Barbara Pym’s books focused on women who rarely make it into any spotlight, literary or otherwise: quiet, sensible, independent women of a certain age. Like the spinsters who populate her novels, her genius has been too often overlooked, but she does have her devotees. [more inside]
posted by freshwater_pr0n at 8:48 PM PST - 26 comments

Want to study some history and have hundreds of hours on your hands? Don't worry now. We already exhaustive know about the Valley of the Shadow project. But what about Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History, a bilingual English-French archive? If neither of these (vast) subjects tickle your pickle, don't worry... [more inside]
posted by flibbertigibbet at 8:34 PM PST - 6 comments

EVERYTHING you ever wanted to know about Heather O'Rourke (December 27th 1975 - February 1st, 1988) but were afraid to ask. [more inside]
posted by hermitosis at 7:27 PM PST - 55 comments

"“If any of these said persons come in love unto us, we cannot in conscience lay violent hands upon them, but give them free egress and regress unto our town. For we are bound by the law of God and man to do good unto all men and evil to no man.”

Today is the 350th anniversary of the Flushing Remonstrance - a precursor of the Constitution, and "an iconic record of early Dutch colonial government that proclaimed the necessity of religious freedom of conscience and toleration." As this NYT Op-Ed notes, this document originated (and is currently on display) in "the most diverse neighborhood in the most diverse borough in the most diverse city on the planet."
posted by ericbop at 7:11 PM PST - 22 comments

Open Culture's "10 Signs of Intelligent Life at YouTube" features "intellectually redeemable" channels from UC Berkeley, @GoogleTalks, TheNobelPrize, TED Talks, FORA.tv, the European Graduate School, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, BBC Worldwide, National Geographic, PBS, UChannel, MIT, Vanderbilt, and USC.
posted by Soup at 5:40 PM PST - 21 comments

2008: The International Year of the Potato. Why now? Because the potato is delicious previously, easy to grow, and fun for all ages. [more inside]
posted by stet at 4:55 PM PST - 25 comments

The Katzenjammer Kids* are 110 years old this month, the world's longest running comic. Watch 1918's Policy & Pie (pt. 2), rare animation by creator Rudolph Dirks who lost the strip to William Randolph Hearst in a court case. The strip was taken over by Harold H. Knerr, but Dirks retained rights to the characters and produced a rival cartoon under The Captain & the Kids for Pulitzer papers for several decades. Five artists followed Dirks and Knerr creating the strip for Hearst.
posted by madamjujujive at 4:04 PM PST - 14 comments

The 24th Chaos Communication Congress, "the annual four-day conference organized by the Chaos Computer Club is taking place in Berlin right now. The Congress offers lectures and workshops on a multitude of topics and attracts a diverse audience of thousands of hackers, scientists, artists, and utopians from all around the world." Lectures are also being streamed live (Check the CCC Tube) [more inside]
posted by kolophon at 3:16 PM PST - 4 comments

Reading the January edition of Harper's, about Brasilia, I was struck by a bit about what is apparently one of many cults in around the capital city: the Valley of the Dawn. A Jewish UFO cult? The ultimate in syncretic religions? Book your flight now.They're a lot more open to foreigners than Macumba
posted by kozad at 1:53 PM PST - 9 comments

Parmenides. "The pre-Socratic philosopher sparked an intellectual revolution that still echoes today. Yet for philosophy and science to continue to progress in the 21st century, we may need to embark on an entirely new cognitive journey ."
posted by homunculus at 1:36 PM PST - 21 comments

Aardvark Vanaheim presents: The Fabulous World of glamourpuss. Four years after publishing the 300th and final issue of his epic-length Cerebus, comic artist Dave Sim has announced that he is launching a new bi-monthly title debuting April, 2008. The topic? Fashion. [more inside]
posted by nanojath at 12:57 PM PST - 25 comments

A collection of unusual maps from Maps: Finding Our Place in the World by James Akerman and Robert Karrow, including slavery maps of the US from the 19th Century, maps of the voyage of the Pequod from Moby Dick and a mappe of Fairyland. All the maps are available in high resolutions with zoom functioning. [via The Edge of the American West]
posted by Kattullus at 12:33 PM PST - 12 comments

Gimpix.com's home page title reads "exploring the sexuality of an attractive woman in a plaster of Paris leg cast" There's something for everyone out on the interwebs, and if you're interested in purchasing snapshots of young women in leg casts, tracking cast sightings on tv and in movies, or checking out vintage images from magazines and newspapers, this might be for you. NSFW, although not a Spanking The Monkey sort of NSFW
posted by stagewhisper at 12:10 PM PST - 30 comments

Apparently there is no trickery here; just a lot of practice, which allows this guy to sing backwards. [more inside]
posted by quin at 10:16 AM PST - 43 comments

"This book runs the full gamut from the mediocre to the ludicrous to the merely bad." So begins philosopher Colin McGinn's review of Ted Honderich's On Consciousness. "It is a pity that his own efforts here are so shoddy, inept, and disastrous." The harsh words are the latest conflict between the radical externalist and new mysterian views on consciousness, but Honderich traces the disagreement to a conversation the two men had 25 years ago: "I suggested to him that his new girlfriend was not as plain as the old one, and I could see the blood drain out of his face." The feud is discussed at the philosophy blog Leiter Reports. [more inside]
posted by LarryC at 9:46 AM PST - 50 comments

Benazir Bhutto was killed in an apparent assasination. Previously thought to have escaped the blast unscathed, she was killed by a shot to the neck. [more inside]
posted by Lord_Pall at 5:43 AM PST - 490 comments