Generation X?

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

“You’d really hate an adult to understand you,” one girl named Susan is quoted as saying. “That’s the only thing you’ve got over them—the fact that you can mystify and worry them.”

Others are quoted as saying things like, “Marriage is the only thing that really scares me,” and, “Religion is for old people who have given up living,” or, “I’d prefer to do something for the good of humanity,” and, “You want to hit back at all the old geezers who tell us what to do.”

Man, those millennial kids today have so much anger! Except each one of these quotes comes from a book published in 1964 in the United Kingdom called “Generation X.”
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Today in History: May 11

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

At the end of a long printed scroll—16 feet—that was found in China in the early 20th Century sits an inscription declaring something about the origins of the scroll: It was “reverently made for universal free distribution by Wang Jie on behalf of his two parents on the 13th of the 4th moon of the 9th year of Xiantong.”

Scholars know when the 4th moon of the 9th year of the Xiantong era was, and they know on what day the 13th fell in that 4th moon: it was May 11 (today) of the year 868 A.D. The Diamond Sūtra, a woodblock-printed Buddhist manuscript that unspools from a bound side, was found by Sir Marc Aurel Stein in an expedition in 1907. It is the oldest printed book that carries a date on it. It is 1148 years old today. (Photo at top.)
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From Inside a Cage

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

From inside the courtroom cage in which he and many other defendants were held, the photographer Mahmoud Abu Zeid, also known as Shawkan, started posing as a photographer for his friends in the courtroom earlier today. In the photo at top, it looks like he is snapping shots with an Instamatic; in others he imitates holding up a heavy telephoto lens.

Today brought Shawkan to one more hearing, one more in long line of hearings in which the Egyptian court system has repeatedly postponed starting to hold hearings. Thus, once again, it was announced from the bench today that the trial start would be postponed yet again until May 17, one week. It is a Kafka-esque farce, minus any deeper meaning.

Shawkan is one of more than 700 defendants. Taher Abu el-Nasr, a lawyer affiliated with the case, told the Cairo Post last month that he expects the trial to take a long time until a verdict is issued due to the huge number of defendants: “it might take the court 20-30 sessions to only hear the prosecution witnesses; this is something annoying and exhausting to everyone.”
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