Distracted? We Need A “Slow Thought” Movement. And Here’s A Manifesto

Slow Thought is a porous way of thinking that is non-categorical, open to contingency, allowing people to adapt spontaneously to the exigencies and vicissitudes of life. Italians have a name for this: arrangiarsi – more than ‘making do’ or ‘getting by’, it is the art of improvisation, a way of using the resources at hand to forge solutions. The porosity of Slow Thought opens the way for potential responses to human predicaments.

Roxane Gay: I Can Write The ‘Batgirl’ Movie; DC Comics: Okay, Let’s Do It

“After Joss Whedon stepped down as the film’s writer and director on Thursday, Gay tweeted saying, ‘Hey [DC Comics] I can write your Batgirl movie, no prob.’ The tweet quickly garnered attention, leading Michele Wells, a Warner Bros. vice president who also works on DC films, to respond to Gay’s message. ‘If you’re serious … contact me,’ Wells wrote, providing her email address.”

Comcast, Elbowing Murdoch And Fox Aside, Makes $31 Billion Bid For European Satellite TV Giant Sky

“U.S. cable giant and NBCUniversal owner Comcast has made an unsolicited $31 billion (£22 billion) takeover bid for European pay TV giant Sky, offering more than Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox. NBCUniversal’s parent company unveiled its all-cash offer of £12.50 per share ($17.48) to Sky’s shareholders early Tuesday London time. That marks a 16 percent premium to Fox’s existing bid of £10.75 per share.”

Fire Breaks Out At 1,300-Year-Old Temple In Tibet, And Outside World Has No Idea Of Damage

“On Saturday evening, Tibetan social media users posted photos and videos of the ancient Jokhang Temple complex in the region’s capital, Lhasa, a UNESCO world heritage site, with one of its golden roofs engulfed in flames. … The blaze may have severely damaged the 1,300 year-old temple and many of its precious architectural features, murals and relics; or perhaps it was small and quickly extinguished, and the temple is more or less fine.” The Chinese government says the latter, but many observers don’t trust its account.

London’s Southbank Centre Pulls Ads From Daily Mail After ‘Homophobic’ Column About Famous Gay Couple’s Baby

Great Britain’s largest performing arts center is one of several organizations who have said they will no longer advertise in the UK tabloid following a column by conservative pundit Richard Littlejohn about the child that Olympic diver Tom Daley and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black are having with a surrogate mother.

Mixed-Race Teenager Chosen To Be Joan Of Arc In French Parade; Racists Flip Out

“Mathilde Edey Gamassou was chosen among 250 girls Monday to play Joan for a spring festival marking the victory of the Catholic warrior saint in breaking the English siege of Orléans in 1429. … But the announcement has been met with a flurry of posts on Twitter and on far-right websites branding her nomination an exercise in ‘diversity propaganda’ and an attempt to re-write French history.”