Thursday March 4, 2010

WEB BOHEMIAN (Thursday March 4, 2010)
(1)- MOMS IN COMBAT -- If the military bears responsibility for sending mothers off to war zones with a wink and a nod to official policy, it is hardly alone. Political leadership shares the desire to pass over the phenomenon in silence.

(2)- NEW ZEALAND FUTURE WOES -- New Zealand is a simmering hotbed of volcanic activity. While eruptions have largely avoided populous areas, Auckland is sitting on a ticking time bomb.

(3)- REVENGE -- Britain has long denied that wartime air raids on German cities were intended to kill as many civilians as possible. In fact, the raids were motivated largely by a desire to hit back and destroy indiscriminately.

(4)- MELODIC INTONATION THERAPY -- The technique was developed because a lot of patients who can't talk can still sing. Gottfried Schlaug, a neurologist at Harvard University, is studying how and why this treatment seems to work for many patients.

(5)- TASMANIA -- Tasmania’s clear skies are made for eavesdropping on the stars. Nicholas Shakespeare went to live there and found some interesting links to the rest of this planet too...

(6)- DIEN BIEN PHU – A symbol of multiple import. It signalled the end of French colonial rule in Asia. Even more than the Japanese victories in the second world war, it announced the end of white supremacy and the start of the East's rise.

(7)- GEORGE WASHINGTON -- Few really knew him, despite his fame. He was a very private man when it came to personal matters. And his reputation sometimes seems to be built as much on myth as reality.

(8)- CHOPIN -- Frédéric Chopin ... Even 200 years after his birth, things that appear simple about Chopin are actually more complicated than they seem. Including, and above all, his music.

(9)- EINSTEIN -- Einstein’s neurons were indistinguishable from those in other brains. The only thing extraordinary about his brain came as a shock: it was a veritable explosion of nonneuronal cells called glia.

POLITICAL COMMENTARY

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