Let me ‘splain. … No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
E-Mail This Story: Of Kittens, Quinoa & Ron Paul
Every day on The Bryant Park Project we do a segment called “The Most,” where we bring you some of the most e-mailed, most viewed, and generally most noticed stories on the Web. We often feature a piece from NPR.org’s Most E-mailed Stories list in the process, but since we’re the low show on the totem pole, we too rarely find ourselves on there.
To encourage as many people as possible to do this, I’ve studied the types of stories that appear frequently on the list and incorporated as many of their key elements as possible. After substantial research I’ve concluded that the following topics are the cornerstones of NPR’s Most E-mailed articles:
* Food stories and recipes
* Neti pots (These ancient homeopathic devices are used for nasal irrigation. A story about them was #1 most e-mailed for 2007.)
* Star Wars
* Student life
* Scientific discoveries
* Quinoa (the super grain)
* NPR’s esteemed science correspondent Robert Krulwich
* The classical arts (theater/opera/symphonic music)
* Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul
* “This I Believe” pieces (stories of personal tragedy/loss and the overcoming of said loss)
With these popular topics in mind, I present the following NPR piece.
You can read or hear the full story at the link. It’s an excellent NPR parody, although not quite as good as the classic Saturday Night Live bit with Alec Baldwin.
And now there’s a follow-up:
NPR Most E-Mailed Stories (Any Day):
1. How [Guy] Uses His Church For [Not-Entirely-Sacred Purpose]
2. Making A Tasty Salad From [Blank], [Pun Word Related To “Blank”]-Style
3. [Foreign Word] [Foreign Word] [Foreign Word] Isn’t What You Think
4. When Your [Area Of The Body] Itches
5. How Nail Polish Remover Is Killing The Fish Of [Country]
6. Getting Your Boneheaded Kids To [Ancient Art Form]
7. Change Comes To The [Thing You’ve Never Heard Of]
8. [Disgraced/Disrespected/Hobbled Musician] Returns With Soaring “[Word From Title Of Song]”
9. Halting [Disease] With [Kind Of Dancing]
10. Teach Your Dog To Play [Board Game]
11. The Dramatic Tale Of The [Mundane Thing]
12. My [Family Member], My [Sturdy Object]
13. [Unlikely Concept]? [Declaration Of Certainty]!
14. [Powerful Institution] To [Upstart]: “Not So Fast”
15. Earth’s [Characteristic Of Planet] Threatened By New [Cosmetic Or Food]
16. [Long-Forgotten Writer] Returns With [Soon-Forgotten Book]
17. A Garden Of [Abstract Concept]
18. Don’t Ignore That [Type Of Blemish]
19. Rediscovering The Humble [Household Object]: From Junk Drawer To [Other Place Starting With “J”]
20. In [Country], Saving The [Kind Of Bird] Takes [Virtue]
21. A Videogame Where [Social Ill] Is The Real Enemy
22. Three Cheers For The [Kind Of Flower]: Is It Pollen Its Weight In Your Garden?
23. [Incredibly Serious International Incident]
24. Sowing The Seeds Of [Desired Outcome] In The Fertile Soil Of [Kind Of Children]
25. It’s A Purr-fect Time To Vaccinate Against [Cat Ailment]
Amazingly, it turns out that National Treasure wasn’t a great primer on national history: Great Seal Secrets Revealed!
The Seal will remain at the State Department but the interactive exhibit is designed to travel and curators hope it will dispel the rumors and educate Americans about the real meaning of the symbols.
Among the highlights:
_That known Masons like the first U.S. president, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin had no role in designing the final seal, which uses elements of traditional heraldry, such as the unfinished pyramid to symbolize a work in progress, arrows for war and an olive branch for peace. Masons share some of those symbols, but they have never been exclusively the domain of the order.
_That the phrase “Novus Ordo Seclorum” below the Roman numerals for 1776 at the base of the pyramid translates as “A New Order of the Ages” that began with independence and does not imply the United States will be the lynchpin of a sinister “New World Order.”
_That the words “Annuit Coeptis” (“Providence favors”) and the eye of providence that hovers over the pyramid refer to unexpected interventions of fate that assisted the colonists in creating a new country.
_That the references to 13 refer to the number of colonies that formed the original United States.
Because Hillary has said she just loves endless rambling about WoW instead of, you know, stuff about the baby or journalism or, well, anything else …
I’m late to the party, but I’ve been checking out World of Warcraft blogs lately. As expected, a lot of them are pretty bad — as are all blogs — but there’s also some surprisingly good ones out there. I haven’t found any good roleplaying ones yet (either they seem to just be painfully bad fan fiction or seem to ramble on about nothing indefinitely), but here are some out of character ones that I like:
- A Dwarf Priest – Jenn plays a dwarf priest in a similar way as the blog’s author and has a similar attitude about things.
- An Engineer’s Journal – My dwarf hunter is an engineer, and the topic’s handled well here. In addition to the narrow topic, it focuses on other things of general interest, much like the other blogs I’ve listed here.
- Banana Shoulders – I mostly just curse paladins in PvP, either for being incredibly tedious to kill or because they like to slap on Crusader Aura before we all jump off the rock to start an Eye of the Storm match, because somehow, getting to the nodes faster, but with a large chunk of our health gone is a good idea. That said, this is an extremely good general interest WoW blog.
So, Google News now has a local news feature. I’ve had it set to e-mail my phone with any news with the keyword “Hesperia” for a while now, although that means I periodically hear about wrestlers from Hesperia, Michigan or the Hesperia hotel chain. Now, I can narrow things down by ZIP code instead. It’s not immediately obvious that it’s a big improvement for me, but for folks in a smaller community, being able to zero in by your ZIP code will let you see what’s happening in your neck of the woods, even if you live in New York or something.
And if you live in New York, there’s another alternative for you: EveryBlock, which currently only serves NYC, Chicago and San Francisco, but it collects more data than Google News does, including Flickr images from the area.
It’d be interesting to see this model applied somehow to more traditional media.
At least, according to Lost’s Sawyer. It could be worse: He could have called me “Freckles.”
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