Category: SPACE

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

A very wet universe … Celebrating Gordon Wood … A century of studying Machu Picchu … The sound of a paranoid Nixon … The unknown Rick Perry.

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 High Road to Ruins
By Andrew Berg | Intelligent Travel :: National Geographic | July 7
“[O]ne eco-minded outfitter is turning the Camino Salkantay, a backcountry route through unspoiled ecosystems and undisturbed hamlets, into the Next Inca Trail—and setting a new standard for sustainable tourism in the Andes.”

2. Machu Picchu, Before and After Excavation
National Geographic Daily News | July 22
“The ruins of Machu Picchu are covered in jungle growth in this 1911 photograph taken when Yale archaeologist Hiram Bingham first came to the site a century ago this week.”

3. Gordon S. Wood, Historian of the American Revolution
By David Hackett Fischer | The New York Times Book Review | July 22
“More important than his productivity is the quality of his work, and its broad appeal to readers of the right, left and center — a rare and happy combination.”

4. New recordings a window into Nixon’s paranoia
By Bill Plante | CBS News | July 21
“It’s no secret that Richard Nixon was obsessed with his enemies — but it turns out it started long before Watergate.”

5. Ten things you probably don’t know about Rick Perry
Texas on the Potomac :: Houston Chronicle | July 23
“Across the United States, Rick Perry is largely an unknown quantity.”

6. More Fancy Words
By Philip B. Corbett | Times Topics :: The New York Times | July 26
“The good news is that Times writers don’t feel the need to use the words panegyric, immiscible or Manichaean very often. That’s fortunate because the bad news is, when we do use them, a lot of readers don’t know what we’re talking about.”

7. Peru’s Garcia leaves conflicts unresolved
By Carla Salazar | Associated Press | July 27
“Economic growth averaged 7 percent a year during his 2006-2011 administration, inflation held at less than 3 percent annually and the government amassed $47 billion in foreign reserves. The economic numbers only tell part the story, however.”

8. Black Hole Drinks 140 Trillion Earths’ Worth of Water
By Michael D. Lemonick | Time | July 26
“We don’t think of the universe as a terribly wet place, but in fact, there’s water out in space pretty much everywhere you look.”

9. G.D. Spradlin, Prolific Character Actor, Dies at 90
By Douglas Martin | The New York Times | July 26
“In ‘The Godfather: Part II’ (1974) he played Pat Geary, the corrupt United States senator who defies the Mafia boss Michael Corleone, played by Al Pacino, telling Corleone he intends to ‘squeeze’ him.”

10. President Kennedy’s Visit to Ireland
Witness :: BBC News | June 27
“The Irish author Colm Toibin remembers President Kennedy returning to the land of his forefathers and being taken to the nation’s heart as if he were one of its own.”

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

A name seen from space … Prince Andrew … Jesus sightings … A fight over Guadalcanal … Arthur Ashe at Wimbledon.

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 tragedy of imperial retreat
By Tarak Barkawi | Al Jazaeera | July 21
“When the US withdraws from Afghanistan, don’t expect much help for the people it leaves behind.”

2. Sheikh’s Name Written In Sand Visible from Space
By Natalie Wolchover | Life’s Little Mysteries | July 21
“Hamad bin Hamdan al Nahyan, a billionaire Sheikh and member of Abu Dabhi’s ruling family, has had his name carved into the sandy surface of an island he owns in the Persian Gulf.”

3. Stephen Marche and Arthur Phillips on Shakespeare
The Paris Review Daily | July 21
“The cult of Shakespeare is one of the weirdest and most persistent in literature. This spring, Arthur Phillips and Stephen Marche each published books on the obsession. … They discussed their various journeys into the heart of this cult by e-mail.”

4. Prince Andrew’s Tabloid History
By Matt Pressman | Vanity Fair | August 2011
“Prince Andrew’s friendship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein … is only the most recent of his many public blunders. Whether it’s the company he keeps or his driving technique, Andrew usually makes the news for all the wrong reasons.”

5. Jesus sightings in food (and walls) – in pictures
The Guardian | July 21
“A couple from South Carolina have claimed to have found the image of the face of Jesus Christ on a Walmart receipt. Here are other examples of Jesus turning up in everyday life.”

6. Unmanned Navy boat has brains – and an attitude
By Hugh Lessig | Daily Press | July 21
“The Navy is advancing its development of Autonomous Maritime Navigation, using unmanned craft that can patrol waterways and ports without humans at the helm – and without humans at the joystick, for that matter.”

7. Long-Term Unemployment, by State
By Sara Murray | The Wall Street Journal | July 21
“More than one in three jobless Americans were out of work for at least a year in a handful of U.S. states that appear to be disproportionately caught up in the nation’s long-term unemployment problem.”

8. Mitt Romney’s Sad Tour of America’s Modern Ruins
By Elspeth Reeve | The Atlantine Wire | July 22
“To hammer President Obama on the sluggish economy, Romney has been touring businesses around the country that closed during the recession.”

9. Arthur Ashe wins Wimbledon
Witness :: BBC News | July 1
“In 1975 he became the first African-American man to win the tennis tournament. His friend and agent, Donald Dell, talks about that memorable match – and about what else Ashe might have achieved if he had not died young.”

10. Dogfight Over Guadalcanal
Secrets of the Dead :: PBS
“Deep in the jungle of Guadalcanal in the South Pacific … are the rusting remains of a World War II-era fighter plane. … Research confirms that the plane is the doomed Wildcat flown by James ‘Pug’ Southerland in one of the most heroic and legendary dogfights in aviation history.”

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. Jason Ricci & New Blood — I’m A New Man
2. Stingray — Met Me In The Middle
3. John Mayall — Snake Eye
4. Storyville — Lucky One More Time
5. Dan Granero — My Baby
6. Pat Green — Me And Billy The Kid
7. Barely Legal — White Line Fever
8. Joe Galea — Wash My Hands
9. Max Meaza — The Long Goodbye
10. Texas Boogie — Adelie
11. Tim Gaze & Rob Grosser — Six Strings Down
12. The Bois D’arcs — Feel All Right
13. Zed Head — Shotgun
14. The Ramblin Dawgs — Steppin Up

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

A tropical Antarctica … Cuban gossip … A sunken island in the Atlantic … The generalship of U.S. Grant … Sex in a mosque.

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. Sex in mosque riles angry mob
By Patrick Winn | The Rice Bowl :: GlobalPost | July 18
“Villagers swarm mosque after teen couple discovered undressed in bathroom”

2. A City Steeped in Picasso’s Lore
By Raphael Minder | The New York Times | July 19
“Málaga hardly featured in Picasso’s adult life, but the city has still done its utmost to call attention to its claim to its most famous artist.”

3. An Asteroid So Big It Has Its Own Moon
By Alexis Landis | SkyTalk :: WHYY Radio | July 18
“Four years into its mission The Dawn Space Craft is orbiting an asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The craft is orbiting the 330 mile long asteroid to collect data.”

4. Rick Perry Says He Has No Interest In VP Slot
By Jay Root | The Texas Tribune | July 19
“John Nance Garner, the colorful West Texas politician known as ‘Cactus Jack,’ used to say the office of vice-president ‘wasn’t worth a warm bucket of piss.’ ”

5. The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant and the American Civil War
By Richard J. Sommers | U.S. Army Heritage & Education Center
The lecture “analyzes the generalship of Ulysses S. Grant, identifies his many strengths as a military commander, and yet also acknowledges limitations in his leadership.”

6. Inside Rebekah Brooks’ News of the World
By Georgina Prodhan and Kate Holton | Reuters | July 16
“‘It was the kind of place you get out of and you never want to go back again.’ That’s how one former reporter describes the News of the World newsroom under editor Rebekah Brooks, the ferociously ambitious titian-haired executive who ran Britain’s top-selling Sunday tabloid from 2000 to 2003.”

7. Giant lost island found on Atlantic seafloor
By Tim Wall | Discovery News | July 18
“The island was created when the Icelandic Plume, a bubble of magma beneath the Earth’s surface, forced the crust up and out of the water. The land was forced up in a series of three steps, each one pushing the land 200-400 meters higher. ”

8. The Cuban Grapevine
By James Scudamore | More Intelligent Life | Summer 2011
“Today, in a nation where the only official media are state-controlled, Radio Bemba has become shorthand for the word-of-mouth information network, which is by far the quickest (and often the most reliable) way to find out about anything from baseball chat to celebrity gossip to news of the latest defection to the United States.”

9. When Antarctica was a tropical paradise
By Robin McKie | The Observer | July 17
“Geological drilling under Antarctica suggests the polar region has seen global warming before”

10. Secret war in Yemen
Witness :: BBC News | June 29
“In the 1960s British mercenaries joined the fighting in Yemen’s civil war. They trained local tribesmen to fight against Egyptian troops. Their activities were never officially sanctioned by the British government.”

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

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

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

A bold vision from Joint Chiefs officers … Another look at LBJ … What Voyager 1 has discovered … The new iTunes … 100 facts for Machu Picchu.

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 Power Broker’s Other Voice
By Jason Sokol | Slate | June 13
“President Lyndon Johnson, domineering and manipulative, lives on in American memory as the classic power broker. … Yet this is not the Johnson who emerges from volumes seven and eight of The Presidential Recordings, a transcription of his phone conversations from June 1 to July 4 of 1964.”

2. The Y Article
By John Norris | Foreign Policy | April 13
“The piece was written by two senior members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in a ‘personal’ capacity, but it is clear that it would not have seen the light of day without a measure of official approval. Its findings are revelatory, and they deserve to be read and appreciated not only by every lawmaker in Congress, but by every American citizen.”

3. Voyager 1 Reaches Surprisingly Calm Boundary of Interstellar Space
By Geoff Brumfiel | Nature and Scientific American | June 15
“The Voyager 1 spacecraft is at the limit of the ‘heliosheath’, where particles streaming from the Sun clash with the gases of the galaxy. Contrary to scientists’ expectation of a sharp, violent edge, the boundary seems to be a tepid place, where the solar wind mingles with extrasolar particles.”

4. Everything You Need to Know About the New iTunes
By Sam Grobart | Gadgetwise — The New York Times | June 13
“Last week, at the opening of its annual developers’ conference, Apple announced iCloud — its new online storage and syncing service for music, photos, files and software. Although not all of its features are available immediately, one part — “iTunes in the Cloud Beta” — is, if you’ve updated to iTunes 10.3.1. Here is a primer about what you need to know, right now, about it.”

5. Looking beyond Obama to ‘The Golden Age’
By Paul Rosenberg | Al Jazeera | June 11
“Obama has so far been a disappointment to many of his supporters, but he has awakened a worldwide need for real change.”

6. So Much More Than Plasma and Poison
By Natalie Angier | The New York Times | June 6
“Among nature’s grand inventory of multicellular creatures, jellyfish seem like the ultimate other, as alien from us as mobile beings can be while still remaining within the kingdom Animalia. Where is the head, the heart, the back, the front, the matched sets of parts and organs? Where is the bilateral symmetry?”

7. 100 facts for 100 years of Machu Picchu: Fact 59
By Catharine Hamm | The Los Angeles Times | June 12
“Hiram Bingham, a Yale professor, came upon the vine-covered ruins on July 24, 1911. Here, then, as we lead up to the century mark, are 100-plus facts about Machu Picchu, its country, its history and its players. We’ve been posting one each of the 100 days leading to the anniversary. Read from the bottom up.”

8. Why you’re wrong about who’s going to be elected president next year
By Tom Casciato | Need to Know | June 10
“It’s 2011, do you know who’s going to win the presidential election next year? The answer is no, you don’t. Even if you predict now that someone will win then, and that person ends up winning, it won’t be because you knew. You don’t know.”

9. The Balance of Melville
By David D. Robbins Jr. | The Fade Out | June 14
“His masterpiece, ‘Le Samouraï’ (1967), the story of a lone contract killer named Jef Costello, played by exquisitely by Alain Delon, seems to work in perfectly balanced pairs.”

10. How NASA Prepares for the Final Space Shuttle Launch
By Denise Chow | Space.com | June 14
“With just one more mission remaining before the end of NASA’s storied 30-year space shuttle, the agency has shifted its focus to the final launch of Atlantis on July 8. But exactly how does NASA get a space shuttle ready to fly?”

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. The Insomniacs — Hoodoo Man
2. Carolyn Wonderland — Ain’t Nobody’s Business
3. Los Super Seven — Heard It On the X
4. Robbie King Band — Classic Case of the Blues
5. Jack County — Lonesome Radio
6. BB Chung King and the Budda Heads — Still the Rain
7. The Fabulous Thunderbirds — Painted On
8. Red Rooster Club — Fool for Your Stockings
9. Red Rooster Club — Lie to Me
10. Paul Rogers — Muddy Water Blues
11. Preachers Stone — Mother to Bed

Recommended reading / viewing / listening

History’s biggest volcanic explosions … Great gadgets for Father’s Day … Video of an asteroid … Revisiting McNamara’s War … Regrets of dying men and women.

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. Regrets of the Dying
By Bronnie Ware | Inspiration and Chai
“For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. … When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five. …”

2. Arab revolutions mask economic status quo
By Mark LeVine | Al Jazeera | June 10
“Despite talk of a ‘new social contract’, financial powers seek to maintain their grip on the poor of the Middle East.”

3. Our Troops Abroad: What Does a Soldier Need to Read?
By Elizabeth D. Samet | The New Republic | June 11
“Few of us have been castaways, but we’ve all spun variations on the exercise of figuring out whatever is essential to the life of our minds.”

4. McNamara’s Non-War
By James Burnham | National Review | Sept. 19, 1967
“In the form of a statement, August 25, to the Senate Armed Services Committee, Secretary of Defense McNamara offered the most elaborate apologia yet made by the Johnson Administration for, specifically, “our conduct of the air war in Vietnam,” and, by implication, for the Vietnam policy in general. … Before trying to pass judgment on his conclusions, it is advisable to make sure we understand what he is saying.”

5. NASA Spacecraft Captures Video of Asteroid Approach
Jet Propulsion Laboratory | June 13
“Scientists working with NASA’s Dawn spacecraft have created a new video showing the giant asteroid Vesta as the spacecraft approaches this unexplored world in the main asteroid belt.”

6. After 90 Years, a Dictionary of an Ancient World
By John Noble Wilford | The New York Times | June 6
“Ninety years in the making, the 21-volume dictionary of the language of ancient Mesopotamia and its Babylonian and Assyrian dialects, unspoken for 2,000 years but preserved on clay tablets and in stone inscriptions deciphered over the last two centuries, has finally been completed by scholars at the University of Chicago.”

7. Just back: the painted houses of Peru
By Jonathan Carr | The Telegraph | June 10
“Lurid red and orange paint had been daubed everywhere. Villagers throughout Cajamarca region, like everyone else in Peru, were facing a choice between two alleged evils. … To help in the decision-making process, the villagers’ shacks had been marked with giant crosses. But there were no pleas for God to show mercy. This was not that kind of plague. Rather, the names of politicians had been invoked: left-wing Ollanta in red, right-wing Keiko in orange. Soon, the people were to decide which of the two would become president. ”

8. Chekhov on Judgment
By David D. Robbins Jr. | The Fade Out | June 10
“Dover Koshashvili’s adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s short novella “The Duel”, a period drama about the residents of a seaside town in the Caucuses, correctly finds the tone set by the original. Take it from a Chekhov lover, the best thing about the Russian’s writing is his ability to arrive at a point of discovery without necessarily providing an apotheosis.”

9. The 10 Biggest Volcanic Eruptions in History
Our Amazing Planet | June 10
“June 15, 2011, marks the 20th anniversary of Mt. Pinatubo’s cataclysmic eruption. … On this anniversary, we countdown the largest volcanic eruptions in history as measured by the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI), a classification system somewhat akin to the magnitude scale for earthquakes.”

10. 15 Fantastic Gadgets for Father’s Day
By Doug Aamoth and Chris Gayomali | Time | June 13
“Whether dad loves to grill, fish or take on projects around the house, any number of these geeky goodies are sure to be a hit.”

Rebecca Aguilar

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

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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.

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