Bookshelf!

Home Interiors Zonehas a few very cool and many zany functional (or not-so) bookshelves.

The Eye of the Storm

View these beautiful photographs of hurricanes as seen from orbit. From Boston.com.

Dan Rather on The Press

Link TV uploaded this video of Dan Rather's speech on the press and the freedoms of journalism today. Please listen.

The History Engine

"The History Engine is an educational tool that gives students the opportunity to learn history by doing the work—researching, writing, and publishing—of a historian. The result is an ever-growing collection of historical articles or "episodes" that paints a wide-ranging portrait of life in the United States throughout its history and that is available to scholars, teachers, and the general public in our online database."

National Hurricane Center on Gustav

I've found over the years that the National Weather Service's National Hurricane Center is the best website for viewing hurricane statistics and predictions. There are many links for satellite loops, three and five day forecasts and projections cones. Unfortunately, the word on Gustav is not good with winds and rain from Hanna approaching and tropical storms in the next week forming for potentially even more of the same.

120 Ways

I came across this website at Lite-Mind. 120 Ways to Boost your brainpower. Try some of the suggestions.

Think Before You Drink

GreenUpgrader lists facts about plastic bottles that 'make you think before you drink.' And a photo is worth a thousand words.

Library Bill of Rights

The American Library Association (ALA)

"was founded in 1876 in Philadelphia and subsequently chartered in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Its mission is “to provide leadership for the development, promotion, and improvement of library and information services and the profession of librarianship in order to enhance learning and ensure access to information for all.”

The ALA authored a Library Bill of Rights that was adopted June 18, 1948, by the ALA Council.

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

"Since 1982 the English Department at San Jose State University has sponsored the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, a whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels."

This year's award goes to Garrison Spik of Washington, DC:

"Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped "Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J."

On the chance that you'd like try your own hand at bad fiction writing next year, visit the website for contest rules, a history of the contest, a full reading of the quote by Bulwer-Lytton that inspired the contest (it wasn't really Charles Schultz' Snoopy) and years worth of bad writing awards. I might submit something myself; as a teenaged poet I once likened 'love' to the game of Parcheesi and have never lived that down.

One Day In the Life

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn died this week at the age of 89. Many of the younger generations of Russians may not understand how important Solzhenitsyn's writings were in opening the former Soviet Union's door to the world in the late 20th century. My first foray into Solzhenitsyn's writings was Cancer Ward, my second One Day In the Live of Ivan Denisovich. I unfortunately never made it through the three-volume The Gulag Archipelago. You can read Solzhenitsyn's own brief autobiography at NobelPrize. He was awarded the prize in 1970, over 20 years before the fall of Russian communism and three years before The Gulag was published.

Just A Click Away

It's been awhile since I posted this link to the Massachusetts Libraries publicity campaign. The commercials will once again be shown on local and state-wide channels this September through December. The web portal, Mass.gov/libraries is a great site that hosts a Massachusetts library directory and news about libraries. There will be more in the future as the committee continues its work. We've chosen a focus for this year and that will be language literacy for the non-English speakers in our communities and libraries. The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners Public Relations Advisory Committee will be hard at work again this fall.

It's Scrabulous

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Scrabulous is a lot of fun with a friend through email. And you can be in the same room. Toymaker, Hasbro, filed suit to make them take the game off of Facebook but you can still play Scrabulous on the game site.

Life Explained. On Film

Videojug has a library of hundreds videos ... some of them instructional (DYI - How to Fold a T Shirt in Two Seconds, some of them tongue-in-cheek (Legal - How To Find Out Who Stole The Cookie From The Cookie Jar Using CSI, many silly but most of them witty and informative, (How To Have a Harmonious Relationship.) There are categories within the categories of Beauty & Style, Health, Modern Manners, Self Help, Cars, Jobs & Careers, Money & Wealth, Sports & Fitness, DIY & Home, Legal, Parenting, Technology, Education, Leisure & Hobbies, Pets, Travel, Environment,Love & Sex, Real Estate, Food & Drink, Made By You and Safety & Survival. Have a few minutes to kill and your email inbox is empty? Spend it here.

Make YOUR Statement

As an employee of town government, it is important that I stay neutral in my professional life and I have, thus far, met that obligation. I have my personal statements that remain out of public view. Here are two websites that you might visit for your own political persuasion: Democratic stuff and JoinJohnMcCain. Have fun and be sure to strut your stuff.