Islands of Britain, with Martin Clunes

I happened upon this three part documentary by chance, but I'm just loving this tour of the islands of Britain. There are a lot more of them than I ever knew. Clunes is the most delightful of celebrity investigators, and nothing like the uptight doctor on the show that has probably made his name here, Doc Martin.

I think you (and I) can watch Islands of Britain HERE , and probably some other places.   

The scale of the universe, graphically rendered

Cool site effectively representing the scale of things from very, very large to very, very small.

The World, Occupied

Just read a nice piece in Truthout on the worldwide spread of Occupy Wall Street HERE.

There are some funny or slightly ironic moments in it though...

 “We thought they were going to stay down on Wall Street,” said Sandi Bernard — who is 59 and was visiting from Waldorf, Md. — while wondering if she would have trouble making the 8 p.m. curtain call for “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.”

Yes, the link is in the original.

"Brief clashes were reported in London, where the police were out in force with dozens of riot vans, canine units and hundreds of officers. But the gathering, attended by people of all ages, was largely peaceful, with a picnic atmosphere and people streaming in and out of a nearby Starbucks."

Because Starbucks isn't corporate or anything nefarious like that.

"The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, made an appearance when a crowd assembled in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral. To loud cheers, Mr. Assange called the protest movement “the culmination of a dream.”"

Sort of a Second Coming, really.

Occupy Wall Street--some faces begin to emerge from the mass

I'm more observing the Occupy Wall Street movement than taking a stand, although I'm more or less on the same side. But one thing that's interesting to me in the media portrayal of the whole thing is this kind of impression that it's just a kind of cry in the wilderness. You'd never think that there are people out there on the street who have given governance and citizenship a good deal of thought. An informed citizenry, I think they call it. Like this guy:

I Want to Play Oxford Fortune Cookie

I am not on Twitter. Not that I'm against it--not even to the degree I'm resistant to Facebook. I just had to draw a line somewhere in this social media driven world.

But if I was to change my mind right now, it would be in order to play Oxford Fortune Cookie. If you decide to give it a go, be sure and report back the results.

Not so little Dorrit, and cool Nonviolent tactics

I don't actually know if anyone reads this blog, but that's all right--all the more reason to put in whatever things I think are great, regardless of audience. I have to say that Rachel Maddow's show was smokin' hot tonight, and I have not one but two videos to share here, provided I can find them.  


The first is about what happened in Iceland when the wife of the president, Dorrit Moussieff,  made an unexpected move when faced with the countries protesters:




The second has to do with how protesters at Occupy Wall Street got around the ban on bullhorns. They used what is being called, "the people's mic", in which the speaker speaks and the crowd around repeats his words so that a larger crowd can hear it. Free speech in action, people.