middle cyclones and other references

nprfreshair:

Barry Meier, author of the new e-book A World of Hurt, talks to Terry Gross about widespread use of OxyContin in Appalachia:

If you look at the atlas of how drugs are prescribed in different parts of the country, there usually is a pretty straight correlation between the use of narcotic painkillers in areas where you have physical labor jobs, like mining, farming, logging, where people get a lot of back problems and muscle injuries and things of that nature. In many of these areas you have doctors who are generalists; they’re not specialists. So most folks are going to a general practitioner — a family doctor — and when they were told that OxyContin was a less abusable drug than drugs that had preceded it, they said, “Great. This sounds like a good thing for my patients.” So they started prescribing it very heavily.

Image of coal cars in West Virginia by Roger May via D. Smith Galleries

anthropologie:

A dust storm approaches a small Texas town, 1935. My father-in-law grew up in Texas cattle country and tells me these types of storms are more common than you’d think. I can’t even imagine.

Via: Oh, Pioneer!

ricp:

Statement President Nixon was to read in case the astronauts were stranded on the Moon, July 18, 1969 via Doug Coupland

nationalpost:

Oh HERE’S the photo we were looking for earlier. San Diego’s Fourth of July celebrations ruined after fireworks explode all at once. Best. Fail. Ever. (AP Photo/Ben Baller)

bbook:

I saw America in pictures and movies, and it was sort of a utopian place compared to where I lived. All I ever wanted was getting there. American music was the opposite of everything I heard in my own country, and there was rhythm and fun—the notion of fun was completely strange to me. Everything I really liked was from this mythical place called America.

bbook:

I love Los Angeles…the golden age of cinema is still alive there, in the smell of the jasmine at night and the beautiful weather. And the light is inspiring and energizing. Even with the smog, there’s something about that light that’s not harsh, but bright and smooth. It fills me with the feeling that all possibilities are available.

-D. Lynch

barackobama:

Hug.

Americans, forget about the president thing itself for a second - you can’t honestly want any First Lady but Michelle Obama. 

theatlantic:

New Racism Museum Reveals the Ugly Truth Behind Aunt Jemima

David Pilgrim was 12 years old when he bought his first racist object at a flea market: a saltshaker in the shape of a mammy. As a young black boy growing up in Mobile, Alabama, he’d seen similar knick-knacks in the homes of friends and neighbors, and he instinctively hated them. As soon as he handed over his money, he threw his purchase to the ground and shattered it into pieces.

Pilgrim’s story brings to mind the young biblical Abraham, smashing idols in his father’s shop. But that mammy was the only racist icon Pilgrim ever destroyed. Today he owns thousands of them: cereal boxes, statuettes, whites-only signs, and postcards of black men being whipped and hung. The public will soon be able to see his entire collection and more at the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia, which opens April 26 at Ferris University in Michigan where Pilgrim spent years as a sociology professor.

The museum is divided into sections, each reflecting a different distorted vision of black people in America. One features Uncle Toms: cheerful, servile black men like Uncle Ben or the chef on the Cream of Wheat box. Another showcases “brutes”: muscular ogres who lurk in dark alleys and ravish white women. Most of the objects predate civil rights, but there’s a section devoted to modern racism: It includes dozens of caricatures of President Barack Obama as a monkey, a terrorist, and a watermelon-eating “coon.”

Read more. [Images: Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia]

I KNEW IT. I KNEW AUNT JEMIMA SHOULD MAKE ME UNCOMFORTABLE.

lizdexia:

I cried laughing. The Boyfriend told me to calm down. This is also the only way I involve myself in political discussion. 

I didn’t actually say anything too interesting about the Detroit commercial, but I did say this earlier that night about American national emotion. The intensity of Superbowl commercials and promos are astounding to me - there is just so much feeling about it. As someone who grew up without sports in the household, and in Canada, it is truly remarkable, and it means that I am actually intensely into sports when I start to watch it because I feel like I’m studying something very intricate and moving and complex.