Help

From the website: Help Remedies was created to make solving simple health issues simple. We find the best solution there is, and take away everything else. By stripping away some of the complexity and fear mongering of the health industry, we hope to make medicine friendlier and more accessible, and in doing so empower people to make their own health decisions.

Healthcare packaging is usually made from oil and takes centuries to disappear. We would like to show people that very nice packaging can be made from other types of materials. We’ve made our outer packaging of corn resin and paper pulp. We do use some plastic to surround the pills, but we don’t want to and we are working to change this.

There is no sense in making money if you aren’t going to spend it on things you like. Five percent of our profits are returned to charities that help people without healthcare get healthcare. (We hope that talking about American people without healthcare will sound very old fashioned in the near future.)

Mid-Century Backlash Continues

Photo: Michael Weschler for The New York Times

NYTimes: Ryan Matthew collects Victorian oddities like domestic taxidermy (dogs and cats) and osteological antiques (related to the scientific study of bones).

Story here.

Illustrator: Alex Nabaum

NYTimes Op-Ed: Warrantless Criticism

Russell Tovey

Starring in BBC's "Being Human"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/beinghuman/

1959-70 Honda Cub

NYTimes: The Honda 50 (called the Super Cub in other markets) is simply the best selling self-propelled vehicle of all time and a classic example of efficient design and rugged construction. Honda stopped bringing them into America back in 1970, but they're still being produced in evolved form today. $1,000-$3,000.

US National Design Policy Initiative

US Currency Redesign: Kyle Thompson

Allison Arieff/NYTimes:

What does frustrate me about the whole notion of a U.S. Design Policy is that the country needs one at all. It feels weird to have to defend design’s importance, yet also completely necessary. The United Kingdom has had a policy in place since 1949; Japan since 1956. In countries like Finland, Sweden, South Korea and the Netherlands, design is a no-brainer, reflected by the impeccable elegance, usability and readability of everything in those countries from currency to airport signage. These places support strong design policies and a deep-seated understanding and engagement of the value of design by their governments.

Jordan Crane

"Every One is a Winner"
Orange, red, black, and white on 100 lb. ivory stock.
Hand-pulled by the artist
36" x 40"
Numbered edition of twenty-two
Jordan Crane

Illustrator: Tim Bower

NYTimes: "A Better Way to Get a Kidney"

Texas

Photo: James H. Evans for The New York Times
Cinco Camp, Roger Black's Texas retreat, is made of five shipping containers placed on his remote 3,000-acre ranch. “I wanted something that blends into the landscape and could be installed and eventually removed with minimal disturbance to the environment,” he said.

Manchester

Photo: Duncan Elliott

NYTimes: Jean-Guihen Queyras plays one of Bach’s cello suites at a specially designed space at the Manchester Art Gallery. Zaha Hadid Architects was commissioned by the festival to take a top-floor exhibition room at the Manchester Art Gallery and turn what is basically a big black box into an acoustically and visually perfect place for performances of the Bach works.

Tokyo

Jim O’Connell for The New York Times
Kisho Kurokawa’s 1972 Nakagin Capsule Tower embodies the postwar movement Japanese Metabolism.
Story here.

Letters to the Times

Illustration: Open, NY

To the Editor:

Regarding Ross Douthat’s column: My dislike of Sarah Palin has nothing to do with her sex or class. It has everything to do with her policies, her anti-intellectualism and her contempt for me. Her remarks stating that because my political views are different from hers and suggesting that because I live on the East Coast I’m not a real American are offensive, to say the least. I work hard. I pay my taxes. And the America I believe in is tolerant of our differences.

If that makes me un-American, so were our founding fathers.

Kenneth J. Davis
Scotch Plains, N.J., July 6, 2009

•

To the Editor:

Gail Collins and Maureen Dowd can poke fun at Sarah Palin all they want (“Sarah’s Straight Talk,” column, July 4, and “Now, Sarah’s Folly,” column, July 5), but I begin each day with a silent, heartfelt “thank you!” to the soon-to-be former governor of Alaska. If not for her breathtaking ignorance, which she refreshingly coupled with soaring arrogance, and if not for her coldblooded disdain for the lives of wolves, moose and polar bears, Barack Obama might not have won the presidency. America and indeed the world are infinitely indebted to her. Thank you, Sarah Palin, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Jim Krieger
Fort Lee, N.J., July 5, 2009

Ledger by Weber

Via Vanity Fair

Read

“A superb achievement. With an almost painterly eye, compelling insights, and extraordinary access to Barack Obama and his inner circle, Richard Wolffe’s Renegade tells the hidden, dramatic story of the 2008 campaign and also reveals much we did not know about the 44th president’s life before politics. Wolffe’s brisk, well-written narrative is fully in the tradition of Theodore White and Richard Ben Cramer, capturing a pivotal presidential contest dominated by one of the most luminous figures in modern American history.”
—Michael Beschloss, Historian, Author of Presidential Courage