Mater Magistra: Library Day

re: tips for getting kids and library books - choosing a wider selection, not letting the books get overdue or lost, etc...

hat tip: Rocks in My Dryer

Braille Institute of America | Home

re: "Braille Institute is a private non-profit organization whose mission is to eliminate blindness and severe sight loss as a barrier to a fulfilling life."...

open book: Your read of the day

re: link to (UK) Times article by Simon Barnes on being a father of a boy with Down Syndrome...

FIRST THINGS: On the Square

re: another parent, a father this time, writes in defense of raising a child with Down Syndrome...

abc13.com: Fight brewing between mosque and pigs

re: man in Texas being shoved by people planning to build a mosque shoves back by scheduling Friday night pig races on his property...

hat tip: Rush Limbaugh

OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today

re: more responses to Rangel's disrespect for people serving in the military (see halfway down post). Also has links to earlier responses...

The Common Room: Good Stewardship Does Not Mean What She Thinks it Means

re: more on Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church Katharine Jefferts Schori's ideas of stewardship (in which she tries to explain away the declining membership of her denomination by noting that Episcopalians are 'better educated' and are encouraged to not use up the Earth's resources by having children). Includes Mark Steyn commentary...

Plymouth Adventure (1952)

re: cast list, etc., for the movie starring Spencer Tracy, based (loosely, to all appearances) on the Ernest Gebler novel. The movie's lead romance storyline is manufactured out of thin air, but it is a Spencer Tracy movie...

Plymouth Adventure (1952)

re: Elsie W. Hamel, Graduate Student at Lehigh University, briefly compares Ernest Gebler's book The Plymouth Adventure and the movie based on it. Includes this short note about the novel: "This, it seems to me, is the truest picture that we could have of the Plymouth adventure, the more remarkable in that it was written by a man of mixed Czech and Irish ancestry who has never been in this country." Chicago Sun Tribune (April 30,1950): 3

The Gift of Language by Theodore Dalrymple, City Journal Autumn 2006

re: attacking the silly (and harmful) notion that language skills don't have to be - or in some cases shouldn't be - taught...

hat tip: Bookworm

Mesohippus 1

re: Florida Museum of Natural History page on the "middle horse" in horse evolution...

NASA - Historic Volcanic Eruption Shrunk the Mighty Nile River

re: major eruptions in Iceland in 1783-84 might have contributed to record low water levels in the Nile, plus other examples of how high latitude volcanic eruptions might have significantly affected monsoons, droughts, etc...

NASA - CALIPSO

re: "...one of NASA's newest satellite missions. CALIPSO, or Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations, seeks to reveal the secrets of clouds and aerosols, tiny particles suspended in the air, enabling scientists to study how they form, evolve and interact and how they affect our air quality, weather and climate..."...

How the media loses the war « Bookworm Room

re: the media passing along false stories spun by America's enemies...

OpinionJournal - Featured Article: New York, New York

re: a series of books on New York City's architecture and history, by architect and historian Robert A.M. Stern...

Robin Hood

re: information on the 1950s television show The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Richard Greene...

The Scotsman - Business - At 30% cheaper, self-build is on the rise

re: more people are buying land and building homes in Scotland. Also notes that a lot of the cheap housing from the 1960s and 1970s is being bought and demolished by people who want to start from scratch rather than renovate...

Fossil research suggests 'mass dying' triggered teeming oceans | The Guardian | Guardian Unlimited

re: discovering the obvious, scientists 'discover' that the mass extinctions at the end of the Permian not only caused - but made possible - the rise of new and vastly different ecosystems...

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Wheat's lost gene helps nutrition

re: after research pointing to which crosses to try, plant scientists are crossing domesticated wheat with wild wheat to boost nutrition...

OpinionJournal - Taste: Funny Money

re: Preston Sturge's romantic comedies of the 1940s are now available in a DVD boxed set, and provide a nice contrast with most of today's romantic comedies...