THE INTERNATIONAL SCHOLAR

1. A place for dialogue about all things current and old, music, art, research, literature and history. 2. You're welcome to submit any ideas/information about your current work that you may want to publish. DISCLAIMER: None of these photos and music are mine unless stated otherwise.

[bookmania]

People think they know all there is to know about you, but the best bits of you are – have always been – heroic in really quiet ways.

Ginny in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (via bookmania)

[theinternationalscholar]

Sweet Rosa is an illustrated story about Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

[doctorswithoutborders]

We took our mission straight to Pfizer’s shareholder meeting today in a bid to #AskPharma some tough questions about vaccine pricing.

Pneumonia kills one million children each year, yet the vaccine price is kept secret.

Please share and like this post to take action. #AskPharma   - ask Pfizer and GSK to disclose the price of the pneumonia vaccine in all countries. http://afairshot.org/

[theinternationalscholar]

The worst outbreak in history of the deadly Ebola virus is gathering pace. What can be done to keep it at bay?

[skunkbear]

What was going on in 1984 that made so many women give up on computer science? This week’s Planet Money tries to unravel the mystery.

Data source: National Science Foundation, American Bar Association, American Association of Medical Colleges

Graph credit: Quoctrung Bui/NPR

[globalvoices]

“This is a spectacular success story that shows that Ebola can be contained from #Nigeria”

Beyond an Ebola-free Nigeria

[wildcat2030]

Web and mobile phone users willingly share personal data in exchange for free stuff, but not everyone is ready to throw in the towel on privacy - With all of the mobile apps, Web sites and free services clamoring for your personal data, whereabouts and preferences, it might seem as though privacy is at death’s door. Not so. Several projects underway aim to provide virtual lockboxes or screening technologies that can help people to reassert control over their digital lives. In general, privacy-enhancing approaches to online data sharing require any company, app developer or government agency that wants to know more about you to ask permission for access to specific information. The rest of your data stay locked away. Services such as Britain’s Mydex offer the ability to store, manage and share personal information in an encrypted central repository called a data store, which only the person who creates the store can fully access. Anyone wanting information contained within that personal data store—an insurance company or marketer, for example—must connect to Mydex’s network and agree to terms of use created by the person owning the data before Mydex will release it. Personal, based in Washington, D.C., offers a similar “data vault” service.

[newsweekscience]

The story of the British intelligence agent who rigged an election, installed a king loyal to the British, drew new borders—and gave us today’s ungovernable country.

She came into Baghdad after months in one of the world’s most forbidding deserts, a stoic, diminutive 45-year-old English woman with her small band of men. She had been through lawless lands, held at gunpoint by robbers, taken prisoner in a city that no Westerner had seen for 20 years.

It was a hundred years ago, a few months before the outbreak of World War I. Baghdad was under a regime loyal to the Ottoman Turks.

The Turkish authorities in Constantinople had reluctantly given the persistent woman permission to embark on her desert odyssey, believing her to be an archaeologist and Arab scholar, as well as being a species of lunatic English explorer that they had seen before.

She was, in fact, a spy and her British masters had told her that if she got into trouble they would disclaim responsibility for her. Less than 10 years later Gertrude Bell would be back in Baghdad, having rigged an election, installed a king loyal to the British, re-organized the government, and fixed the borders on the map of a new Iraq.

As much as anyone can be, Gertrude Bell could be said to have devised the country that nobody can make work as a country for very long—no more so than now.

The Middle East as we know it was largely the idea of a small coterie of men composed of British scholars, archaeologists, military officers and colonial administrators who were called the Orientalists—this is the “orient” according to the definition first made by the Greeks, meaning everything east of the Mediterranean as Alexander the Great advanced to seize it.

Gertrude of Arabia, the Woman Who Invented Iraq - The Daily Beast

[yahoonewsphotos]

Pro-EU Ukrainians protest in Kiev

Ukraine’s political crisis escalated sharply Tuesday, February 18th, with at least nine people reported killed and scores injured in violent, often fiery battles between anti-government demonstrators and police in Kiev.

The clashes outside parliament erupted after the opposition accused the government of ignoring its demands even after nearly three months of protests that have paralyzed the capital. It was the worst violence since the protests began in late November. (AP)

(Photos by Efrem Lukatsky/AP Photo (3), Sergei Chuzavkov/AP Photo, Andrew Kravchenko/REUTERS/Pool, Maks Levin/REUTERS)

See more images from the protests and our other slideshows on Yahoo News!

[newsweekscience]

World Cup 2014: Watch Reaction to Brazil’s First Goal | The New York Times

The New York Times

[theinternationalscholar]

Great game. Brazil winning 3-1

[theloverboi]

Be committed, not attached. But more importantly, know the difference.

Kai, Lessons in Life #21 (via get-fit2fuck)

[tastysynapse]

[theinternationalscholar]

Beautiful Football tshirts for all 32 countries participating in the World Cup. Enter code:Summer14 for a 40% discount. Buy @ www.afworldcupshirts.com

[guardian]

Obamas join Americans in celebrating Martin Luther King – in pictures

Photographs: Jacquelyn Martin/AP (top); Mike Theiler/Reuters (bottom).

[theinternationalscholar]

The eruption of the volcano in Mount Sinabung, Indonesia has been volatile since September after being dormant for three years. Photograph: Roni Bintang/Reuters

[theinternationalscholar]