Each day, my e-mail inbox is empty. I would like to know if there are any cool mailing lists that I can subcribe to that are work safe…you know, things I can read during lunch that won’t get me in trouble with questionable material. I’ve signed up for “a word a day” from wordsmith.org and breaking news alerts from CNN. Any other mainstream things out there? I prefer lists that deal with news/current events.
Sign up for Bloglines and sign up for some blogs. I recommend BoingBoing. Lots of wonderful things.
One of my favorites is Bob Park’s “What’s New.” A skeptical look at government influences on science. Bob Park is a past president of the American Physical Society. He’s got a particularly wry outlook. The weekly newsletter is always entertaining and informative. I recommend it highly.
Hie thee to CataList and do some searching. Some of the lists are inactive, or downright boring, but there’s a lot there to explore.
I get This Is True, little stories written by Randy Cassingham about strange news items with taglines that are pretty humorous. He covers everything from zero tolerance policies to stupid criminals. I much enjoy his sarcastic humor.
Randy also writes The Stella Awards, longer blurbs about unbelievable lawsuits (named after and inspired by the McDonald’s “I can’t believe coffee could actually be hot!”* lady Stella Liebeck). The Stella Awards is not published often, but Mr. Cassingham seems to put a lot of effort into checking and double-checking his (re-)sources.
Another one I like is Heroic Stories. It is a newsletter featuring a story written by an average person about how another person or inspirational (not re: god, more like confirms faith in [a few of] the human race) incident made a difference in his or her life. Think Chicken Soup for Your Inbox.
Each of those sites have a sampling of what their material is like. They’re all work safe, as are the emails, should you choose to join the lists. These three newletters are the only ones that have survived my moving through four email addresses over the last four years. 
*Ms. Liebeck probably never said this. I’m aware that it’s conjuncture, speculation, blah blah blah, on my part. 