American Rhetoric.com [RealOne Player]
http://www.AmericanRhetoric.com/
The power of the spoken word, especially when well-delivered and articulated,
is immense; and this archive of speeches and rhetoric, developed and maintained
by Michael E. Eidenmuller, (an assistant professor of communications at the
University of Texas at Tyler) is an excellent way to delve into this subject.
The core of the site is a truly comprehensive online speech bank that contains
over 5000 speeches (in a host of formats), along with other recorded media
events. The links in the speech bank are arranged alphabetically by first
name and are checked for errors at least once every two weeks. One particularly
compelling feature of the site is an area devoted to the rhetoric of 9/11,
which contains over 150 active links to speeches dealing with the events
on and around that date. Here visitors can listen to a 1998 interview with
Osama Bin Laden or listen to President Bush's address to the United States
on that tragic day. Overall, this site will be both useful to students and
teachers alike, along with the Web-browsing public. [KMG]
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William James
http://www.emory.edu/EDUCATION/mfp/james.html
Raised in a highly educated household (his father was a Swedenborgian theologian),
William James is rightly considered one of the most important American philosophers
of the 19th century. James began his studies in art and geology as a young
man before he received a medical degree from Harvard, where he later taught
for thirty-five years. Today he is best known for his elaborations on pragmatism,
along with works on psychology, religion, and truth. Developed by Frank Pajares,
a professor of education at Emory University, this site contains writings
by and an extended biographical essay on James, and links to other internet
resources for those interested in learning more about his life and work.
Finally, the site also contains critical interpretations and examinations
of his various philosophical writings and musings. [KMG]
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The Futures Project: Policy for Higher Education in a Changing World [pdf]
http://www.futuresproject.org/
Hosted by Brown University's A. Alfred Taubman Center for Public Policy and
American Institutions, the Futures Project prime directives are to "stimulate
an informed debate about the role of higher education in our new global society"
and to "develop policies that ensure a skilled use of market forces to maximize
the opportunities while minimizing the dangers." The Project itself is funded
by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Ford Foundation, and the Atlantic Philanthropies.
One of the more compelling areas of this site is dedicated to presenting
several policy alternatives as regards to what may happen to higher education
in the near future, along with an area for comments and suggestions. The
site also contains various articles, briefing papers, reports, and fact sheets
that will be of interest to policy makers, educational administrators, and
students. [KMG]
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Asian Historical Architecture: A Photographic Survey
http://www.orientalarchitecture.com/
Edited by a number of professors and graduate students from Columbia, Yale,
and the University of Virginia, this site offers thousands of photographic
images of Asia's diverse architectural heritage. In total, the site contains
over 6450 photos of 457 sites across seventeen countries. The geographical
parameters of the site are limited to areas heavily influenced by Buddhism,
Confucianism, or Hinduism. From the site's homepage, visitors can click on
any one of the seventeen countries covered here, and look for various items
of interest. One rather novel feature is that there are numerous clickable
maps of large urban areas, which visitors can use to locate specific landscapes
or other aspects of the built environment. Several highlights of the site's
photographic images include those locales in Afghanistan, such as the Citadel
of Heart (built on the foundations of a fort built by Alexander the Great)
and the Minaret of Jam, which stands in the remote Hari Rud river valley.
[KMG]
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Household Products Database
http://householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov/
The Household Products Database is a new offering from the National Institute
of Health and the National Library of Medicine that contains information
on over 4,000 consumer brands, allowing consumers to research products based
on chemical ingredients. The database "helps answer questions such as: What
are the chemical ingredients and their percentage in specific brands? Which
products contain specific chemical ingredients? Who manufactures a specific
brand? How do I contact this manufacturer? What are the acute and chronic
effects of chemical ingredients in a specific brand? What other information
is available about chemicals in the toxicology-related databases of the National
Library of Medicine?" Users can browse or search the well-designed database
by products, ingredients, or Material Safety Data Sheets to easily locate
the desired information. This site is also reviewed in the August 8, 2003 NSDL Physical Sciences Report.
[JAB]
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Columbia Journalism Review: Who Owns What
http://www.cjr.org/owners/
Created and maintained by Aaron Moore, a professor of sports media at Ithaca
College, this Web page documents which publications (and other ancillary
businesses) are owned and controlled by various media conglomerates around
the United States. Some of the media conglomerates covered by this rather
revealing site include such newer upstarts in the media business such as
Clear Channel Communications (which owns hundreds of radio stations around
the United States), and a few of the more venerable media moguls, including
the Hearst Corporation and the Tribune Company. Along with listing the holdings
of these various corporations, the site includes a number of articles from
the Columbia Journalism Review that deal with media ownership. One rather
fascinating article addresses the life and career of Dean Singleton, CEO
of the privately held MediaNews Group, which is the seventh-largest newspaper
company in the U.S. [KMG]
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