Ten simple, shattering comics about the earthquake in China. Via MoFi.
posted to MetaFilter by By The Grace of God at 1:35 PM on June 1, 2008 (63 comments)

A gast-flabbering awesome. single link YouTube post
posted to MetaFilter by By The Grace of God at 4:46 AM on May 11, 2007 (51 comments)

New York University's Tamiment Library, one of the world's foremost centers of learning on labour history and the Left, has been given the archives of the Communist Party USA. (alternate non-NYT link) The donation includes 20,000 books, journals and pamphlets and a million photographs from The Daily Worker’s archives. Highlights include the original, hand-written will of Joe Hill.
posted to MetaFilter by By The Grace of God at 1:58 PM on March 20, 2007 (13 comments)

The Philosophy of Liberty. Briefly cited here, this simple yet powerful Flash animation is one of the most elegant, expressive, and dramatic political statements I have ever seen.
posted to MetaFilter by By The Grace of God at 11:33 AM on August 28, 2006 (87 comments)

He describes how the birds’ wings flutter, the small black eyes blink, and the head pops off in your palm... A riveting inside look at the Exotic Animal Training program at Moorpark College, which offers America's only college degree in animal training.
posted to MetaFilter by By The Grace of God at 3:29 PM on August 12, 2006 (15 comments)

Queen Ranavalona I , best known as a villainess in George Fraser's novel Flashman's Lady, ascended the throne of Madagascar in 1835. Known abroad as the Bloody Mary of Madagascar, the Queen's favourite methods of execution included half-boiling and tossing off of cliffs, and over a third of her population died under her reign. Although she and her court wore French dress, Ranavalona banned Christianity and drove Europeans off the island. Nevertheless, she united Madagascar and kept it free of French or British control at a time when other African nations were brought into the growing empires. [more inside]
posted to MetaFilter by By The Grace of God at 7:46 AM on August 2, 2006 (22 comments)

Laurie Pycroft , age 16, took a year off school to build websites and futter about on the Internet. When animal rights campaigners waged a series of protests against a new biomedical research lab being constructed at Oxford University - with the extremist group Animal Liberation Front threatening buildings, students and staff as "legitimate targets" - Laurie decided to form Pro-Test, an organisation in support of animal testing, and stage a counterdemonstration to the monthly anti-testing demo at Oxford. The result: On 25 February, at least 700 protestors, eminent scientists, politicians, and students showed up. So did the media.
posted to MetaFilter by By The Grace of God at 12:29 PM on February 28, 2006 (74 comments)

George Galloway is in the Celebrity Big Brother house. My jaw dropped when I read it. He's a prominent member of the Respect Coalition, an antiwar figure and a frequent target of corruption claims. He claims his strategy is to reach a new audience of young people and to offer the public a "chance to show a large and different audience what I'm really like". There's already a debate about the war on the official show message boards.
posted to MetaFilter by By The Grace of God at 10:56 AM on January 6, 2006 (73 comments)

Constance Baker Motley, civil rights lawyer and federal judge, is dead at age 84. (NYT; bugmenot). She was a brilliant lawyer in the NAACP's Legal Defense and Educational Fund when it was led by Thurgood Marshall, winning anti-segregationist legal victories against Alabama Governor George Wallace and many others, and defending the civil rights movement. A New Yorker, she was a state senator and borough president of Manhattan. In 1966, Lyndon Johnson appointed her to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and she became the first black woman federal judge in the United States. Speeches, writings and clippings.
posted to MetaFilter by By The Grace of God at 5:47 AM on September 29, 2005 (10 comments)

Israeli Pro-Palestinian activist Tali Fahima to remain in custody. Tali Fahima grew up in a conservative desert town in Israel and voted Likud for years. As the second intifada erupted she read about the brutality of the occupation on the Internet and eventually travelled to Jenin refugee camp where she met Zakariyeh Zbeideh, a local leader of the terrorist organization and Fatah offshoot, Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigade. She was arrested and jailed in Israel, accused of translating a document for Zbeideh into Arabic. that allowed him to warn fighters marked for Israeli assassination.

Fahima has been under arrest nearly six months. Her case has gained prominence not just because she is an Israeli Jew supporting Palestinian resistance but because she is a Mizrahi, a Sephardic or "Arab" Jew. This group has historically formed a solid bloc of support for aggressive policies against the Palestinians. [MI]
posted to MetaFilter by By The Grace of God at 7:15 PM on January 30, 2005 (30 comments)

Vladimir Aniskin, by day a farm equipment researcher (pdf), makes gorgeous Faberge-like creations, haunting and whimsical metaphors of war and peace, and more in extreme miniature. Moscow reporters have entered him in a competition (Russian-language page) for the strangest hobby practiced in Russia. Via the ever-brilliant aldaily.com.
posted to MetaFilter by By The Grace of God at 5:58 AM on December 8, 2004 (7 comments)