Speaking of the Classics, I recently discovered to my shock and amazement that in Belgium, students still study Latin in secondary school. My Dutch teacher was talking about the structure of secondary school, and described how there is still a Latin/Classical Greek track, as well as a Latin/Math track that students almost have [...]

New work by Sophocles? Hesiod? Lucian? Euripides? A precursor to the Illiad?
All coming up, thanks to satellitte imaging technology and a century-old trove of manuscripts brought to Britain from Egypt.
In the past four days alone, Oxford’s classicists have used it to make a series of astonishing discoveries, including writing by Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod and other [...]

Anti-Japanese riots continued in a number of Chinese cities. Despite a meeting of the two countries’ foreign ministers, little sign of abatement. Given that the country where the rioting is happening is a one-party socialist state with nationalist leanings, there’s bound to be official connivance at some level.
Why is selling the PRC weapons a good [...]

As always with Italian parliamentary maneuvering, it’s a bit opaque, but two minor parties appear to have left the Berlusconi government. At least one wants the prime minister to stay, but with a different cabinet. The intentions of the other were not immediately clear. Early elections are not out of the question, ending Berlusconi’s quest [...]

Or the flamingo? Or the penguin? Or the whale?
They’re all there. Here.

Each one unhappy in its own way.
For some particulars on the American system, this recent article from the New Yorker.
Key quote: “That?s how a doctor makes money, [Roberta Parillo ... a financial-disaster specialist for doctors] told me. It?s a war with insurance, every step of the way.”

There’s a long article on Ukraine by two Tims, Garton Ash and Synder, in the New York Review of Books.
Regular readers of this site and Garton Ash’s Guardian column may not find anything revelatory, though I found this rather startling:
…the very large sums poured into Yanukovych’s campaign by Russian sources, which have been estimated [...]

I’m crossposting something I originally wrote for my own blog because I realized it’s probably of far more interest to Fistful readers than to my own.
In March I wrote in Slate about Gerry Adams and the IRA, and the theory advanced by Ed Moloney (author of the excellent A Secret History of the IRA) [...]

I’m a bit of a fan, given my dyed-in-the-wool Protestantism, but the unctuous coverage on CNN leaves me with an urge to say something irreverent.

Read more… or Read more right here… »

So here’s hoping for [...]

Because I mentioned Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver a couple of times earlier this year, I will now add that I’ve finished reading it. The pace picks up a bit around page 800.

Read more… or Read more right here… »
[...]