{"id":2782,"date":"2009-10-05T09:26:02","date_gmt":"2009-10-05T16:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.discovermagazine.com\/cosmicvariance\/?p=2782"},"modified":"2009-10-05T09:26:02","modified_gmt":"2009-10-05T16:26:02","slug":"making-a-virtue-out-of-chronological-necessity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/2009\/10\/05\/making-a-virtue-out-of-chronological-necessity\/","title":{"rendered":"Making a Virtue Out of Chronological Necessity"},"content":{"rendered":"

One thing about the Facebook era is: you can’t forget it’s your birthday. Facebook tells all your friends, and they send along cheerful greetings. And then you feel all happy until you find that Neil deGrasse Tyson has the same birthday as you, and many more Facebook friends. But he’s older, so there. I like to think my best years are still ahead of me.<\/p>\n

I know what you’re thinking: “Gee, Sean, here it is your birthday, and me with no way to send you a present.” But that’s not true! Because I would consider it a wonderful present if you could send $10 to, for example:<\/p>\n

Ms. V’s classroom in Louisiana<\/a>, where junior-high students in a high-poverty area need some calculators to help in their science classes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ms. H’s classroom in Oklahoma<\/a>, whose kindergarten students need some white boards to fit group lessons into their crowded room.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ms. W’s classroom in New York City<\/a>, where young children with autism need basic learning aids to help them tackle math.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Or any one of various other worthy classrooms<\/a>. And don’t feel constrained by that $10 suggestion — there’s plenty more room for larger donations! It’s like you’re giving me a present, and you benefit yourself from the feeling that you are doing something awesome.<\/p>\n

In return: actual bloggy content on its way this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One thing about the Facebook era is: you can’t forget it’s your birthday. Facebook tells all your friends, and they send along cheerful greetings. And then you feel all happy until you find that Neil deGrasse Tyson has the same birthday as you, and many more Facebook friends. But he’s older, so there. I like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2782","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-internet","category-personal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2782","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2782"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2782\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2782"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2782"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/preposterousuniverse.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2782"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}