Friday, December 26, 2014

Six of the Best 482

A desperately moving post by Kate Gross, who died on Christmas morning.

Nick Sparrow asks how reliable online polling is: "pollsters are not innocent observers of public opinion, but active participants in the political process; not only reporting public opinion but helping to shape it. Participation that, the British Population Survey suggests, may rest on some very shaky foundations."

Living on Words Alone has videos of David Steel talking about the closure and reopening of the Waverley route,

How did roasting vegetables become a thing? J. Bryan Lowder explains.

"At a children’s birthday party,,, I inadvertently caused a ruckus when I launched a game of 'pin the tail on the Fierce Bad Rabbit,' reading aloud that Potter story in which a selfish bunny is menaced by a 'man with a gun' who shoots off his tail and whiskers. It tuned out that many of my fellow parents had not yet decided to “allow” their children to know that guns exist." April Bernard on the dangerous genius of Beatrix Potter.

Meanwhile Maurice Sendak, as Colin Marshall shows, once worked on illustrations for The Hobbit.

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