mysterbey

From Stephen Mitchell, 'Conversion to Christianity and the Politics of Religious Identity', in A History of the Later Roman Empire AD 284-641 (Melbourne, 2007).

[The Melitians argued that Athanasius] was responsible for the murder of a respected confessor, Arsenius, whose severed arm was then used for magical purposes. The murder charge was dropped after Arsenius was discovered by Athanasius' men alive and well...

...so where did the Melitians get the magical severed arm from? Did it actually belong to Arsenius? When Arsenius was found alive and well, was he missing an arm? If the arm did not belong to Arsenius, who did it belong to, and was the armless man dead or alive? If dead, did the Melitians mistakenly believe him to be Arsenius, or did they hack it from a living man and then claim it to belong to a dead Arsenius, even though they knew Arsenius wasn't dead. And what was Arsenius' reaction upon being told that the Melitians were waving around his supposed magical severed arm? And was the arm magical before it was severed? So many questions.

From Richard Vinen, 'How Communism Lost, in A History in Fragments: Europe in the Twentieth Century;

The communist failure in computing was sometimes illustrated in farcial terms, especially in East Germany, where leadership invested much prestige in its ability to master the new technology. When factory managers were given orders to install a certain quota of 'robots' in all plants, they responded by redefining existing devices - such as lifts and vacuum cleaners - to fit this new category.

...and some more...

Cheap Western personal computers flooded into eastern Europe; often they were bought on the black market and used to facilitate black economy enterprises. Poland, where there were said to be half a million private computers, was the most affected by this wave. Computers facilitated the dissemination of information by opposition groups. The days when the state could ensure that it controlled every typewriter in the country were over when any seventeen-year-old with an Amstrad could produce samizdat publications. When the leader of Warsaw Solidarity went underground, he took his Tandy personal computer with him.

1. Grab the nearest book
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your blog along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest."