Kagan

 Couple of days ago Donald Kagan died. His lectures on Athenian democracy  gave me goose bump.  His introduction to the course, his defense of Western culture, needs to be carried on, like the Olympic torch.  

Dostoyevky, the misunderstood and misquoted

 Facebook is full of  posts with a picture of Dostoyevsky and the caption Tolerance will reach such a level that intelligent people will be banned from thinking so as not to offend the imbeciles. This site states that Dostoyevsky is being misquoted. (note that his name is misspelled). Of course, he is a heavy read and at times hard to understand; fragments sometimes are pure philosophical discourse.  But if one would like to misquote  to reflect on today's culture it should be.. INTOLERANCE will reach etc.

Is this another example of Russian interference on FB?

Heine, the poet in Paris

 This article reminded me again  why Heine is one my favorite poets. Elegant irony, simple vocabulary that I can follow with my pitiful German. Quotable and put on songs by many. Oscillating between a rich uncle and Karl Marx. An admirer of Saint-Simon...Seeing clearly the march of history .... A German poet in Paris, with almost no statue but still with us.