As often as possible, I provide links and summations to the best of that day’s web. The links are filed them away in a little category called “Asides” and they get stuck in the sidebar on the homepage, in a box titled “Links of the Day.” Over the course of this year, I’ve linked to hundreds of different articles, blog posts, pictures, and videos, and as this year comes to a close, I thought it might be fun to revisit some of the links I’ve suggested to you.
I was going to provide links from the entire first quarter in this post, but the links below should kill the work day of even the most wily of procrastinators. If you only have time to read one of the links, I’ve highlighted my suggestion with italics.
January
From the Boston Globe’s Slush Life: “A new online project aims to reinvent the writers’ workshop and circumvent the slush pile — changing the way new fiction gets published.”
From the NY Times’ A Surprising Secret To Long Life: Stay in School: “The one social factor that researchers agree is consistently linked to longer lives in every country where it has been studied is education. It is more important than race; it obliterates any effects of income.”
From the NY Times’ Bomb’s Lasting Toll: Lost Laughter and Broken Lives: “On a hot morning two summers ago, 34 children were killed here in a flash of smoke and metal. They were scooping up candy thrown from an American Humvee. The suicide bomber’s truck never slowed down.”
From Susan Blackmore’s essay, I Take Illegal Drugs for Inspiration: “Some people may smoke dope just to relax or have fun, but for me the reason goes deeper. In fact, I can honestly say that without cannabis, most of my scientific research would never have been done and most of my books on psychology and evolution would not have been written.”
From Cityrag’s 20 Greatest Guitar Solos Ever, With Videos: “Guitar World complied a list of the “100 Greatest Guitar Solos.” We took it a step further and dug up a video link for each of the top 20! Listen and watch the musical genius and mastery that made these classics famous!”
From haha.nu’s Creative Photos by Chema Madoz: Here are some of the coolest images you will see today.
From the NY Review of Books’ Manifest Destiny: A New Direction for America: “It is something like a national heresy to suggest that the United States does not have a unique moral status and role to play in the history of nations, and therefore in the affairs of the contemporary world. In fact it does not.”
