Category: Uncategorized
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Exporting An Imaginary America To Make Money
According to IMDB, the current record for foreign box office receipts of an American movie belongs to Avatar. But you don’t have to go too far down the list to find a cowboy movie. The tenth highest foreign box office record belongs to Toy Story 3. EXPORTING AN IMAGINARY AMERICA TO MAKE MONEY: Moving Picture […]
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Have You Ever Seen A Blue Rose? A Horticultural Problem
This article gives a nice background on the history of roses as a coveted flower, and then gets into the matter of a blue rose. A blue rose is held to be about the hardest thing in the flower-growing world to attain… It can’t be done by any chemical process, of course. Any one rose […]
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The Last Of The Shakers — A Community Awaiting Death
Shakers were an 18th Century offshoot of the Quakers. Somehow I thought there were more of them, but it turns out they really are an endangered religion. According to a PBS story from the Religion and Ethics Newsweekly program, there was still one Shaker community in September, 2010, and it had three members. THE LAST […]
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“In Two Hundred Years There Will Be No Poets Nor Authors”
It’s only been one hundred years since this prediction was made, so it’s premature to say it hasn’t come true, but so far I think Victor Auburtin is a bit off. “I believe that art is dying, and fo this belief I shall speak in the present work. Art is dying of democracy and utilitarianism. […]
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When “Lost In New York” Was Too Well Acted
When I first came to New York, I never really got lost except when I emerged from the subway disoriented. I didn’t yet know the landmarks that would tell me which way I’m facing. Oh, and I also got lost the first time I tried to simply cross Central Park. I didn’t yet know that […]
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Going Down In A Tube To Hunt For Sunken Treasure
This is one of those great articles where I do a little research and find out even more interesting stuff that happened next. The article is about Charles Williamson, who invented a tube he could use to go treasure hunting on the bottom of the sea. What I learned is that Charles’ son John took […]
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“How I Broke Liberty Bell” — By The Boy Who Broke It
You may think you know how the liberty bell cracked, having learned one of the generally accepted stories in school. Perhaps you heard that it cracked while tolling the funeral of Chief Justice John Marshall, or when it rang in honor of Henry Clay’s visit to Philadelphia. But you haven’t heard the real story. Now, […]
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How To Overcome Gravity By Hertzian Air Waves
Levitation. It holds such promise. But this machine doesn’t make things levitate. It just makes them weigh less. The article describes some possible uses of such an anti-gravity machine: If a 12-ton girder was to be raised to the top of a skyscraper with a derrick of 10 tons capacity, the mechanism would obliterate the […]
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The American Student Acquiring A Uniform Face
The two faces in the middle of the page are composites of 25 boys and 25 girls, to create the “typical” student face. In modern times, this has been done digitally to interesting effects. I wonder if this is the earliest known example of such a composite. THE AMERICAN STUDENT ACQUIRING A UNIFORM FACE: Mayor […]
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The Scandal Of Organized And Expensive Charity
Today, organizations like GuideStar can help you determine if a charity you’re considering donating to is one that uses their money efficiently. THE SCANDAL OF ORGANIZED AND EXPENSIVE CHARITY: High Salaries, Swollen Payrolls, Huge Expenses — Extravagance Steadily mounting — “It Costs Them $2 to Give Away $1,” Say the Poor. (PDF) From July 9, […]
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