It's that time of year again when I think about my twins, those people born on the same day as me. (A brief trawl through the relevant statistics suggests that somewhat more than 300,000 people were born that day, the world population at the time being around 3.5 billion and the annual birthrate somewhere between 30 and 34 per 1000 ( Read more... )

This is a fascinating book. Subtitled "A Search for Redemption in the Face of History", it chronicles the research of Warren Read, an elementary school teacher from Washington State, into the June 1920 lynching of three black men in Duluth, Minnesota, accused of a rape that had not actually happened. To his horror, Read discovered while doing some ( Read more... )

Here are a few more films that I have seen this year which I had forgotten about.

8) Operation Condor / 飛鷹計劃

Stars Jackie Chan with as his female sidekick the Spanish actress Eva Cobo - she was actually the reason I watched it because she is one of my twins. Anne knew nothing of Jackie Chan, so was enlightened and amused by the stunts, all of ( Read more... )

As you would expect.

( Read more... )

For and against.

Captain (Rtd) Valentine Esegrabo Melvin Strasser interviewed here, by Awoko.

The interview took place at a local pub.

Awoko: How do you receive the news that you are dead?
Strasser: I was shocked, as this place is filled with machines which manufacture rumours; and people can say nasty things about you simply because they are idle and all they do is ( Read more... )

Apparently it was all a vicious rumour. So his mother says.

Apparently V died yesterday. I don't make a habit of studying the lives of dictators of countries I otherwise know little about, but V shared my precise date of birth: like me, he was born on 26 April 1967. Unlike me, he was born to a young single mother in the capital of a developing country; like me he went to the local grammar school; unlike me ( Read more... )

I've celebrated my birthday on livejournal in past years by googling up relevant links to my date of birth. This year, WikiPedia has become so dominant that I can assemble an impressive bunch of dates just from that source alone. (It also of course provides a handy index for just how famous the individuals in question are, given the number of links ( Read more... )

Happy 39th birthday to:

Trish Doller, self-described "morning radio jock, punk rock mom, high priestess of DIY, bleeding-heart liberal and all-around awesome babe"
Simon Le Roux, South Africa-born architect and set designer for Finland's Ismo Dance Company
Dominic Jermey OBE of the British Embassy in Madrid
The Reverend Andrew Karnley, Apostolic ( Read more... )