P. J. O’Rourke on Iwo Jima or Sulfur Island.
From February 19 to March 26 of 1945, 6,821 Americans and about 20,000 Japanese were killed in the fight for the island.
Category: Culture
Versailles Restoration: Bosquet des Trois Fontaines
One of the 15 Ornamental groves in the gardens of Versailles will be reopened on June 12th.
It marks the latest in a series of American gifts to restore the great creation for Louis XIV of Andr? Le N?tre and Charles Le Brun. After the second world war John D. Rockefeller gave millions to restore the place, convinced that the chateau and its gardens were of wider than French significance. Americans then responded generously to storm damage in the 1990s, and now the American Friends of Versailles have given $4m and years of voluntary work to help French experts recreate the Bosquet des Trois Fontaines (the Three Fountains Grove).
Latest Pew News Study
The latest Pew Research Center News Study shows that more than half the population has written off the traditional media (TV & Newspaper). Via VodkaPundit.
These type of changes will drive down traditional media spending… (and ad rates)
Aha Jokes
An inquiry into living…
Jeffrey Sawyer writes [pdf] in S U N Magazine:
Starvation isn’t much of a concern in the West, but beneath the surface, at a very base level, is the fear that one will go hungry. We’re also afraid of losing our homes, our reputations, our loved ones. Ultimately, we fear death. These fears have us act in ways that, over time, burden us to the point where we live either a grave or a superficial life.
from Doc Searls
The Promised Land: Las Vegas?
Dean E. Murphy writes about Seekers, Drawn to the Promised Land in Las Vegas.
The 70’s/early 80’s are back….
 |
 |
Without question, the 70’s/early 80’s are back. This car, an early 1980’s Oldsmobile Cutlass, seen on a recent Saturday, morning confirms it.
Saving Latin
The son of a Milwaukee plumber, Rev. Reginald Foster has devoted his lift to saving Latin from extinction, says Clifford Levy from Vatican City.
Futurist Doug Randall on Abrupt Climate Change
Randall, co-auther (along with Peter Schwartz) of Abrupt Climate Change [PDF] is interviewed by World Changing Blog:
Their scenaric findings — that the gradual global warming we’re experiencing could plausibly trigger an abrupt climate snap, and that its effects would be massive, perhaps catastrophic, and of direct relevance to the national security of the United States — we’re picked up by media around the world, gathering a snowball of controversy and hype along the way. Their scenarios, freely available on the Web, were termed a “secret Pentagon report,” and their descriptions of possible climate catastrophe taken as bald prediction.
But underneath the hype was a reasoned attempt to judge the seriousness of the threat posed by climate instability. That’s something all of us hoping to change the world have to take into account. So we asked Doug about the implications of that report (now that the dust has settled), the movie The Day After Tomorrow, and how to think about the future of climate change.
Marine Cpl dove on a grenade to save his Marines
Recruits at the Corps’ two recruit training depots will know Cpl. Jason L. Dunham. They will know that the 22-year-old Marine lived up to the Corps’ largest legends and laid down his own life ? diving on a grenade, no less ? to save his Marines.
One Marine dubbed it a “selfless” act of valor. Another said it’s destined to make him “everybody’s hero.” A third said it defined him as “something special” ? so special that Sgt. Maj. Wayne R. Bell, the 1st Marine Division sergeant major, believes Dunham may wind up with an honor not conferred upon a Marine since the Vietnam War.