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The Peking Duck
It’s next to impossible to imagine what it was like on the ground at Hiroshima when the atomic bomb fell on August 6, 1945. But what if the blast had been ten times more devastating than it was? Utterly inconceivable. There is no way to visualize it. And yet the Tangshan earthquake that tore the coal-mining city into rubble on July 28, 1976 was equal in magnitude to 400 Hiroshimas.
Pauline Francis studied French at the University of Manchester and became a French teacher in London, before marrying and going to live in Africa. She later studied for an MA at University College London, majoring in Children's Literature, and became a full-time writer. Raven Queen is her first novel and won the Highland Book Award; it was followed by A World Away and Traitor's Kiss . Pauline lives in Hertfordshire and describes writing as 'the dream I never knew I had'.
normblog
Natalia Antonova
* – I mostly just threw in that last bit for the hysterical Google search terms that will show up in my stats. Maybe . I have no idea who Lisa Taddeo is, first of all. The fact that I’m even blogging about her just shows you how derivative the Internet is. A friend sends a link of this Jezebel piece that’s skewering Taddeo’s Esquire piece - and I am right in that place where my stamina is too low for work and too high for just gazing out the window and muttering curses about the un-spring-like weather, so I read both. And while there’s plenty to make fun of in Taddeo’s piece (she writes sentences like “…her blond tresses cascading murderously across the tile like southern blood” – which is… No.
Liberal England
Designed by the great Victorian architect Alfred Waterhouse and opened in 1887, the National Liberal Club is a work of art in itself. Gothic towers and pinnacles pierce the Whitehall sky: its wine cellar is formed from the remains of an attempt to build a railway under the Thames to Waterloo. Between them are to be found portraits, busts and engravings that tell the story of the Club, of the Liberal Party and of British political radicalism in general. This elegant illustrated booklet by Michael Meadowcroft, the Club’s honorary librarian and a former MP for Leeds West, makes a fitting celebration of this collection. It is an expanded edition of one written by Veronica Herrington in 1997, and its indexes of artists and sitters make it easy to use.Davids Medienkritik
Let's face it: Media tend to over-report the most vile and extreme aspects of our society. "If it bleeds - it leads" is much more than a cliche - it is a journalistic fact of life. The danger with the daily sensationalism is that it skews the viewer's perception of reality. In other words, a viewer is apt to believe that the world around him is a much more rotten than it actually is.
Welcome! The EUobserver Blogs adds personal opinion and debate to our day-to-day news coverage of European Union affairs. Our individual blogs are listed below.
A View from the Outfield
First Draft
I always find it amusing when politicians use newspaper articles in their ads to support their claims, especially when those claims are tied to numbers. Speaking as a journalism sinner, a good number of us went into journalism because we had a phobia regarding math. I’ve known great, award-winning journalists who couldn’t balance their checkbooks, so when I see ads like this one from Scott Walker , I must pause and ponder.
Israel Policy Forum | Policy, Advocacy and Analysis in Support of US Diplomacy in the Middle East
Following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress, prospects for an immediate resumption of negotiations with the Palestinians appear slim. However, there were markers, albeit nuanced and subtle, set by both President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu in their respective remarks that create opportunities for progress in the diplomatic discourse. Those who recognize the critical importance of achieving a two-state solution for the Israeli, Palestinian and American peoples should remain focused on constructive possibilities, not the rhetorical obstaclesYappa Ding Ding
People keep saying that 2012 will be the year of protest in North America - the year when ordinary people rise up and demand better treatment from government elites. For example, the Occupy movement is organizing a general strike for May 1. I'm all for that. I think it's crazy that Canada doesn't have stronger employment laws to protect employees, that we don't provide a way for the majority without pensions to save for our retirement, that we don't have lobbyists to fight for ordinary non-unionized working people, that our top tax bracket is so low that we are killing the principle of progressive taxation, that we're in a state of perpetual war. I have written about these issues many times.
Jordan's cabinet shuffle , in which I discuss the implications such as they are of the new Jordanian government lineup. If I had waited a day, I could have added a senior Islamic Action Front leader rolling his eyes and saying "that doesn't matter."
Abu Aardvark
They went out of their way to praise Israel, lauding everything we had been doing, condemning every bit of criticism, however harmless it might be. It became downright embarrassing, since some of us in the Knesset were very critical of our government’s policy in the occupied territories. For me, this extreme kind of pro-Semitism is just disguised anti-Semitism.
Desertpeace
Syria Comment
Maps of the Syrian Conflict : Please acknowledge either syriamap.wordpress.com or, if you have space, as Brendan O’Hanrahan & Esther Kim, or Kim & O’Hanrahan.. The Week’s Round UP - Because the Annan Truce has been so badly observed by both sides – government and rebel- most observers have struggled to apportion blame.Kijk, als ik adviseur van het kabinet was, zou ik zeggen: zet het leger in! Als we dat nog ergens hebben tenminste... Het gaat namelijk van kwaad tot erger.
Verbal Jam weblog
If you've been wondering why I haven't blogged so much lately, it has only partially been because I have been very busy. The whole truth is that blogs are outdated, and I've been spending my spare net-time on Friendfeed, where I almost exclusively converse in Persian, and that alone has been really great. Without warning today, Friendfeed decided to switch over to its beta version, and all of us who were online collectively freaked out. The well-known blogger sibil tala volunteered to write sample notes of complaint for the Persian speakers who wanted to give Friendfeed comments on the new website but didn't have the English skills to do so. But at one moment, she started to write sample letters for specific groups and individuals, and so the letters turned into hilarious and brilliant satiric comments on contemporary Iranian culture.