Jackie Danicki

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Ms 5chw4r7z and me

Originally uploaded by dynamist.

The 5chw4r7zes and I had a great time at the Downtown Residents’ Council holiday party at Universal Grille tonight with some lovely new friends. Contrary to appearances, I usually don’t go in for super-organized activities, but this was casual enough to be comfortable for me.
And that’s my last […]

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Heather’s husband, Jon, has written an insightful post on what it’s like to be in a relationship with someone who has depression. His final paragraph cannot, in my view, be emphasized enough:

To the people out there who denigrate mental health awareness and treatment, I say this: You aren’t helping. You are making it worse. Stop […]

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The UK may be insane, but I still love it (while also spitting nails at 99.9999% of the legislation going through). I realized tonight that the only other countries for which I have such passionately positive and forcefully negative feelings are the US, France, and Israel. The common thread? In each of those countries, the […]

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How refreshing - intelligence and reason about the season (and other matters)!
Even more predictable than the post-Thanksgiving appearance of shopping-mall Santas is the inability of pundits at this time of year to say or to write “commercialism” without prefixing to it the word “crass”…
I challenge this notion. Commerce is peaceful. It involves sellers working hard […]

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Westin downtown Cincinnati

Originally uploaded by dynamist.

I feel like the Westin downtown is a highly underrated space. It’s so open and modern, yet warm and cozy. I look for any excuse to pass through it, and often stop in the Westin lobby, sink into one of the big, comfortable chairs, and spend a little quiet time […]

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My friend Brian Micklethwait says:

One of the more damaging assumptions you can make is to assume that everyone is like you, with the same values, ambitions, preoccupations and interests as you have.
I see this so much especially when people talk about parents. They take it for granted that all, or very nearly all, parents love […]

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…and other manifestations of developmental aggression:
The cut worm forgives the plough.
-William Blake, Proverbs of Hell (from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell), c. 1790

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I received a most thought-provoking, enjoyable phone call today from my buddy Chris Yeh. Homeboy is CEO of now advisor to Ustream.tv (which just closed another round of funding and announced General Wesley Clark as a new member of its board of advisors), has a whole litter of kids at home, and still finds time […]

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One of my pet peeves is people talking about “our democracy” as if democracy itself is sacred. Far from it!
Perry de Havilland:
The notion that “our democracy depends on individual freedom” strongly implies that freedom should or does serve democracy. I would argue that democracy is not an end in and of itself at all but […]

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This is an insanely good deal: Join the Downtown Residents’ Council at the door of their party at Universal Grille on Thursday, and you get to eat for free that night and receive a full year’s worth of membership benefits - all for the princely sum of $15 per person or $20 per household. (You […]

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Cardinal, Price Hill

Originally uploaded by dynamist.

I was beyond thrilled to spot a cardinal while walking in Price Hill late this afternoon. Those fat red birds were much missed by me while I was away from Ohio for all those years.
At first I thought it a shame that it chose to hide in a tree […]

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Heinrich Heine, “On portraits of beautiful women in a Genoese Picture Gallery” (1830):
Nothing in the world can touch the soul with such sadness as the sight of portraits of beautiful women who have been dead several hundred years. Melancholy steals over us at the thought that nothing remains of their originals, of all those beauties […]

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It’s like I can’t even do anything because everybody is sitting there with a cellphone just waiting for me to mess up.
-Seventh grader Jake Dobson, quoted in a New York Times piece on cyber-bullying
What to do about this? I suspect the only thing that will work is swift, harsh punishment of any kid found to […]

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