"The Czech writer, former dissident and now former president Vaclav Havel
once said to me that there are three kinds of English: "There's the kind of
English that Czechs speak to Spaniards and Italians speak to Russians.
Here, you understand 100 per cent. American English - you get about 50
per cent. Then there's English English, of which you understand nothing."

Oxford cafe English is generally of the first or second categories. It's what is
now called Elf - which, in case you're wondering, is not the language of the
Elves invented by Oxford's own J R R Tolkien, but English as Lingua Franca."
--Timothy Garton Ash (via ALDaily)

In case you weren't paying attention, there are now ten planets in our
solar system. The new one is Quaoar. On the whole,
it's not as interesting as Cruithne.

I come to discover there is a "Lesser False Vampire Bat". I'm still working
on the joke that that is the punch line to.

I happened to be at a new record store & listened to a great newcompilation,
"Euro Lounge". It sounded to me like all sorts of bands, in Italy & France &
North Africa, had been listening to Combustible Edison. --Not to the original
sources so much, i think. And it made me realize all over again, how the most
interesting developments nowadays, are happening not at the "center", but the
"periphery"...

'As I watch the moon
Shining on pain's myriad paths,
I know I am not
Alone involved in Autumn.' --Oe no Chisato (tr Rexroth)

This has always been one of my favorite tankas.
My Lojban version:

   MI GE ZGANA LE
LUNRA GUSNI BE SO'I
   XRANI DARGU GI
JIJNU LE CRITU MORNA
BE GE MI GI NABO MI

--which literally reads: 'I observe the lunar
illuminer of many harming roads, & intuit an
autumn pattern of me & not-me.'

I became dissatisfied with Rexroth's flouting
of the traditional 5-7-5-7-7 syllable pattern,
so i rewrote it as:

   As i see the moon
Tracing all the manifold
   Highways & footpaths
Of pain, i know i am not
Alone involved in Autumn.

An animated map of Alexander the Great's conquests.