Desirism, Doughnuts & Red CurbsIn discussions of morality, attempts to define good can get downright maddening once one applies themselves duly to the task. Yet, it seems so simple. We all know what good means, right? The problem is, my “good” might actually be your “bad,” so how might we deal with that?
How Skateboarding Helped My IntelligenceThis post was originally going to be titled "How Skateboarding Helped My Education," but by the end hopefully you'll see why education was swapped for intelligence. Though related, the two are not the same thing.
One way people learn things is by observation, which humans have been using to test claims long before science arrived on the scene. Science and its tools merely extend or accentuate our observational abilities, with the added bonus of providing a somewhat reliable filter for false claims. How does this relate to skateboarding?
Skateboarding – A Diversion From DesolationSave for skateboarding evangelists, skateboarding and religion rarely cross paths in any sort of real way, but my friend Joe Haircut posted a link the other day to this New York Times article titled Skateboarding in Afghanistan Provides a Diversion From Desolation. The article was the story of young Afghan kids who share a small concrete foundation no bigger than the fountain everyone skates at Golden Gate Park, described as “…a decrepit Soviet-style concrete fountain with deep fissures.”
Despite the active environment around them, a half-dozen or more kids assemble peacefully to skate this thing fully-padded, with an instructor or two to keep an eye out for suicide bombers and other terror-related flare ups.