This made my day

cartography

This is one of the earliest known maps in existence. Brought to you by the ever intriguing folks who gave you "Milestones in the History of Thematic Cartography, Statistical Graphics, and Data Visualization."

onward Christian soldiers

This is Ron Luce, commander in chief of BattleCry, a burgeoning Christian "youth crusade" that bears all the marks of a fundamentalist religious terror organization.

Luce is forty-five, his brown hair floppy, his lips pouty. On the screens above the stage, his green eyes blink furiously. "The devil hates us," he exhorts, "and we gotta be ready to fight and not be these passive little lukewarm, namby-pamby, kum-ba-yah, thumb-sucking babies that call themselves Christians. Jesus? He got mad!" Luce considers most evangelicals too soft, too ready to pass off as piety their preference for a bland suburban lifestyle. He hates what he sees as the weakness of "accepting" Christ, of "trusting" the Lord. "I want an attacking church!" he shouts, his normally smooth tones raw and desperate and alarming. He isn't just looking for followers -- he wants "stalkers" who'll bring a criminal passion to their pursuit of godliness.

BattleCry's enemies are "queers and communists, feminists and Muslims...and the entire American cultural apparatus of marketing and merchandising, the 'techno-terrorists' of mass media, doing to the morality of a generation what Osama bin Laden did to the Twin Towers."

so true

hmm

101 amazing earth facts.

word of the day

kerfuffle

Culture is officially dying

Wordsworth for the YouTube generation.

it's grammar time, kids!

Some common solecisms.
These are contronyms.
How to punctuate a sentence.
History of the English language.
The Grandiloquent Dictionary.

bad boys

Now that's a curse.

What really happened at Pearl Harbor

Three words: Nazis, robots, and CGI.

then to now

Someone on Flickr has posted an interesting set of photos of London, side-by-side with historical photos of the exact location.

Great aerial photos of Montgomery

I found these here.

R.I.P. Kurt Vonnegut Jr. 1923-2007

The New York Times article is here. Rolling Stone had a great interview here. But for me, I'm going to pull out my old dogeared copy of God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and raise a glass to one of my favorite literary rebels. Although some of his works were just plain weird, I'll never forget the delicious weirdness of Billy Pilgrim's shattered life in Slaughterhouse Five, a book which spoke to me at a young age when I was wrestling with my own ideas of fate and free will and just who in the hell am I? I always enjoyed Vonnegut's ability to pull these deep themes out of such hilariously bizarre settings. I also loved that I knew I was reading a book that had been banned from the Montgomery Academy high school library.

So goodbye Mr. Vonnegut. I hope you and Kilgore Trout and a couple of Tralfamadorians are relaxing somewhere in the fourth dimension, sipping tea and watching the fires.

so it goes.

(p.s.: great interview with Kurt here.)

when all else fails, there's always delusion

Conan O'Brien's commencement speech to the Harvard Class of 2000 is good stuff.

sacred variety

If there is any lingering doubt in your mind whether the world is an exquisitely magnificent place, let Igor Siwanowicz convince you.

the new math

Some ways the $1 trillion spent in Iraq (as of February) could have been spent, according to this article:

• Fund the EPA for 100 years
• Form 17 more Departments of Education
• Form 169 more National Science Foundations
• Form 199 more National Cancer Institutes
• Mail a check for more than $3,000 to every man, woman and child in the United States
• Send a check for more than $150 to every human being on earth

naturalism v. supernaturalism, part II

Go Kansas go. You've certainly come a long way. But there's still a very long road ahead for all of us.

oh really

FYI: The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that the EPA has the statutory authority to regulate the emission of greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles. Apparently the EPA had offered "no reasoned explanation" for refusing to regulate carbon dioxide and other harmful gas emissions from cars. Gee, I wonder why they couldn't come up with an explanation? Could it be that they are the ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY? Granted, the argument was over whether carbon dioxide is actually a pollutant as defined by law, because some say it's not. But it is alarming to note that the EPA was backed by four motor trade associations, two coalitions of utility companies and 10 states with car-making facilities. Considering the EPA's ostensible promotion of strategies to reduce transportation greenhouse gas emissions and save fuel, this is an odd alliance.

moral mathematics of the moment

This is great.

tune out, turn off, drop by

The owners/writers of this blog officially endorse this message.

A.D.

Johnny Hart, creator of the comic "B.C." died today, but I had no idea how strongly some people felt about his work.

don't tell Edmund

Turns out Everest may not be the "highest" peak after all.

I do wish I had a pool

The Floating Cabana

nice app

You may have heard that Google Maps has a new feature called "My Maps" which allows you to create personalized annotated maps with links to pictures, audio or whatever you feel like commemorating your travels with. Be sure and check out this week's featured map, America's Highway: Oral Histories of Route 66.

how I feel right now

>>entering grammar maven mode<<

Ahem. This is how apostrophes are supposed to be used.

yes

Take this silver lining
Keep it in your own
Sweet head
And shine it when the night is
Burning red
Shine it in the twilight
Shine it on the cold, cold ground
Shine it till these walls
Come tumbling down

We were born with our eyes wide open
So alive with wild hope now
Can you tell me why
Time after time they drag you down
Down in the darkest deep
Fools and their madness all around
Know that the light don't sleep

Step into the silence
Take it in your own
Two hands
And scatter it like diamonds
All across these lands
Blaze it in the morning
Wear it like an iron skin
Only things worth living for are
Innocence and magic, amen

We were born with our eyes wide open
So alive with wild hope now
Can you tell me why
Time after time they drag you down
Down in the darkest deep
Fools and their madness all around
Know that the light don't sleep
We were born with our eyes wide open
So alive with wild hope now
Can you tell me why
Time after time they drag you down
Down in the talk so cheap
Fools and their madness all around
Know that the light don't sleep
Know that the light don't sleep

David Gray - Silver Lining

oh Alabama

This is a map that first appeared in 2002 in Scientific American, and was based on data collected by Lawrence S. Lerner of California State University at Long Beach. Think it's gotten any better since then?

THINGS YOU MAY WANT TO SEND TO THE POET WHOM YOU'VE ADOPTED THROUGH THE "ADOPT-A-POET" PROGRAM AT POETS.ORG

A paycheck

Another Enya album

Harrowing bout of alcoholism

All-consuming sense of artistic self-importance that lasts throughout adolescence but gradually dissipates as he matures

Way with words

Print of Thomas Kinkade painting with "DEATH TO PHILISTINES" scrawled in blood across calm, pastoral setting

An MBA degree

Unfiltered cigarettes, jazz music, new suit

Bowl of fruit on a simple wooden table in the morning, with soft light from an open window

Fresh rhymez

Some of those big black pants that Goths wear with all the chains and spikes

A life

Edge of the world, indeed