October 27, 2007
Trash into treasure
About 15% of the average American's household waste is compostable. Even apartment dwellers can turn their potato peelings and coffee grounds into gorgeous, nutrient-rich plant food with the help of worms. You can even buy the little dudes online!
Once you have your worm farm set up, the big question is "Can I compost this?" You may be surprised at how often the answer is, "Yes!"
"My father was one of the finest sportswriters of his generation. But his legacy is more complicated than that."
Forgive Some Sinner. "With age 70 bearing down hard upon him, Dad had by then written for better than 40 years, during which he had become celebrated, later disgraced, and I would like to think ultimately redeemed... Good as some of his old stories are, it always seemed to me that his own was better than any of them; I only wish he had written it himself." Mark Kram Jr. examines his late father's complicated legacy.
Iwo Jima re-enacted
This series of photographs, Iconic Moments of the 20th Century, was enacted by pensioners in a home for the elderly in Glasgow. Aged volunteers pose in their everyday outfits and in the vicinity of their Home to re-create scenes from well-known historic photographs
The Visible Man
The Visible Man: The Visible Man: An FBI Target Puts His Whole Life Online This piece was particularly fun to write: A short profile of Hasan Elahi, an artist guy who accidentally got put on the feds' watchlists. He realized the best way to keep the FBI off his back was to go totally transparent -- so he started photoblogging everything he does, all day long, to establish a constant alibi.
the gateway to heaven on earth
In Philip Roth's latest novel, Exit Ghost, his literary alter-ego, Nathan Zuckerman, exclaims after hearing Richard Strauss's "Four Last Songs" that "the composer drops all masks and, at the age of 82, stands before you naked. And you dissolve."
Renee Fleming performs Im Abendrot, September, Beim Schlafengehen, Fruhling. Head Butler provides some interesting background on Strauss and the different performances. [more inside]
DM of the Rings
DM of the Rings (comic). The Lord of the Rings if it were a Dungeons and Dragons game. [more inside]
You got your pizza in my Happy Meal!
Where Smaller becomes Greater
Many masterpieces of Persian Art were produced during the period of the Safavid dynasty 1502 - 1736.
Minature paintings developed into a high artform.
A brief history of Muslim Minature Painting.
For Better or For Worse
For Better or For Worse has become a hybrid. Lynn Johnston has been making some changes to FBOFW gearing up for the time when the characters will stop aging in the strip. Unlike most comics which are frozen in time, the characters in For Better or For Worse have gotten older, made changes in their lives, fallen in love, and had children. Some people aren't so happy with this fundamental change in the strip. However, FBOFW is no stranger to controversy. Michael, the oldest child of the Patterson family, had a gay friend who came out in the strip prompting some papers to run completely different strips on the days the homosexuality issue was mentioned. In recent years, however, the internet has been abuzz over the issue of middle child Elizabeth's love life.
Thankfully we can read all about it from youngest child April's perspective.
(Previously)
Tu stultus es and get off my lawn
Dumbening.com: Measuring the Dumbening of America for Like 20 Years. With Special Reports: God Clarifies Stance on Radical Islam, Why Children are Stupid, The Elderly: Pros and Cons, Ten Reasons to Bomb Denmark and Guest Columnist Pat Robertson offers This Week in God's Wrath. Fake news not your thing? Then check out Stupid Children, a humor blog with links to real news stories of people behaving stupidly (last post is from 2006, so maybe people have gotten smarter since then). This rash of humor sites is all well and good you say, but some pretty serious people have dared ask: "Is our children learning?" Columnist Mark Morford [SF Gate] responds with a resounding NO: American Kids are Dumber that Dirt. Though the reaction from the reddit crowd has been swift and severe.
Would you burn a used million dollars from this man?
Strays From the Flock Get a Blog
Armchair atheists are a dime a dozen. For the real deal, meet these former Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians (many of whom used to be ministers or Bible college professors), who offer an (ex-)insider's take on the problems of religious belief.
formal and contemporary
The Young Gallery has an exceptional collection of photographs by both renowned and recently discovered photographers. The feast of visuals includes elegantly haunting images of African wildlife by Nick Brandt, Night Views of cities by Floriane de Lassée, salad vegetables by Viktor Polson, nudes and portraits by Patrick Demarchelier and images of Tibet, Mongolians and Tibetans by Richard Gere.
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