www.50states.com

http://www.50states.com

Quick....With a few clicks of the mouse find the high school,college, and professional sports teams in Massachusetts, with links to the web sites. Now do that for our other 49 states. These and numerous other "fast facts" can be found on this comprehensive, easy to use site.

Also included are facts and useful information links arranged specific to each of the 50 United States of America. State homepage, capitol tours, constitution, driving rules, election links, genealogical resources, newspapers, maps, political representatives, state symbols, tax forms, topography, tourism, veteran affairs, weather, and more. I especially liked the links to the state home pages. This site will assist the many questions librarians answer about a state flower, bird,flag, or emblem. Worth a look, perhaps even a bookmark.

One of Life's Little Mysteries

I've noticed a recent trend in the cover art for biographies of historical women to use portraits that only show the subject from the neck down. "Jane Boleyn" by Julia Fox, "Elizabeth and Leicester" by Sarah Gristwood and "Shakespeare's Wife" by Germaine Greer are all examples of this type of cover; there are even two new biographies of Catherine the Great, one by Simon Dixon and the other by Virginia Rounding, that use headless portraits. I'm wondering why this style of book jacket has become popular. It strikes me as vaguely demeaning to the subject of the book; but maybe the author is just trying to imply that we are unable to know her thoughts. Does anyone have an answer or a good theory? Have you seen any covers of this type on biographies of men?

Rotten Tomatoes: Movies Reviews and Previews

Don't let the name of this web site fool you (http://www.rottentomatoes.com/). In the world of movie reviews and trivia, it is anything but rotten. In fact, it is what companies like Midwest Tapes use to rate the selections that librarians will ultimately choose from. Below is taken from the web site:ABOUT ROTTEN TOMATOES
Like most of you, we love movies … all kinds of movies. Whether it's the latest sci-fi mindbender, visual effects romp, or intimate and personal character-driven independent film, we're there front and center. Life before RT and our Tomatometer was fairly tough when it came to organizing weekends of movie watching at the local cineplex. Sure, we could rely on our local critics or word of mouth, but where was the consensus? Why should we rely on a single critic who may have a particular taste in film different from ours? Couldn't we organize and collect all of the reviews from a variety of sources (newspaper, online, magazines) and average them into a single score? We could and did.

Over 7 million readers each month use RT globally as a dependable, objective resource for coverage of movies and DVD. With more than 250,000 titles and 850,000 review links in its ever-growing database, RT offers a fun and informative way to discover the critical reaction on movies neatly summarized via the Tomatometer.