Worth seeing Patrick Moberg's up-to-date illustration of all the US presidents since George Washington. Speaks volumes...
Why are you voting in today's US Election? This is the question SeeHear is asking, in a brilliant interactive project found online here.
Says SeeHear: "Speak up about why you are casting your ballot this election. Then listen, in virtual real time, to what the rest of the country is saying."
What is SeeHear? "A not-for-profit interactive experiment in the power of being heard. There is no cost (toll rates only), no profit, no distribution of any information, no political agenda. Your privacy is respected and secure. Our country is a nation of unique voices. Listen to us. Spread the word."
You can also cast your vote with the rest of the world, and view the results, at this virtual election (more than 800,000 votes cast so far): If The World Could Vote.
Still wondering if you should ask that girl/guy out for a coffee? Worried what your friends might think about your desire to play the banjo?
Today, NASA provides a little context for all of us that may make most of our worries seem a little inconsequential. To the left is a photograph just released by NASA, of Earth (left) and the Moon (right), taken from the planet Mars....Not much more than a speck of dust in a lot of deep space! So hey - why not let's all get outside and enjoy the rest of the day....
For even more perspective - click to enlarge.
Writes Michael Shnayerson in this month's Vanity Fair in a report titled The Edge of Extinction, "There’s one place, and one place only, to see polar bears in America. You have to travel to the country’s northernmost point, the very apex of Alaska’s North Slope, to the permafrost shores that stretch out on either side from the Inupiat town of Kaktovik..."
Wildlife photographer Steven Kazlowski has captured the photos for the essay. His own site, Left Eye Productions, is worth a look as is his series of photos, The Last Polar Bear, that illustrate the report. According to Shnayerson, last summer the Arctic lost more sea ice than ever before—nearly a half-million square miles, the size of Texas and California combined...
Given the current high stakes of the Obama-Clinton race, here's a timely piece on what it's like to campaign for the presidency of the United States - and lose.
An extract: "Only 13 people alive have run for the US presidency in a general election. Of those, four went all the way to the most powerful job on earth. The remaining nine - five Democrats, one Republican and three third-party candidates - never got to sit behind that desk in the Oval Office. They are the people who know best the toll of running for the White House. They can warn Clinton, Obama and John McCain of the booby traps that lie ahead. They have been the butt of attack ads, have worked around the clock for two years solid, and, whatever their political colours, have shared the same overwhelming disappointment. In short, they know what it is to lose...
..So do they regret their decision to run in the first place? Was it worth the pain?" Ed Pilkington talks to former presidential candidates about the shattering loss, the humiliation and the elite club they call the 'Misery Circle'...Click here for the story.
