Weekend linkage

{southern Iceland}

Three time-suckers for ya. The OED's blog, the live feed from the Olympic torch relay, and HowHeAsked.com (a collection of sappy proposal stories . . . yep).

If you or your significant other has a beard, well, here are some great ideas for what to do with it. Quote Bubble is my favorite.

I have been thinking a lot about the value of human life, particularly that of a child, and so this made me cry--in a good way. "I wanted to grab David and run far far away where no one would ever be mean to him . . . And then a spark of bravery ignited somewhere inside me . . . I am not ashamed of my son. Yes, he only has two fingers on his left hand. Yes, he is different. But he is amazing and he is mine."

From NPR: Fancy names can fool wine geeks into paying more for a bottle. Me, I tend to judge by the label. Pretty packaging wins every time.

Once you've picked your poison, here is a helpful cocktail randomizer from the New York Times.

Dehumanized: when math and science rule the school. "This is precisely the argument heard at parent-teacher meetings across the land. When is the boss ever going to ask my Johnny about the Peloponnesian War? As if Johnny had agreed to have no existence outside his cubicle of choice. As if he wasn’t going to inherit the holy right of gun ownership and the power of the vote." Written in 2009, and absolutely as relevant today, this article is so good I can't even say. Just go read it.

Lee Harris asks: Are Americans really too dumb for democracy? "Only someone abysmally ignorant of the history of ideas could believe for a moment that high intelligence is any guarantee against the lure of dumb ideas. The dumbest idea you can think of almost certainly owes its origin to an intellectual."

Oops.