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The Statue of Liberty turned 125 last Friday. Back in 1896, the French government donated the statue to the people of America and “Liberty” soon became an iconic symbol and gateway to the land of opportunity for thousands of migrants that reached the shores of the United States in the last century. Events closer to…
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During the Vietnam War, public opinion in the United States of America was virtually split in half between two factions that came to be known as “the hawks” and “the doves”. The monikers speak for themselves − hawks were the advocates of war while the doves were those who plugged more peaceful solutions. Such a…
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I remember perfectly where I was 10 years ago today. I was at home, sick with a heavy dose of “man-flu” (a newly added term to the Oxford dictionary) zapping through tv channels rather disinterestedly when the news broke and the crawl at the foot of most channels led me directly to the live coverage…
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It’s the end of the world as we know it. Not really it isn’t. In relative terms it could be though. For the time being it’s probably best if we concentrate on the fact that the end of summer is nigh, though blessed as you are to be living on an island with a lovely…
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Today’s J’accuse on the Malta Independent on Sunday (28.08.11) It’s hard to concentrate when you’ve been hacked. Not physically I mean. It’s just that J’accuse, the blog − the depository of my almost daily thoughts for almost seven years − was hacked by some git supposedly based in Ukraine. Notwithstanding the valorous efforts of a…
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Papillon is the name of a 1969 novel written by Frenchman Henri Charrière. The (allegedly) autobiographical novel tells of Charrière’s extraordinary saga at the hands of the French criminal justice system between 1931 and 1945 after he had been condemned to a period of hard labour on Devil’s Island as a punishment for murder. Charrière’s…