Culture Watch

Joan L. Cannon writes: We went on trips to places that would yield the most various experiences in the smallest locales. For instance, an abandoned talc quarry where, with a jackknife as your only tool, you could return to camp with magnetite crystals, garnets, pyrites, and black tourmaline. I know that few people are of greater importance than the primary school teachers and young parents who initiate children into the practice of paying attention – not in a classroom or to lectures alone, but everything that proves to them that they are sentient and alive – in the present. more »

A paper peepshow resembles a pocket-sized stage set, complete with backdrop and paper cut-out scenes, which expand to create an illusion of depth. The world's largest collection, which includes over 360 paper peepshows along with other optical wonders, has been gifted to the Victoria & Albert Museum. more »

In the first experiment, 322 participants watched, listened, or read one of six communicators’ opinions about controversial political and social topics — war, abortion, and music — that they either supported or opposed. A second experiment tested whether the same effect held true for communicators' own written speech. Once again, observers dehumanized communicators with differing political beliefs, but their responses were more favorable when they saw or heard the speech being presented than when they read the speech. more »

Ever wonder what happens to all those battered bicycles chained to street poles or abandoned on bike racks, with rusting pedals, bent frames and missing tires or handlebars? In Denver, they're sold at auction. In New York City, they're sent to a scrap recycling center. And in Chicago, they're handed off to a nonprofit that donates many of them to developing countries where people may have no transportation. Bike Walk Wichita reconditions them for free and the police distributes them to homeless people who have jobs but no transportation. more »