Friend of the blog Jussi Jalonen has just posted, at the group blog History and Futility, the essay "Refugee Crisis and the North". Here, Jalonen takes a look at the way the Syrian refugee crisis has impacted both his Finland and neighbouring Sweden, looking at the political climate in both countries. One thing I particularly liked is his ( Read more... )

Over at History and Futility, co-blogger The Oberamtmann has posted a review of the new film Les Misérables.

I finally saw Les Mis: the movie . I have seen Les Mis the stage musical, including once in German in Berlin. I have not (yet) read the book that inspired the musical, so my review will not involve discussions of Victor Hugo’s original ( Read more... )

I've a post up at History and Futility noting the challenges faced by a particular language community--the users of N'Ko script, used by the Manding languages of Africa--and wonder briefly about the effects of the marginalization of relatively disadvantaged language communities. What's getting missed?

My co-blogger Jussi Jalonen at History and Futility writes about Finland's support for Ethiopia in the 1935 Italian invasion, with military volunteers and the Red Cross and all.

The international solidarity which emerged during the Abyssinian War did eventually spark a modest international volunteer movement. The Pan-African sentiments of the time ( Read more... )

(Crossposted.)

http://historyandfutility.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/how-every-detail-counts-in-large-amounts/

I owe my co-blogger Jussi Jalonen thanks for the superb job placing last month's massacres in Norway in the context ( Read more... )

Sesame Street's beloved characters Bert and Ernie--best friends, living together in a Manhattan apartment, doing everything together--have been subject to rumours that they're a same-sex couple for decades, as illustrated by a 1980 quote from novelist and radio broadcaster Kurt Anderson: "Bert and Ernie conduct themselves in the same loving, ( Read more... )

Over at History and Futility, my co-blogger Jussi Jalonen has written about how the ideas that inspired Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik to go about his mass murders this Friday past are pretty far from being idiosyncratic to him, that they are actually the product of a disturbingly broad and productive Internet-based movement of ideologues ( Read more... )

A chat with a friend last night reminded me that I'm lacking in original content. [LINK] posts are all well and good, but where's the commentary, the essay-like writing, the arguments I've made ( Read more... )

I've a post up at History and Futility made as I watch the Boston-Vancouver game, noting that the exciting series has demonstrated that Canadian do care a lot about the game--it explains so much about what has been going on here!

Go, read. And enjoy the game!

I've a post up at History and Futility linking to two interesting posts relating to problems in the information commons, Martin Wisse at Cloggie noting ("Wikipedia finally notices it's in trouble") that Wikipedia's famously open system of volunteer editors is collapsing, Michael Steeleworthy in ("Ranting about patting ourselves on the back") being ( Read more... )