Captain Midnight Meets Gracie Allen. If you ever listened to
Baby Snooks, Edward R. Murrow, Johnny Dollar or Lamont Cranston (better
known as The Shadow), you can relive those days of yore on the Net at Radio Days. This blast from the past is
divided into eight large sections, one of which contains 370 links to
other old-time radio sites. The timeline tells you anything of
interest that happened on the radio or concerning radio during each
month of the year. News
discusses some of the famous newsmen of the era and lets you hear a few
of their broadcasts (Murrow from a London rooftop during the blitz,
Sept. 20, 1940, for instance). Comedy reintroduces Burns and
Allen, Fibber McGee and Molly, Fred Allen, Edgar Bergen and the Camel
Comedy Caravan, among others. Science
Fiction recalls the days of “Buck Rogers in the 25th Century,” Flash
Gordon and Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds.” Private Eyes range from Johnny
Dollar and Sam Spade to Charlie Chan and Sherlock Holmes and cover a
number of almost-forgotten P.I.’s. Current features include Captain Midnight, Strange Dr. Weird and Amos ‘n’Andy.
Virtual Art. If your budget won’t stretch to a flight to Paris
to swoon over the Mona Lisa, a jaunt to Florence to ogle Boticelli’s
“Birth of Venus” or even a drive to D.C. to view the Mellon Collection,
then take a virtual visit via the Internet. The National Museum of American Art, The National Gallery of Art, Italy’s Galleria degli Uffizi
and the Louvre all have
excellent Web sites ideal for browsing.
Leapin’ Leprechauns! There may be more St. Patrick’s Day
celebrations on the Web than in Ireland. As we don our green apparel,
let’s get in the mood by listening to some Irish music. Then we’ll visit
two St. Paddy’s Day festivities in unexpected places. Start in Savannah, Ga., which puts on what
they call the South’s largest St. Patrick’s Day celebration. In Iowa,
the Spillin’ of the Green
is the effort of a bunch of fun-loving golfers who take part in a
four-city tournament (connected by bus). For a look at Ireland of more
than 100 years ago, head to Old
Ireland and click on a county, then take a photographic tour. Two
other good sites: Ireland’s Eye and St. Patrick’s Festival
’99 from The Irish Times.
The Moon in June. What rhymes with “wisdom”? Find out at The Semantic
Rhyming Dictionary.
Let it Snow. If you live in a cold part of the nation, the Snow Maze may be something
you’d rather visit in early August. But if you live where winters are
mild, give it a try and imagine what it would be like living in Buffalo
or Minnesota. You’ll get a cold shiver from trying to make your way
through this very realistic maze.
Take 2 Aspirins and Visit the Web site. Johns Hopkins
University offers authoritative health information on topics that vary
from asthma to mental health to sports medicine. At InteliHealth you can also learn
about various medications. And the site connects you to MedCite, a fast, easy-to-use medical
literature service that provides peer-reviewed articles from the
National Library of Medicine.
Will They Be On Time? Friday of this week is when the famous
swallows are supposed to return to the mission of San Jaun
Capistrano in California.
Want Fries With That? M.W. Grossman takes his fries very
seriously. So seriously that he has created The Official French Fries Pages. He
tells the history of his favorite food, explains how they’re made, keeps
lists of restaurants that dish up especially tasty fries and even has
some fun with 22
Things To Do With French Fries Besides Eat Them.
Dead Sea Scrolls. What are the Dead Sea Scrolls? Who wrote
them? Why are they important today? All you wanted to know in pictures
and text.
How Do They Do That? You think you know all the card tricks?
Try to figure this one out. You pick a
card, whisper its name out loud and the computer tells you which
card you chose. Kids will love the “magic,” and it’s pretty entertaining
for adults, too, at least once or twice.
Space Trivia. On March 18, 1965, who became the first man to
walk in space? A hint: He was Russian.
Syria and America’s bloody diplomacy
Mike Pottage