Sure, but its an unfair collective punishment against those Russian speakers in lithuania for the actions of a state for which they have NO CONTROL. Kids who might of gotten a minor or major in Russian later on in life are going to miss out on opportunities in their personal lives all due to the fact the languge they are interested in happens to be used by an ugly state actor

In other words, they are taking out the fear of a possible Russian invasion out on their own citizens by depriving them of the substantial econimical socetial and familial benefits a second language can do

Okay that is an important distinction, thanks for the clarification. It still rings a little icky, but yeah thats a very different situation.

I think it could deprive those kids of economic prospects or the ability to learn fluency to say comminucate at family gatherings but that is a much subtler critique

In case anyone skips reading the article this was of particular interest

" she's heard of improvised experiments. Weightless, the astronauts remove their garments when they feel a big blow coming and, to quote American astronaut Roger Crouch, use intestinal gas as a propellant to, "launch themselves across the middeck."

Roach e-mailed Roger Crouch to ask if this had ever really happened. He was coy:

"He had heard the claims and was dubious. 'The mass and velocity of the expelled gas,' he told me in an e-mail that has forever endeared him to me, 'is very small compared to the mass of the human body.' Thus it was unlikely that it could accelerate a 180-pound astronaut. Crouch pointed out that an exhaled breath doesn't propel an astronaut in any direction, and the lungs hold about six liters of air versus the fart, which, as we learned from Dr. Murphy, holds at most three soda cans worth.""

The banning of a language in a school just shouldn't happen period in a free and democratic country. It was wrong when Russians ban Ukranian in schools and its also wrong (probably less wrong considering but still) to ban russian in schools where native russian speakers exist (as a non-zero amount do in Lithuania)

A good note on the dramatic side is each chapter being a newspaper release originally, which makes the chapters flow really well for me and be nice and dramatic as he wanted folks to buy the next periodical to read it

I think people with more technical knowlege have given some great points, but as someone with more of a historical and less literary background I did have to engage a part of my brain more used to intepretating primary source texts. It helped Listening to it on audiobook (great public domain recording) but the way dialogue was structured took a bit of getting used to.

I think it would be interesting to see a more recent translation since this does kind of all go back to it being a french work originally. While more collequial modern langauge in a translation would make it flow easier, I ended up finding some of the 19th century-isms really charming. Especially the parts in the story talking about weed were kind of awesome to hear people talk about how dank Cristos hashish edibles were in 19th century parlance was kind of awesome

I always avoided it because I assumed it would be a hassle, but listening you describe it reminds me of parts I enjoyed studying history in college. In a way it probably would tingle that interpretative part of my brain that I enjoyed when looking at primary source texts

"Using this sensor, the researchers analyzed the fit of surgical masks on male and female subjects, and found that overall, the masks fit women’s faces much less closely than they fit men’s faces. "

This was a very interesting takeaway for me, and seems a subtle example of how industrial design is often designed for men's forms in a subtle way. As there are different schemas or types of masks it would be curious as a follow up to know which kinds better fit feminine features overall