1,309 words
After President Trump’s speech on Friday, Jim Acosta, the “poisonous moron” as Tucker Carlson calls him, announced it xenophobic for President Trump to state that COVID-19 came from China. (more…)
Turku Castle, Finland
1,449 words
When King Gustav Adolf II of Sweden visited Turku Castle in 1614, a fire broke out around the complex, destroying one of the area’s oldest medieval sites. Left in ruins, the abandoned castle would become the setting of Zachris Topelius’s novel The Tomten of Åbo Castle (more…)
John Martin, The Great Day of His Wrath, 1853.
2,901 words
The epidemic began in Australia and spread from there to other countries.
I am referring to the panic buying of toilet paper. (more…)
966 words
“What is in store for my children tomorrow?”
— Steiner, from the movie La Dolce Vita (1961)
I was staying in Neive, a tiny red-roofed Piedmont village caught in a time-warp, where the traditions and ingrained habits of centuries, like the rolling vine-clad hills, remain unchanged. (more…)
John William Waterhouse, A Tale from The Decameron, 1916.
1,222 words
The Decameron is a novel that is often overshadowed by The Canterbury Tales despite sharing many similarities. Both were written in the 14th century and have a similar narrative structure of various short stories being told by a group of characters. (more…)
1,094 words
Consider the human immune system — not from an academic or scientific standpoint, but from a very practical and goal-oriented point of view; the goal in question being the continued health of the human. The body seals itself off from the outside world with a strong wall, known as the skin, and only communicates with it through highly specialized ports — the bodily orifices. (more…)