gleans + 1XBBCstuff + 1xORA at 8:10 AM MT, 4/26

 

Atomic rhythms
The precision clocks at the heart of Europe's sat-nav system

 

Situations vacant
Astronauts wanted, must have the 'right stuff'. What is that?

 

U.S. military steps up criticism of Iran

By Julian E. Barnes

In unusually public accusations, it says Tehran is working to destabilize Iraq via attacks on U.S. troops

 

 

 

Essay

 

You’re an Author? Me Too!

By RACHEL DONADIO

Fewer people are reading books, but these days, more are publishing their own.

 

 

 

eFluxMedia Who Needs Another Social Network? New York Times - By Miguel Helft When it comes to becoming a force in social networks, Google and Yahoo have tried and largely failed. To be sure, Google has Orkut, which is popular in Brazil and the Philippines, but not the United States. Yahoo's new platform due later this year CNET News.com Yahoo outlines plans for world social network domination Ars Technica BBC News - Reuters - The Associated Press - Economic Times all 265 news articles »     Web 2.0 debates internet's future BBC News - By Maggie Shiels San Francisco's Web 2.0 Expo conference brought together thousands of people responsible for crafting the future direction of the internet, and the world of applications - or apps - was front and centre. Live Meshing on the Gillmor Gang CNET News.com Microsoft's Live Mesh: Web Fabric With Loose Threads InformationWeek PC World - eFluxMedia - Washington Post - CNNMoney.com all 205 news articles »       EOG.com Lohan-Ronson Club Crasher Arrested E! Online - For Lindsay Lohan and joined-at-the-hip pal Samantha Ronson, three's not only a crowd—it's an arrest. A particularly zealous fangirl was arrested at Chicago's Crimson Lounge Thursday night after jumping into Ronson's DJ booth, not only wreaking havoc ... Lindsay Lohan's Facebook Profile - Exposed! Think Fashion - Blogs Lindsay Lohan and Ashley Olsen In Naked Catfight Over Lesbian DJ ... The Spoof (satire) Holy Moly - hecklerspray - Times of India - Bgay.com all 24 news articles »

 

BBC Stuff

Label Listen (26mins 30secs)

Last Updated: Saturday, 26 April 2008, 00:32 GMT

Date of first transmission: 2008-04-26T01:32:00-00:00 (audio available for approximately 1 week)

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Britain, according to a senior judge, is suffering from an epidemic of family breakdown with the potential for producing destructive social anarchy. Which is why some Westminster politicians have been beating a path to Denver, Colorado in the United States, to see how they dealt with social breakdown in the wake of the Columbine School massacre. The Denver answer is early intervention: the community decided that money spent on the early years of childhood, putting the family back together, was money well spent. The alternative, they argue, is more disorder, more wasted taxpayers money and more prisons. Politics UK has been finding out how they do it.

 

today's Ordinary Reading Assignment - two items

Endangered Species: The Bart and the Bounder's Countryside Year by Michael Daunt and Richard Heygate (Hardcover - Oct 18, 2007)

Product Description

In this heart-warming and affectionate celebration of the countryside, cousins Richard Heygate—the Bart—and Mike Daunt—the Bounder—travel the length and breadth of the British Isles to chronicle the stories of those who make their living off the land, among them gamekeepers, farmers, fishermen, poachers, and rogues and vagabonds. Along the way, the wistful duo eat a hedgehog, tickle a trout, go rat-catching in Yorkshire, wildfowling in Norfolk, boar-hunting in Sussex, and celebrate an uproarious Christmas in Ireland. They also tell plenty of tall tales and drink their fair share of pints, all in the course of giving a triumphant voice to a largely forgotten yet still vibrant community. Eccentric, affectionate, and humorous, this is a unique and glorious record of the rural way of life.

 

 

The Image of the English Gentleman in Twentieth-Century Literature by Christine Berberich (Hardcover - Dec 21, 2007)

 

Synopsis
Studies of the English gentleman have tended to focus mainly on the nineteenth century, encouraging the implicit assumption that this influential literary trope has less resonance for twentieth-century literature and culture. Christine Berberich challenges this notion by showing that the English gentleman has proven to be a remarkably adaptable and relevant ideal that continues to influence not only literature but other forms of representation, including the media and advertising industries.Focusing on Siegfried Sassoon, Anthony Powell, Evelyn Waugh and Kazuo Ishiguro, whose presentations of the gentlemanly ideal are analysed in their specific cultural, historical, and sociological contexts, Berberich pays particular attention to the role of nostalgia and its relationship to 'Englishness'. Though 'Englishness' and by extension the English gentleman continue to be linked to depictions of England as the green and pleasant land of imagined bygone days, Berberich counterbalances this perception by showing that the figure of the English gentleman is the medium through which these authors and many of their contemporaries critique the shifting mores of contemporary society.