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While I was at Barnes and Noble the other day, I picked up the September issue of Current Technology. In their Texas Technology section they highlighted a really wonderful site that I'd like to let you know about. It's Texas Treasures. It is a new exhibit of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission.

The TSL (Texas State Library) has taken many of their historical documents and scanned them for viewing and study by everyone. This site holds a wealth of information for Texas history buffs. It's one thing to read about history from a textbook; it's another to read history from the actual document.

And what kind of "Texas Treasures" do we have at the site? How about William B. Travis' letter from the Alamo. Or Sam Houston's 1835 Proclamation calling for volunteer troops. Did you ever wonder about the origins of the Texas Seal and Flag? Here you'll be able to view the 1839 original color design sketch by Peter Krag. Did you know that in 1854 the widow of Davey Crockett received a certificate entitling her to $24.00 for her husband's service at the Battle of the Alamo? This is a treasure trove of Texas History. Visit this wonderful site at:

http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/lobby/treasures/

NetVote98

http://www.netvote98.mci.com

E- The People

I heard about this site while watching Good Morning America a while back and just now found my note. This is a really cool service. "E- The People" is billing itself as "America's Interactive Town Hall." They provide a service that allows concerned citizens to participate in community affairs. At the site you can send a letter or a petition to over 140,000 federal, state, and local officials.

From their site:

"If your car is swallowed up by a pothole the size of Poughkeepsie, E- The People can help you find the person you need to tell about it. You simply come to our site, click on "streets," type in your address and we'll forward your note to the right officials in your city. And if your public works commissioner doesn't have Internet access, we'll convert your concern to a fax. Are you an organizer? Why not start a petition about the same pothole and have 10 friends sign it?"

"Sure, you can accomplish this now -- providing you have a bit of luck, a lot of time, and three hundred phone books. But E- The People can make it a fast and easy process. Best of all it's free (we make money through advertising)."

Before you use the service, you must go through a simple registration process. You'll be issued a user name and password that is emailed back to you momentarily. To access E- The People, point your browser to:

http://www.e-thepeople.com/

Humor Time and Other Noteworthy Bits of Interesting Readings

• Did you know that "verb" is a noun?

• How can you look up words in a dictionary if you can't spell them?

• If a word is misspelled in a dictionary, how would we ever know?

• If two mouses are mice and two louses are lice, why aren't two houses hice?

• If Webster wrote the first dictionary, where did he find the words?

• If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue?

• If you've read a book, you can reread it. But wouldn't this also mean that you would have to "member" somebody in order to remember them?

• In Chinese, why are the words for crisis and opportunity the same?

• Is it a coincidence that the only 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable?

• Is there another word for a synonym?

• Shouldn't there be a shorter word for "monosyllabic"?

• What is another word for "thesaurus"?

• Where do swear words come from?

• Why can't you make another word using all the letters in "anagram"?

• Why do fat chance and slim chance mean the same thing?

• Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?

• Why do people use the word "irregardless"?

• Why do some people type "cool" as "kewl?"

• Why do we say something is out of whack? What is a whack?

• NOTE: If out of whack means out of order. Then Whack must be order.

• Why do we say something's out of order when its broken but we never say in of order when it works?

• Why does "cleave" mean both split apart and stick together?

• Why does "slow down" and "slow up" mean the same thing?

• Why does flammable and inflammable mean the same thing?

• Why does the Chinese ideogram for trouble symbolize two women living under one roof?

• Why does X stand for a kiss and O stand for a hug?

• Why doesn't "onomatopoeia" sound like what it is?

• Why don't we say "why" instead of "how come"?

• Why is "crazy man" an insult, while to insert a comma and say "Crazy, man!" is a compliment?

• Why are a wise man and wise guy opposites?

• Why is abbreviation such a long word?

• Why is dyslexic so hard to spell?

• Why is it so hard to remember how to spell MNEMONIC?

• Why is it that no word in the English language rhymes with month, orange, silver, or purple?

• Why is it that the word "gullible" isn't in the dictionary?

• Why is it that we recite at a play and play at a recital?

• Why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?

• Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?

• Why is the plural of goose-geese, and not the plural of moose-meese?

• Why isn't "palindrome" spelled the same way backwards?

• Why isn't phonetic spelled the way it sounds?

One summer evening, during a violent thunderstorm, a mother was tucking her small boy into bed.

She was about to turn off the light when he asked with a tremor in his voice, "Mommy, will you sleep with me tonight?"

The mother smiled and gave him a reassuring hug. "I can't dear," she said. "I have to sleep in Daddy's room."

A long silence was broken at last by his shaking little voice: "The big sissy."