Thursday, May 22, 2014

Bits and Pieces - May 22, 2014

As usual, posts about Ukraine, why nuclear plants cost so much, the Kremlin may be watching you on Facebook, and more at Nuclear Diner.

Could it be possible that we are coming to a time when we discuss some of the issues we need to discuss? The Atlantic has two impressive articles on two issues: Ta-Nehisi Coates on reparations for black Americans and Mary Adkins on rape. Lt. Col. Robert Bateman discusses the encroachment of fundamentalist Christianity on the military. He's not that specific, but that's what he's talking about. I've been getting fed up lately with our inability to resist the worst of what our society has to offer in these areas, and I hope we're getting to a turning point.

Our modern way of thinking of maps, and the great variety of maps available to us, began during World War II. Here's some history and cool maps.

A long and scholarly article about Russian as a lingua franca. France provided the first, with English following. Russians managed, often by force, to make Russian a lingua franca within their sphere of influence, but it never got to be as universal as they would have liked.

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