Some things I came across on the internet yesterday:
Daniel Kitson had a nearly month long engagement at a theater in Brooklyn. In previous years he would only come to the US, and that means New York and only New York, for a couple days. But as before I only found out about it after since his awfully maintained website gave no advance notice of it whatsoever and only mentioned it six days into the show's run. I grudgingly joined his mailing list. I expect him to appear at Eugene Mirman's comedy festival in September as he has done previously and I plan to go there this time.
A link to an old Brad DeLong post about slavery brought up an interesting fact buried in the comments (don't bother reading the whole thing, it degenerates into some sort of religion/abolitionism/Confederacy argument). America, it turns out, was the only country in the New World where there was a natural increase in the population of slaves. And at a pretty healthy rate - roughly doubling in the 30 years before the Civil War. I thought that was the rule rather than the exception. I wonder what made America different from other colonies and former colonies. Also made me realize that I know very little about the life of slaves in America and that there has been very little treatment of it in the culture recently. The 70's had "Roots" but I can't think of a recent TV show or popular novel that talks about it. Although I haven't sought out this material and indeed may have avoided it.
Wondering about this cold January I was somewhat relieved to find out that things are indeed as bad as before and on track toward catastrophe. The Arctic had an unusually warm winter with temperatures twenty degrees higher than average for extended periods in some places. Global warming - still happening. After some link browsing I was informed that climate models predict a climate akin to Georgia in Maryland by 2080 (if not sooner). Thankfully I don't expect to live that long.