Near Earth Objects

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/

Here's a website you might want to bookmark: near earth object tracking by NASA. What that means is you'll get a preview of any asteroids that might destroy the earth and what NASA might do about it. Such as the one that might graze the atmosphere in 2029. That gives you 20 years to build a safe room!

Physics of the Impossible

http://kuow.org/program.php?id=14721

Incorruptible Corpses

Corpses!

Today I learned via HowStuffWorks.com's podcast: "Stuff you Missed in History Class" about incorruptible corpses. Apparently there are hundreds of examples of bodies that have not followed the usual eaten-by-maggots road to becoming a skeleton in under a year, and have in fact not been eaten by anything or become skeletons at all. These corpses are of varying states of decay, but some of them are amazingly well preserved. Some of them are Catholic, and some of them are not. I've compiled a list of URLs to look at the best photos I found on the web of these incorruptible corpses. Of course you can always read more about them on HowStuffWorks.com. There are even some books out there that might be worth reading, but as I haven't read them yet, I won't recommend one yet.

*keep in mind, I selected these links because of the pictures, not for the content*

Guanajuato, Mexico mummies: This link is to the HowStuffWorks.com site about the mummies. The site doesn't have many pictures, but this is one of the best pictures of the child-mummies found in Mexico, preserved by the dry, salty ground. Note that they look quite dead. Some of the Saints faired a little better, although that may not have been an act of god. See below.

Tollund Man: Do read Seamus Heaney's poem about the Bog Man. This Denmark man was hanged, obviously, and buried in a peat bog that amazingly preserved his pre-common-era body. They say you can even see hairs on his chin.
(Also you could read his translation of Beowulf. It's quite melodious. It captures the rhythm of the original (so they tell me) as well as the grandeur and excitement.)

St. Bernadette: A wannabe nun who was so sick that at first even the nuns didn't really want her, but all that changed when she was exhumed to see how her decomposition was coming along and lo! she was virtually unchanged. The fact that her skin looks so lifelike is partially due to the fact that some doubting-Thomas Catholics (darn them) coated her face and hands with wax.

Catherine of Bologna: A 600 year old corpse sitting upright! Click the right arrow for two more pictures of closeups, but only if you really want to see a creepy closeup of undead corpseface and corpsehands. She is NOT in the same condition as she was the day she died, but still, pretty amazing considering you and I will most likely be showing a little somethin' skeleton before she is.

Saint Sylvan: Scroll about halfway down to see several pictures of this 1700 year old corpse. He was martyred--check out the neck wound. Here's another site with some better closeups.

Saint Vincent de Paul (#4): for those of you who love second-hand clothes, here's something that might make you feel vaguely uncomfortable. Also, the site has a pretty good picture of Saint Bernadette (#1) and Saint John Vianney (#2).

Very Yes

Things I like currently that help me stay informed no matter where I am:

Podcasts! I totally dig free podcasts from national public radio and its affiliates. Its easy to download them using the iTunes search feature on my iPhone. You can also search for them on your regular iTunes on your PC. But just for kicks, I'll link some of my favorites.
NPR Podcast Directory has a variety of different podcasts.
Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me! is a hillarious and informative radio call-in game show/interview forum hosted by Peter Sagal.
Stuff You Missed in History Class from HowStuffWorks.com
Think Out Loud from Oregon Public Broadcasting


Audiobooks! It is SO easy to read Crime and Punishment when you can't escape it on your morning commute! Check out Marco Polo's hefty tome The Travels of Marco Polo from Audible.com. You have to create an account to purchase books from audible.com, but it's a good way to downoad digital audiobooks, especially if you go through a lot of them. Their website claims the average reader gets through only 5 books a year! I would be willing to guess that if they factored non-reading adults into that equation that it would be an even lower number.

HowStuffWorks.com! If you are addicted to surfing the internet, this should be on your RSS feed.

Hulu.com! Watch tv and movies for free online! And it's perfectly, undeniably legal, because the networks help fund it. Some of my favorites recently have been Crawford, a documentary of the town that our soon-to-be-ex-president Bush called home: it discusses the media, the place, and, most poignantly, the people (brought a tear to my eye! But then, so many things do) and The Times of Harvey Milk, an excellent Oscar-winning 1984 documentary about the first openly gay man to be elected to public office and his and mayor George Moscone's tragic assasinations.

Books! Good old-fashioned books. Right now I'm reading The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell.

Lies

James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me is undeniably a thought provoking book. But I find that it can be long-winded, meandering, and worse: while it proclaims to despair the lack of critical thinking of America's students and teachers, it engages in an alarmingly small amount of critical exposition itself. It is vague about details and almost never cites its sources. If I wanted to learn anything more about a particular study that he cites, I'll have to look it up on my own, as he provides no bibliography. He does provide bibliographical information in his extensive notes section, but I think his erratic use of endnotes is not appropriate, especially in his case. For someone who wants to change the way history books are written, you'd think he could demonstrate some of the techniques he himself laments that history books don't use! Try footnotes as well as endnotes, and a bibliography that links to every statistic that he used. Also, just elaborating on who his experts are, the context of their words, would help.
But not only do I wish he had spent more time bracing his text, I also wish that he would have spent a little less time inserting himself into the book. His side notes, which I can only assume he means to be amusing, seem interfering and unscholarly. While disparaging a quote from Alabama law, instead of discussing the choice of diction, he inserts his own interpretation without so much as a footnote for explanation: "Alabama law used to require that schools avoid 'textbooks containing anything partisan, prejudicial, or inimical to the interest of the [white] people of the State'," (page 280, Touchstone 1996 version, brackets Loewen's). You see what I did there? I gave you the context and where to find it if you want to know more, and I left my personal take on it out of the original quote so as not to contaminate a historian's most important evidence: the primary source.