Why are Democrats so keen on Russia? (That is taken from here.) Good to see that we're not forgotten.
2. An interesting and depressing account of one (successful) man's student debt, combined with his family's debt. "Or was it my fault for not having the foresight to realize it was a mistake to spend roughly $200,000 on a school where, in order to get my degree, I kept a journal about reading Virginia Woolf? (Sample passage, which assuredly blew my mind at the time: “We are interested in facts because we are interested in myth. We are interested in myth insofar as myth constructs facts.”)" What price can you put on being able to translate the Dream of the Rood into the modern vernacular? ($200,000, it seems.)
3. The diversity con - a left-wing critique of "diversity". I'd frame a lot of the points made quite differently from the author, but it's well worth reading, and it also fits in nicely with the points I was making about the capitalism of modern feminism. Cui bono is not the only question to ask about politics, but it's not one to forget.
4. Lovely pictures of Ivan Kupala Night celebrations. Nothing to do with politics. And yet politics so terribly saturates culture nowadays that, as I look at the photos, I can almost see them being used in an advertising campaign for the Belorussian equivalent of Brexit.
"Know how we gittee free? Cudjo tellee you dat. De boat I on, it in de Mobile. We all on dere to go in de Montgomery, but Cap’n Jim Meaher, he not on de boat dat day. It April 12, 1865. De Yankee soldiers dey come down to de boat and eatee de mulberries off de trees. Den dey see us and say, “Y’all can’t stay dere no mo’. You free, you doan b’long to nobody no mo.’ ”
Oh, Lor’! I so glad. We astee de soldiers where we goin’? Dey say dey doan know. Dey told us to go where we feel lak goin’, we ain’ no mo’ slave."
This fascinating account, from one of the last slaves smuggled into the US, had difficulty in finding a publisher because it was written as it was spoken (as you can see). But it's so vivid this way: you can almost hear the voice of the man, watching the Yankees eating their mulberries, and being told he was now free.
6. Signs of the times: Build-A-Bear causes havoc with discount deal. "Build-A-Bear Workshop was offering UK customers a chance to buy any bear, which can cost up to £52, for the price of their child's age.// At Leeds' White Rose Shopping Centre police were called when queues of "about a mile long" formed." From my limited familiarity with Build-A-Bear, I do not find this surprising.
7. A brilliant list of things that happen in Silicon Valley and also the Soviet Union, including "waiting years to receive a car you ordered, to find that it's of poor workmanship and quality", "promises of colonizing the solar system while you toil in drudgery day in, day out" and "Henry Kissinger visits sometimes for some reason".
8. Sam Leith on Lee Child. Worth it for the two sentences he quotes from Child.
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