard the same voice dedicating her performance of “Landslide” to me. (more)

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track of the week…

Bobby McFerrin - Circlesong Six (Alex Twin Edit)

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#coletakes

traveling with small children: why? who is benefiting from this? Parents are suffering, the children do not remember anything they do before the age of five, and everyone around them is in pain. Let your children grow up in nature and allow them the luxury of waiting a few years before they are subjected to the abysmal human interaction that is airplane travel.

sunglasses: are they functional or fashionable? Hopefully, you are reading this and nodding “both”. However, who really knows if keeping your eyes open with blind inhibition behind those tinted lenses all day will in fact make you more likely to go blind or not? Conspiracy theory perhaps, but I’ve been marinating on it this week.

reusable bottles: at this point, it is becoming unacceptable to not carry around your own water bottle. Of course, there are moments will you use a single use plastic bottle, but the recklessness with which we use these in commercial places is tragic.

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tweet(s) of the week…