Monday, July 23, 2012

Links + Commentary


  • "How It Feels To Be Colored Me" by Zora Neale Hurston. I wish I could write half as well as this: But I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all. I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all but about it. Even in the helter-skelter skirmish that is my life, I have seen that the world is to the strong regardless of a little pigmentation more of less. No, I do not weep at the world--I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife.
  • Amazon to pay tuition for employees.  From the splash page letter: "We want to make it easier for employees to make that choice and pursue their aspirations. It can be difficult in this economy to have the flexibility and financial resources to teach yourself new skills. So, for people who've been with us as little as three years, we're offering to pre-pay 95% of the cost of courses such as aircraft mechanics, computer-aided design, machine tool technologies, medical lab technologies, nursing, and many other fields. The program is unusual. Unlike traditional tuition reimbursement programs, we exclusively fund education only in areas that are well-paying and in high demand according to sources like the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and we fund those areas regardless of whether those skills are relevant to a career at Amazon." Personally, I think that's fantastic.
  • Did I Ruin Journalism? A former Jezebel writer/reporter responds to the account of her work published by Ryan Holiday, who accuses her of a "pattern of manipulation".
  • Mindy Kaling's new show The Mindy Project will be premiering online August 27
  • City of Los Angeles sues US Bank over blight
  • Ottavia Bourdain is apparently a UFC enthusiast