Of books and bats and sealing wax

A place where Anthony rambles on randomly or just shares observations.

Or nice pics. Laugh and live.

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hipandc00l: beelisty: veganfemme: biichama: barbeauxbot: jawdust: Why you should be in passionate horny love with Elizabeth ‘Nellie Bly’ Cochrane Born in 1864/65, Elizabeth, one of 15 children, was always ‘the rebellious one’. Fierce as fuck from an early age, she testified against her abusive stepfather in her mother’s divorce trial. In 1880 she enrolled in a teacher-training college but had to leave after her first semester due to lack of funding - then moved to Pittsburgh to help run a goddamn boarding school.  This is where we get to the good shit. Age 18, she wrote a letter-to-the-editor of the Pittsburgh Dispatch bitchslapping the everloving fuck out of a sexist ballsack of an article entitled ‘What Girls Are Good For’.  The editor was so goddamn wooed by her razor-sharp tongue that he RAN AN AD asking her to identify herself. Elizabeth owned up, and was hired instantaneously, her badassery radiating from her pores and intoxicating all within a twenty mile radius. Working under the pen-name Nellie Bly, Elizabeth kicked the butts of morons everywhere, writing articles aimed at social justice, particularly labour laws to protect working ‘girls’ and reform of Pennsylvania’s divorce law, which greatly favoured men. Not content with changing the world from behind her desk, Elizabeth became a founding mother of investigative journalism. She was expelled from Mexico for exposing political corruption, and henceforth wrapped in cotton wool by her editors. Infuriated by their mollycoddling, Lizzie left them a note essentially telling them to fuck themselves and hot footed it to NYC. She was still only 23. Within six months she was hired by Joseph fucking Pulitzer himself, and continued her batshit crazy investigations uninhibited. Her very first assingment had her feigning mental illness to expose repulsive conditions in Blackwell’s Island Insane Asylum. Her cutting report was so fucking horrifying, compelling and persuasive that it triggered public and political action, leading to reform of the institution. In the next couple of years she had herself thrown in jail and hired by a sweatshop, all for shits and giggles. Oh, and to uncover incomprehensible injustice, cruelty, poverty, and the concealed, heinous treatment of the vulnerable and voiceless.  But was pioneering journalism, social revolution and batshit badassery enough for our Liz? Like fuck it was. On a whim Nellie did what any self-respecting 25 year old woman in the 1800s would do - she emulated Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, and did it in 72. Millions followed her journey, and its appeal to a semi-literate populace resulted in greatly increased newspaper readership. So while travelling the entire globe (IN THE 1800s, AS A WOMAN) by ship, train, burro and balloon, she helped the world to read. Having essentially conquered the entire goddamn universe before hitting 30, Nellie retired, and wed 72 year old industrialist Robert Seaman. Their marriage was a happy one, and after his death she took over Iron Clad Manufacturing Co. But Lizzie was a writer, what would she know about the metal industry? Well, she INVENTED the steel barrel that became the model for the widely used 55-gallon drum and turned her inherited businesses into multimillion-dollar companies, so apparently a fuck ton. Furthermore, she set a precedent for working conditions, ensuring her workers had good pay, gymnasiums, staffed libraries, and health care, all completely unheard of at the time, while still writing to further the plight of the Suffragette movement. Nellie may have died age 58 of pneumonia, but HBICs live on forever. bamf One of my top five favourite journalists!

hipandc00l:

beelisty:

veganfemme:

biichama:

barbeauxbot:

jawdust:

Why you should be in passionate horny love with Elizabeth ‘Nellie Bly’ Cochrane

  • Born in 1864/65, Elizabeth, one of 15 children, was always ‘the rebellious one’. Fierce as fuck from an early age, she testified against her abusive stepfather in her mother’s divorce trial.
  • In 1880 she enrolled in a teacher-training college but had to leave after her first semester due to lack of funding - then moved to Pittsburgh to help run a goddamn boarding school. 
  • This is where we get to the good shit. Age 18, she wrote a letter-to-the-editor of the Pittsburgh Dispatch bitchslapping the everloving fuck out of a sexist ballsack of an article entitled ‘What Girls Are Good For’. 
  • The editor was so goddamn wooed by her razor-sharp tongue that he RAN AN AD asking her to identify herself. Elizabeth owned up, and was hired instantaneously, her badassery radiating from her pores and intoxicating all within a twenty mile radius.
  • Working under the pen-name Nellie Bly, Elizabeth kicked the butts of morons everywhere, writing articles aimed at social justice, particularly labour laws to protect working ‘girls’ and reform of Pennsylvania’s divorce law, which greatly favoured men.
  • Not content with changing the world from behind her desk, Elizabeth became a founding mother of investigative journalism. She was expelled from Mexico for exposing political corruption, and henceforth wrapped in cotton wool by her editors. Infuriated by their mollycoddling, Lizzie left them a note essentially telling them to fuck themselves and hot footed it to NYC. She was still only 23.
  • Within six months she was hired by Joseph fucking Pulitzer himself, and continued her batshit crazy investigations uninhibited. Her very first assingment had her feigning mental illness to expose repulsive conditions in Blackwell’s Island Insane Asylum. Her cutting report was so fucking horrifying, compelling and persuasive that it triggered public and political action, leading to reform of the institution.
  • In the next couple of years she had herself thrown in jail and hired by a sweatshop, all for shits and giggles. Oh, and to uncover incomprehensible injustice, cruelty, poverty, and the concealed, heinous treatment of the vulnerable and voiceless. 
  • But was pioneering journalism, social revolution and batshit badassery enough for our Liz? Like fuck it was. On a whim Nellie did what any self-respecting 25 year old woman in the 1800s would do - she emulated Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, and did it in 72.
  • Millions followed her journey, and its appeal to a semi-literate populace resulted in greatly increased newspaper readership. So while travelling the entire globe (IN THE 1800s, AS A WOMAN) by ship, train, burro and balloon, she helped the world to read.
  • Having essentially conquered the entire goddamn universe before hitting 30, Nellie retired, and wed 72 year old industrialist Robert Seaman. Their marriage was a happy one, and after his death she took over Iron Clad Manufacturing Co.
  • But Lizzie was a writer, what would she know about the metal industry? Well, she INVENTED the steel barrel that became the model for the widely used 55-gallon drum and turned her inherited businesses into multimillion-dollar companies, so apparently a fuck ton.
  • Furthermore, she set a precedent for working conditions, ensuring her workers had good pay, gymnasiums, staffed libraries, and health care, all completely unheard of at the time, while still writing to further the plight of the Suffragette movement.
  • Nellie may have died age 58 of pneumonia, but HBICs live on forever.

bamf

One of my top five favourite journalists!

(via bygoshbygolly)

link

How to handle critics and criticism

When he was still a young man, Beethoven decided to compose a few improvisations on a music by Pergolesi. He devoted months to this task and finally had the courage to publish it.

 
A critic wrote a full page review in a German newspaper in which he launched a ferocious attack on the music.

 
Beethoven, however, was quite unshaken by his comments. When his friends pressed him to respond to the critic, he merely said:

 
‘All I need to do is to carry on with my work. If the music I compose is as good as I think it is, then it will survive that journalist.
“If it has the depth I hope it has, it will survive the newspaper too.
“Should that ferocious attack on what I do ever be remembered in the future, it will only serve as an example of the imbecility of critics.’

 
Beethoven was absolutely right.
Over a hundred years later, that same review was mentioned in a radio programme in São Paulo (Paulo Coelho).

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One of the few english channels here in Denmark plays WWII documentaries every afternoon. Some of them very good but rather appallingly some of them are sloppy and quite poor pieces. Playing on people’s fears and painting Hitler as a very stupid evil yokel doesn’t do history justice. Even though most of us don’t like him and consider him quite evil, most historians agree he was intelligent and charismatic and simply choosing to ignore that to paint a two-dimensional caricature says more about your ability as a sensationalist documentary maker than a a seeker of the truth.

One of the few english channels here in Denmark plays WWII documentaries every afternoon. Some of them very good but rather appallingly some of them are sloppy and quite poor pieces. Playing on people’s fears and painting Hitler as a very stupid evil yokel doesn’t do history justice.

Even though most of us don’t like him and consider him quite evil, most historians agree he was intelligent and charismatic and simply choosing to ignore that to paint a two-dimensional caricature says more about your ability as a sensationalist documentary maker than a a seeker of the truth.

(Source: jordantumbles)

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iamnothingami: kethera: :isabbb: The Ghosts of World War II’s Past “Taking old World War II photos, Russian photographer Sergey Larenkov carefully photoshopped them over more recent shots to make the past come alive. Not only do we get to experience places like Prague, Vienna, and Moscow in ways we could have never imagined, more importantly, we are able to appreciate our shared history in a whole new and unbelievably meaningful way.” wow.. this is photo nerd heaven Wow, that’s haunting and intriguing at the same time, nice work. Wow. Breath-taking and eerie but in a wonderful way.

iamnothingami:

kethera:

:isabbb:
The Ghosts of World War II’s Past

“Taking old World War II photos, Russian photographer Sergey Larenkov carefully photoshopped them over more recent shots to make the past come alive. Not only do we get to experience places like Prague, Vienna, and Moscow in ways we could have never imagined, more importantly, we are able to appreciate our shared history in a whole new and unbelievably meaningful way.”

wow.. this is photo nerd heaven

Wow, that’s haunting and intriguing at the same time, nice work.

Wow. Breath-taking and eerie but in a wonderful way.

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