WP: Pfeffernüsse

"Pfeffernüsse are small, firm, round biscuits,
sometimes with ground nuts."  

WP: Oware

"Oware is an abstract strategy game of Akan origin. Part of the mancala family, it is played throughout West Africa and the Caribbean."

Eisenhower's Farewell Address

"Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we – you and I, and our government – must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow."

— President Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation

A Reservoir Not a Canal

Jonathan Dodson:

People who do not slow down to fill up, never really live, work, or minister out of a deep reservoir of grace. If we’re honest, many of us are more like a canal. We dispense advice, counsel, creativity, labor, and parenting as soon as it arrives in our minds. Our half-formed notions run from our heads and out of our mouths with little reflection at all.

Full article...

Solzhenitsyn's Secret Weapon

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

And the simplest and most accessible key to our self-neglected liberation lies right here: Personal non-participation in lies. Though lies conceal everything, though lies embrace everything, we will be obstinate in this smallest of matters: Let them embrace everything, but not with any help from me. [...] It's dangerous. But let us refuse to say that which we do not think.

Full essay...

WP: Southern States Cooperative

"Southern States Cooperative is a agricultural supply cooperative owned by more than 300,000 farmers in the United States. Southern States Cooperative supplies farmers with feed, seed, fertilizer, farm supplies and fuel. As of 2008 there were over 1200 retail locations in 23 states."

Security Theater

Jeffrey Goldberg:

On another occasion, at LaGuardia, in New York, the transportation-security officer in charge of my secondary screening emptied my carry-on bag of nearly everything it contained, including a yellow, three-foot-by-four-foot Hezbollah flag, purchased at a Hezbollah gift shop in south Lebanon. The flag features, as its charming main image, an upraised fist clutching an AK-47 automatic rifle. Atop the rifle is a line of Arabic writing that reads THEN SURELY THE PARTY OF GOD ARE THEY WHO WILL BE TRIUMPHANT. The officer took the flag and spread it out on the inspection table. She finished her inspection, gave me back my flag, and told me I could go. I said, "That’s a Hezbollah flag." She said, "Uh-huh."

Read the rest...

Marilynne Robinson on New Atheism

Marilynne Robinson participates in a panel discussion with/about the New Atheists.

WP: Dimethyl Sulfoxide

"Use of DMSO in medicine dates from around 1963, when a Oregon Health & Science University Medical School team, headed by Stanley Jacob, discovered it could penetrate the skin and other membranes without damaging them and could carry other compounds into a biological system. [...] Because DMSO increases the rate of absorption of some compounds through organic tissues including skin, it can be used as a drug delivery system."

WP: Questing Beast

"The Questing Beast, or the Beast Glatisant (Barking Beast), is a monster from Arthurian legend. It is the subject of quests undertaken by famous knights such as King Pellinore, Sir Palamedes, and Sir Percival."