This is: National Drop Everything and Read Day. (Those of you who read Beverly Cleary's Ramona books in your youth might already be familiar with DEAR. Cleary turns 94 today.) To celebrate DEAR Day, take some time to reread a book you loved as a kid.
Spirit food: "There are books so alive that you're always afraid that while you weren't reading, the book has gone and changed, has shifted like a river; while you went on living, it went on living too, and like a river moved on and moved away. No one has stepped twice into the same river. But did anyone ever step twice into the same book?" --- Russian poet Marina Tsvetaeva
Brain food: "Another thought to disturb slumber: For an octopus to imprison a human, all it would need is a gate with 3 doorknobs." -- Neil DeGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist , on Twitter. I have no idea if this is true, but I'm inclined to believe it. (via Reddit)
Young adults today...: are "too cool" for the census, at least according to NPR. We also don't feel that the census matters or that it will impact our lives or the lives of our friends: "If you don't count," said one person interviewed for the story, "why be counted?" (Prove them wrong, folks---send yours back!) (via NPR)
A joy: I'm a little late to the party on this, but---Ben and Jerry's has announced that all the ingredients used in the production of their ice cream will be certified Fair Trade by 2013. (via Ode)
A concern: Izabela Jaruga-Nowacka, a former deputy Prime Minister of Poland, was killed---along with 95 others, including President Lech Kaczynski and his wife---in a plane crash on Saturday. Jaruga-Nowacka spent much of her career advocating for the rights of women and LGBT people in Poland. (via Jezebel)
Churchy things: Can a minister keep leading a community of believers even if he or she has become, over time, atheist or agnostic? A piece in yesterday's Boston Globe takes on the phenomenon of "nonbelieving clergy." (via The Boston Globe)
Unchurchy things: Can't afford that modernist masterpiece of a house you've been craving? You might, like these cool and creative people, be able to own it in miniature. (Via The New York Times)
Young adult(s) of note: 18 year-old college freshman Andrew Kim has designed a greener soda bottle. (via Packaging World)
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