3 Quarks Daily
This great “filter blog” edited by S. Abbas Raza collects the writings of people in the arts and sciences. If you think the world has run out of ideas, go there. Yesterday it featured an article reporting that Iranian female students have been secretly reading Nabokov’s Lolita. Habermas, Kant, Arendt, Mill, Camus are hugely popular […]
Heath Ledger: The Joker
When Heath Ledger (April 4, 1979 – January 22, 2008) died, the world lost one of its most exciting dramatic actors. In The Dark Knight he gave a chilling, spot-on performance of the Joker, a character who kills for pleasure, and said it was the role he’d had the most fun ever playing. Fun? The […]
Where on Earth will you vote?
Democrats Abroad sent me this motivating video. If you’re a US citizen, register here: www.votefromabroad.org.
Goodbye, red marble
I hear NASA has found water on Mars (BBC).”This is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted,” says William Boynton, mission scientist. That’s progress: Pretty marbles become habitats. Are we really gearing up to go to Mars? When my dad was a boy in the 1920s, children still thought the moon was […]
Wish upon a star
NASA’s new image-sharing website, nasaimages.org. Starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight wish I may, wish I might have the wish I wish tonight.
For the Leos
An amazing number of Leos populate my world. Family and friends, colleagues and students, this one is for you: Meet Lionel, the Lion-Faced Boy, aka Stephan Bribowski from Poland, who graced freakshows at the turn of the century. He was covered in luxurious blond hair, a condition called Hypertrichosis, which according to circus lore was […]
The Obama stampede
Frank Rich has written a brilliant, analytical editorial describing the stampede to join the Obama camp in “How Obama Became Acting President” (NYT 27 July 2008). McCain has lost a lot of ground this month as Obama turns, more and more, into the man of the moment. Here’s an extract with translations (mouseover the highlighted […]
