Who Are You? What Do Birds Want - Tracing Moravia Freud

On Dhillon's Tenager Day Hemingway observed that writing was easy:

All you have to do is sit down and bleed.

… Writing Is Not Hard Work | BREVITY's Nonfiction Blog

Thomas Mann wrote that "a writer is someone for whom writing comes harder than for anybody else." But it doesn't involve any heavy lifting.
The December issue of Words without Borders focuses on 'Knowing the Unknowable: Writing from Madagascar' -- great to see, since it's little-seen -- as well as a look at: 'After Inger Christensen: New Danish Poetry'. 

A BLIND mystic who reportedly foretold 9/11, the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, the Fukushima nuclear spill and the birth of ISIS also made dire predictions for 2016 and beyond. A Bulgarian clairvoyant who died 20 years ago warned of the rise of ISIS by claiming there would be a 'great Muslim war' in 2016, it has been reported. Baba Vanga died in 1996 at the age of 85 and was known as the 'Nostradamus of the Balkans' because of her success rate which was supposedly as high as 85 per cent. Here’s what blind prophet Baba Vanga predicted for 2016 and beyond: It’s not good 

American writer and philosopher Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) once said, “The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it.” At the time I have no doubt he was right, but if only he could have experienced the world now!

A chart that’s been doing the rounds on Twitter illustrates just how fast our world is moving, comparing the time to reach 50 million users between different types of mediums. In a nutshell: 

• 38 years for radio
• 13 years for television
• 4 years for internet
• 3.5 years for Facebook
• 9 months for Twitter
•  6 months for Instagram
• 35 days for Angry Birds 
• 1 day for MEdia Dragon ...

TaxGrrrl, How Answering A Simple Question Makes You An Easy Target For Identity Thieves

"Operation Drax" - Piles of fake "Medicare cards," drivers licences and credit cards are evidence of the increasing sophistication of   identity crime, Australia's most common crime.
The bogus documents, $60,000 in cash, printers and laminators were seized as police made four arrests in Sydney last week. The men were arrested when police raided six properties in Sydney suburbs Campsie, Carlton, Waterloo, Homebush West and Parramatta last week.
Police-chargefour men over highquality identity theft

Blue Tit Bird Asking Itself "Who Are You? "

"What if I told you that I put my whole life into Tintin?” asked Hergé shortly before he died in 1983. The man who revolutionized the cartoon strip and influenced the work of Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol is the subject of a nice little exhibition at Somerset House,Tintin: Hergé’s masterpiece (admission free, until January 31, 2016). There is also a book to accompany the exhibition (published by Rizzoli). Tintintin

"One ought to have only as much market efficiency as one needs,” Luttwak told Robin. “Because everything that we value in human life is within the realm of inefficiency – love, family, attachment, community, culture, old habits, comfortable old shoes."

As a playwright, Arthur Miller was confident of his talent.  As an essayist, he played interested amateur. It was an act ...

While we have characters like Marise in politics democracy is in a healthy state ....

Meet Marise Payne Australia"s first female defence  minister

Interesting NYT piece on how Israel is trying to restore domestic safety.  This story is an excellent example of insightful reporting, analytics, behavioral understanding, and real world relevance, all rolled up into one piece.  

“Even poetry, Sweet Patron Muse forgive me the words, is not what music is,” the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay exclaimed in a letter. “Without music life would be a mistake,” Nietzsche proclaimed in contemplating the singular power of music. 

A blur of a waterfall on moss-laced boulders

"Am I a zealot, a terrorist, out on my own limb?" asks Gordon Lish. "Yes, with a vengeance!" At least when editing other people’s writing ... 

What is an essay, anyway? An argument with a thesis?  Or “a way of entering and writing about disputed space?" 

Vibrations from “ridge-like” BMW motorcycle seat said to have had unwanted stimulative effect on male user [Marin Independent Journal]

Facebook’s open-sourcing of AI hardware is the start of the deep-learning revolution ars technica

Meet the lobbyists who work for the world’s worst human rights abusers. Slate 

How Martin Shkreli, Teen Wolf of Wall Street, Thrived New York Times

JPMorgan pays $307m over disclosure flaws Financial Times. Fraud is now “disclosure flaws”? Who came up with that one? 

Is anyone trying to set up some poor dragon with disclosure laws ...