Free archives question comes up again:
To the horror of news librarians, bloggers are continually wondering why they can't link to news articles permanently. Jenny at The Shifted Librarian has some amusing -- and intriguing -- thoughts on the topic today.

Weather or not:
It's strange weather time in South Florida. Fantastic photos of this morning's waterspouts in Herald.com today.

Voter rolls, part 2:
Erika Bolstad follows up with a story on statewide Florida voter rolls: counties average 75 percent voter registration, meaning they're carrying lots of 'deadwood'.
Investigative stories to your news reader:
Extra! Extra!, the IRE site listing new investigative stories every day now has an XML/ RSS Feedso you can set it up to appear in your news aggregator daily. No aggregator? You can still go to the IRE website and read it there.
More:
Bob Graham blog, terrorism database and new fun with GPS on Herald blog today.

Sunday paper:
The Miami Herald had some wonderful stories today, including one by Jennifer Babson on owning an island in the Keys, Ellie Brecher on medical help for Haiti and on travelers' identity problems, Jay Weaver on Cuban art forgeries, and more. But most impressive: Beth Reinhard and a team in The Herald's Broward bureau started a two-part series on problems of huge voter rolls in Miami-Dade and Broward counties with thousands of people who never vote. Fascinating followup to the 2000 election disaster, using voter roll databases and other databases to find people to tell them why they haven't voted.

Library directory:
Poynter's David Shedden points out the Libraries with journalism resources directory he maintains on the Poynter Website. Very nice, and pleased that David has added my Herald blog to the list. This blog is listed on his Journalism links page.

Blog rhythms:
I was intrigued this week to see several people linking to Salam Pax's photoblog, as if it were a new thing. It was mentioned on Boing Boing and went on from there. But the photos posted there are from mid-July, and I saw several postings linking to it when it started in early June or so. Interesting that these recent posters didn't notice it earlier. Goes to show yet again, what seems new may not always be....

Weekend update: The weekly reference collection/research gleanings:
For those interested in blogging, lots of news this week, including several interesting new blogs and address changes, below. The big news was that Typepad, the new blogging/blog hosting software from the makers of Moveable Type, went online for sale this week. If you're thinking about blogging, this might be the way to go. Costs $4.95-$14.95 a month, including photo albums. (for an example, Mike Wendland has moved his blog to Typepad, and it looks great: ej.typepad.com. Here's another recommended blogging service: PMachine (mentioned by Steve Outing in e-media tidbits).

Also, here's Waypath a new search engine for Weblogs. I may have already linked to this, there are so many now; several others listed on bloglist section of the Behind the News page.

If you've tried to access things on that page, you've noticed it's really unreliable lately. Even the photos on this page sometimes don't display because the Web space they're stored on is unreliable. This has been occurring ever since my Web provider, Earthlink, changed the URL from infi.net to infionline.net. It's too bad, the site was pretty reliable for 2 1/2 years but I can't depend on it any more. Guess it's gonna be time to start paying for server space somewhere. So many choices!

The useful links....

Reference

Canadian National Climate Data and Information Archives has weather data by station going back to 1840s.
News:

Google News Alerts

ZaSOS.com is a blog monitoring Kobe Bryant case news. For more links: Yahoo Full Coverage: Kobe Bryant.

Kobe Bryant searches make the Lycos50 top searches: analysis. (They won't publish the accuser's name either.) (Note: Kobe is 4th of alltime most searches, after 9/11, Iraq War, and Election 2000.) (via NDN blog.

Colorado State Courts: Media info on Kobe Bryant case

Iraq Body Count claims over 20,000 civilian injuries.
Tools:

Fagan Finder Translation Wizard has more languages than any other translator site I've seen. This from Michael Fagan, young Web search genius.

Questions for Candidates, From Robert Niles.

Ministry Watch religious groups' finances...
Journalism:

BBC Style Guide.

100 Worst "Groaners": I've linked to a similar list before, but this one from Newswriting.com is worth a look. One of my favorite Herald reporters, now retired Arnie Markowitz, would love this...it lists 'officials said', one of his pet peeves (along with 'residents said').

We Media report from NDN (New Directions for News) on participatory journalism. Related story in Online Journalism Review by JD Lasica.

Interview with Snopes.com creators in OJR.
Public Records:

New York Administrative Decisions nice searchable database (via BeSpacific).
Governments, Politics:

International Documents: Government Websites nice directory from NWU.
Statistics:

Facts for Back to School from Census.

International Insurance Statistics: latest update from Insurance Institute.

2002 Census of Russia
Florida:

Washington Post story on Florida's 'Matrix' antiterrorism database. MATRIX Website. I've seen some commentary on this about the Hank Asher connection, mentioned last week. Yes, Choicepoint was the company that provided the erroneous felon list to the Florida Elections Department that resulted in people being removed from the voter rolls. Although Choicepoint bought the company (DBT Online) that Hank Asher founded, it's a tenuous connection, since they also bought another Florida public records provider and already owned several others across the country.
Business, People, : No links this week.
Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

Babalu Blog: from Miami.

Regions of Mind the weblog by Omaha editorial writer has moved to a new address.

Darryl Cagle's Cartoon Weblog: fascinating stuff here.

Test Pattern: new Weblog on MsNBC by Gael Fashingbauer Cooper.
Fun/Entertaining:

College nicknames: How many 'Hurricanes' are there? Just three.....

Wood that Works: amazing kinetic sculptures from a Connecticut craftsman.

Amazing photos: Blogger/former MTV host/helicopter pilot Adam Curry took pictures of the Norwegian cargo ship loaded with luxury cars that sank in the English Channel a few months back: they're sawing the the ship into pieces and have raised a section...Take a look at these pictures. Infographic on the salvage Website.

Iraq Faces and Surfaces photos of people and places in Iraq: photos from a photographer who visited Iraq in 2002 and 2003. "With these pictures I want you to get a sense of the simple fact that Iraq is not only Saddam Hussein, weapons and wars. Iraq is 24 million fellow human beings. It has been a civilisation for some 7,000 years." (via Dublog.)

Aerial photography of Miami and the Florida Keys by photographer Joseph Melanson, who also has aerials of New England, other places.

A quiet day:
But a couple address changes to report:
Sheila Lennon's blog is now at this: www.projo.com/blogs/shenews/.
Mike Wendland has moved his blog to Typepad, and it looks great: ej.typepad.com".
Both of these redirect automatically.

Washington Post's Terry Neal says Florida is no longer the most ludicrous state in the nation.

For laughs: GWBush04.com, includes Dubya's Blog.

Good stuff:

Iraq Body Count claims over 20,000 civilian injuries. This new report is based on media coverage; says the interim government is not paying attention.

Colorado State Courts: Media info on Kobe Bryant case.

We Media report from NDN (New Directions for News) on participatory journalism. Edited by JD Lasica with introduction by Dan Gillmore; Lasica also has a Related story in Online Journalism Review. Also see JD's blog, where he displays the OJR story (and its sidebars) differently.

Also in JD's blog later today: Discussion of GoogleAlerts and Google News Alerts with input from Gary Price. Apparently GoogleAlerts has fooled a lot of people into thinking it's a Google service. Not so. Never was.

New today:

The Pied Piper of Blogging interview with Ken Sands of Spokane on the Spokesman-Review's popular blogs.

Google News Alerts enter a search and an email address and you'll get emails everytime your search shows up in a news report. This is different from GoogleAlerts mentioned last week, which is not a Google product and searches the whole database, not just news.

Waypath a new search engine for Weblogs.

In the news again...
Interesting to users of the public records databases Autotrack (when it was DBT) and Accurint, Hank Asher's past comes to light again. The computer genius behind these two search engines was connected to drug smuggling years ago and recently got a new anti-terrorism contract from Florida's FDLE. This story in St. Pete Times, with researcher contributions.

And, a couple good resources...

Robert Niles has a great list of Questions for Candidates, local and otherwise, on his Website. This is a great checklist for political coverage....

Ministry Watch this site evaluates religious groups, keeps eye on donations/finances... (both via Journalists Toolbox.)

More fun with style:
The BBC Style Guide is online, in PDF. I love to collect links to style guides, the differences in things they discuss are fascinating. This one has some wonderful discussions, including one on Americanisms. The blog I found this link on (can't remember where, now) was using this to add to the anti-BBC fog that's going around these days. Oh well. The style guide is part of a greater collection of free Online Courses for radio and visual journalists. How can you knock that?

This week's photos:
Here's the clouds over Miami Beach I mentioned on Tuesday (you could have seen it on the Heraldcam if you looked that evening)....



More photos (downtown Miami, Key Largo).

Weekend update: The weekly reference collection/research gleanings:
This week everyone must have been on vacation. Not many new links, and not much that'll remain a permanently useful reference source. Of course this Saturday update gets shorter as I've been adding more daily to this blog. And to the Herald blog, which gets a few of the things I might have posted here previously.

The useful links....

Reference

Moving Here tells the story of 200 years of immigration to Britain through records, photos, etc. from the national archive, in a huge searchable database. BBC story.

American Women a guide to women's studies from Library of Congress.

American Rhetoric: a database of greatest American speeches, including video and audio archive. Most popular movie speech: Mel Gibson as William Wallace's speech on Freedom, in Braveheart.

Physician's Guide to Assessing Older Drivers from the AMA.
News:

Ascribe Alerts sign up to get news of academic studies as soon as they're released.

Utah Digital Newspapers project: search several historical Utah papers online.

The top 100 newspaper archives a useful archive on best search services for consumers, in Searcher magazine. (NewsLibrary gets high marks.)
Tools:

Spamotomy.com: tools, fascinating news and information on junk mail.
Journalism:

Blogs have a place on news Web sites by Steve Outing, in E&P.
Public Records:

New criminal records: Kansas Dept of Corrections KASPAR search (inmates); Kansas postrelease/supervision searches released inmates, probation.
Governments, Politics, Florida, Business, People, Statistics: No links this week.
Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

Bill Maher starts a blog.

Here's a fascinating investigative series: Badge of Dishonor, about cops' abuse of women/wives/girlfriends, in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

A Heavy Toll: how overfishing has changed the world's oceans; New York Times series.

Random things for Wednesday:

Reported on NewsLib today: Word of Mouth: New Internet scam tells people they can get anonymous reports on what people are saying about them...for a fee, of course. Snopes.com explains.

The Siegal committee report from NYTCo on the Times' newsroom's troubles. Among recommendations: an ombsbudsman (E&P story).

Liquid man: move your cursor to make him float...(via Metafilter).

Newspapers lose lawsuit:
The Miami Herald and S. Florida Sun-Sentinel lose a federal lawsuit to overturn a prohibition against street vendors in traffic. (Herald story).

Mushroom cloud:
If you're online right now (6 pm Tuesday), check the Heraldcam for an amazing cloud formation over Miami Beach.

Korea:
Derek has a lovely remembrance on the 50th anniversary of the Korean War.

NYT front pages
Ryan at Dead Parrot Society tells us how to find an archive of NY Times front pages: about 18 months' worth.

Mentions:
Via Sheila Lennon: Ms. Musings, a blog on "Women, Media, and Culture" by Christine Capaiuolo on Ms. magazine's site.
And, from a message to NewsLib from Barbara Semonche: Links for copyeditors tip sheet for a class by Semonche, librarian at UNC's Journalism library. Thanks for the mention, Barbara!

That truck....
The Miami Herald's Tere Figueras talks to the men who outfitted an old Chevy flatbed and sailed it to Florida. And about that Coast Guard sinking:
"''Nos engañaron,'' Basanta said, quietly. They tricked us."

Weekend update: The weekly reference collection/research gleanings:
I was really surprised and happy to see the new Herald blog promoted on the front page of Herald.com yesterday (pointed out by Mike Meiners in Newslib-L). Since I suggested it (and it took awhile to make it happen) I was never sure if there was a place for a blog in the Real Cities plan (although, of course, Dan Gillmor's blog at siliconvalley.com is extremely popular, and a couple other KR columnists have tried temporary blogs). So it's nice to see it actually coming together.

So now that there are two blogs, where will the reference links go? I'm still planning on putting any new useful links I find here, even if I've also posted them on the Herald blog. But I don't want to duplicate everything so some of the guides and newsy things I might post there won't also show up here. I still think of this blog as the 'News Research' blog so this is where journalism and research news will remain. I still need to get a feel for what the other blog will be, but since it's on The Herald's site and aimed at 'Herald readers' it will certainly be less personal than this independent blog. Maybe it'll be a little like the difference between Derek's Scoop and Blandiose blogs....(Derek, you continue to be an inspiration....)

The useful links....

Reference

Archivos Virtuales papers of Latin American artists, from Smithsonian.

Aesop's Fables has over 600 fables online!

Older Adult Drivers factsheet from CDC. Also: Safe Senior Citizen Driving: a guide.

Household Products Database from National Library of Medicine, find out whether those things under your sink are safe.

Hearth: home economics archive, from Cornell University. Scanned books and articles from 19th and 20th centuries.
Statistics:

Global Edge great source for access to international statistics and country profiles, from Michigan State.

Charles Bowen (Reporters' Digital How To) in E&P writes on the County and City Data Book, 2000 from Census. This is a great resource I sometimes forget to check when looking for city/county rankings and data....
News:

RocketInfo: now a 'breaking news and weblogs search engine'. This has been a useful news search, now also finds news from blogs.

Google News advanced search lets you pick source, terms in headline, date, etc.

Two new Websites that compile current news from news sites and blogs: Daily Whirl (legal news) and Daily Rotation (tech news).

Tour de Francia 2003: great graphics from El Mundo, españa.

James Davis NYC council member killed in shootout. His "Stop the violence" Website.
Governments, Politics:

Government gazettes online a worldwide directory.

Encyclopedia of Campaign 2004 Part of GWUs' Democracy in Action site; has great collection of information from endorsements to media coverage, to candidate info including staff bios.
Tools:

GoogleAlert sign up to get email notice of any time your search terms appear in Google (this is not connected to Google).

Google News advanced search lets you pick source, terms in headline, date, etc.
Journalism:

Report from the Moblogging conference in Online Journalism Review.
Public Records:

Los Angeles County criminal courts search need to register and pay per search.

A guide to the U.S. federal legal system from LLRX, this is very complete, with links.
Florida:

WWI service records from Florida archives, scanned card files with each serviceman's record, including home address, time overseas, wounds or disabilities.

Sun-Sentinel property search: get recent sales by neighborhood, Broward and Palm Beach counties.

Monroe County occupational license search (by company name, see pulldown in lefthand column for owner, occupation searches).
Business:

BizLink nice guide to business reference from Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Library.
People:

Canadian Naturalization Database: find people naturalized between 1915-1932.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

Fast Forward a new media blog from NDN (New Directions for News).

Peoria Pundit by Bill Dennis, former author of the "Bill's Content" blog.

Baseballblogs.org find lots and lots of blogs on baseball.
Fun/Entertaining:

Beautiful photos of Mont St. Michel

Read this:
Are online search tools lulling journalists into laziness? in Online Journalism Review. This should be required reading in every newsroom and j-school.

On the Iraq situation:
The author of Liberal Media Bias blog has a powerful statement about the Iraq casualties....

Salam Pax had a lot to say about the Uday/Qusay situation:
"...Sanchez speaks only in Militar-ese, meaningless words come out of his mouth while we are all hanging on the edge of our seats waiting for one single picture, definitive proof. It is so easy, all it takes is to show us the friggin’ corpses. They do have them. Someone did see them and when asked why it wasn’t sown to the public they came up with the moral issues stuff. Habibi it didn’t bother you that all those Iraqis, Americans and British are being killed for dubious reasons, so why suddenly become so squeamish? Give the Images to Jazeera, moral issues have never stopped them from showing gruesome images, let them do your dirty work."

And this is what he said yesterday: "just to tell you that i would be really dissapointed if Uday and Qusay were really killed in Mosul. this is just the easy way out for them. they should have been humiliated in public, images of them handcuffed and being pushed around."

...Photodude has a different opinion on the decision to release the photos....

More on the blog:
I suggest if you want to bookmark the Herald blog, you book mark the intro page at www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/liz_donovan/. Because the blog isn't done with blogging software, the permalinks are only linked to the page they're on, and once I start moving files into the archive, I'll have to create new pages for the current blog if I want to keep the permalinks working. That means the page the blog's on today (www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/columnists/liz_donovan/5471055.htm) won't remain current. Unless I can figure out a better way to do this.......

OK, you have to see this:
We've had some interesting stories about Cuban rafters over the years, but this one may beat all: Cubans try to 'drive' over Florida Straits. Check out the photo.

Let's try this again:
Last week I posted, a bit prematurely, it turned out, a link to a new blog I'm doing on the Miami Herald Website. The blog existed and was expected to go live but it took a week longer than expected. Although some tweaking still has to be done (the link will be under Columnists), there is now a cover page for the blog. This is the direct link.

News flash!
Readers want more coverage of U.S. military casualties in Iraq, according to the reaction to last week's Editor and Publisher story. It just makes sense.

New on Monday:
Tony Blair for president: interesting concept. Constitutionally unsound.
An AOL journal: first test of the new blogging service by Dan Gillmor.
Dallas Morning News' EdBlog: editorial board comments and answers to readers' questions.
Are you a threat to the Bush administration? Take this quiz and find out.

Sunday night:
...and time for a few new photos: Daylilies and firecrackers:

more photos....

Journalism stories:
Don't you love 'em? Miami's Gene Miller, who's heard a lot of them, tells a few in The Herald today. Is this a great news town or what? (Note my contribution, at the end.)

Also in The Herald: Columnist Robert Steinback starts a new Q&A Forum, where he takes readers' questions/comments on his columns or any other topic they want to discuss.

And: the uncomparable Enrique Fernandez on Celia Cruz. As he did with Compay Segundo a few days ago, he gets to the essence:
"Celia was a contralto, with the power of a tenor. There was something paradoxically androgynous about her. She sang with a man's brute force -- even the voice of the great Beny Moré was more delicate. Yet she danced, moving an hourglass body that was almost mythically female."

Weekend update: The weekly reference collection/research gleanings:
A little late again this weekend, I liked the sunflower photo (below) so much I wanted to keep it at the top of the page as long as possible....

The useful links....

Reference

Google University Search search college Websites.

Encyclopedia of Television from Museum of Broadcasting.

Chicago Manual of Style

USDA Plants Database you can download a national or state plant checklist, look up individual plants, get lots of info on plants & environment.

Middle East Directory: guide to Websites.

Online Etymology Dictionary is looking for word sponsors.

AllChin Files: this Website has lots and lots of good reference files, calculators and the like. Among them, USA driving distances between cities, and World air distances between cities (Miami not included). One I'll use: Web colours (via Al's Morning Meeting).
Statistics:

Immigration: Shaping and Reshaping America detailed report from Population Reference Bureau.

Population Reference Bureau's Graphics Bank has population-related Powerpoint slides.

2003 Metropolitan areas info on the newly redefined MSAs.
News:

Foreign Language Newspapers online a directory from MIT libraries.

Liberia: information from National Geographic.

Liberia page: guide to resources from U. Penn. African Studies dept.

U.S. Postal Service team, Tour de France has daily tour logs and photos.

World Press Review still around, and even better online, with special features on topics like China's Three Gorges.

Oxford American has shut down (again). Does that mean the end of the music issue?
Governments, Politics:

First Read: new daily political news/gossip from NBC.

Buying Influence special report from Center for Public Integrity on 527 committees' campaign contributions.

On this note, the IRS has created a new Political Organization Filing and Disclosure site, where you can search for 527s and forms 8871 and 8872.

2004 presidential election contributions analysis from OpenSecrets.org.

U.S. Elections Atlas has detailed results, including presidential results from 1789 on, down to counties....

Unstacking the Deck new book on understanding campaign finance from IRE. One of the authors: TheScoop.org's Derek Willis.
Journalism:

Future of online journalism interview with editor of Online Journalism Review Michelle Nicolosi in journalismjobs.com. She says newspapers should embrace blogs.
Public Records:

Yahoo's public records online Chris Sherman of SearchEngineWatch on personal information available from Yahoo! (via USSearch.com).

Even Shredded documents can be reconstructed: NYTimes story; Research report.
Tools:

More Crayons: lots more colors (over 4000) for Web designers.

TEK search: MIT offers a search for people with no access to high-speed (or even medium-speed) internet. You submit a search and get results emailed to you w/in 24 hours.
Florida:

A new Florida blog: South of the Suwanee, on "Society, history, and politics".
Business, People: no links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

From Romenesko: Reading this story warrants a visit from the FBI? (Just keep this in mind....

Also: The St Pete Times gets the real story on the Naples lemonade stand.

British political blogs links to blogging MPs and others from The Guardian.

Macon reacts to Sex and the City slur.

Rhode Island police raid Naragansett smoke shop 'native American' cigarette sales no longer exempt? A good story for any paper near reservations (we have Miccosukee and Seminoles, with casinos and smoke shops, here). This report (with links) on Sheila Lennon's blog.

John Dean says the WMD case needs a special prosecutor.

The Trouble with Google: good dissection in Slate.

Coming soon: a Salam Pax book.

A new Florida blog: South of the Suwanee, on "Society, history, and politics".

Liberal Bias Media, a blog: "You've heard the media talk about a liberal bias media, but always wondered ''where is it?'' Well, this is it!" by "Heckraiser".
Fun/Entertaining:

The Periodic Table of Dessert.

Disneyland Postcards

Turner Online a favorite visit at the Tate Gallery.

1 World Recipes from around the world, concentrating on spicy, from Dave DeWitt, former publisher of Chili Pepper magazine.

Dave's making trouble again....

Sunflowers:

A perfect summer photo, from Cornwall. Charles Winpenny seems to be away, and has posted some of his best recent photos on the Cornwallcam site, so maybe that means this photo will stay for a few days, at least...

Meanwhile, in Murphy....
Officer Jeff Postell given an award by NC legislature; story in the Cherokee Scout. Also in the Scout: Postell catches another fugitive (look down the page in Townsend column). Love that small-town news.

Who copyedits blogs?
The perpetual question, and one that there's no answer for, except, that bloggers fact-check/edit each other. Well, here's my contribution: in Poynter's E-Media Tidbits, yesterday's entry on the death of Celia Cruz says she died in Miami. Not so, it was in Fort Lee, NJ, her longtime home. Her body is being flown to Miami today for a viewing but will be returned to New York for burial.

Need a heartwarming story?
How about this one: Love trumps poverty in custody dispute by Carol Marbin Miller in the Miami Herald, about an unemployed mom finally getting to adopt the son she's raised for four years.

Noticed this morning:
Republicans for Dean, brand new blog.

And: more on the Bob Graham NASCAR truck team by Cammy Clark in the Miami Herald. What a story: first major sponsorship by a presidential candidate, first win in its first race with the Graham logo, driven by Jon Wood of the legendary racing Wood family. Cool!

Some interesting things today:

What's the true number of coalition deaths since end of the Iraq war? This article in E&P points to Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, which says 85 have died since May 2, not 33. (They're also counting non-combat deaths.) Is this the database I asked for last week?

Slate answers today's burning question: How do you pronounce 'Niger'?

Bob Graham's campaign stop in Roanoke featured NASCAR and bluegrass. How can he lose?

A new Florida blog: South of the Suwanee, on "Society, history, and politics".

LA Blogs covers the Santa Monica market tragedy.

Future of online journalism interview with editor of Online Journalism Review Michelle Nicolosi in journalismjobs.com. She says newspapers should embrace blogs.

Operation "Air Conditioner" group trying to help troops by sending staples, getting AC. Note Baghdad weather report at bottom of page. Looks like it's working.

Another Cuban legend:
Celia Cruz dies , from Miami Herald; from the Sun Sentinel.

Want to publish a book?
Now you can Do it online. CafePress will now take a PDF file you send them (and give you a link to software to convert to PDF), help you design the book online and set a price, and sell it. They take about $4-5 per book, you decide how much more to charge. If you have a Website you can advertise a link to order form.

Iraqi women:
Insecurity driving Iraqi women indoors: new report from Human Rights Watch (story). Text of report.

Involving researchers in investigations:
St. Paul Pioneer Press special investigation finds state politicians (including the governor) were paid fees by a phone company which cheated customers. This giant project involved several reporters and researchers and lots of documents posted to their Intranet. (Note researchers' credit on story.)

Can't resist posting this one:
Ancient British...lasagne? recipe found in a medieval cookbook. From BBC.

And: Welcome to the Blogosphere from USA Today.

In Tuesday's Herald:
Enrique Fernandez on the real Compay Segundo: "Repilado was Eros and Orpheus rolled into one, fueled by a sexual energy that defied age and interpreted by a masterly combination of instrumental dexterity and seductive voice."
(Added later:
the Sun-Sentinel has a music review, coverage of the Havana wake, and AP coverage of today's funeral.)

And, Tom Fiedler announces a new management team for The Miami Herald: four managing editors, a first?

Compay Segundo:
If you're a fan of Cuban music, you're probably mourning this legend (Reuters story). Some links: Obits in Granma, Juventud Rebelde ; info in AfroCubaWeb, includes discography, other information and links, and two Granma profiles in English. Bio from American representation agency International Music Network; Information, photos, album lists, from Slipcue.com; Bio and interview en español from La casa del son.

New journalist blog:
Via Metajournalism, report of a new blog from the Newsroom-l discussion group. This is brand new, but purports to be a public face for the discussions on the listserv, something we're still thinking about for the Newslib discussion group's blog .

Weekend update: The weekly reference collection/research gleanings:
The update didn't happen on Saturday since the power company was moving a pole behind our house (the existing wires went too close to the new monstrosity being built right next to our property line). Of course, although FPL reps did warn us the day before that they would be doing the job, they didn't bother to tell us before they disconnected the wire. Good thing I had just saved my work before I walked away from the computer for a few minutes. When I came back, all was dead. We had to leave the house for a couple hours, since inside a Miami house in July is not the place you want to be when there's no air conditioning, or even fans, running. Just another annoyance in the ruination of our once-pleasant neighborhood. How long can we take this? Just the workers' noise and trash is enough to drive us batty....

Anyway, back to the research links, including some different takes on current news:

The Guardian's take on Terry the coma boy is a bit more interesting than the wire story. Note the "what's happened since 1984" section at bottom: "Someone should tell you about Aids, but perhaps we'll let you recover a bit first...Phones are now mobile, discs are now compact and computers are now personal. You can still get digital watches, however...Victoria Principal didn't marry Mark after all; she woke up and found Bobby in the shower and realised it was all a dream. Falcon Crest has been cancelled."

Timeline on Niger uranium claim from Howard Dean website; from DNC (via Oliver Willis).

From Victory to Success: Afterwar policy in Iraq: new report from Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The useful links....

Reference

Foreignfilms.com

Funding for the Arts a national database of publications, awards, grants, etc.

CheeseNet everything you could want to know....

Toxic release inventory latest data from 2001 now posted at RTK net. This is EPA data on pollutants.

Neighborhood Preservation Center database: search for links, resources on neighborhoods.
Statistics:

Hispanic Population of the U.S. latest stats from Census.
News:

Article discussing value of online news archives in Searcher magazine.
Governments, Politics:

Supreme Court arguments in MP3 format from Oyez, Oyez. Has several cases from 1950s and 1960s, adding more.

Report on Diebold elections systems failures: possible to 'rig' elections using this system? (Used in A lot of Florida counties.....) Main Black Box Voting website.
People:

Nevada's online Census the state has created a database that lets you search names or data from the Censuses of 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, and 1920. Very cool.

Football salaries database from USA Today.
Journalism:

Fundacion nuevo periodismo hispanoamericano

First Amendment Center

Harvard magazine publishes fake obit (the alumn decided to get off the mailing list by declaring himself dead -- and wrote his own obit). This in blog of Harvard news service's librarian, Jessica Baumgart.

Moblogging: the future of journalism? in Online Journalism Review.
Business:

Forbes' Global 2000: the world's biggest companies.

Canada's Power Book: top 1000 companies and other lists from Toronto Globe and Mail.

AmLaw 100 nation's largest law firms, from American Lawyer.
Public Records, Tools, Florida: no links this week.

Some Interesting stories/Weblogs:

Metajournalism.com a new journalism weblog.

blog.forwriters.org this site provides free templates, software and space for writers' weblogs.

8 Good People: unemployed journalists telling stories.

How to keep up on news about search engines and comparisions, article in LLRX.

Maproom Blog a weblog about maps.
Fun/Entertaining:

Freshmangos.com has information on mangos (including how to eat them) and lots and lots of recipes.