Volcano Eruption Captured By Satellite

in Science | November 6th, 2008

A NASA satel­lite caught Alaska’s Mount Cleve­land in the act. An amaz­ing image. For more bril­liant vol­cano action pho­tos, have a look here.

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The African-American Freedom Struggle & Barack Obama’s American Dream (Free Stanford Course)

in Current Affairs | November 6th, 2008

I men­tioned this free course back in July, but, giv­en the his­toric nature of Tues­day’s elec­tion, it seems worth giv­ing it anoth­er men­tion.

On Stan­ford’s YouTube channel, you’ll find a com­plete series of lec­tures from an under­grad­u­ate course called “African-Amer­i­can His­to­ry: Mod­ern Free­dom Strug­gle.” Taught by Clay­borne Car­son, a promi­nent his­to­ry pro­fes­sor who has edit­ed and pub­lished the papers of Mar­tin Luther King, Jr., the course overviews the strug­gle for lib­er­ty and com­plete equal­i­ty, mov­ing from W.E.B. Du Bois (ear­ly 20th cen­tu­ry), to MLK and Mal­colm X, down to Barack Oba­ma today. The lec­ture below, enti­tled “Barack Oba­ma’s Amer­i­can Dream,” sit­u­ates Oba­ma with­in the larg­er sweep of African-Amer­i­can his­to­ry. It’s rather con­ver­sa­tion­al in style, and it does a good job of get­ting into Oba­ma’s per­son­al biog­ra­phy. The com­plete lec­tures can be watched in their entire­ty on YouTube here, or down­loaded in video via iTunes. And be sure to see our larg­er col­lec­tion of 250 Free Online Cours­es from Lead­ing Uni­ver­si­ties, where you’ll also find this course.

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From Nixon to W — The Geography of US Presidential Elections

in Current Affairs, History | November 5th, 2008

We’re down to the next to last lec­ture, tak­ing you from Nixon to Bush. (Next week, this Stan­ford course ends with a post­mortem of Oba­ma’s vic­to­ry in 2008.) You can access Lec­ture 4 via Tunes U in high res­o­lu­tion or watch the YouTube ver­sion below. If you missed the pre­vi­ous lec­tures, grab them on iTunes here and YouTube here.

 

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Michael Crichton (RIP) on the Environment

in Science | November 5th, 2008

Michael Crich­ton has died of can­cer. You know him best as the author of Juras­sic Park and The Androm­e­da Strain. But some will remem­ber him for the con­tro­ver­sy that sur­round­ed his lat­er career. Crich­ton’s 2004 nov­el, State of Fear launched a lit­er­ary assault on envi­ron­men­tal­ism and the con­cept of glob­al warm­ing. And the next thing you know, Crich­ton tes­ti­fied before the US Sen­ate at the invi­ta­tion of Sen­a­tor James M. Inhofe, who called glob­al warm­ing “the great­est hoax ever per­pe­trat­ed on the Amer­i­can peo­ple.” (Inhofe also made State of Fear — a nov­el, mind you — required read­ing for the Sen­ate Com­mit­tee on Envi­ron­ment and Pub­lic Works.) Below, we fea­ture Crich­ton offer­ing his thoughts on why envi­ron­men­tal­ism is “one of the most pow­er­ful reli­gions in the West­ern world.”

 

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How Al Pacino Almost Missed The Godfather

in Film | November 5th, 2008

Imag­ine The God­fa­ther with­out Mar­lin Bran­do and Al Paci­no. Blas­phe­my! Well, it almost turned out that way. You can watch more here about how Bran­do almost nev­er made it. Below, we also have a clip that takes you through how Paci­no near­ly missed out on his career-defin­ing role. It includes orig­i­nal footage from his script read­ing ses­sions, and we’ve added it to our YouTube playlist.

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America Redeemed

in Current Affairs | November 4th, 2008

We’ve had some very low moments dur­ing recent years. And now the highs. The present buried the past, and the US elect­ed its first African-Amer­i­can pres­i­dent, prov­ing once again that Amer­i­ca is tru­ly the land of oppor­tu­ni­ty. This moment calls to mind the poignant quote that I heard this week. ‘Rosa sat so Mar­tin could walk, so Oba­ma could run, so our chil­dren can fly.’ Now watch them go. A beau­ti­ful moment.

Below, we present MLK’s full “I Have a Dream” speech from 1963, which reminds of us how far we’ve come over the past 45 years.


 

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Ricky Gervais Does Biblical Creation Stand-Up

in Comedy, Religion | November 2nd, 2008

Stand-up com­e­dy and Bib­li­cal cre­ation don’t usu­al­ly go togeth­er. But some­how they do for Ricky Ger­vais, the cre­ator of the ever-pop­u­lar tele­vi­sion show, The Office. (Watch episodes here.) The bit runs about 10 min­utes, and it’s added to our YouTube playlist.

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Picasso in Motion

in Art | November 2nd, 2008

Watch below, or get the video here.

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