Want to know what Apollo 11 left behind on the moon? The Lunar Legacy Project. I guess it's not bad enough that we pollute this world. Geez!!!!!
In 1997 Mississippi born actor Morgan Freeman offered to pay for the prom at Charlestown High School in his home state on one condition-the prom had to be racially integrated. His offer was ignored. He made the offer again in 2008. Until then, the blacks had their own prom and the whites had their own proms even though the classrooms had been integrated for years. The documentary Prom Night in Mississippitells what ensued.
Author and illustrator Tasha Tudor's idyllic life devolves as her family quarrels over her burial.
Love this Eileen Fisher trench. The color-raisinette.
Have a great weekend. (96 more days until October).
"If only we'd stop trying to be happy we'd have a pretty good time." Edith Wharton
You will be shocked and dismayed when you see how much sugar is in some of these products-Sugar Stacks.
To mark its centenary curators at the Science Museum in London have chosen 10 iconic inventions and discoveries from their collection that they feel are the most significant.
Many agencies of the federal government are making use of Twitter. Check out GovTwit and the directory to see whose tweets you want to read.
The Library of Congress has made their picks for the 2008 National Recording Registry. There are so many of my favorites. I read A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas every Christmas. Also, great to see Mary Lou Williams, Marian Anderson, The Andrews Sisters and the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker included. And Etta James. I get so annoyed when someone else tries to sing At Last. Yes, Beyonce did a great job singing At Last at one of the Inauguration balls, but I thought it should have been Etta James singing it. You can see the entire registry here.
I have always felt that no matter how much you read you just aren't affected by books in the same way by a book as you were when you were a child. This excellent article gives some insight into this as well as some other great points about literature in general.
Look at all of these wonderful uses for card catalogs.
Have a Happy Weekend.
"Novelists, opera singers, even doctors, have in common the unique and marvelous experience of entering into the very skin of another human being." Willa Cather
Okay, okay, I know. I said that I wasn't a fan of Twitter. I already had a username and password from a project I was working on, but I never really became passionate about posting. But something has changed. I had a huge epiphany last week. I was sick most of last week, and still have this lingering asthma hack and wheeze, but basically I feel better. Can we blame my newfound love of Twitter on illness, oxygen deprivation, too much Albuterol? Who knows? I just know that I like it now. If you want to read any of my tweets (and really there is nothing too, too exciting) you can at: http://twitter.com/libby1957
The AFI Silver Docs Festival starts this week in Silver Spring, Maryland. If you are a documentary fan then you must try and see some of the many wonderful documentaries that will be shown. I got the schedule a couple of weeks ago and started putting a checkmark by the ones that I must see. I have 26 checked.
The Holocaust Museum has set up a special fund for slain officer Stephen Johns' family.
Some of my must sees: Act of God a doc about people who have been struck by lightening, The Apprentice, a doc about a boy who studies at an international school in a town near the French-Swiss border. He begins an internship on a small farm where he learns real-world experience, Our Forbidden Places is a documentary about a 2004 law established in Morocco to investigate the state-sponsored disappearance of many citizens after the country won indenpendence in 1956. It received 30, 000 applicatinos for reparation. This doc follows four families as they seek the truth about their lost relatives, The Time of Their Lives, a documentary about 3 vibrant women who live in a home for active seniors in North London andNutkins Last Stand, a short about agressive American brown squirrels that threaten to annihilate Britain's beloved red squirrels.
350.org: International effort to find solutions to the climate crisis. This organizaton wants to raise awareness of the need to decrease carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million.
Love this stave church, but I think this is my favorite. And this has nothing to do with stave churches, but I found a story about Katherine Hepburn leaving money in her will to a tiny church in Maryland.
Science fiction-I have been known to watch some science fiction, but read the genre-absolutely not. However, I love the Art of Penguin Science Fiction site. In fact, I just love Penguin.
The United States government has a YouTube channel. Links to many government organizations.
If you like moose, (how can you not?) visit Mooseworld.
The British Library is mapping sounds. The Archival Sound Recording site has a very cool feature. The sounds are mapped on Google maps and the viewer can click on a section of the map and here sounds-human accents and sounds from nature that are found in that area. I was going to say they are indigenous to that area, but they might not be, or are they? Okay, I'm thinking about this too much. Here is the Accents and Dialects map.
If you have a camera and some type of bench why not join the Flickr pool-Bench Monday.
"The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning, and does not stop until you get into the office." Robert Frost
Congratulations to Kavya Shivashankar for winning the Scripps National Spelling Bee.
Watch this video by the incredibly talented and imaginative Evelien Lohbeck.
Oh my goodness. My dorm room certainly never looked like Maximilian Sinsteden's dorm room. View the film from the 1930's on Yale's You Tube page. The film Librarian's Parade shows librarians moving an entire collection from the old library to the new library.
Filed by Author-service for authors, librarians and all of those interested in books to collaborate and inform.
Foodsville-social networking site for foodies and cookbook lovers.
The Arcadia Fund is a grant making fund whose mission is to protect endangered treasures of culture and nature. This includes near extinct languages, rare historical archives and museum quality artefacts, and the protection of ecosystems and environments threatened with extinction. The Arcadia Fund has also donated to charities that work to protect free societies and human rights. Various libraries such as Harvard University Library, and libraries at UCLA and Yale, have received grants from the Arcadia Fund.
I loved summer camp and I would have loved having this Camp Stationery kit to take along with my canteen and bug spray, which did nothing for me. I still have scars from all of those mosquito bites.
The author of one of my favorite books about gardening passed away. Eleanor Perenyi, author of , Green Thoughts, passed away early this month. She was 91. If you like gardens and gardening you simply must read this classic.
By the way, if you are a book person and you haven't visited the Modern Library site, please visit. It's a treasure trove and you will have trouble tearing yourself away.
"Language has created the word "loneliness" to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word "solitude" to express the glory of being alone." Paul Tillich
Every year the Library of Congress and the Center for the Book holds a Letter from Literature contest. The contest is open to students in grades 4th through 12th. To enter the contest each contestant must write a letter to an author, living or dead, explaining how that author's work has influenced the contestant's life. Here is a list of the 2009 winners. Read some of these heartfelt letters. You will laugh and you will cry, and you will be utterly charmed by these letters. Here is a list of the state winners.
I really like the items at NOUN, especially these barkcloth wristlets. Love, love barkcloth. I also like the statue of St. Theresa. I have had a long fascination with the saints and especially these chalkware statues. My favorite is still the Infant of Prague though.
The Thousand Watch Project is a statement about the death of the pocket watch and wrist watch because of the advent of cell phones and other technology. They are trying to collect a thousand watches and the watch images are on the online gallery. The site also tells you how you can contribute your own watch.
I am trying to find someone to teach me how to punch needle. It's a form of embroidery(?), something like rug hooking-I think. That's how I found out that the Embroiderer's Guild of America has a blog. I haven't found anyone yet, so I may have to teach myself. Generally, I can teach myself how to do things, but with something like this, I tend to need someone to show me how to do it and then I can take it from there.
Pickup and Go! is a newsletter written by an American of African descent couple about America's great outdoors in general, and specifically about America's national parks. I found out about the newsletter in some freebie that I picked up at Whole Foods. One of the things the article indicated was that this couple started this newsletter because they are avid backpackers and campers and they saw that they seldom saw minorities when they were traveling and enjoying the great outdoors. They started organizing trips with inner-city youth and showing the beauty and affordability of our glorious national parks.
My parents took my brother and I on many vacations. Now that I think about it, for people of modest means, they did a miraculous job of exposing us to as much as they possibly could. One thing we always commented on was how when we were traveling we never saw many other Americans of African descent (black folks like us). Part of the problem then, as now, is plain economics. Unfortunately minorites are still not making the salaries that whites are. Remember they have to hire us, but they don't have to promote us. Promotions are how you get ahead, how you save, and how you plan for a retirement. I could go on and on about this, especially since I am living this, but really, check out the newsletter. Sorry for the digression.
The Architect of the Capitol is responsible to the U.S. Congress for the maintenance, development and preservation of the United States Capitol complex. The current Acting Architect of the Capitol is Stephen Ayers.
WOW!!! Look at all of the blogs and podcasts. that Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library has.
As I have indicated before I have very eclectic tastes, and no more so than in musics. My friends use to think I was off my gourd with some of the music I enjoy, but hey, I like what I like. When I was on the treadmill at the gym the other day they played one of my favorites, La Grange by ZZ Top. I will leave you with that and the hopes for a good week and a very nice Memorial Day weekend.
"Chance has never yet satisfied the hope of a suffering people. Action, self-reliance, the vision of self and the future have been the only means by which the oppressed have seen and realized the light of their own freedom. "-Marcus Garvey
Last week I happened to catch 3 Mo' Divas. Good Grief these ladies can sing. They gave me goosebumps. All 3 of these woman can sing absolutely anything. Just incredible.
Looking for green products. Want to know how each product is rated. Check out Good Guide.
I really love the idea of a project blog. The Massachusetts Historical Society is working on a massive project digitizing over 100, 000 papers of the Adams Family (not that one). John Adams, Abigail Adams-that Adams family. Lots of great information on the Adams Papers Catalog.
You Tube EDU-channels from You Tube's unversity partners.
As much as I am in awe of great singing voices and great writers, I also have a love for great dancers, and who could ever top Gene Kelly. I adored him. Watch him here tap dancing on roller skates-Yes roller skates.
African Activist Archive-The African Activist Archive Project is reaching out to the hundreds of organizations and individuals that supported African liberation struggles and is urging them to preserve their vital records and to make selected materials available to the public on this website. The project also assists groups and individuals to deposit their archives in public repositories, including the African Activist Archive in Special Collections at Michigan State University Libraries.
There was a time when I didn't know the difference between an axe and a hatchet. Maybe if I had seen one of these beauties I would have been able to remember the difference.
I have always been a fan of the magazine Ploughshares. They also have a blog.
Have a great week.
"When patterns are broken, new world's emerge." Tuli Kupferberg
