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Everett vs. Chomsky (11/09)
In Don't Sleep, There are Snakes, the elephant in the room—or rather, the elephant in the Amazonian jungle—is the noted American linguist, Noam Chomsky. To put it far too simply, Chomsky and Everett are feuding over which has supremacy in linguistics: genetics or culture, nature or nurture.
Chomsky's theory of universal ...
A Short Biography of Rasputin (11/09)
Rasputin's role within St. Petersburg's high society is detailed throughout
the first section of Sashenka.
Gregori Yefimovich Rasputin was born in a small village in Siberia in 1864 or
1865. At the age of 18 he was sent to a monastery, possibly as a penance for a
minor theft. He returned a changed man, and embarked on the life ...
The WPA's American Guide Series (11/09)
State by State was inspired by the American Guide Series, a project that grew out of The Federal Writers Program (FWP). FWP was established in 1935 as part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a New Deal agency created by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The FWP employed over 6000 Depression-era writers, editors, historians, researchers,...
The Salem Witch Trials (11/09)
From June through September of 1692, fourteen women and five men were hanged
in Salem Village on charges of witchcraft, and Martha Carrier was among them.
Nearly 150 men, women, and children were imprisoned, and an unknown number
perished while they languished in crowded jails for months until the trials were
brought to an end. ...
The Stanley Internment Camp (11/09)
Although Elizabeth does not talk about her experience in a Japanese internment camp during World War II except to mention that her parents died there, its memory definitely colors her feelings about Hong Kong. While we do not know for sure, it seems likely that the camp she was interned in was the Stanley Civilian Camp - a non-segregated ...
The Vidocq Society (11/09)
'Legend has it that if you give Vidocq two or three of the details
surrounding a given crime, he will give you back the man who did it---before
you've had time to blink. More than that, he'll describe the man for you, give
you his most recent address, name all his known conspirators, tell you his
favorite cheese. So compendious is...
"Crimes of the Century" (11/09)
Tacking down a precise date for when the term 'Crime of the Century' was first
utilized is not easy, but most scholars would attach the name of Jack the Ripper
to the creation of that notorious slogan. The killing spree in 1888 that resulted in the deaths of at least five accountable victims and possibly ten more was never solved, but...
Norse mythology and Runes (11/09)
Norse mythology is the best preserved version of Germanic paganism,
sharing the same essential pantheon with Anglo-Saxon mythology. Both have
their roots in a hypothetical Indo-European mythology that is believed to be at
the root of most pre-Christian religions in Europe and India (including
Hinduism, Jainism and Zoroastrianism) ...
Apartheid (11/09)
Apartheid (meaning separateness in Afrikaans*) was a system of legal
racial segregation enforced by the National Party government of South Africa
between 1948 and 1990.
The new system was a way for the white Afrikaner National Party to ensure
their control over both South Africa's economy and social structure. The key was
white ...
A Short History of Kenya (10/09)
The Republic of Kenya is located on the eastern coast of the African continent (
map).
It is approximately 225,000 square miles (580,000 square kilometers), with a
population of 38 million people (2008). The official languages are English &
Swahili, and Nairobi is its capital city. Primary exports include coffee and
tea.
The ...
S&H Green Stamps (10/09)
Chances are if you’re under 40 you might not remember S&H Green Stamps, but since I’m one step over that hill, I clearly remember licking those sticky little stamps and dreaming of all the possibilities they held as I carefully pasted them onto the enticing matching rectangles. For those of you who can recall pressing those ...
Britain & The USA in World War II (10/09)
Very often a parent gives life to a rebellious child and the two of them
engage in a lifelong love-hate relationship - until, for health or other
reasons, that parent needs help. At that point the prodigal child often returns
to step in at the parent's hour of need; though not always without a little
coaxing. Such was the case ...
World Expositions (10/09)
Although the first world exposition officially occurred in
1851 in London, enormous get-togethers were nothing new. Expositions
originate from markets in medieval times, where masses of people would converge
at major commercial route city centers. Lyons, Frankfurt, and Leipzig were
particularly noted for their early markets. ...
The Great Molasses Flood (10/09)
Prohibition was about to become the law of the land in 1919, and the Purity
Distilling Company wanted to make a last batch before their product became
illegal. They had a huge tank situated in the North End of Boston, which was
densely populated with Italian immigrants.
The company poured warm molasses into the tank on top of a ...
Death in Literature (10/09)
Saramago's characterization of death departs from convention in several ways—not least in her
insistence in remaining lower case: 'I am not Death, but death. Death is
something of which you could never even conceive, and please note, mister
grammarian, that I did not conclude that phrase with a preposition, you human
beings ...
Nanotechnology in Medieval Times (10/09)
Though Graceling is certainly set in a magical history, the time
period seems distinctly medieval, based on the descriptions of clothing,
weapons, buildings, and the general atmosphere. A descriptive passage towards
the end of Graceling made me wonder about the science and craft of
stained-glass-making in medieval times. Wielding ...
Entomology: Did You Know? (10/09)
Entomology is the scientific study of insects. Defining characteristics of insects are: three main body parts (head, thorax and abdomen), an exoskeleton and no more than 6 legs in their adult form.
'The geneticist J.B.S. Haldane remarked, when questioned by a cleric about the putative properties of God, that one sure characteristic of ...
Afghanistan 1979 - 1994 (10/09)
At the beginning of the novel, Lara, a character reminiscent, in her painful past and gracefulness, of Lara in Dr. Zhivago, arrives on Marcus's doorstep to uncover the fate of her brother Benedikt, who came to Afghanistan with the 1979 Soviet invasion...
The Soviets invaded Afghanistan at the request of the largely unpopular, pro-Soviet...
The History of Russia & The Soviet Union during the first half of the 20th Century (10/09)
The history of Russia and the Soviet Union during the first half of the 20th
century is complex to say the least, characterized by near-constant turmoil. The autocratic
reign of the Tsars came to an end in 1917, sparked by economic hardship
instigated by Russia's involvement in World War I, rapid urban growth, and
the rise of ...
Teenage Boys and Reading: Did you know? (09/09)
In 2005, The Washington Post published an article titled '
Why
Johnny Won't Read' that explored a worrisome trend:
'From 1992 to 2002, the gender gap in reading by young adults widened considerably. In overall book reading, young women slipped from 63 percent to 59 percent, while young men plummeted from 55 percent to 43 percent.'
The ...
Hammerfest & The Snow White Project (09/09)
Global warming usually suggests images of wild tempests and massive floods, but some countries are trying to tap into what they see as potential benefits of climate change. One of the numerous fascinating places that Stephan Faris visited to collect material for
Forecast is
Hammerfest in northern Norway. Billing itself as the ...
Predestination (09/09)
One of the crucial scenes in Home, a scene so important that it repeats and vastly expands on a scene from Gilead, occurs when John Ames and his wife Lila visit the Boughtons for dinner, and Jack discomfits them all by pressing Reverend Ames for his views on the doctrine of predestination. "Do you think some people are intentionally ...
The Africa-America Institute (09/09)
The work of the airlift organizers continues: The Africa-America Institute is a multi-racial, multi-ethnic, non-profit organization with headquarters in New York, and offices in Washington, South Africa, and Mozambique. Founded in 1953, AAI's mission is to promote enlightened engagement between Africa and America through education, ...
Real-life Spies (09/09)
The character of Colonel Forbes-James is based in part on the spymaster
Charles Maxwell Knight (1900-1968). After rising through the ranks of the
British Fascisti organization, Knight was recruited by M15 in the mid-1920's, and later headed up B5b, the division responsible for monitoring political subversion. As M15's chief agent runner, ...
Immersion Journalism (09/09)
Factory Girls is an example of immersion journalism. Immersion
journalism involves more depth than traditional newspaper reporting, which is
limited by column space and time, and includes less of the reporter's own
thoughts and reactions to events. Classic examples include Truman Capote's
In Cold Blood (1966), Joan Didion's
...
Resurrection Men (09/09)
When we think of grave-robbing, we usually think of dark tales involving
bandits pillaging graves for jewelry or other valuables. But the value of bodies
in the 19th century stretched far beyond that of their adornments.
Before people began donating their bodies to science, the only legal supply of
cadavers in the UK for medical ...
American Slavery in the Seventeenth Century (09/09)
Toni Morrison locates her novel at a moment of transition in American
history, the moment when, to use the historian Ira Berlin's terms, a society
with slaves became a slaveholding society. British colonialists had owned
African slaves ever since the founding of Jamestown, but in the beginning of the
seventeenth century, slavery ...
Post-Life Environmentalism (09/09)
Clara has such a detached attitude toward the more clinical aspects of her job as undertaker – removing organs, sewing the mouth shut, applying makeup – that her description of these tasks seems no different than a fishmonger discussing the gutting and filleting of salmon. And MacKinnon includes enough subtle hints as to the ...
Theory of Surveillance: The Panopticon (09/09)
The Panopticon was proposed as a model prison by Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), a Utilitarian philosopher and theorist of British legal reform.
The Panopticon ('all-seeing') functioned as a round-the-clock surveillance
machine. Its design ensured that no prisoner could ever see the 'inspector' who
conducted surveillance from the ...
Arabic Music (09/09)
Arabic Music is influenced by a history of conquest and contact with numerous countries including but not limited to Greece, Medieval Europe and Turkey. Elements of Arabic music can also be found in non-Arabic countries. A few common characteristics are the connection between music and poetry, and the use of
maqamat. In Arabic music, a ...
Chinese Propaganda Posters (08/09)
At one point in Lake with No Name, Diane Wei Liang recounts her harrowing childhood experience bringing cabbage in from the frost, a yearly event that all the children at the collective had to participate in to demonstrate their strength and patriotism. Liang describes becoming ill with fever after carrying damp, cold cabbages for hours, ...
The Great Chicago Fire (08/09)
The Great Chicago Fire burned from about 9pm on October 8th to early on the 10th, 1871. The source of the blaze is unknown; for many years it was believed that the fire was caused by a cow kicking over a lantern, but more than twenty years after the fact the reporter responsible for first publishing this story admitted that he'd made it ...
Estate Appraisal (08/09)
Jenkins' crackerjack antiques appraiser Sterling Glass unlocks a veritable Pandora's Box when she commences to open doors and snoop around the secret rooms and passageways of Wynderly. She quite literally uncovers ancient family secrets that might be best left unexposed to the harsh light of judgment. The problem is, however, many of the ...
Selective Mutism - a childhood anxiety disorder (08/09)
Isabelle is not diagnosed in
December but were she to be, she would probably be
diagnosed with
Selective Mutism, a childhood anxiety disorder. Some
therapists might even diagnose her with
Traumatic Mutism because of the immediate onset and her total silence. Most children with SM are not completely silent all the time. They are silent...
The Frank Landslide (07/09)
Most of
The Outlander is fictional, but the slide at Frank, which
catastrophically plagues the closing third of the story, is based on the factual
landslide at Frank, Alberta in 1903.
Frank, Alberta was a small Canadian mining outpost that was inaugurated as a
town in 1901. On April 29, 1903, 74 million tons of limestone
slid ...
A Short History of Vietnam (07/09)
Vietnam's history has been one of repeated invasions and resistance (
map of Vietnam today). For most of the first millennium AD, Vietnam was controlled by the Chinese. A final rebellion in 938 led to Vietnam achieving independence until the mid 19th century when increasing parts of the country were defeated by the French. The ...
Afghan Culture and Customs (07/09)
Afghanistan's 33 million
people are made up of more than twenty
ethnic groups with their own distinctive languages and cultural mores. The largest and most dominant of these groups, politically and economically, are the Pashtuns (42% of the population), The second most populous group are the Tajiks (27%). Smaller groups include the Hazaras...
Biogas Digesters (07/09)
In The Big Necessity Rose George introduces readers to biogas digesters in rural China. Biogas digesters (often shortened to biodigesters) are permanent structures, usually constructed of cement, in which waste (human, animal and agricultural leftovers) decompose in the lower section causing the micro-organisms to release methane that is ...
Interesting facts about the London Eye (06/09)
The London Eye, the fantastic and graceful Millennium structure that
dominates the skyline of 21st century London, is as much a character in the
novel as Ted, his sister and the mystery.
- It took seven years and the skills of hundreds of people from five
countries to make the London Eye a reality.
- Since opening in 2000, The ...
Australian Vernacular (06/09)
Being a novel from 'Oz', the pages of Breath are casually sprinkled with words not found in most non-Australians' vocabularies. While 'blokes' and 'fags' are easily recognized as meaning 'men' and 'cigarettes,' other descriptive terms remain cloaked in obscurity. To counteract this sense of puzzlement, here is a regional translation chart...
Helping Injured Birds (06/09)
The
WildBirds.com website offers the following advice if you come across an injured bird:
If you find an injured bird, make sure it is really injured before you act. Often the bird is simply stunned. It may fly away in a few minutes if you leave it alone. Birds often become stunned by flying into glass windows.
If the bird has a ...
Hakawatis and A Thousand and One Nights (06/09)
Once upon a time, not terribly long ago, hakawatis, or storytellers, were
commonplace fixtures on Middle Eastern streets. As coffee-drinking gained
popularity in Ottoman times, the hakawatis moved from the streets into the
coffee houses. Hakawatis were paid by the owners of the coffee houses to draw
customers, and the best could ...
The Language of Wales (06/09)
Wales, located on the south-west peninsula of Great Britain (the main island of
the United Kingdom)
is one of the four constituent nations of the UK, the others are England,
Northern Ireland and Scotland (
map). Its population is about 3 million (5% of the UK).
For more about the history of Wales, see the sidebar to
The ...
Very Short Histories of Afghanistan & Iraq (06/09)
Iraq and Afghanistan are countries with deep histories and multiple ethnic
and religious citizen groups.
The geographical area that today is
Iraq is regarded by historians as the site of some of the earliest human
civilizations, including the Sumerians (who lived between the Tigris and
Euphrates rivers in
Mesopotamia,
a ...
The Cuban Bolero (05/09)
The Cuban bolero is the first internationally recognized music form to originate in Cuba. Closely related to trovador songs and habaneras, boleros are songs of romance, featuring themes of love and heartbreak. The music is most often slow, sensual and deeply romantic.
The
Cuban bolero
is often confused with the Spanish bolero. The ...
Doppelgangers (05/09)
When Cassie sees a woman lying stabbed to death who looks exactly like her, with an ID that matches the identity she used for years as an undercover detective, it seems clear that she is looking at her own doppelganger.
- The dictionary describes a doppelganger (or doubleganger, from the German for 'doublegoer' or lookalike) as a ghostly...
The Metis & Louis Riel (05/09)
Louis Riel
Many of the characters featured in
The Plague of Doves
are
Metis. The Metis (historically known as the Bois
Brule) emerged in Canada in the mid-17
th Century
as New World fur traders intermarried with Cree, Ojibwe,
Salteaux and Menominee natives. While mostly French, some of
...
A Short History of Penang (05/09)
Most of the action in
The Gift of Rain occurs on the island of Penang (part of the Malayan state of Penang) situated off the northwest corner of the Malay Peninsula, in the Strait of Malacca (maps of
South-East Asia,
Malaysia and
Penang). The small, turtle-shaped island has a total
area of approximately 293 square kilometers (183 ...
