Round Up

Before I post some links, I want to go on a bit about a couple of pet peeves of mine.

Firstly, I am so annoyed with all of these low literacy, mental midgets who are going on and on about government-controlled health care. Get real!! Haven't any of these people heard of Medicare, which most of them will be using at some point in their lives. It's government-controlled and yes, there have been problems, but for the most part it works. I am also sick of people talking about socialism. I think they really want to just replace the word socialism with the "n" word anyway. They may think they are fooling people, but they aren't fooling this woman.

My second pet peeve is about television programming in general and in particular. When the first forensics shows were televised I was so excited. I love science and medicine and these shows just seemed perfect to me. The first couple of seasons of the various CSI's were enough for me. First of all there are too many of them. Now I watch Bones and I love it. What annoys me is something very shallow, but I think it speaks to a larger issue. Why must they lighten the female actors hair? When Bones first aired, Emily Deschanel was brunette. An attractive brunette. Now with each passing season her hair is getting lighter and lighter. It looks nice, but I can just see that if the show goes on for another few years she is going to be blonde.

They do this on so many shows. What annoys me even more is when there are two dark haired parents and all of the children are blonde and have blue eyes. On the rare occasion when I would watch Everyone Loves Raymond (until I found out about Patricia Heaton's conservatism, and then I never watched again) it would astound me that these two dark-haired individual had 3 blonde children.

I could go on and on about this, but I'll stop. I get on these tangents every once in awhile.

The world's smallest deer.

This blogger is living without a fridge.

There is information on over 35, 000 slaving voyages (it makes me shudder to type that number) at the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database.

I think this is so cool-John Quincy Adams is tweeting. The tweets are taken from one of his diaries.

An amazing Flickr success story over at Archives Next. I had seen this photograph of Phineas Gage before and never gave it a second thought. This is excellent and shows how amazing the Internet can be.

The National Archives has joined Flickr.

I can't wait for Ken Burns' new project The National Parks to air next month.

Books to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. I was to young to actually attend Woodstock, but if I had been older I so would have been there with my bell bottoms, my Angela Davis Afro and a purple dashiki, I would have been there and loved every single minute of it.

I am getting a huge kick out of Jane Mount's bookshelf portraiture.

Maira Kalman has done it again. She has made me love Benjamin Franklin even more than I did before.

Fantasy and Science Fiction writers and their work spaces. I'm such an author groupie that I enjoy seeing where these incredibly talented folks create.

Oh, I am in awe. Some treasures from the New York Public Library.

An unpublished story by Langston Hughes discovered.

Look at the cutie that is modeling clothes for Lark.

This "HOLD ME" tape is funny.

Yippee!!!! Chalkboard paint now comes in colors.

That's all for now folks. Have a wonderful weekend. I leave you with a Woodstock classic by Richie Havens-Freedom. (if you scroll down the comments you can read about the song and Mr.Havens' dental situation).


"How strange that nature does not knock, and yet does not intrude!" Emily Dickinson