| American Socrates: The Life of Bayard Rustin If you've never heard of Bayard Rustin, you're not alone. Long ostracized for being an openly gay man during a vehemently homophobic time, Rustin played an integral role in the American civil rights movement. Just how integral was he? He introduced Gandhi's principles of nonviolent protest to movement leaders. And the man organized the 1963 March on Washington. Historians have called him the "lost prophet" of the civil rights movement. Find out more about him here, and learn about an upcoming film documentary on his life. |
| a weekly dose of architecture These short takes on architecture are intelligent, instructive, and appealing. Each dose focuses on a contemporary building, structure, or built environment with cultural or architectural significance, presented as a series of succinct, descriptive paragraphs accompanied by photos. Recent entries focus on Rachel Whitehead's Soho Water Tower, the Eastern Scheldt Storm Surge Barrier in Southern Holland, and the Corning Glass Center in Corning, New York. |
| Holocaust Denial on Trial This scholarly site, created by Emory University's Witness to the Holocaust Program and the Institute for Jewish Studies, covers the London libel trial of Deborah Lipstadt, an Emory professor whose book, Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory, describes British author and Nazi-sympathizer David Irving as a "dangerous spokesperson" for the Third Reich. A vast dossier of documentation presents background, evidence, transcripts, and the full text of the judgment which vindicated Lipstadt and Penguin, her publisher, as well as abundant historical resources on the Holocaust and Holocaust denial. |
| Replicators: Evolutionary Powerhouses (R.I.P.) This interactive exploration of evolutionary and cultural biology was created by three high school students (Russian and American) and their coaches as a Thinkquest project. The premise, the theory of replicators, was developed by biologist Richard Dawkins and described in his popular writings. Replicators are "anything in the universe of which copies are made" -- DNA sequences and MP3 files being two distinct examples. We were mesmerized by an activity module called Breed Your Own Text. It took the replication simulation 318 attempts to arrive at target word "shakespeare" from "monkey typists," but only 217 to attain "serendipity" from "monkey barrel." |
| DinoQuest Sahara Ace adventurer Paul Sereno leads a crack team of scientists into the heart of the Sahara to find "600-toothed giant plant-eaters, flying reptiles, massive crocodiles, and more." Well, at least their bones. The group recently made some discoveries of the non-fossil variety that are still pretty darn impressive. Would-be criminals take note: to protect these precious fossil beds from looters, no exact locations have been disclosed. |
| Soul Quizzes Come on, what are you? A lapsed Catholic? A questioning Hindu? A prevaricating Jew? A devout agnostic? A confirmed eclectic? A trendy Buddhist? A born-again atheist? Take a soul quiz and find out. Beliefnet urges you to "find out where you really stand and discover what your spiritual type is." That's right, in just a few clicks you'll find your true home in the theological cosmos. Or maybe not. But it sure is fun to try. |
| The DICT Development Group Looking for a swift and nifty online dictionary with an uncluttered interface and access to multiple definitions? Try DICT, a work in progress to "access dictionary definitions from a set of natural language dictionary databases." This means that it's now possible to simultaneously consult Webster's 1913 Revised Unabridged, WordNet's Lexical Database for English, the Jargon File, the CIA World Factbook, even the Devil's Dictionary, all from one easy, multi-functional search page. |
| The Atari 2600 VCSp Story Somewhere in the Venn diagram intersection between old video games and spiffy new Palm Pilots lies the Atari 2600 VCSp -- the world's first fully portable Atari system. The site's enterprising host, Benjamin J. Heckendorn, a 25-year-old antique video game enthusiast, has cunningly crafted a completely operational Atari 2600 (home of such fabled games as Pitfall and Pac Man) that fits into the palm of your hand! Must be seen to be believed! Let's all shower Ben's site with hits of adulation. |
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