Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich

 

Website Wednesday

 

First of all, sorry for the crappy editing you see here sometimes. While I love the new feature of being able to see how many hits I get, the trade-off is that editing the blog has become a bear. It's not WYSIWYG; that is, editing has become an adventure because the Preview screen is not always the Publish screen. So pardon the formatting errors and, of course, the spelling ones.

 

http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/116500

What a great, easy way to learn history. John Green has created an assortment of videos where he hones in on important factors in history, like the agricultural revolution. These are history lessons with a comic twist that makes them engaging.

Mental Floss says of itself:

For the record: mental_floss magazine is an intelligent read, but not too intelligent. We're the sort of intelligent that you hang out with for a while, enjoy our company, laugh a little, smile a lot and then we part ways. Great times. And you only realize how much you learned from us after a little while. Like a couple days later when you're impressing your friends with all these intriguing facts and things you picked up from us, and they ask you how you know so much, and you think back on that great afternoon you spent with us and you smile.
And then you lie and say you read a lot.

 

Mental Floss was a Website Wednesday in 2010 but Green's videos are definitely worth a repeat mention.  I would put John Green’s Crash Course in World History up there with the Khan Academy lectures. What Khan is presenting in math and science, Green is doing for world history. With Green's presentations, there's is no reason for that age-old American plaint: I hate history. Try them; you won't be disappointed.

 

 OK, let's go light:

 

 http://www.nerve.com/movies/the-fifty-greatest-cult-movies-of-all-time

 

Take a look at these 50 cult films. You can check off the ones you've seen (I've seen far too many) and add the ones you think are missing (be sure to read the comments for more choices.) I don't know about the rest of Nerve but the Entertainment section looks interesting. (They do seem to like the word "sexiest".) Here, you can find Ridley Scott and Oliver Stone films rated worst to best. (Hint: Alexander by Stone was not a winner.)

 

So in these very hot days of summer (that term is fast becoming redundant), get a cool drink and enjoy these websites. To paraphrase Freud's famous quote: Sometimes fun is just fun. I'll add: And sometimes learning can be just fun, also. Enjoy.