Old is the New New

The Henry Ford of Literature
Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, the huckster visionary whose mail-order superhighway paved the way for civil rights, feminism, the sexual revolution and the information age. Also, he may have been murdered by the FBI.

Great God, Where Is The Ship?
I don’t talk much politics here, but The Phil Nugent Experience is one political blog I can usually read without curling up into a ball crying.  Also: “Drill, Baby, Drill”? Really?

Sex Magic Rocket Science
A biography of Jack Parsons, occultist and rocketeer, in comic book form.

Wikipedia Is Failing
Wikipedia (who else?) on the ways Wikipedia is failing. (But see also: Wikipedia is not failing; Wikipedia may or may not be failing; Wikipedia on problems solved by MacGyver.)

Pants On Fire
Mills Kelly is teaching a course this year that has me seething with jealousy awed respect: Lying About The Past, complete with a second term create-a-hoax practicum.

FDR's Men of Action!
Chef Julia Child, historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., White Sox catcher Moe Berg, and the proverbial many more served in an “international spy ring” for the OSS during WWII.

Old Weird Google Map
Celestial Monochord goo-maps the Anthology of American Folk Music. What part of that sentence isn’t awesome? (See also.)

Happiness is Mandatory
Emo and goth to be made illegal in Russia? Don’t they know if we outlaw emo, only outlaws will be emo?

Speak In A Raspy Growl and Carry a Batarang
Scott Kaufman reports (without, alas, documentation) that Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale based their Batman on Teddy Roosevelt.

Mangler 2000
From the “We survived, didn’t we?” department: A paean to old, dangerous playground equipment. (But see Greg Downey’s astute response.)