Odessa became the home of a large Jewish community during the 19th century, and by 1897 Jews were estimated to comprise some 37% of the population. They were, however, repeatedly subjected to severe persecution. Pogroms were carried out in 1821, 1859, 1871, 1881, and 1905. Many Odessan Jews fled abroad, particularly to Palestine after 1882, and the city became an important base of support for Zionism.
This is probably the last newspaper post for a while, I grabbed a few scans knowing that the Challenger anniversary is coming up in a few days. As much as I like doing this and can endlessly go on with the newspaper clips, I imagine it’s not as exciting for the rest of you.
I vaguely remember seeing the news about the crash on the Soviet TV, but I think my reaction was similar to most people’s who are watching something bad happen at another part of the world, not nearly as horrifying as people experienced here watching it live.
Two things that struck me – even in the worst days the newspapers never stop printing ads, its strange to see the account of a national tragedy juxtaposed with a shoe clearance ad; also Lee Judge’s cartoons always sucked.
The infamous portal to the netherworld, otherwise known as a pothole located next to the property tax-free oasis on the Admiral Street in Kansas City, Mo has finally been dealt with. It has entered the fifth and final stage of the pothole life-cycle: the metal plate cover-up (other stages are: birth, neglect, warning sign, and barricade). The metal plate is a permanent stage and no further development is expected.
The plate is artfully decorated with custom lettering where the top line reads “K.C.W.D” and the the bottom line can only be read with a mirror.
To quote the musical Oklahoma:
In 1958, six months after the Sputnik was launched, the Life Magazine ran an article comparing an American and a Russian student and drawing conclusions about problems with the American education system. Many of these problems are still with us today; while the Russian education is not what it used to be, the American educators are still busy making kids feel good about themselves, rather than teach, resulting in generations of students without advanced and, sometimes, basic skills.
You can read the article for yourselves and I will post just photos starting with the Russian student Alexei Kutzkov and continuing with his American Counterpart Stephen Lapekas in the next post.
Before you look at these photos, I want to point out that not all the Soviet schools in 1958 looked like this one, complete with chemical, physical and mechanical labs and not all the students were genii. Generally in Moscow everything looked better than in the rest of the country, but in every big city there were a few “show” schools, like the one I attended, happy to display the advantages of the Soviet system to the unsuspecting foreigners. Before the showtime an extraordinary amount of cleaning, scrubbing and painting occurred, combined with special deliveries of rare equipment and teaching aids; it wasn’t unheard of to serve improved lunches during the VIP visits; the school had to impress or else. Nevertheless, even without all these things the Soviet education system was one of the best in the world, not only producing world-famous scientists but maintaining high intellectual level in the rest of the population.
