It's not this great song of the Sixties i'm hearing now on my car radio, that tells the people's story. It's not the great song of today that i know will never be played on a station here, that tells the people's story. But the terrible distance between them-- that does tell the people's story.


When the rebels came. (Audio file from the BBC last night.)






"Tamerlane was no sensitive Persian poet. His idea of greatness can still be relished in contemplating the mosque's enormous stone Koran stand. The Samarkand museum displays a medieval copy of the Muslim holy book whose huge pages would have fitted into it: they measure three foot by six." --Sons of the Conquerors


Kurt Vonnegut dies. Shortly afterwards, a planet made of Ice-9 is discovered. ((Link not exact. I know it's Gliese 436b--which should henceforward be known as Tralfamadore.))