Good reads – 10/5/08

I’ve been so busy the past two weeks I had to schedule time to catch up on my reading. I’m still behind, but these are some good things I’ve read. All links will open in a new tab or window.

Politics: Probably the best take on Palin’s performance in the debate and its implications was by Gail Collins in The New York Times. She writes, “This entire election season has been a long-running saga about the rise of women in American politics. On Thursday, it all went sour.” Roger Ebert wrote about the first presidential debate. It’s called Guess Who’s Not Coming to Dinner and begins, “I do not like you, John McCain.” For a British take on the VP debate, David Parkins of the Guardian  had a great cartoon, ya betcha. [h/t roadsofstone] While we’re in the UK, the BBC made public the script it was going to use in case of a nuclear attack. Who they thought might be left to hear it, I don’t know, but it’s no sillier than Duck and Cover. And ABC News has a slideshow of selected presidents back to Woodrow Wilson, showing how they aged after eight years in office. I am always fascinated by presidential before and afters.

Arts and Culture:  There’s a new Van Gogh exhibit at MoMA – New York’s Museum of Modern Art. He’s my favorite artist and unless or until I get there to see it, I’m enjoying the slideshow at the New York Post. Yes, it’s a Murdoch tabloid; maybe he doesn’t know something beautiful was in it. I also love ancient sculpture and was thrilled to read at Reuters that a granite statue has been found in Egypt that is likely of Ramses II. MSNBC had a riveting read about Irena Sendler, a Polish woman who was remembered by two people she saved from the Holocaust. And at Harper’s I read about the Poetry Bailout.

Life: My cyberpal and fellow blogger shoreacres survived Hurricane Ike and has been writing about the weeks-long experience, with some profound thoughts after returning home. The first Ike-related post is here. Abroad, most everyone knows Tokyo is a city of cramped living quarters and almost all work and no play. So that’s why cat cafes came into being. People pay to interact with shelter kittehs and bring down the stress level, if only for a while. And from Life’s Little Mysteries, the answer to whether hot water freezes faster than cold. Hint: use warm water in the ice cube trays. From the Wow! department, NASA says it snowed on Mars.

Photos of the week: Two of them, both amusing, at least to me.  One reminds me of the fire threat signs with Smokey Bear (no, it’s not Smokey the Bear) that let me know I’m close to the White Mountains when I drive up there, but I’ve never seen this. And after hearing about Joe Six Pack till I’m ready to shove cotton balls in my ears, I think I’ve discovered what’s at the end of the rainbow for Joe.

Tagged as: Good reads