Saturday Sharing (My Finds Are Yours)

We're one day from reverting to Daylight Saving Time and two from the Ides of March (and, no, I don't mean some event involving the band of the same name). That can only mean one thing: It's Saturday and time to share a few finds from all around the Web. This week's half-dozen items will make you happy to have that extra daylight tomorrow, if you ever get away from your computer.

✭ Word as Image will keep you busy and out of trouble for a while, as will Cartogrammar. Care to know how different age groups are using the Internet? This visualization is one way to look at the topic. Not interested? What about time travel in popular film and television? More to my own liking: this beautifully rendered map of artistic influences.

✭ GoogleBooks is offering a preview of Thomas Moore's enlightening new book Care of the Soul in Medicine. It will be in bookstores and at Amazon on April 15.

✭ You can get lost in exploration here — in your choice of English, French, or Italian. UbuWeb is a self-described "completely independent resource dedicated to all strains of the avant-garde, ethnopoetics, and outsider arts." It's as densely packed a site as I've seen, without doubt an "embarrassment of riches".

✭ Ever had a yearning to know about fractals?  The video Geometrica is just one example of what you'll find at Fractal Foundation. When you've had enough at the foundation's site, go here and imagine yourself going up, up and away in a flying fractal art balloon. Everyone should get to ride in one at least once in a lifetime!

✭ Painter Robert Shetterly's Americans Who Tell the Truth is a collection of portraits and memorable quotes of such famous Americans as Rachel Carson (at left), Rosa Parks, Mother Jones, Dorothea Lange, Howard Zinn, Abraham Lincoln, and James Baldwin. Before you leave the site, be sure to spend a few moments reading Shetterly's Artist's Journal. Prints and posters of Shetterly's portraits — they are a wonderful portfolio — are available here.

✭ Girls and women who have survived sexual abuse and domestic violence are the focus of self-empowerment initiatives of the nonprofit, nongovernment organization Emerge Global. Working in villages in Sri Lanka and out of offices in Boston, Massachusetts, volunteers and staff teach girls and women how to become leaders and entrepreneurs within their own communities. They use art to help program participants develop a sense of beauty, confidence, and self-worth (read about the Bead Program here); provide education; help guide the creation of businesses that will provide economic independence; and community-build to promote social support. The Emerge blog is here. Emerge's jewelry boutique on Etsy is here. The organization is on FaceBook and Twitter, too.

Now go play in the sun!