DarklingPlain

Big Jeff is a highly talented children's singer/songwriter... his songs are so witty and well-written that they appeal to adults as much as kids. He's also extraordinarily versatile, and works in all sorts of genres, from punk to klezmer. A lot of fun.

Great blog about NYC with wonderful photographs and acerbic commentary. This guy loves NYC like I love NYC, and hates what is happening to it under Bloomberg as I do.

One of the marks of greatness is someone who is never satisfied with past achievements, but seeks to re-invent himself in every new era. Hey, David Bowie comes to mind... but also comedian Bill Cosby. Although he was on i-Spy, The Electric Company, and was the creator of Fat Albert and the Gang, he's remembered now primarily for the Cosby Show, which feels dated to us now, but was incredibly important at the time for its presentation of an upper-middle-class professional black American family.... it's not hard to see a direct line between The Cosby Show of the 80s and the family that currently lives in the White House today.

Well, now at the age of 72, he's on the web, on twitter and Facebook, and has written and produced a hip-hop album. He is really one of the most remarkable American entertainers of the century....

The home page of the site is not immediately informative, so I'll tell you what he should be telling you on the front page -- this guy makes a strange variety of redesigned everyday objects (bicycle shoe pedals to flat screen monitor holders) out of castor-oil derivatives, a renewable alternative to petroleum based plastics.

Worth a look -- this guy is the lone inventor / entrepeneur of American romance, and his products do seem innovative and well-designed. He claims his snowshoes are the #1 selling brand and occupy 85% of the market share, so he's obviously producing good products.

Disclaimer: I haven't tried his products out, and I've never worn a snowshoe in my life (not that I wouldn't like to). But I'm intrigued.

I love reading about the UK, because their government has been so rapidly taking control of citizen's ordinary lives that it makes me feel less depressed over the the US government's drive to do the same thing over the last two administrations...

From the article:

"David Nutt, a professor of pharmacology who was forced to resign on Friday as the head of an independent panel of experts set up to advise the British government on drug policy, accused Prime Minister Gordon Brown of overstating the dangers of cannabis and ecstasy to impress voters and suggested that drug laws should be written by scientists, not politicians."

Now that they are putting thiotimoline as a preservative in many foods, I think it's time that the FDA revisit the properties of this obscure, but potentially toxic chemical.

Parents beware -- thiotimoline is used in several brands of baby food, as well as in ordinary household snacks.

I've used a lot of different programs to sync and backup my proliferating files, which are scattered over several machines and devices. Hands down, this is the easiest, most intuitive, flexible, and fast file syncing I've ever used. It's free for personal use, but it would be well worth donating to the developer, because this is what syncing software should be.

Really fascinating article about Michelle Obama's ancestry -- a very American story, about a family whose origins in this country began with slavery and led, eventually, to the White House.