ellis island

Although there is no political agenda behind the Pope's visit to the immigration processing centre on the remote Italian island of Lampedusa, the Pope's decision to make his first excursion outside of the City of Rome is nonetheless an important reminder that there are countless less visible refugees and asylum-seekers no longer being covered by the news. Refusing to allow any politicians tag along, the Pope will go to the tiny island, the one of the closest European Union territories to northern Africa, to weep for those who lost their lives in the dangerous sea-crossing, to greet new arrivals and show gratitude to the local population that have done much to help the immigrants with their passage, treating their guests with dignity, considerations that were not always continued by the migration authorities here and elsewhere. Since the height of the revolutions that punctuated the Arabic Spring, the pace has slowed somewhat, but given recent events, is expected to increase soon.

if these walls could talk or windows to the soul

In probably the boldest and most shameless assault against the consuming public since—the last, a German marketing firm has announced its ability and plans to deliver, for a willing sponsor, advertisements to a captive audience through cranial conduction.
The company proposes that clients' messages be distributed on public transport, shaken into the passenger's skull when inadvertently or purposefully leaning against the windows of a bus or a subway or any chosen surface. It's a lot worse than regular commercial breaks spammy pop-unders while navigating websites, and if anything people who take mass-transit ought to be rewarded for not contributing to congestion, not submitted to focus-groups involuntarily. I am sure these beamed messages could be tailored to particular passengers and it is scary hoone's head.
w quickly this might escalate.  Chatty, shuddering coffee mugs or singing beer and wine glasses?  Such skeletal transmissions are not new but relatively novel things, but perhaps the means to speak with disembodied voices should not be first surrendered to marketers and demographers, who would always like to get into

siss-boom-bah or vital spark

The fireworks have not ceased altogether, to be sure, and the ever excellent antiquary, Bibliodyssey, features a scholarly, beautifully illustrated essay on the the development of gunpowder and pyrotechnics in the Western world through the lens of an extensive German manual, Büchsenmeister und Feuerwerksbuch (Master Gunsmith and Fireworks Book—to show how it was impossible to divorce awe from practicality), from the last years of the 1500s, and how an evening's entertainment became more sophisticated and acclaimed much sooner than the substance could be harnessed for more destructive applications.

The alchemist with the ability to make a spectacle was regarded by his audience, it seems, in the early Renaissance, not as an entertainer or magician but rather as an educator who was able to make laboratory-style demonstrations of astral phenomena—lightening, comets—the moon, the stars and the sun, rather than mastering some strange new wonder of chemistry. Conjuring up the power of Nature through through carefully prepared potions became at that time also a literal understanding for the figurative, but not so inaccurate, investigation into the animating principle of life, believing that reawakening a fire from basically organic sources was evidence for the the vital spark, not the body electric (as I am sure electricity was looked at philosophically, theologically before being put to mundane use), but rather one that coursed and burnt with the stuff of skyrockets and sparklers.

tween

Considering the on-going disclosures that monitoring of commun- ications is not a bailiwick reserved for the world-police and is a common commodity, I wonder if the story might not be watered down to the extent where all outrage is put on the level of a mopey adolescent who feels devastatingly violated after discovering his parents thoroughly rifled through his belongings and contacts out of concern and for his own good. Of course, that's a very parental thing to do and usually advisable despite whatever angst or wrath is incurred—but I think it's not the job of the government to put its wards who've reached majority in such an uncomfortable situation—regardless whether their own up-bringing saw such awkward moments of tension or not, no matter how this tactic might defuse cries of fascism and unfairness.  Being made to relive teenage traumas shouldn't deflect from the gravity of being talked-down to.

verily a new hope

Some clever wordsmiths have re-adapted the quintessential Space Opera as if it were penned by the Bard himself. This is fun and something you can try at home and leagues better than adding zombies or vampires to the classics and declaring it original or a genre.  Pride and Predator or Baby Got Back Gilbert and Sullivan style were absolute genius, however.  What ideas for mixes and mashes do you have?