pepper spray

Just in case you are one of the few people who haven't seen the nonviolent protesters at UC Davis being pepper-sprayed without cause, you can watch it here. Non-Californians might assume that all of these university campuses are alike and for Davis, read Berkeley, but Davis is an ag school, and in some ways, pretty conservative. They were showing support for other university students at Berkeley. This is what solidarity got them.



I really don't get what the agenda was here. In the days of Bull Connor, it was the press that caught the image of people being bowled over with the intense stream from fire hoses. Today, we don't need the press to capture such moments. Everybody,and I do mean everybody, has a camera. Don't these people know that?

Near Miss

First shot of the asteroid that didn't it us just now...

Free Rice

This one is almost too virtuous to be called a time waster, even if it's a great way to squander time. It's called Free Rice, and you just take a lot of multiple choice questions on vocabulary words, and each one you get right donates 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food program. Sure, there are probably easier ways to donate money, but none are going to improve your vocabulary as much. It starts out easy but the better you are at it, the harder the words get. Let's just say I have a ways to go before I'd be anything like cheating.

And if you're really good at English, you can always do it in another language...

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: