Where countries meet

At OMGfacts, Dominic Trombino offers us
21 Photos of the Places Where One Country Ends and Another Begins
National borders can change very drastically awfully quickly, and when you see the actual borders you can often tell a lot about the two (or more) countries there.
As here:
Haiti and The Dominican RepublicHaiti and The Dominican Republic, which have very different environmental protection laws
And sometimes not so much. As here
Norway and SwedenNorway and Sweden
See all the photos HERE
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AUTHOR’S NOTE: This week’s second blog entry will be much shorter than usual because of circumstancies beyond my control. Things will be back to normal next week.
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At the Los Angeles Review of Books, Nicola Griffith writes ‘A Letter to Alice Sheldon’
The Women You Didn’t See
DEAR ALICE SHELDON,
You were brilliant, I think, but consumed by the inevitability of the abattoir. In your fiction, all the gates are closed; characters are funneled down a chute to flashing knives. In your best fiction, the characters know what is happening, but the knowledge makes no difference; there’s no way out.
You didn’t believe in the possibility of escape. Assuming the nom de plume and persona of James Tiptree, Jr., meant at least you could step outside the chute and be the one wielding the knife. As Raccoona Sheldon, on the other hand, you were bound — as were we — inside the doomed and running cows;…for you there was no way out.
AliceWhen you were little, you saw filth, death, deprivation, and suffering in India and Africa… you were alone: a pretty, pampered, privileged little girl plunged unprepared into violent contradiction — then exposed by your writer mother just before puberty to the hot breath of public scrutiny. You had no herd protection, no people just like you, nowhere to turn for comfort or shelter….
… it is why, if I had to guess, you hid all your life. Why you picked up professions and dropped them as soon as you got good, and why, when you found writing as an adult, you took pseudonyms: the best way to stay safe was not to be known. You could rotate a facet of yourself before a curtain with a single slit. No one ever got to see the whole, not even you.
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At Bustle, Dina Gachman explains why
Every Writer Should Read Harper Lee’s ‘Go Set A Watchman’
Go Set a Watchman
When you encounter an artistic masterpiece, it’s easy to feel it came from the author fully formed and finished. We don’t see the first drafts of most masterpieces but with Harper Lee’s ‘Go Set a Watchman’, we get that chance.
Written before ‘To Kill a Mocking Bird’, Gachman writes, the book is a mess compared to Lee’s magnum opus,  but as a historical document, it is a fascinating read.
 
Read the whole article HERE
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Hey! Look at meHey! Look at me
From the The Literary Cat site
“When you have a good book and a lap full of cat, what more could you possibly need?”
See more cats and books HERE
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THIS n THAT
Self-driving cars won’t violate traffic rules — and that may be a problem for cities. No violations, no fines.
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Quote of the DayQUOTE Grief~~~~~
Alma Alexander     My books     Email me
 
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