Weekend Update January 22, 2010

It's the weekend update! The weekend update!

The New York Times has an online-only feature called “Home Fires” that periodically prints letters and essays from U.S. military war veterans. Being a (peace time only) veteran myself, it’s always been high on my reading list. But on Sunday I found the letter from regular contributor Michael Jernigan especially fascinating. Mike lost his sight in Iraq and he has written some very poignant and touching entries about his struggles. This week he wrote about how important his guide dog, Brittani has been to him.

Last Wednesday, in the shadow of the Haiti disaster, what was the most read article on the BBC’s website? A dog that only understood Polish. The NY Times “Idea of the Day” discussed this briefly on Monday. There’s a link to the original blog post that pointed out the phenomenon, some very interesting discussion in the comments — and of course video about the dog.

They say the secret to getting web traffic is a good headline. I saw this, said “No, duh!” to myself and clicked. I guess it worked.

And last but not least, Daryn Kagan brings us an oldie but a goodie.

Have a good weekend. That’s an order.

Related Posts

1. Weekend Update for January 8, 2010
2. Weekend Update January 15, 2010
3. Weekend Update February 5, 2010
4. Weekend Update: January 1, 2010 (!)
5. Weekend Update October 3, 2009 (with Puppy Diaries update)