Rolling Stone
"Justin Bieber - Super boy"
Time
Feature article on Rahm Emanuel
Protesters in Egypt : the generation changing the world
Scientific American Mind
"Neuroscience resilience : how minds bounce back"
Scientific American Mind
"Day dream power : Head in the clouds? Find you creativity there"
Bishop McNamara is a Catholic, college-prep high school in Kankakee, IL. The library blog introduces new books, book reviews, book trailers, fun and interesting articles, original writing, and school and community news.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Friday, February 18, 2011
Words of comfort
"God will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever." Rev. 21:4
"Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial, because when she has stood the test, she will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him." (I Cor. 2:9)
Pie Jesu, qui tollis peccata mundi dona eis requiem.
[setting by Andrew Lloyd Webber; performed by Sarah Brightman]
"Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial, because when she has stood the test, she will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love Him." (I Cor. 2:9)
Pie Jesu, qui tollis peccata mundi dona eis requiem.
[setting by Andrew Lloyd Webber; performed by Sarah Brightman]
Thursday, February 17, 2011
A unique story of faith
"I've spoken to a Chinese physicist who converted from atheism to Christianity because ice floats. He told me that every other liquid sinks when it freezes. If water sand when it froze, he assured me, the earth would be entirely lifeless. We exist because water behaves in this odd way. That, he said, cannot be a coincidence and so he believes in our Creator God."
from "Why I love being a priest" by Fr. Charles B. Gordon, C.S.C. in U.S. Catholic, March, 2011
from "Why I love being a priest" by Fr. Charles B. Gordon, C.S.C. in U.S. Catholic, March, 2011
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
New Periodicals
The Atlantic
Mind vs. Machine - the Turing Test, a battle between the world's most advanced artificial intelligence and ordinary people. Technology isnt just changing how we live, it's raising new questionsa bout what it means to be human. (from the article introduction.)
Inside the Secret Service
Justin Bieber : Daydream believer
Popular Science
After earth : the case for populating the Universe and how we'll get there
Mind vs. Machine - the Turing Test, a battle between the world's most advanced artificial intelligence and ordinary people. Technology isnt just changing how we live, it's raising new questionsa bout what it means to be human. (from the article introduction.)
Inside the Secret Service
Justin Bieber : Daydream believer
Popular Science
After earth : the case for populating the Universe and how we'll get there
Sonnet 43 / Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
New Books - 2/14/2011
Research
Paranormal phenomena / Karen Miller, ed.
Researching the unexplained. (Opposing viewpoints series.)
Fiction
Fade / Lisa McMann
Gone / Lisa McMann
Books two and three in the “Wake Trilogy.” In Fade, dream-catcher Janie and her boyfriend, Cabel, use her gift to catch a predator. In Gone Janie deals with her troubled family and the trilogy reaches a hopeful conclusion.
Head games / Keri Mikulski
PRESSURE! That’s what Taylor is getting from her parents, her teachers, her coach, and her team mates. She’s beautiful, level-headed, and a basketball star. But can she carry all the pressure?
A Pretty TOUGH novel, a series of Young Adult books highlighting sports and girl power.
The things a brother knows / Dana Reinhardt
After serving in the Marines for three years, Levi’s brother Boaz has come home. But he’s different. He is quiet; he won’t leave the house, won’t ride in cars, won’t see anyone. At night, Levi hears him screaming.
Paranormal phenomena / Karen Miller, ed.
Researching the unexplained. (Opposing viewpoints series.)
Fiction
Fade / Lisa McMann
Gone / Lisa McMann
Books two and three in the “Wake Trilogy.” In Fade, dream-catcher Janie and her boyfriend, Cabel, use her gift to catch a predator. In Gone Janie deals with her troubled family and the trilogy reaches a hopeful conclusion.
Head games / Keri Mikulski
PRESSURE! That’s what Taylor is getting from her parents, her teachers, her coach, and her team mates. She’s beautiful, level-headed, and a basketball star. But can she carry all the pressure?
A Pretty TOUGH novel, a series of Young Adult books highlighting sports and girl power.
The things a brother knows / Dana Reinhardt
After serving in the Marines for three years, Levi’s brother Boaz has come home. But he’s different. He is quiet; he won’t leave the house, won’t ride in cars, won’t see anyone. At night, Levi hears him screaming.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Favorite Sentences selected by Stanley Fish
Recently, Slate ran five of Stanley Fish's favorite sentences from the history of English. Then asked readers to submit beloved lines—along with an explication of what makes them tick so beautifully.
The three sentences selected by Fish, powerful in their different ways:
"One had to forget—because one could not live with the thought that this graceful, fragile, tender young woman with those eyes, that smile, those gardens and snows in the background, had been brought in a cattle car to an extermination camp and killed by an injection of phenol into the heart, into the gentle heart one had heard beating under one's lips in the dusk of the past."
- From Vladimir Nabokov's Pnin, submitted by Brian Siano
"Then Amnon hated her with very great hatred; so that the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her."
- From 2 Samuel 13:15 (Revised Standard Version), submitted by an STURGEON
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!" "
- From Jack Kerouac's On the Road, submitted by Disa Grey
Taken from Brow Beat: Slate's Culture Blog. Read the entire article here.
The three sentences selected by Fish, powerful in their different ways:
"One had to forget—because one could not live with the thought that this graceful, fragile, tender young woman with those eyes, that smile, those gardens and snows in the background, had been brought in a cattle car to an extermination camp and killed by an injection of phenol into the heart, into the gentle heart one had heard beating under one's lips in the dusk of the past."
- From Vladimir Nabokov's Pnin, submitted by Brian Siano
"Then Amnon hated her with very great hatred; so that the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love with which he had loved her."
- From 2 Samuel 13:15 (Revised Standard Version), submitted by an STURGEON
"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes "Awww!" "
- From Jack Kerouac's On the Road, submitted by Disa Grey
Taken from Brow Beat: Slate's Culture Blog. Read the entire article here.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Book Review
Susannah Meadows, NYT reviewer, says Jed Rubenfeld's new book, The Death Instinct is great. She sets the scene in this manner:
" The Death Instinct opens on that September day when Lower Manhattan was blown apart, and Americans started wondering who could hate them so much. The day the word “terrorist” became part of our vocabulary, and the country rallied to war.
The year was 1920.
It was lunchtime. An overloaded horse-drawn cart was parked in front of J. P. Morgan’s bank, jamming traffic. A taxi driver got out of his car, ready to chew out the cart man, but he was nowhere to be found. Then the cabby heard an odd noise. He put his ear to the burlap: ticking. Seconds later dozens of people were dead. To this day the crime remains unsolved."
Jed Rubenfeld's newest book, The Death Instinct,is a sequel to his 2006 novelThe Interpretation of Murder .
Read the entire review atThe New York Times (2/8/11)
" The Death Instinct opens on that September day when Lower Manhattan was blown apart, and Americans started wondering who could hate them so much. The day the word “terrorist” became part of our vocabulary, and the country rallied to war.
The year was 1920.
It was lunchtime. An overloaded horse-drawn cart was parked in front of J. P. Morgan’s bank, jamming traffic. A taxi driver got out of his car, ready to chew out the cart man, but he was nowhere to be found. Then the cabby heard an odd noise. He put his ear to the burlap: ticking. Seconds later dozens of people were dead. To this day the crime remains unsolved."
Jed Rubenfeld's newest book, The Death Instinct,is a sequel to his 2006 novelThe Interpretation of Murder .
Read the entire review atThe New York Times (2/8/11)
Monday, February 7, 2011
New Books - 2/7/11
Literature
The Jim dilemma : reading race in "Huckleberry Finn"
"The author, who embraces her own slave heritage,... challenges opponents to read [Twain's] novel closely. She shows how Twain has created not another Uncle Tom but a worthy man of integrity and self-reliance." (from the back cover)
Fiction
The false princess / Eilis O'Neal
She was the princess and heir to her father's throne. But on her sixteenth birthday, she learned the truth. She was an impostor. Her real name was Sinda and she was a "false princess."
Scarlett fever / Maureen Johnson
The sequel to Suite Scarlett finds Scarlett working for theater agent Amy Amberson, beginning her sophomore year at a tough school, and dealing with typical teenage problems.
History
American uprising : the untold story of America's largest slave revolt / Daniel Rasmussen
"In January, 1811, 500 slaves dressed in military uniforms and armed with guns, cane knives, and axes, rose up from the plantations around New Orleans and set out to conquer the city." (from the cover)
Films
The adventures of Huck Finn
-starring Elijah Wood, Courtney Vance, Robbie Coltrane, and Jason Robards
Julius Caesar
-starring Charlton Heston, Jason Robards, and Richard Chamberlain
The Jim dilemma : reading race in "Huckleberry Finn"
"The author, who embraces her own slave heritage,... challenges opponents to read [Twain's] novel closely. She shows how Twain has created not another Uncle Tom but a worthy man of integrity and self-reliance." (from the back cover)
Fiction
The false princess / Eilis O'Neal
She was the princess and heir to her father's throne. But on her sixteenth birthday, she learned the truth. She was an impostor. Her real name was Sinda and she was a "false princess."
Scarlett fever / Maureen Johnson
The sequel to Suite Scarlett finds Scarlett working for theater agent Amy Amberson, beginning her sophomore year at a tough school, and dealing with typical teenage problems.
History
American uprising : the untold story of America's largest slave revolt / Daniel Rasmussen
"In January, 1811, 500 slaves dressed in military uniforms and armed with guns, cane knives, and axes, rose up from the plantations around New Orleans and set out to conquer the city." (from the cover)
Films
The adventures of Huck Finn
-starring Elijah Wood, Courtney Vance, Robbie Coltrane, and Jason Robards
Julius Caesar
-starring Charlton Heston, Jason Robards, and Richard Chamberlain
Friday, February 4, 2011
Free Audiobooks
The following is from "Electronic Audio: Looking for Success"
by Kathleen Meulen at VOYA Online
[accessed 2/4/2011]
Audiobooks and Free Audiobooks App by Cross Forward Consulting available from the iTunes App store.
http://www.travelingclassics.com
I spent the summer downloading and enjoying the free audiobooks that are available from this easy-to-use audiobooks app by Cross Forward Consulting. Their Web site boasts over 3,500 audiobooks that are available for quick download directly to a smart phone or an iPad. The content comes from the LibriVox project (http://www.librivox.org) which finds volunteers to read books that are in the public domain. After sampling several, I will have to say that some narrators are much better than others. I was suitably impressed by the narrator of the first book I listened to: Ruth Golding, reading Riddle of the Purple Emperor by Thomas Hanshewe. I have yet to find another with the same clear pronounciation and lovely English accent. With most of the narrators, there’s the occasional mispronounced name or word but it generally is not a major distraction.
The fact that users don’t have to download the file for transfer over to the device is what we are going to see in the future and I appreciated the ease-of-use for this app. I can certainly recommend it to my students who have access to a device like a smartphone or iPad.
Electronic Audio: Looking for Success
Kathleen Meulen
December 2010
by Kathleen Meulen at VOYA Online
[accessed 2/4/2011]
Audiobooks and Free Audiobooks App by Cross Forward Consulting available from the iTunes App store.
http://www.travelingclassics.com
I spent the summer downloading and enjoying the free audiobooks that are available from this easy-to-use audiobooks app by Cross Forward Consulting. Their Web site boasts over 3,500 audiobooks that are available for quick download directly to a smart phone or an iPad. The content comes from the LibriVox project (http://www.librivox.org) which finds volunteers to read books that are in the public domain. After sampling several, I will have to say that some narrators are much better than others. I was suitably impressed by the narrator of the first book I listened to: Ruth Golding, reading Riddle of the Purple Emperor by Thomas Hanshewe. I have yet to find another with the same clear pronounciation and lovely English accent. With most of the narrators, there’s the occasional mispronounced name or word but it generally is not a major distraction.
The fact that users don’t have to download the file for transfer over to the device is what we are going to see in the future and I appreciated the ease-of-use for this app. I can certainly recommend it to my students who have access to a device like a smartphone or iPad.
Electronic Audio: Looking for Success
Kathleen Meulen
December 2010
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