General Interest
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/libraryarchives/hhbennett/index.asp
The landscapes of the Midwest have been documented by many photographers during the past 150 years, but some may have not heard of the lovely work of one H.H. Bennett. Born in Farnham, Canada in 1843, Henry Hamilton Bennett moved to the town of Kilbourn City, Wisconsin (later renamed Wisconsin Dells), at the age of 14. After receiving a severe gunshot wound at the siege of Vicksburg during the Civil War, Bennett returned home to Wisconsin to begin a long and fruitful career in photography. His career began to develop right as the Wisconsin Dells were becoming a major tourist destination, and Bennett began to use the technique of stereoscopic photography to document the various rock and cave formations around the region. The Wisconsin State Historical Society has created this online archive of 650 of his photographs for the web-browsing public, and visitors will be delighted to browse through the collection. The collection itself is divided into topics such as Devils Lake, bridges, Milwaukee, steamboats, and of course, Wisconsin Dells rock formations. [KMG]
http://webexhibits.org/vangogh/
Brought to us by WebExhibits, a public/private collaboration that creates educational websites on the arts and sciences, van Gogh's Letters presents digitized versions of letters written by and to the artist Vincent van Gogh between 1872 and 1890. The resource includes "Over 16,000 searchable words, 62 index topics, 1284 topic citations, and 1223 artwork citations." Most of the letters were published in print in "The Complete Letters of Vincent van Gogh", 1991, edited by Robert Harrison. Browseable topics are Art, Attitude, Business, Fear, Feelings, Food-and-drink, Health, Lifestyle, Psychology and Theo, all with sub-topics beneath. Psychology, for example, includes hallucinations, nightmares, insomnia. Keyword searches work nicely: a search on "starry" returned 22 letters. Individual letters display with thumbnails of associated paintings, that can be enlarged, and annotations with dates, writer and recipient, translator, and number from "The Complete Letters ..." For example, in a letter Vincent wrote to his brother Theo dated September 3, 1888, #531, the painter says the poet gave him two sittings that day, so he has completed a first sketch for his Portrait of Eugene Boch, displayed alongside the letter.
While the programs at various community colleges vary in character from those designed to prepare x-ray technicians to those designed to inculcate a love of the Great Books, one thing is for certain: They are a valuable, yet at times underappreciated, part of the vast lattice of higher education across the United States. Interestingly enough, the first public two-year college in the United States was Joliet Junior College, which opened its doors in 1901. Currently, community colleges enroll more than half the nations' undergraduates, and the American Association of Community Colleges is the primary advocacy organization for the approximately 1100 associate degree-granting institutions and their students. The website contains important information about the organization's ongoing activities, its relationship with government (and lobbying activities), and some basic statistics about the landscape of community colleges. [KMG]
http://www.langorigami.com/index.htm
In the modern world, if one could ask only one person about the art and science of origami, that one person might be Dr. Robert J. Lang. Through his corpus of work, Dr. Lang has brought together origami with mathematics, frequently drawing on his own background and education as a physicist and engineer. He has authored a number of books on the subject of origami, and has also been an invited guest at international conventions across the globe. Now visitors to the web can peruse some of his writings on the mathematics behind origami, including the importance of finding proportions and tree theory. Of course, visitors will not want to miss some lovely photographs of his latest creations, which include a blue heron, an allosaurus skeleton and a poised mountain goat. [KMG]
The history of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology at University College London involves several notable figures of 19th century Britain, and is worth recounting briefly. The Museum was created through the largesse of one Amelia Edwards, a nineteenth century Englishwoman who have developed a great respect and reverence for Egyptian antiquity, and who herself made several extended visits to Egypt. After Ms. Edwards' sizeable gift in 1892, Professor William Flinders Petrie (who was appointed through the bequest made by Ms. Edwards) continued his ambitious program of excavations, thereby growing the collection to one of international stature. Visitors to the site will want to start by viewing personal favorites from the collection offered by the various curators at the museum and by searching the online catalog of its holdings. If visitors are so inclined, they may browse through the categories (such as tools and weapons and buildings and furniture). Within each category, visitors may continue to find out detailed information about each object, and they may also view each object from a number of angles and rotations. Finally, visitors may participate in a brief online poll and learn more about visiting the museum in London, if they so desire. [KMG]
http://www.s2mw.com/cholesterollowdown/
Working in partnership with Pfizer Inc. since 1998, the American Heart Association has brought the public awareness program "The Cholesterol Low Down" to the public with a number of outreach programs, including public-service announcements and helpful resources, including cookbooks and fact sheets. On the site, visitors can learn about their potential risk factor by filling out a Global Risk calculator, which only takes several minutes. As some people may be unfamiliar with what exactly cholesterol is, they would do well to take a look at the "What is Cholesterol?" section, which offers information on what affects cholesterol levels and what individuals can do to reduce high cholesterol levels. For visitors who want to pass along the message about the site, there is also a section where they can elect to send along an e-message to a friend or family member. Visitors who wish to receive more information may also elect to sign up to the program (free of charge), and they will begin to receive various cholesterol-management tools (via email or regular mail), such as The Cholesterol Low Down Guide brochure and the project's biannual newsletter. [KMG]
The idea of creating a worldwide organization of religions committed to the pursuit of peace dates back to the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893, when a group of religious leaders convened a World's Parliament of Religions. This vision became a reality in 1970 when the first World Conference of Religions for Peace met in Kyoto in October of that year. The Conference is dedicated to "creating multi-religious partnerships that mobilize the moral and social resources of religious people to address their shared problems." Some of their recent accomplishments include building a new climate of reconciliation in Bosnia and Kosovo and mediating dialogue among warring factions in Sierra Leone. From the organization's homepage, users of the site can learn about its ongoing initiatives and projects, which are organized thematically into such categories as development, human rights, and peace education. Visitors will also want to pay special attention to one of the organization's latest initiatives, the Women's Mobilization Program. Here visitors may peruse the program's latest annual report and read about the global network of religious women's organizations. [KMG]
