links for 2009-07-10

"Logistics and aesthetics stand in the way of anyone wishing to dive into P.G. Wodehouseâs canon. His work sprawls over 90 books published over 75 years, most of which are constantly sneaking in and out of print, many of which have different British and American publication titles. His short-story collections tend to overlap and make each other redundant. But the issue of distance from the material can be even more challenging for novices. People Gateways To Geekerycontinue to read Wodehouse primarily for the structural perfection of his farce plots and the ways he slammed American and British slang against each other, mixed in upper-class starch, and saw what emerged. But the whole environmentâlinguistically and sociallyâis far from any modern analogues: a sexless, genteel place where the greatest danger the mostly moneyed characters face is getting married to the wrong person."

"Beyond enlivening the story of Herschelâs discovery into a gripping narrative, this book speculates fascinatingly about the ramifications of such a breakthrough. Thanks to Herschel the idea of a fixed universe was challenged, replaced by a cosmos in flux. Was that cause for wonder or terror? What were its theological implications? How would it influence a future generation of poets? (The thrill of this breakthrough would later figure in one of Keatsâs most famous sonnets, âOn First Looking Into Chapmanâs Homer.â) Where would it figure in the relay race of scientific discoveries?"

Somewhere on West 35th Street, Nero Wolfe is feeding pages into a fire.

Oh, this ought to be fun...

"As with fire companies, the vast majority of candidates for [state and local school boards] are responsible people committed to public service, the common good and quality education. But just like the fire departments, school boards seem to attract a significant unhinged minority of firebugs -- people who just want to destroy public education and laugh while it burns."

"In a survey, which reveals "deeply worrying" levels of ignorance about the Apollo space programme, which sent three men to the moon forty years ago this month, 11 out of 1009 people surveyed thought Buzz Lightyear was the first person to step onto the moon.

A further 8 people thought it was Louis Armstrong, with less than three-quarters correctly answering that it was Neil Armstrong."