Friday Notes

A food timeline, from water, salt, eggs, fish, and rice, prior to 17,000 BCE, to deep fried Coca Cola, space cornbread, and Kool-aid pickles in our own time. Explore its many links! And don't forget the food history blogs: 18th C Cuisine, Eat Your History, Food History, and The Old Foodie. Hat tip.

Today is your last opportunity to vote on the new 7 wonders of the world. Voting will end this evening and the results will be announced in Lisbon, Portugal, tomorrow.

M,"Clockwork Creatures," Curious Expeditions, 5 July, features YouTubes of some remarkable automatons: a player of the hammer dulcimer, Joueuse de Tympanon, was made for Marie Antoinette in 1772, and restored by Robert-Houdin in 1864; a clip from a film about Robert-Houdin shows an acrobat automaton exercising on a trapeze swing; and a Kanji drawing wooden automaton from 19th century Japan.

Andrew Ferguson,"How to Design a Lincoln Museum": Step 1: Ask Disney for Advice and Step 2: Build a Roller-Coaster?Slate, 4/5 July, explains how Illinois came to build a Disney-like Abraham Lincoln theme park that they call the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

Kenneth W. Mack,"Which Side is Brown vs. Board on?" LA Times, 4 July, by the author of an anticipated study of the Brown lawyers, is essential reading on the Supreme Court's recent decision in the Louisville and Seattle cases. Thanks to Mary Dudziak, who adds her own commentary, for the tip.

Finally, Penn is losing two well-known African-American scholars. Elijah Anderson, a sociologist, is leaving for Yale; and Michael Eric Dyson, a Baptist minister and social critic, has taken a position at Georgetown.