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A "Polish joke" from the Cold War (slightly edited from an earlier posting on...
I served in Krakow as a US public diplomacy dip (more properly put, had the privilege of sharing ideas and stimulating conversations at meals (yes, served avec Polish vodka) with exceptional people in...
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Poland Fires All Russian Diplomatic School Graduates From Foreign Service,...
themoscowtimes.com, Sept. 10 2018 - 17:09; original article contains linksImage from article, with caption: Poland's Foreign Minister Jacek CzaputowiczPoland’s Foreign Ministry said it has dismissed...
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Someone tell Tucker Carlson what ‘E pluribus unum’ really means: Note for a...
David Von Drehle, The Washington Post, September 11 at 4:57 PM; original article contains links; see alsoImage (not from article) from, with caption: Original design for the Great Seal of the United...
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Is your state 'lovin' it'? A look at where the most McDonald's are located in...
Colman Andrews, 24/7 Wall StreetPublished 5:00 a.m. ET Sept. 13, 2018 | Updated 7:57 a.m. ET Sept. 13, 2018usatoday.com; original article contains videos(Photo: Nati Harnik, AP)McDonald’s (NYSE: MCD)...
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U.S. Has Highest Share of Foreign-Born Since 1910, With More Coming From Asia...
Sabrina Tavernise, The New York Times, Sept. 13, 2018Image from article, with caption: Boxes for Korean-language newspapers in Buena Park, Calif. An analysis of 2017 census data by the Brookings...
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A "Polish Joke" (Updated)
I served in Krakow as a US public diplomacy [JB emphasis] dip (more properly put, had the privilege, among other so-called "official" duties, of sharing ideas and stimulating conversations about the...
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America’s Never-Ending Culture War - Note for a discussion, "E Pluribus...
Michael Kazin, The New York Times, Aug. 24, 2018; article contains additional photographsMr. Kazin is a co-editor of Dissent and a professor of history at Georgetown.The issues that drove protesters to...
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How Far America Has Fallen - Note for a discussion, "E Pluribus Unum? What...
Roger Cohen, The New York Times, Aug. 24, 2018The thing with every shocking revelation about Trump is that it's already baked into his image. I've never met a Trump supporter who did not know exactly...
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The American Past: A History of Contradictions - Note for a Discussion, "E...
Review by Andrew Sullivan, The New York Times, Sept. 14, 2018:THESE TRUTHSA History of the United StatesBy Jill LeporeIllustrated. 932 pp. W.W. Norton & Company. $39.95.It isn’t until you start...
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Three Blockbuster Novels From the 1950s, and Their Remarkable Afterlife
By Sam Tanenhaus, The New York Times, Sept. 12, 2018; original article contains additional illustrationsPasternak image from articleWhy are Russians so good at vexing American minds? Vladimir Putin’s...
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Ancestry.com changed how it determines ethnicity and people are upset - Note...
USA TODAY NETWORK, Marc Daalder, Detroit Free Press; original article contains a video(Photo: Ancestry)Ancestry.com, the website better known for helping users create family trees, find distant family...
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How Connected Is Your Community to Everywhere Else in America? Note for a...
By Emily Badger and Quoctrung Bui, The New York Times, Sept. 19, 2018; regrettably the informative charts in this article cannot be reproduced on this blogimage (not from article) fromExcerpt:America...
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Latest News! WH Peacenik Comes out of the Closet!
John Solomon and Buck Sexton, "Trump slams Bush for ‘worst single mistake’ in U.S. history,"thehill.com; original article contains a video; see also (1) (2).***In all fairness to Trump, pls. note the...
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Empowering Polarizing US Polarization ... a Note on the Important NYT...
From Facebook (slightly edited)In my modest opinion, this well-researched article [too long for technical reasons to post on this blog] illustrates how the Kremlin "figured" (not so naively) that it...
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Weird News -- the "Real" News on the USA Internet?
image fromThe "real news" on the internet is not just about "fake news" or "official news."Nor is it just "objective news ["all the news that's print to print"] à la The New York Times or...
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In struggle over Ukrainian Orthodox communion, a political hornet’s nest
Fred Weir, The Christian Science MonitorImage from article: Patriarch Kirill of Moscow (r.) and Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople hold a liturgy in the southern Serbian city of Nis in 2013...
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‘Portrait of a Carthusian Lay Brother’ (1446), by Petrus Christus
Where's his cell phone?‘Portrait of a Carthusian Lay Brother’ (1446), by Petrus Christus PHOTO: THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM of ARTwsj.com
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‘Free Solo’ Review: Gripping Drama, Surpassing Spectacle
Image from article in The Wall Street Journal:This documentary follows Alex Honnold’s pioneering ascent of the 3,200-foot El Capitan, which he scaled without any safety gear.Alex Honnold peers over the...
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For Xi Jinping, Being a Man of the People Means Looking the Part
Javier C. Hernández, The New York TimesA tour of farms and factories in China’s northeast gave Mr. Xi a chance to look like Mao and take aim at Trump.Top: President Xi Jinping with farmers in...
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Vechnaya druzhba ... (A facebook entry)
John Brown42 mins Vechnaya druzhba?"Eisenberg’s work as a whole ...has traced the arc of America’s descent into a politics of tribalism and demagogy with alarming clearsightedness. ...Like Saul Bellow...
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