The weekly reference collection: research gleanings:
Wow, big story: Eric Rudolph caught in Murphy NC; suspect in Olympics and abortion clinic bombings, caught in the area where the FBI's been looking for him for several years. I have a special interest in this story since we spend a lot of time in Murphy (and hope to spend a lot more).
Asheville Citizen-Times; Info on Rudolph from Court TV; Washington Post stories. Cherokee County website; Chamber of Commerce; Cherokee Scout (weekly newspaper, published Wed.)
I can't help commenting on this, from reading the first AP story: I see John Ashcroft is taking credit for this. And no mention of the name of the Cherokee County sheriff's deputy who's the real hero here.....
(Later: After watching the press conference held in Murphy, glad to see the attention given to the 21-yr-old Murphy police officer who caught Rudolph (it was a sheriff's deputy who arrived later who recognized him). )

Some interesting links on the Administration and the fallout from the "battle of Iraq" (apparently that's the Administration's new spin, not a "war"):

Administration quotes on WMDs compiled by a blogger named "Billmon" with links to original speeches/press releases....

Committee to Protect Journalists releases report on reporters' deaths in Baghdad hotel.

Conflict in Iraq long research document from House of Commons library.

Bush Administration documents on secrecy policy collected by FAS.

The useful links....

Reference

ABS Ship Search from American Bureau of Shipping. Not clear what ships are covered here (Norway doesn't come up) but gives good info on ships it finds.....More searches from ABS Safenet.

Hurricane Resources compiled by Poynter's Dave Shedden.

SoYouWanna site with instructions to life's little chores. How to buy a cell phone, how to pay off your student loans....
Governments, Politics:

Report to Congress: Cuba Congressional Research Service report on upcoming issues, dated 5/22/03.

State laws on personal watercraft

Amnesty International Report, 2003 on human rights.
Statistics:

City and County Data Book, 2000 New from Census, the local stats collected in one book, available online in PDF, with popular tables linked separately.
Business:

Chilling Effects Clearinghouse from EFF and law schools, info on trademark and intellectual property rights, especially online property questions.

EDGAR IQ search for individual words in EDGAR filings.
Journalism:

More on The Herald's Kentucky Derby photo story in Broward/Palm Beach New Times.

Rick Bragg's lousy alibi in Slate.

Wall St. Journal story on Rick Bragg with interview with a Miami intern who contributed to many of his stories.
People:

Veterans' History Project at Library of Congress.
News, Public Records, Florida, Tools: No links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

Homewreckers, a group blog about about home remodeling. Interesting concept, and international, too.

The Bahamian Pipeline: two-part series in the PB Post on smuggling, by Gary Kane.

US finds WMDs -- in Maryland from the Guardian.

Baghdad blogger found:
The Guardian has identified Salam Pax, will be running a regular column by him.

More on News Division conference sessions:
Note one of the most popular sessions will be Webcast so researchers unable to attend can hear the talks.
Here is the session description.
4:00 - 5:30 EST, Wednesday June 11th.
Blogs, Mags, etc. How to keep up to date on the 'Net
Location: Marriott, Ziegfeld
Our 'Net gurus Gary Price and Marydee Ojala talk about keeping current on the Web and new and interesting resources. Moderator: Linda Henderson, Providence Journal. We plan to Webcast this session live for those people not able to attend. Tune in closer to the conference for more details. Speakers: Gary Price, Library Consultant; Marydee Ojala, Editor, Online Magazine.
To tune in, visit this URL during the session:
http://stream.ire.org:8080/ramgen/encoder/stream.rm. The stream is being tested occasionally this week.

Bye, bye Real Cities:
The Miami Herald's website (www.herald.com) starting today has completely abandoned the Real Cities black livery imposed on it a year and a half ago. Started with the return to herald.com from miami.com a few months ago. Today the Herald page is brighter, with a white background (the black is gone!). The only link to the Real Cities network, formerly prominent at top, is now on bottom of the page. The whole page is sprightlier and easier to navigate. Much better. (Note on the changes here.)

Blog drought?
Not quite, but I've got something else on my mind (and haven't found much to post in last couple days): Will be speaking on a panel at the IRE conference in DC next week, then on two panels at SLA (News Division) in New York. Hustling to get handouts/tipsheets and presentations together. I'll post to the site when they're done. Topics? Blogging, public records, and organizing links lists. (Note, my tipsheets look almost identical to this sample from IRE. I didn't know, I swear.....)
If you're going to be at either of these gatherings, looking forward to seeing you there. I don't get to either every year so it's a thrill to be coming to both this year. IRE and the News Division have made a concerted attempt to get researchers/news librarians to attend both conferences this year. It's a struggle since both these cities are more expensive than most and budgets are tight. So I'm not expecting to see many researchers...hope I'm proven wrong.

After the long weekend:
A new blog from Derek Willis: Blandiose, a little more eclectic than his The Scoop, which is devoted to investigative reporting. Looks good, with some interesting news links.

I'd like not to mention the New York Times' troubles again, but things keep popping up. Margot points out this article in Slate: Who uses fact-checkers, anyway? The New York Times doesn't. Here's the explanation in New York Times integrity guidelines from ASNE. There's also a link to a factchecking test, at bottom of the Slate article. See how well you do.

Looking at cruise ship safety, following explosion that killed 5 on the Norway. Lots of good links on CruiseJunkie website.

The weekly reference collection: research gleanings:
Has the Jayson Blair affair skewed everything? AJR reports NYT's Rick Bragg has been suspended because no credit line was given to the stringer who did much of the reporting on a story on Apalachicola oystermen. Apparently that's the Times' national desk's policy, Bragg says he wouldn't have done it differently, and the stringer says he never expected credit.
Meanwhile, the Blair story gets nastier as Howard Kurtz reports details from Blair's book proposal.
Another Times reporter in trouble: Chris Hedges' speech at Rockford College was booed down. Local paper's coverage includes a transcript, video, and a forum.
None of this is funny.

The useful links....

Reference

Nikon Digital Archives history of the camera.

Hispanic Yearbook, 2002 has lots of stats and a searchable directory of businesses, media, organizations.

The Proceedings of the Old Bailey, London, 1674-1834. Searchable.

Masterfoods Online Cooking Glossary

Music of Puerto Rico: a guide, bios, etc.
News:

110 years of the Washington Post, now digitized and available through Proquest, joining the New York Times archive there.

Local TV News Database contains over 10,000 stories, from University of Delaware study of influence of local news.
Statistics:

Metro areas with highest number of immigrants: new report from Census.

U.S. Veterans, 2000 Census study finds most veterans living around bases in Virginia and other states, and older vets in Florida (especially Cape Coral and Clearwater). But Hialeah is city with lowest percentage of vets; Miami 3d lowest.

ACCRA Cost of Living Index get local index or compare cities.

Community Information by ZIP Code a directory from Cal State library.
Public Records:

192.com, the UK people search site, is now offering neighbors searches. Free.

"National" criminal records databases: what's the story new article from BRB publications. Good background on where these databases come from, what's available.

Palm Beach County occupational licenses

Palm Beach civil court search.

New Nexis public records databases: Canadian person locator: The CNPAGE file contains 23 million consumer records containing name, address
and telephone number. Find this under Public Records/Non-US. And:
Convictions!: The CRIMNL file includes statewide criminal history records from nearly 70% of the US population. Includes Corrections Dept databases from 30 states (AZ, CT, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, IA, KS, KY, ME, MD, MI, MS, MO, MT, NE, NV, NJ, NY, NC, OH, OK, OR, SC, TN, UT, WA, WI). Also includes various court files: in Florida, e.g. it has criminal courts records from Palm Beach, Pinellas, Suwannee Counties, plus a database of criminal court records from 58 of the 67 counties in Florida.

Public Records Search Guide 66-page pamphlet from LexisNexis. Great descriptions of databases, search strategies.
Florida:

Florida Postcards great collection from Jacksonville Public Library. And Palm Beach public records above.
People: Tools: Business, Journalism: no links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

Subjects of Jayson Blair's errors didn't bother to call the Times to complain; Amazing. In LA Times.

Guidelines on use of US Patriot Act from US Justice Dept.

Fascinating Florida Today story on Columbia's debris trail: what if it had landed on Dallas?

Doonesbury Website moves to Slate.

Earth and Jupiter from Mars actual photo: Earth near top, scroll way down to see Jupiter. Fascinating. (story, closeups).

Electronic Iraq news from Iraq including a mirror of Salam Pax's Where is Raed? Weblog, including the pictures he can't afford to post....

Impressive projects:
Well Connected: Center for Public Integrity study of telecommunications industry influence. Includes a trips database and ownership databases. (via Derek).

IISS: Post-War Iraq military, humanitarian analysis from International Institute of Strategic Studies (who publish The Military Balance). Also: Timelines.

Less impressive:
Jayson Blair resume at UMd: if this is the way he spells, he really needed close editing. You'd think someone who lived around DC most of his life would be able to spell Fauquier (or know how to find out), let alone 'experience'....

This story keeps on going:
Via Gary Price: The New York Times has posted an archive of Jayson Blair stories, including the 73 reviewed so far, with a link to the explanation of errors found, and a request for emailed reports of other errors.

And today everyone's talking about:
Jayson Blair interview in NY Observer. Boston Globe's Tom Oliphant on Jayson Blair and the Miami Herald's Santos story. Haunted by journalist who broke trust in San Jose Mercury News. Jayson Blair limerick contest in Romenesko's Letters column. And: anything else in Romenesko.

Free archives? What a concept!
There's a growing discussion among bloggers who say that Newspaper archives on the Web should be free: This from Doc Searls, with links to many other comments. The argument, among others: exposure in Web searches will get more traffic to newspaper sites, in the long run making more income than trying to get it directly from archives (since most people will not make the effort to find an archive site, sign up, and pay). Makes sense to me. There are good examples at The St. Petersburg Times and the The San Francisco Chronicle (including a photo archives search). More from Sheila Lennon.

More on Florida house site:
Criticism of Johnnie Byrd's takeover of Florida house Website from Daytona News-Journal's Mark Lane (Florida Blog).

And on the Herald and that photo story:
Boston Globe's Tom Oliphant on Jayson Blair and the Miami Herald's Santos story.

What to do with tainted stories in the archive:
The Star-Telegram reports on growing concerns among news librarians that Jayson Blair stories in their archives (pulled from New York Times news service) need to be corrected somehow: Poisoning the archival wells, by David House.

Nora Ephron was a Kennedy White House intern too. (in the NY Times)

The weekly reference collection: research gleanings:
Another terrorist bombing today, this one in Casablanca. Is this the world's future?
Lots of links to news on the Riyadh bombing on the Bushwars weblog.

Background on Vinnell, target of Saudi attack.
Nothing like sex stories to bring us back to reality, though. Lots of comments in blogs in last few days about GW Bush's appeal in his tight (in strategic places) flight suit. And, of course, another Kennedy revelation, timed interestingly, some think: Background on the Kennedy Intern: In the Daily News; Also in The News; in Newsday (AP); in the Guardian.
And: The difference between Mimi and Monica by Jill Porter in the Philly Daily News.

The useful links....

Reference

1000 best movies ever made database of reviews from the NY Times.

SR-71: an online military museum; photos and stats on military aircraft.

Discover Middle East: EBrary has fulltext books. Requires reader software download and signup.

Agesource Worldwide: facts on aging from AARP.

Census facts for Louisiana Purchase bicentennial includes population, timeline, etc.

GovernmentViews of SARS good links collection from library at CCNY.

Hockey history from National Archives of Canada.

All about chiles great resource on chile peppers.

Spanish proverbs and their English translations or equivalents over 300 proverbs! From UCLA.

Seafood Lovers' Guide from Audubon, help in choosing sustainable seafood, including wallet cards to print out.

Atlas of the Body from AMA.

Gun law changes: Washington Post gun control page has gun laws by state. State NRA and shooting assn listings (via Morning Meeting).
Tools:

AlltheWeb Converters easy conversions directly from the search engine. If you put convert:1 gal in the search form, you get this.
News:

Indian Country the Native American news service. I'm seeing more and more references to this publication's stories.
Governments/Politics:

Documents From Congress' Joint Inquiry into 9/11 some of the documents Graham (and news outlets, including Knight Ridder) is trying to get released have already been transcribed by The Memory Hole.
Statistics:

National Priorities Project database "offers state data on socio-economic needs and federal expenditures, and allows you to create customized tables, graphs and reports." Find out what your state's getting from the federal government.
Public Records:

Access to electronic records Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press has updated this guide to how/where to get data from local governments.

Free bankruptcy search from American Bankruptcy Institute. Probably not complete but a good first step (then search Nexis or PACER).

Database of dangerous bridges from MSNBC; finds none in Dade, 3 in Monroe, 8 in Broward......(via Derek Willis)

Foreclosure Free Search get lists of foreclosures by state/county. Commercial product requires membership for full info but gets lists of addresses.
People:

State Library of Virginia: has searchable databases for genealogy, etc. (Census, court, military records, lots more; many refer to microfilmed files.)

Latest Social Security Administration list of most popular baby names, 2002.
Florida, Business, Journalism: no links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

Home run to Havana: next on GWB's list? In the Guardian.

Bombay=Mumbai, Calcutta=Kolkata, India changes its history. From BBC.

The War in Context this new Weblog is pulling together opinions on the future of Iraq, etc. Good news links too.

Keepers of the Bush image; fascinating story by Elisabeth Bumiller in the NYT.

Dirty dealings in data report on Choicepoint by Greg Palast. Also: Jim Crow in Cyberspace, chapter on 2000 Florida election from his book, The Best Democracy Money can Buy. (Note we (and Baltimore Sun) ran an oped piece by Palast and Martin Luther King III a couple days ago).

Nelson Mandela's handprint contains an image of Africa from BBC.

New temperature monitoring system can find people with fevers in airports without their knowledge.

Is your personality set in stone from childhood? new APA study says we change personality through life.

Chinese couple names their child Saddam SARS.

More on affirmative action and Jayson Blair from Rochester D&C opinion editor James Lawrence.

Minitel is 20 years old: France's 'mini-internet' started about the same time as Knight Ridder's Viewtron...with better results.

AJC's Ron Martz on hatemail he got on his reporting on the war (not like what people saw on TV).
Fun/Entertaining: none this week

Wish they could take it back?
The Miami Herald explains how the jockey photo story came about. Also: In the Zone: Profile of jockey Santos.

Writing for blog commission: Freelance science writer David Appell is offering to write a story on Big Sugar on his blog if readers will pay him for it. What a concept! Could this be the beginning of something?

Annoying reminder: Starting today, all links to the reference and personal pages linked on left will no longer work if they go to an infi.net address. (Which means all hits to these pages on Google and other search engine links are probably dead.) The links here now go to edonovan.home.infionline.net. If you have any of the old links (e.g. to the public records directory, the Iraq links, etc.) bookmarked they will no longer work unless the address is changed to infionline.net. Address of this blog (newsresearch.blogspot.com) has not changed. Note email to edonovan@infi.net will also no longer work.

More random:
Interesting new blog: Daniel Drezner, New Republic writer and political scientist, provides backup links on topics covered in his articles, and commentary on additional topics, here.

Skipease: people finding links for skiptracers (and us). Useful listing of search pages from phonebooks to prisons to death indexes, UCCs, lots more.

Not Martha: Megan blogs interesting projects and recipes she gets from Martha Stewart and others. Most intriguing link: coffee jello!?

Random Wednesday gleanings:
(Photo posted here no longer online): The monument to Rick Rescorla in his hometown of Hayle, Cornwall, looking good in the spring flowers. (from Cornwallcam). (Remember Rick? A Vietnam -- and Sept. 11 -- hero.)

Speaking of 9/11: An interesting day; fascinating analysis of GW Bush's actions on Sept 11 2001. Was there an assassination attempt in Sarasota that day? From Center for Cooperative Research. Also here: extensive, heavily researched 9/11 Timeline.

I love this: Blogging News Headlines this new service lets you look up news reported on Weblogs by category, or feed them to your newsreader (XML icon). (via Metapop)

Napa Valley travel blog Seattle Times editor blogs a trip to the wine country. How's this for a new way to cover travel? Before the trip was over, he was stopped by people who wanted to know if he was the blogger. Talk about impact... (via Cyberjournalist).

Interesting: In blogs we trust why getting your news from Weblogs may be no less accurate than getting it from the New York Times. From a blog called "The conspiracy to keep you poor and stupid" by Donald Luskin.

And: Seems to me the terrorists have won. Americans keep attacking each other. Examples: Deck of Republican Chickenhawk ('most wanted') cards; "The Deck of Weasels". And responses to Kurt Vonnegut's speech on Mark Twain and conservatives: Strange weather lately (comments below). It just seems like every forum or comments list I look into lately elicits snide remarks, attacks, and character assassinations. Have we been overcome by the Jerry Springer syndrome?

Mr. Stinky gets pollinated:
Herald story by Nick Spangler.

Stinkycam: get to see the world's largest flower blooming live (today only). Main page at Fairchild Tropical Garden.

Wasn't it obvious?
The Microsoft "I-Loo" press release was a late April fool's joke (in the Guardian). In case you missed it, lots of bloggers (and some news sites) picked up this story about an internet-equipped portable toilet to be installed at festivals.....uhhhhh....who could sit there that long?

What kind of world do you want to live in?
Analogy and discussion from Back to Iraq's Christopher Albritton:
"Let's open this up with a hypothetical situation: There's a murderer living in your community. He's struck before and one of your neighbors, the richest and most powerful guy in town, is convinced he's going to strike again."

The Herald and the picture:
Amazing amount of animosity towards The Miami Herald for reporting on the 'suspicious' photo of jockey Jose Santos in the Kentucky Derby. People responding to the Herald's online forum on the topic express hope that the Herald will be sued, and demand apologies: the type gets bigger, shouting "CANCEL MY SUBSCRIPTION" and "APOLOGIZE NOW". Lots of readers are upset for Santos' young son. It's amazing how one story can ruin a newspaper's reputation. Of about 40 messages so far, only one suggests that the paper was only doing its job.
I've been suprised at how different various versions of the same photograph look; in the first I saw, and some since, the space definitely looks like there's a hard object in his hand. In other versions, it's clearly the green of the silks behind.
More on the controversy on the Churchill Downs website, with several hi-res versions of the photo.

Monday reaction:
Dave takes an example from the New York Times:

"STATEMENT OF JOURNALISM PRINCIPLES
It has come to this blog's attention that, on a number of occasions, this blog may have written things that are not totally accurate. Also, on several occasions, this blog has linked to items that this blog knew for a fact were probably not 100 percent true. This blog wants you, the readers, to know that this blog does not tolerate this kind of irresponsible journalism, and intends to conduct a thorough investigation of itself, and then publish six pages of corrections in The New York Times, just as soon as this blog has some spare time and is out of beer. "

Editor and Publisher asks 14 unanswered questions about Jayson Blair.

And, yesterday I started to post to this New York Times story on the failure of new media, but found it uninteresting. JD Lasica found it error-ridden.

"Tamagotchi Journalism": A Working Model for Blog-based Reporting; story in Readme, NYU journalism school newsletter/blog.
"Unfettered by the concerns that have led major media outlets to staunch successful weblogs of reportage, a bank of blogging journalists billed as such could report freely, unconcerned about pissing off a corporate parent...Rather than let intransigent companies claim to provide our news even as they silence those individuals who do it, why shouldn't journalism undergo a paradigm shift? Blogs could reshape how we relate to those who would go reporting on their readers' behalf."

Setting the Record Straight:
The New York Times reports an extraordinary investigation into the misreportings of former reporter Jayson Blair in today's paper. A shorter version ran in The Miami Herald today and probably in other papers, too; but the original article is much, much longer. In addition, there's a summary of the charges and and editor's note and apology. There's also an email address: retrace@ nytimes.com for readers to message Times executives with information about not yet found errors. A sad story.
Thank goodness The Times has researchers on the team investigating the stories. Wonder how much use Jayson made of the Times' research staff?

The Weekly Update:
Catching up on two weeks' worth of links, lots of stuff this week.

The useful links....

Reference

Internet Sacred Texts Archive

British Library images online: amazing stuff.

E-Library of North Korea background materials.

Cell phone danger to aviation: report from UK's Civil Aviation Authority.

Baghdad history from al-Ahram Cairo weekly.

Census Facts for Features: Mothers' Day

Teen Lingo dictionary from a Baptist youth ministry.

InvasiveSpecies.gov

BlueRidgeParkway.org my favorite road ever.

World SARS infection timeline and deaths map

Reefbase Global information on coral reefs.
Journalism

ABC circulation figures, largest US papers in Wall St. Journal. NYT down, NYPost 'way up.

War dispatches from Ernie Pyle reprinted at U. Ill. j-school.

ReadMe newsletter and Weblog from journalism and communications department at NYU.
Tools:

Unlocking URLs article by Greg Notess on using Web addresses.

UPI photo search: archives.

Wireless Libraries: find a library where you can get free WiFi Internet access. Unfortunately, only one in Florida, in St. Augustine.

Melissa Data free demographic lookups I've linked to this before, but worth a reminder: find things like ZIP codes in an area code, place name, street address and phone number lookups (find out where they are and demographic info), income tax statistics, lots more.
News:

New databases in Nexis: Newspapers: Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum (OH) from 9/02; La Opinion (Los Angeles) 4/00; Marion Star (OH) 9/02; Post-Standard (Syracuse, NY) 12/86; Poughkeepsie Journal (NY) 10/02; General Anzeiger (Bonn), from 1/00; Business journals in Colorado Springs, Portland OR, Rochester NY, Milwaukee, Norfolk, Minneapolis, Idaho, Oklahoma City, Kansas City, Long Island, New Orleans, Pueblo CO, St. Charles MO, Vancouver WA; UK Newsquest regional press (newspapers from the counties) 1/03. Public Records: Jury verdicts in AL, AR, MI, TN, NY.

Television archives Gary Price collects links to available archives: NPR, etc.
Governments/Politics:

Political Notepad has reports from the presidential campaigns written by campaign staffers.

Patterns of Global Terrorism, 2002 latest report from State Dept.

Congressional Committee reports released by 107th Congress: includes McCarthy hearings in 5 separate volumes. If you open in PDF you can search.

We knew there'd be scandals compilation of stories about the Bush administration.
Statistics:

Sortable US Justice statistics now from BJS, some databases not in PDF format: Uniform Crime Reports, homicide trends, and management and administration stats.

World Economic Outlook database from IMF, latest stats on GDP, inflation, debt, by country. Updated April 2003.
Business:

CEO Compensation Report: 2003 from Forbes, with back reports back to 1997 for comparison.
Public Records:

Miami-Dade Traffic Violation searches public search gets basic info. (If you sign up for premium searches you can: view detailed case history and hearing schedules, search by attorney number, issue date, bondsman number, bond number, and vehicle tag number, and store custom searches.)
People:

How to identify military fakes good tipsheet on finding/using military records. More links for tips on Al's Morning Meeting.

Norwegian digital archives: a good genealogy resource.
Florida: see Miami-Dade traffic violation search under Public Records.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

Sen. Byrd does it again; his speech on Bush's use of military as props.

Geraldo speaks up: get his take on "the embedment controversy".

Baseball Blogs see what people are saying on their Weblogs.

Metapop a collaborative Weblog covering blogging and popular culture.

Off the Record a Weblog "of all the world's press clubs".

Dead Parrot Society interesting new group Weblog.

Web Diary a blog at the Sidney Morning Herald.

HIPAAblog for info on law's effect on medical privacy.
Fun/Entertaining:

Another amusing (and timely) 404 error page. And another one.

Journalist news today:
Among mainstream media, only the BBC covers return of Salam Pax. This seems rather strange to me considering the attention he got earlier. Even stranger, the story he told about interviewing with the NY Times' John Burns disappears from his blog. Sheila covered it and tried to get something out of Burns about the interview, but he wasn't interested. Too bad. Everyone's been trying to identify this man and one of the world's top reporters actually had contact with him and didn't know the significance.

Another journalist killed in Iraq: Elizabeth Neuffer, Boston Globe, car wreck.

This is what happens when you stay in journalism too long: the son of a reporter I once knew as a Vietnam war correspondent reported from Iraq for the Chicago Tribune. Stories by Evan Osnos.
His father Peter Osnos is now a book publisher, with Public Affairs, publishing wonderful books. Two I've loved in last year: The Cat from Hue, by John Laurence, and First Job by Rinker Buck. Also published recently, Don Van Natta's First Off the Tee, about American presidents and golf, which I'm planning to read next.

A Miami event:
"Mr Stinky" and Audrey are producing quite a scent at Fairchild Tropical Garden. Report in Hidden City Weblog, and in the Miami Herald.


For Florida journalists: Another Joe Adams seminar on public records will be held in Naples, May 17. Sign up at Florida Press Club website. Don't miss this great seminar; rooms at the conference hotel only $39!

Wednesday notes:
I haven't been able to get into the files at the edonovan.home.infionline.net addresses all afternoon. Apologies if you've tried to click on the reference links at left, and for the missing photos. Earthlink seems to be having problems. Maybe all that rain in Atlanta area?

A new address for Hank Kalet's Channel Surfing weblog.

New links for lost Iraqi art identifications:

Iraq's Lost Heritage site cataloging known artifacts.

Interpol: conference on stolen Iraqi art

Lost treasures of Iraq: U. of Chicago database has added lots of art listings.

Real or not, he's back:
A message from Salam Pax.

"War. No matter what the outcome is. These things leave a trail of destruction behind them. There were days when the Red Crescent was begging for volunteers to help in taking the bodies of dead people off the city street and bury them properly. The hospital grounds have been turned to burial grounds when the electricity went out and there was no way the bodies can be kept until someone comes and identifies.
...My mother, after going out once after Baghdad was taken by the US Army, decided she is not going out again, not until I promise it looks kind of normal and OK. So I guess the Ostrich maneuver runs in the family.
Things are looking kind of OK, these days. Life has a way of moving on. Your senses are numbed, things stop shocking you. If there is one thing you should believe in, it is that life will find a way to push on..."

Gatherings (useful and/or interesting):
Sree gives high marks to MyHerald.com, in his Poynter column....(note i mentioned MyHerald here a few weeks back...)

Translation of Doonesbury French strip on Doonesbury website.

The Bookie of Virtue Washington Monthly story on William Bennett and gambling.

Citing Google does the phrase "iraq war" really get 3.2 million hits? Only if you don't use the quotes....and then you're not searching that exact phrase. Be careful if you do this. Jonathan Dube tells you how to do it right.

American Presidency Project at UCSB, has Public Papers of the Presidents from Hoover to Ford, and some Carter and Bush papers. Also: political platforms, inaugural addresses, FDR's fireside chats, and documents relating to the 2000 election.

Best of Reference 2003: list of books, websites from NY Public Library.

Challenger shuttle: Congressional investigation: includes previous space investigations back to 1970 Apollo study.

Back from vacation:
Refreshed and energized from a week in the mountains. The first night in the new house we were awakened by an earthquake (centered in NE Alabama, about 100 miles away): everything in the kitchen was rattling and it sounded like a train was going by underground. An interesting start. Beautiful green spring, we saw lots of trilliums, some ladyslippers, and weren't too late for the dogwoods and flame azaleas. Now back to Miami and the heat. More later. More photos.