Category: SCIENCE

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

Life for Los 33 … The scent of history … Strange asteroids … A smaller astronaut corps … Celebrating voyeurism.

Most of these great items come from my Twitter feed or Facebook news feed. Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook for more fascinating videos, articles, essays and criticism. Read past recommendations from this series here.

1. Whither astronauts? Corps shrinks as shuttles stop
By Marcia Dunn | Associated Press | July 17
“NASA’s mighty astronaut corps has become a shadow of what it once was. And it’s only going to get smaller.”

2. The 7 Strangest Asteroids in the Solar System
By Adam Hadhazy | Space.com | July 14
“[S]ome notably strange ones have popped up over our two centuries-plus of observations since the first asteroid, Ceres, was spotted in 1801.”

3. Savoring History Through Its Smells
Big Think | July 17
“[S]everal organizations want to preserve the scents of today and revive the ones of yesterday.”

4. Eric Foner on the Evolution of Liberalism
FiveBooks Interview :: The Browser | July 2011
“The historian chooses five books illustrating how concepts of American liberalism have changed over the past 50 years, and tells us about the tension that lies at the heart of liberalism today.”

5. Voyeurism, Exposed
By Sandra Phillips and Mark Murrmann | Mother Jones | June 2011
“In the age of Weinergate, we are all lookers and watchers.”

6. Online reputation will shape our lives more and more
By Omar L. Gallaga | Austin American-Statesman | July 16
“Think of it as a new version of your credit score. And in the near future, your digital reputation could affect your life even more than that score.”

7. Honey bee hive removed from East Austin house
By Farzad Mashhood | Austin American-Statesman | July 15
“Beekeeper Walter Schumacher of Central Texas Bee Rescue said the 7-foot-tall hive probably housed 250,000 bees and is among the largest he’s seen.”

8. Chilean miners face up to a strange new world
By Angus MacQueen | The Guardian | July 17
“The rescue of 33 miners from Chile’s San José mine after 69 days trapped underground was a triumph shared with the whole world. But the transition back to normality is proving difficult for both the men and their families”

9. John Glenn: A Journey
NASA
An interactive special report on the astronaut and legislator.

10. The space shuttle
Witness :: BBC News | July 8
“It is more than 30 years since the launch of the first space shuttle. Milton Silveira has been involved in the programme since the very beginning – long before the first shuttle ever took off.”

Homo universalis

One of my guiding principles is that we’re all capable of self-improvement at any age, particularly intellectual self-improvement. Sometimes that faith is the only thing that enables me to sleep through the night and get out of bed in the morning.

KS16

That’s Latin for “universal man” or “man of the world,” if Wikipedia can be relied on for a proper translation.

I glide through a small, comfortable life — trying not to bother anyone, trying to be pleasant and polite, non-judgmental and sympathetic, charming and humble, trying to be intellectually honest and self-aware of my limits and flaws, every day edging closer to fulfilling all my ambitions.

One of my guiding principles is that we’re all capable of self-improvement at any age, particularly intellectual self-improvement. Sometimes that faith is the only thing that enables me to sleep through the night and get out of bed in the morning. I’ve always been blessed with a hunger for knowledge, a curiosity that often flares into full-blown passion for new arenas of experience, a curiosity perhaps sparked by a bittersweet frustration that I don’t know as much about literature, science, mathematics, history and culture as I think I should.

Perhaps that’s why I’ve always embraced wholeheartedly people like Theodore Roosevelt and Michelangelo, those who lived their lives desperately hungry for more of the world to absorb into their hearts and minds, constantly reaching out to make more of it their own.

A friend once called me a polymath. Other friends have called me a Renaissance man. I politely laughed off both compliments. I’m certainly no genius. I’d hardly consider myself intelligent, compared to the accomplishments and capabilities of the other men and women in my life.

As I understand it, polymaths and Renaissance men and women possess an immensity of talent to complement that fiery passion to achieve great things in multiple fields, professions, etc. As my quiet life sadly illustrates — in which I’ve been not much more than a minor writer, historian, editor, painter and arts critic — I have very much of the latter and very little of the former.

Perhaps later life will prove otherwise, as I’m slowly exploring how to become a proper pianist, an amateur boxer, an effective apiarist and gardener, an expert numismatist and philatelist, a stellar professor of American Civil War and Roman and Spanish imperial history, a sympathetic and effective psychologist, an historical novelist, a decent speaker, writer and translator of Spanish and Latin, and a less-than-atrocious golfer, photographer, and salsa dancer. My mandate is to be more than a simple-minded, well-meaning hobbyist.

But if none of that works out, perhaps this particular man of the world will be content being someone who’s fun to spend time with, whose passion for history is inspiring, whose writing makes the heart soar, who’s always interesting, always relaxing, always enriching. Always happy.

I’d settle for that last one, above and beyond all the rest.

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

America’s eternal connection to France … Emmy’s snubbing of ‘Treme’ … The debt ceiling debate … Print out some solar panels … The Afghan power vacuum.

Most of these great items come from my Twitter feed or Facebook news feed. Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook for more fascinating videos, articles, essays and criticism. Read past recommendations from this series here.

1. Did CIA’s Fake Vaccine Drive Undermine Global Health Efforts?
The Takeaway | July 13
“Reports are emerging that the C.I.A. used a fake vaccination drive in Pakistan to gather intelligence on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden, prior to the May 1 raid where the Al Qaida leader was killed.”

2. Where Would Hemingway Go?
Room for Debate :: The New York Times | July 13
“Which city is the dynamic center in Europe?”

3. What It Means: the Debt Ceiling and You
By Robert Ray | Associated Press | July 13
“If you think the last few days have been tumultuous for markets, just watch as August 2 approaches. The United States faces a trove of issues if the debt ceiling isn’t raised.”

4. Hit ‘Print’ for Solar Panels
Egocentric :: Time | July 13
“According to a paper published in the journal Advanced Materials, it’s now possible to print photovoltaic cells on paper almost as you would a document — and almost as cheaply too.”

5. The Navy’s Green Devices: Coming to a Store Near You?
By Lucy Flood | The Atlantic | July 11
“As the military commits itself to going green, it’s supporting innovations that could ultimately help American consumers save energy”

6. ‘Treme,’ a winning show, suffers Emmy neglect
By Lynette Rice | Inside TV :: Entertainment Weekly | July 14
“‘Treme’ is easily among the best drama series on the air, and takes a backseat to no show for the breadth and excellence of its cast. One more thing that makes ‘Treme’ praiseworthy: its uniqueness.”

7. Egypt: How to build a camp in Tahrir Square
By Jon Jensen | The Casbah :: GlobalPost | July 14
“A day in the life of Cairo’s Tahrir Square sit-in – which is now entering its seventh day.”

8. Vive la Similarité
By David McCullough | The New York Times | July 13
“Though we will probably never see a Bastille Day when French flags fly along Main Street and strains of ‘La Marseillaise’ fill the airwaves, July 14 would not go so largely unobserved here were we better served by memory. For the ties that bind America and France are more important and infinitely more interesting than most of us know.”

9. Afghanistan’s dangerous power vacuum
By Ben Brody | GlobalPost | July 14
“The most powerful man in Kandahar is gone. But Afghans say their real worry is the departure of US troops.”

10. Prince Charles and Princess Diana in the USA
Witness :: BBC News | July 5
“In 1985 the Royal couple made their first joint visit to America. The highlight of the tour was a gala dinner at the White House where the young Princess danced with John Travolta.”

TUNES

Tonight I’m spending some time with the blues, specifically with the Texas Blues Café. Check out the line-up and then listen here.

1. Bluessmyth — Rosemary’s Blues
2. Michael K’s Rumble Pack — Black Cadillac
3. Los Lonely Boys — Dime Mi Amor
4. Delbert McClinton — Standing On Shaky Ground
5. Billy Joe Shaver & Son Eddy — Step On Up
6. Susan Tedeschi — Voodoo Woman
7. Delta Moon — Lap Dog
8. Too Slim & The Taildraggers — The Fortune Teller
9. Bleu Edmondson — 50 Dollars & A Flask Of Crown
10. Carolyn Wonderland — Misunderstood
11. Frank Gomez — In The Moon Light
12. Allan Haynes — Here In The Dark
13. Jewel — Sweet Home Alabama

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

NASA’s lost generation … the ‘Highway of Tears’ … Netflix jacks up rates … a John Adams memorial … the discovery of Neptune.

Most of these great items come from my Twitter feed or Facebook news feed. Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook for more fascinating videos, articles, essays and criticism. Read past recommendations from this series here.

1. The Last Pilots
By Chris Jones | Esquire | July 11
“Despite the end of the shuttle, NASA still has astronauts — and plans on hiring more. But for the first time in its history, they won’t be flying anywhere.”

2. ‘Dozens’ of Women Vanish From Canadian Wilderness
By Mark Russell | Newser | July 11
“So many women have disappeared along the 837-mile stretch of Highway 16 that cuts through the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia that people have started calling it ‘The Highway of Tears. …’ ”

3. Netflix raises rates, irks subscribers
Associated Press | July 13
“Netflix has provoked the ire of some of its 23 million subscribers by raising its prices by as much as 60 percent for those who want to rent DVDs by mail and watch video on the Internet.”

4. John Adams Deserves a Monument in Washington
By Peter Roff | U.S. News & World Report | July 11
“Adams, the second president of the United States, was a seminal figure in the American struggle for independence. Without him it is highly unlikely that the revolution would have unfolded as it did.”

5. US Army may give soldiers smartphones
GlobalPost | July 13
“The phones would be used to send text message updates about their surroundings, send photographs with GPS location, look at maps and fill out reports.”

6. Neptune Discovered a Year Ago Today*
By Ker Than | National Geographic | July 12
“*One Neptunian year, that is, which is about 165 Earth years long.”

7. Electric Earth
OurAmazingPlanet | May 24
An amazing slideshow of lightning from all over the world.

8. Not Satisfied, Protesters Return to Tahrir Square
By Anthony Shadid | The New York Times | July 12
“Egypt is a turbulent place these days, as is the Arab world it once led. Defiant, festive and messy scenes unfold at night in a square that is at once a place and an idea. Revolutions are about expectations, and everywhere in Egypt, it seems, expectations … have not been met.”

9. Bridge on the River Kwai
Secrets of the Dead :: PBS | June 26, 2008
“After 14 grueling months of exhaustion and malnourishment, disease, bone-deep leg ulcers, and the loss of 100,000 lives, the POWs and laborers completed the 260-mile ‘Death Railway.’ ”

10. Camaron – Flamenco Legend
Witness :: BBC News | June 30
“Flamenco singing was dwindling in popularity in Spain until the appearance of Camaron de la Isla. Thousands lined the streets at his funeral in Andalucia in 1992.”

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

Coverage of the Caylee case … Searching for Cleopatra … Diseases that plagued George Washington … A long Arab summer … Remembering the Piper Alpha explosion.

Most of these great items come from my Twitter feed or Facebook news feed. Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook for more fascinating videos, articles, essays and criticism. Read past recommendations from this series here.

1. Caylee & Brisenia: Why the Difference in Coverage?
By Victor Landa | NewsTaco | July 6
“When was the last time you heard Nancy Grace rail obnoxiously from the television screen about the murder of Brisenia Flores?”

2. The Search for Cleopatra
By Chip Brown | National Geographic | July 2011
“Archaeologists search for the true face — and the burial place — of the ‘world’s first celebrity.’ ”

3. Researcher IDs Remains Of Unknown Civil War Soldier
By Edgar Treiguts | NPR | July 4
“Hundreds of thousands of soldiers died on Civil War battlefields. Many of the fallen were moved and buried in national cemeteries. But some lie in unmarked graves on the fields where they died. Edgar Treiguts of Georgia Public Broadcasting brings us this story on an effort to identify one soldier. ”

4. Divorce ceremonies pick up in Japan after disaster
Reuters | July 4
“Ceremonies to celebrate divorces have gained momentum in Japan after the massive March earthquake and tsunami, followed by an ongoing nuclear crisis, caused unhappy couples to reassess their lives.”

5. The 9 Deadly Diseases That Plagued George Washington
By Jason Kane | The Rundown :: PBS NewsHour | July 4
“Tuberculosis. Malaria. Smallpox. Dysentery. Some of the deadliest ailments of the 18th century attacked him early and often.”

6. Entrepreneur’s plan converts wind into jobs
By Mike D. Smith | Corpus Christi Caller-Times | July 4
“Big. Loud. Unsightly. Those are some of the negatives hurled out about the turbines powering the wind energy industry. … Byron Loftin, chief executive officer of 3eWerks Inc. … not only thinks he’s found the product that quells all those worries, but he said in a few years he will have a local facility building them.”

7. The Arab Spring Has Given Way to a Long, Hot Summer
By Richard Haass | Council on Foreign Relations | July 6
“Looked at more broadly, the stalling of the Arab spring has both revealed and widened the breach between the US and Saudi Arabia.”

8. Military Suicide Condolence Letters: White House Lifts Ban
Associated Press and the Hiuffington Post | July 6
“The White House says that families of service members who commit suicide while deployed abroad are now getting condolence letters from the president just like families of troops who die in other ways.”

9. Platon and the many faces of world power
By Emily Kasriel | The Guardian | July 6
“Photographer Platon’s new collection of images, ‘Power,’ published by Chronicle Books, provides glimpses of what lies behind world leaders’ carefully constructed auras”

10. Piper Alpha
Witness :: BBC News | July 6
“We hear from a survivor from the 1988 Piper Alpha oil rig disaster that killed 167 people.”

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

Civil War shipwrecks … Brando the inventor … The Obama Doctrine … WikiLeaks on Haiti’s secrets … The moon’s mysteries.

Most of these great items come from my Twitter feed or Facebook news feed. Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook for more fascinating videos, articles, essays and criticism. Read past recommendations from this series here.

1. The Greatest Mysteries of the Moon
By Adam Hadhazy | Space.com | July 1
“Although it is the closest celestial body to us, the moon still harbors secrets aplenty. … The great gray and white orb in our sky never veers much nearer than 225,000 miles … and getting there is no easy feat, especially in the case of manned missions. No human has left boot prints in the lunar regolith since 1972.”

2. The Haiti secrets from WikiLeaks uncovered
The Nation and Haiti Liberte | June 1
“The cables from US Embassies around the world cover an almost seven-year period, from April 17, 2003 — ten months before the February 29, 2004, coup d’état that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide — to February 28, 2010, just after the January 12 earthquake that devastated the capital, Port-au-Prince, and surrounding cities.”

3. The Housemaid | Death and Delight
By David D. Robbins Jr. | The Fade Out | July 2
“It says something tragic too, that fifty years later, a remake of “The Housemaid” opens and closes with meticulously choreographed suicide pieces: the cynicism of the past carrying over into the present.”

4. Diplomacy 2.0 and the expanding world order
By Mathieu Labreche | Toronto Review of International Affairs | June 30
Carne Ross: “My experience in diplomacy is that it is far too secret — the worst decisions are made in secret, often by very small and under-informed groups of people. Above all, officials and governments should be held accountable for what they do.”

5. The Obama Doctrine Defined
By Douglas J. Feith & Seth Cropsey | Commentary Magazine | July 2011
“The United States under Barack Obama is less assertive, less dominant, less power-minded, less focused on the American people’s particular interests, and less concerned about preserving U.S. freedom of action.”

6. Marlon Brando’s Lost Musical Innovation
By Felix Contreras | NPR | July 3
“The Oscar-winning actor was also an amateur drummer and an inventor with four patents to his credit. ”

7. Who Was George G. Meade?
By Allen Guelzo | Civil War Times | July 2
“George Gordon Meade won fame as the victor of the Battle of Gettysburg, but not lasting fame. Unlike the commanders of other great battles (Wellington at Waterloo, Eisenhower at D-Day), Meade has always stood in the shadow of the man who lost the battle, Robert E. Lee.”

8. Civil War Shipwrecks: What Remarkable, New 3-D Images Reveal
Associated Press | June 30
“Federal researchers are practically giddy about the ability of sonar technology to show what long-sunken Civil War ships look like under water.”

9. How Tom Cruise Beat Charlie Sheen for ‘Born on the Fourth’ of July Role
By Tim Appelo | The Hollywood Reporter | June 29
“Sheen thought he was a shoo-in for the career-making part, because his previous Vietnam film for [Oliver] Stone, ‘Platoon’ (1986), had grossed $138 million domestically and won Stone his first directing Oscar.”

10. The Italian occupation of Libya
By Jeb Sharp | How We Got Here :: PRI’s The World | March 16, 2011
“The World’s Marco Werman interviews historian Ronald Bruce St John about the Italian occupation of Libya in the first half of the 20th century and its ramifications today.”

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

Bin Laden’s worries revealed … William Shatner narrates NASA’s new shuttle documentary … Secrets from the Battle of Stalingrad … ‘Octomom’ hates her kids and her life … The fascinating and bloody Haitian Revolution.

Most of these great items come from my Twitter feed or Facebook news feed. Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook for more fascinating videos, articles, essays and criticism. Read past recommendations from this series here.

1. Bin Laden document trove reveals strain on al-Qaeda
By Greg Miller | The Washington Post | July 1
“Toward the end of his decade in hiding, Osama bin Laden was spending as much time exchanging messages about al-Qaeda’s struggles as he was plotting ways for the terrorist network to reassert its strength.”

2. What Is Distant Reading?
By Kathryn Schulz | The New York Times Book Review | June 24
“What are we mortal beings supposed to do with all these books? Franco Moretti has a solution: don’t read them.”

3. Space Shuttle Documentary
NASA | July 1
“This feature-length documentary looks at the history of the most complex machine ever built. For 30 years, NASA’s space shuttle carried humans to and from space, launched amazing observatories, and eventually constructed the next stop on the road to space exploration.”

4. Deadliest Battle
Secrets of the Dead :: PBS | May 20, 2010
“Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 was the largest troop offensive in military history. And the Battle of Stalingrad is arguably the deadliest single battle the world has ever seen. … But 70 years after the battle was fought, newly uncovered documents, survivor accounts, and stunning archival footage are revealing a very different picture of what took place.”

5. NASA’s Spitzer Finds Distant Galaxies Grazed on Gas
Jet Propulsion Laboratory | June 30
“Galaxies once thought of as voracious tigers are more like grazing cows, according to a new study using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.”

6. Read Bruce Springsteen’s Clarence Clemons Eulogy
By Andrea Kszystyniak | Paste Magazine | June 30
“Standing next to Clarence was like standing next to the baddest ass on the planet. You were proud, you were strong, you were excited and laughing with what might happen, with what together, you might be able to do.”

7. Inside a Russian Billionaire’s $300 Million Yacht
By Robert Frank | The Wall Street Journal | April 15, 2010
“Designed by Philippe Starck, the “A” has quickly become the most loved and loathed ship on the sea. WSJ’s Robert Frank takes an exclusive tour of Andrey Melnichenko’s 394-foot mega-yacht.”

8. Nadya Suleman: Babies disgust me
The Marquee Blog :: CNN.com | June 30
“Suleman, who was labeled with the moniker ‘Octomom’ after she gave birth to octuplets in 2009, told [In Touch magazine], ‘I hate babies, they disgust me.’ She went on, ‘My older six are animals, getting more and more out of control, because I have no time to properly discipline them.’ ”

9. Resolving Insurgencies
By Thomas R. Mockaitis | Strategic Studies Institute | June 17
“Understanding how insurgencies may be brought to a successful conclusion is vital to military strategists and policymakers. This study examines how past insurgencies have ended and how current ones may be resolved.”

10. The Haitian Revolution
By Jeb Sharp | How We Got Here :: PRI’s The World | Jan. 29, 2010
“You can’t understand Haiti without understanding the slave revolt and war for independence that shaped its early days.”

TUNES

Tonight I’m spending some time with the blues, specifically with the Texas Blues Café. Check out the line-up and then listen here.

1. Dennis McClung Blues Band — The Red Rooster
2. Brian Burns with Ray Wylie Hubbard — Little Angel Comes A-Walkin
3. Ray Wylie Hubbard — Cooler-N-Hell
4. Roy Rogers — Little Queen Bee
5. Ted Shumate Blues Band — All Night Long
6. Cactus — The Groover
7. Ian Moore — Muddy Jesus
8. Commitments — Mustang Sally
9. Rocky Jackson — Goin’ Back to Texas
10. Mark McKinney — Comfortable in this Skin & Bonfire
11. Mojo Saints — Gnawin’ Bone
12. Blackfoot — I’ve Got a Line On You

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

The fall of MySpace … Women in special operations … ‘Spy girls’ find each other in retirement … The aircraft carrier may be irrelevant … A boring Gorbachev.

Most of these great items come from my Twitter feed or Facebook news feed. Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook for more fascinating videos, articles, essays and criticism.

1. Twilight of the $UPERfluous Carrier
By Henry J. Hendrix and J. Noel Williams | Proceedings | May 2011
“[T]he march of technology is bringing the supercarrier era to an end, just as the new long-range strike capabilities of carrier aviation brought on the demise of the battleship era in the 1940s.”

2. The Long, Lame Afterlife of Mikhail Gorbachev
By Anne Applebaum | Foreign Policy | July/August 2011
“A cautionary tale about what happens when you fail to see the revolution coming.”

3. The FP Twitterati 100
Foreign Policy | June 20
“Here are 100 Twitter users from around the world who will make you smarter, infuriate you, and delight you — 140 characters at a time.”

4. Heavy sentences
By Joseph Epstein | The New Criterion | June 2011
“Learning to write sound, interesting, sometimes elegant prose is the work of a lifetime. The only way I know to do it is to read a vast deal of the best writing available, prose and poetry, with keen attention, and find a way to make use of this reading in one’s own writing. The first step is to become a slow reader.”

5. Decades after duty in the OSS and CIA, ‘spy girls’ find each other in retirement
By Ian Shapira | The Washington Post | June 26
“Doris Bohrer and Elizabeth ‘Betty’ McIntosh met two years ago in a Prince William County retirement community. As their friendship developed, they realized they had both served as intelligence operatives during World War II.”

6. Female Special Operators Now in Combat
By Christian Lowe | Military.com | June 29
“Army Special Operations Command has deployed its first teams of female soldiers assigned to commando units in Afghanistan, and military officials are assessing their initial performance in theater as ‘off the charts.’ ”

7. Beauty and the Beasts: The Sight of a Pretty Woman Can Make Men Crave War
By Rebecca Coffey | Scientific American | June 25
“Show a man a picture of an attractive woman, and he might play riskier blackjack. With a real-life pretty woman watching, he might cross traffic against a red light. Such exhibitions of agility and bravado are the behavioral equivalent in humans of physical attributes such as antlers and horns in animals. ‘Mate with me,’ they signal to women. ‘I can brave danger to defend you and the children.’ ”

8. An A-Z of incredible uses for everyday things
The Guardian | May 7, 2007
“Did you know you can kill weeds with vodka? Remove stains on clothes with aspirin? Make jewellery gleam with tomato ketchup? Here are 40 surprising tips to save you time and money.”

9. Libya mission brings John McCain and John Kerry together again
By Paul Kane | The Washington Post | June 28
“Concerned about what they consider an isolationist and fearful drift in both of their parties, Kerry (D-Mass.) and McCain (R-Ariz.) are advocating an even more forceful role for America in the world.”

10. The Rise and Inglorious Fall of Myspace
By Feliz Gillette | Bloomberg Businessweek | June 22
“It once promised to redefine music, politics, dating, and pop culture. Rupert Murdoch fell in love with it. Then everything fell apart.”

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

Ten facts about Jon Huntsman … Hadrian’s villa was more than a villa … Reeling in a 260-pound Mekong giant catfish … A lost Amazon civilization … Sexy corruption in China.

Most of these great items come from my Twitter feed or Facebook news feed. Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook for more fascinating videos, articles, essays and criticism.

1. Our Lefty Military
By Nicholas D. Kristof | The New York Times | June 15
“The United States armed forces knit together whites, blacks, Asians and Hispanics from diverse backgrounds, invests in their education and training, provides them with excellent health care and child care. And it does all this with minimal income gap …”

2. Fulfilling My Dream of Becoming a Diplomat
By Shamim Kazemi | DipNote | June 16
“It allowed me, in my own way, to give back to the country that offered asylum and a new, safe home to my family. It also fulfilled the desire to serve a common humanity that my upbringing had afforded me to appreciate.”

3. Solomon P. Ortiz congressional papers provide trail through 30 years of South Texas history
By Rick Spruill | Corpus Christi Caller-Times | June 16
“The photographs, congressional correspondence, research papers, meeting minutes and other governmental documents span Ortiz’s congressional career, said Thomas Kreneck, the associate director for Special Collections & Archives at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.”

4. Art of lost Amazon culture a surprise
Archaeology News Network | June 2011
“It is one of the most enticing archaeological mysteries of the Americas — a long-overlooked ancient culture that existed for 900 years on an island at the mouth of Amazon River and then disappeared.”

5. Giant catfish caught in Thailand sets new record
By Emily Sohn | Discovery News | June 16
Welshman David Kent caught “a 260-pound Mekong giant catfish … in Thailand. The angler had baited his hook with a mere piece of sweet corn. It took him just under an hour to reel it in.”

6. A Wider View of Authorship: Eroticizing the Past
By Kenny McPhee | The Bombshell :: Bookslut | June 2011
“Early in Eavan Boland’s dazzling new book, ‘A Journey with Two Maps: Becoming a Woman Poet,’ she tells a story: when she was a young poet and mother living in the suburbs of Dublin, she went into the city one day and happened to walk by an art gallery where she spied in the window a painting she immediately recognized as her mother’s work — her green vase, her beloved lily-of-the-valley, her pair of gloves.”

7. Election 101: Ten facts about Jon Huntsman and his presidential campaign
By Husna Haq | The Christian Science Monitor | June 21
“Dubbed ‘the Republican Democrats fear most,’ the tall, handsome, cerebral former governor of Utah often draws comparisons to Mr. Obama, the very man he’s struggling to distance himself from. Will that, and his centrist views and Mormon faith, keep him on the margins of the Republican field?”

8. True Stories: They Had Sex So I Didn’t Have To
By Molly Jong-Fast | Nerve | June 14
“A writer comes to terms with the sexual adventures of her parents.”

9. Sex, Buddhism and ballroom dancing: WikiLeaks reveals Beijing underbelly
By Michael Sheridan | The Australian | June 20
“US diplomats used to collect racy gossip linking Chinese leaders with mistresses and corruption, according to leaked cables reporting their conversations with political insiders and journalists.”

10. Hadrian’s buildings catch the Sun
By Eric Hand | NatureNews | June 16
“Hadrian’s villa 30 kilometres east of Rome was a place where the Roman Emperor could relax in marble baths and forget about the burdens of power. But he could never completely lose track of time, says Marina De Franceschini, an Italian archaeologist who believes that some of the villa’s buildings are aligned so as to produce sunlight effects for the seasons.”

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

Look back at the fall of the Soviet Union … Celebrating Clarence Clemons … The fight over the world’s longest river … Che’s diary published … Iraq’s unseen war.

Most of these great items come from my Twitter feed or Facebook news feed. Follow me on Twitter and on Facebook for more fascinating videos, articles, essays and criticism.

1. The Secret History of Iraq’s Invisible War
By Noah Shachtman | Danger Room :: Wired | June 14
“In the early years of the Iraq war, the U.S. military developed a technology so secret that soldiers would refuse to acknowledge its existence, and reporters mentioning the gear were promptly escorted out of the country. That equipment -– a radio-frequency jammer –- was upgraded several times, and eventually robbed the Iraq insurgency of its most potent weapon, the remote-controlled bomb. But the dark veil surrounding the jammers remained largely intact, even after the Pentagon bought more than 50,000 units at a cost of over $17 billion.”

2. My First Time, Twice
By Ariel Levy | Guernica | June 2011
“After Josh broke my heart, my great regret was not that I had lost my virginity to him, but that I hadn’t. If I was going to be lovelorn, at least I would have liked the consolation of being able to brag that I’d had sex.”

3. New ‘Che’ Guevara diary of the revolution published in Cuba
GlobalPost | June 14
“‘Diary of a Combatant’ documents the three-year guerrilla campaign that resulted in the overthrow of Batista and Castro taking power.”

4. Gulf ‘Dead Zone’ This Year Predicted To Be Largest In History
By Cain Burdeau | HuffPost Green | June 14
“Each year when the nutrient-rich freshwater from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers pours into the Gulf, it spawns massive algae blooms. In turn, the algae consume the oxygen in the Gulf, creating the low oxygen conditions. Fish, shrimp and many other species must escape the dead zone or face dying.”

5. Struggle Over the Nile: A special report
Al Jazeera | June 2011
“It is the world’s longest river. A 7,000-km lifeline for almost 400 million people. It runs through 11 countries, including South Sudan, from the highlands in the heart of Africa to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. It is a source of sustenance, but also of tension — and even potential conflict.”

6. Cold Specks | Holland
By David D. Robbins Jr. | Their Bated Breath | June 13
“This London by way of Toronto singer-songwriter has a voice that is unmistakable. So unmistakable, that as soon as I heard this new track, “Holland”, I knew right away who the singer was. She has a voice that knocks you in the gut, and you’ll never forget it.”

7. If chivalry is dead, blame it on the selfish feminists
By Lucy Jones | The Telegraph | June 15
“Thankfully, there are still men out there who will take your coat, pull out the chair and pay for dinner”

8. Remembering Clarence Clemons
Rolling Stone | June 18
“The legendary E Street Band saxophonist’s life in photos”

9. The Long Breakup
By Kathy Lally and Will Englund | The Washington Post | June 2011
“Twenty years ago, the Soviet Union came to an end. It was a drawn-out and difficult journey, full of passion, hope, anger, betrayal and re-awakening. Between now and the end of the year, The Post will track the major developments, in real time, of the last six months of the U.S.S.R.”

10. Japan Quake Released Hundreds of Years of Strain
By Brett Israel | Our Amazing Planet | June 15
“The March 11 earthquake is the fourth-largest ever recorded in the world. The quake struck off the coast of the Tohoku region of Japan, triggering a deadly tsunami that may have killed nearly 30,000 people.”

Behind The Wall

Tabletop Games

Rebecca Aguilar

#CallingAllJournalists Initiative | Reporter | Media Watchdog | Mentor | Latinas in Journalism

Anna Fonte's Paper Planes

Words, images & collages tossed from a window.

Postcards from Barton Springs

Gayle Brennan Spencer - sending random thoughts to and from South Austin

The Flask Half Full

Irreverent travelogues, good drinks, and the cultural stories they tell.

Government Book Talk

Talking about some of the best publications from the Federal Government, past and present.

Fighting Irish Wire

Cadillac Society

Cadillac News, Forums, Rumors, Reviews

Ob360media

Real News That Matters

Talking Pictures Audio Description

Pintar Discover

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Mealtime Joy

bringing joy to family meals

Øl, Mad og Folk

Bloggen Øl, Mad og Folk

a joyous kitchen

fun, delicious food for everyone

A Perfect Feast

Modern Comfort Food

donnablackwrites

Art is a gift we give ourselves

Fridgelore

low waste living drawn from food lore through the ages

BeckiesKitchen.com

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North River Notes

Observations on the Hudson River as it passes through New York City. The section of the Hudson which passes through New York is historically known as the North River, called this by the Dutch to distinguish it from the Delaware River, which they knew as the South River. This stretch of the Hudson is still often referred to as the North River by local mariners today. All photos copyright Daniel Katzive unless otherwise attributed. For more frequent updates, please follow northriverblog on Facebook or Instagram.