On Fridays I suggest worthwhile weekend reading that’s guaranteed to improve your posture, your online dating prospects, and make you an all around better person. Read ten articles, lose five pounds.
But first, fellow travelers, here’s a photo challenge. It’s not easy but it’s not exactly that you either know it or you don’t. If you can pin down the region, you ought to be able to make a reasonable guess. See if you can guess this capital city, and what country this is:
The answer is at the bottom.
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Now here’s some stuff for your weekend reading:
The ship was rocking from side to side and I was struggling to find my sea legs as I stumbled into the queue for dinner. I was standing in the mess hall of an exploration vessel in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. After days at sea with the Cook Islands PM, here’s what I learned
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An academic argues Why Russia Won’t Disintegrate Along Its Regional Borders
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This is pretty terrific. “You can’t always walk around with your head turned up. A person can keep only so many floors in sight at once. Magnificent food shops. Enough to make all of Europe burst.” Camus’s New York Diary, 1946
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“We scrambled up to the rim just before the sun broke the horizon next to Kilimanjaro. In a whipping wind, we looked down about 20 stories into an entrancingly beautiful cauldron of rising steam and sputtering lava.” Peering Into Volcanoes at Tanzania’s Crater Highlands
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Feudal globalisation embraces intimidation and violent domination of people and resources — embraces it forthrightly, and it may be the future. Feudal overlords still rule the world. The liberal order is on shaky ground
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No man is an island: life on the Faroes – in pictures
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For decades, the idea that insects have feelings was considered a heretical joke – but as the evidence piles up, scientists are rapidly reconsidering. Why insects are more sensitive than they seem (free subscription required)
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He wasn’t just a spaceman, he was a forward looking Communist through and through: “I fully trust the technology. It should not fail. But it sometimes happens that a man falls and breaks his neck with no reason at all. Something may happen here too. I do not believe it will happen. But if it does, I ask all of you and especially you, Valiusha—do not be overcome with grief. Such is life.” Yuri Gagarin’s letter to be opened in the event of his death
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Sudan’s Descent Into Chaos. What should the international community do now? The Americans? More about this in What Just Happened #11, CS&W’s week in review, tomorrow.
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Everybody in the region knows this. For those who don’t, Gotland could be a game-changer for Baltic defense
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"It's no good, Alex," she rejoined, "Even if I did love you, my father would never let me marry an alligator." Sure fire advice in How to Write Good
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First there was reason, Descartes and I think therefore I am and all that. Here, neuroscientists try to evade the hard problem of consciousness altogether by proposing that feelings are the source of consciousness. Consciousness begins with feeling, not thinking
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You can wait for the post-mortem analyses if you like, but if you’re the Scottish National Party and you wake up to a headline like this, even if it is in the Daily Mail, you gotta figure all is lost: Fraud police probing 'missing' funds from SNP seize £110,000 motorhome from Nicola Sturgeon's in-law's drive
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I’m not a proponent of trips of a lifetime. This one though, is pretty cool, and very nicely illustrated: Writer Roxane Gay Takes the Trip of a Lifetime
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This week’s photo quiz answer is, this is Tallinn, capital of Estonia. Tomorrow we’ll discuss the blight of over-tourism, but with a scant five million people in a European country bordering Russia, over-tourism is more of an aspiration. Pity that, because Tallinn’s old town is a well-preserved little gem, just 85 kilometers and a quick ferry ride across the Gulf of Finland from Helsinki.
There are a few more photos in the Estonia Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.
A whole lot happened in the world this week, politicians acting the fool and trying not to, violence flaring and, for the Turkish leader, mortality intruding. Tomorrow we’ll take a look back at a few things and see if we can figure out at least some of what just happened.
Please consider a subscription to Common Sense and Whiskey, and ask someone you know to join you. Subscriptions start at the entirely reasonable rate of free and come with 50% off the pre-shipping price on every order from Earthphotos.com. Thanks for reading CS&W. See you tomorrow.