Varia

Why do I read the New York Sun? How many other papers last week led the front page with a Charles Willson Peale portrait of the Mohawk chief Joseph Brant?

The picture accompanied a review of a new history of the Iroquois Six Nations in the geopolitics of 18th-century North America. The same paper on March 1 carried reviews of a new biography of Michael Collins and of a history of newspapers in Early America.

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Serendipity

A Q&A with a biographer of William Jennings Bryan leads, via the comments, to an interesting blog, In Media Res, and thereby to another, Caelum et Terra, both of which find much to chew re the Crunchy Cons.

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Lost Worlds

Scientists have found what they believe are traces of the lost Indonesian civilization of Tambora, wiped out in 1815 by the biggest volcanic eruption in recorded history.

'Lost world' discovered in New Guinea shelters 40 new species, including this tree kangaroo.

A cave so huge helicopters can fly into it has just been discovered deep in the hills of a South American jungle paradise.

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Adieus

Charlotte Hays' Loose Canon sounds its last.

And in a loss to bibliophiles, A Common Reader goes out of business.

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Nota bene

A Sweet, Familiar Dissonance, described as "a mite whimsical in the brainpan."

Something Beautiful