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May 30, 2008

Interesting reads #2: Angola bikers, Fermi Lab, Victoriana, spiked watermelon

Real thrillseeking: Angola, it's not like they said. Posted last September by one of them, the story of five middle-aged Americans' motorcycle trip to Angola; at ADVrider, with many photos.

Starve the good: Private Donor Gives Fermilab $5 Million. When Congress cut its budget, pure research found the wolf at its door:

For once, staff at the United States's only remaining particle physics laboratory have received some good news. An anonymous donor has given cash-strapped Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois, a gift of $5 million. With the money, lab officials will be able to stop a rolling furlough program that since February has forced employees to take periodic unpaid leave and slashed their pay by 12.5%. The lab will still lay off roughly 140 workers, but officials also announced that those cuts would be restructured to give employees a chance to take voluntary layoffs before the involuntary ones begin.
"This is very unusual," Fermilab Director Piermaria Oddone said of the gift in an address to employees on Friday. "It's not a building that carries a name. It's really a commitment to science and the nation and in particular to particle physics as a long-range important undertaking for our nation."..

Since the gift leaves the lab still $17 million short of its 2007 appropriation, it just postpones the disaster.

Do we need it?

What is Fermilab? Scientists at Fermilab carry out research in high-energy physics to answer the questions: What is the universe made of? How does it work? Where did it come from?

Oh, is that all?

Emma Spaulding and John Emory Bryant, from the cover of Ruth Currie's Emma Spaulding Bryant: Civil War Bride, Carpetbagger's Wife, Ardent Feminist: Letters 1860-1900

Victorian spat by mail: Emma Spaulding Bryant Letters at the Duke University Special Collections Library.

Letters -- only Emma's side -- from 1873 in which her husband John, in Georgia, accuses her of adultery because she visits a gynecologist while visiting relatives in Cleveland. Emma is suitably indignant.

Interestingly, a lot is known about the Bryants, including how their relationship turned out.

The link on the photo caption leads to a much larger selection, but the samples at Duke may be as long a glimpse as you need.

How to spike a watermelon. And add a spigot. end-of-summer bash: drunken watermelon on tap. Better to know these things in May.

Posted by Sheila Lennon at 4:35 PM | Permalink