What Snowden was given to read

Back in late July, when Snowden was stuck in the Moscow airport, his lawyer gave him books by Dostoevsky, Chekhov, and Karamzin, the last being "the court historian to Tsar Alexander I."

Maybe Ted Cruz should have read Karamzin on the Senate floor instead of Dr. Seuss.

We've got class, baby (and the classics)

Just discovered: the blog of the right-wing artsy, lit-crit-y, bellettristic (take your pick) The New Criterion is called Armavirumque. As in Arma virumque cano. As in 'of arms and a man I sing'. As in the Aeneid.

Now I did not have a classical education (cough, choke), but my mother attended Girls' Latin School, and as a kid/teenager/youth/young adult the one and only line of Latin I can recall hearing her utter was Arma virumque cano. I never read the Aeneid in English, one of many gaps in my supposedly (supposedly) first-class secondary and college education. And it was not until a bit later on that it dawned on me that vir means "man". As in "virility". As in virtú. As in Machiavelli. (Oh yeah, right....)

P.s. I am reliably informed by Wikipedia that Girls' Latin is now called Boston Latin Academy, and it probably has been for a long time (I'm too lazy to actually read the entry right now). O tempora O mores. Whatever.