Advertisement

We need your help now

Support from readers like you keeps The Journal open.

You are visiting us because we have something you value. Independent, unbiased news that tells the truth. Advertising revenue goes some way to support our mission, but this year it has not been enough.

If you've seen value in our reporting, please contribute what you can, so we can continue to produce accurate and meaningful journalism. For everyone who needs it.

Photas/Tass/Press Association Images

Catch-up Wednesday: 3 midweek longreads

Get up to speed with the latest news, opinions and insights with our hand-picked in-depth reads.

IT’S MIDWAY THROUGH the week and you want to get up to speed on the latest news topics and catch up on opinions and insights.

We’re here to help you do just that, with our three midweek longreads:

1. Don’t believe all you read

If you’ve been stung by fake quotes on the internet, then you’re not alone. In fact, sometimes it’s hard to find out who really did say your favourite erudite phrase. “The internet is a dark place,” as Shakespeare once said. So watch out the next time you’re browsing for a pithy quote…

(Slate, approx 9 minutes reading time, 1673 words)

This superficial democratization of erudition is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does mean you don’t have to have read Schopenhauer, or really anything much at all, to have access to just the right Schopenhauer quotation for your particular needs—and no grounds to suspect when the quotation you select has nothing to do with its ostensible source.

2. Doing business in Russia

How does Russia do business in the Putin era? That’s exactly what Reuters is looking into in its latest series. this installment shows how a billion-dollar medical project helped fund “Putin’s palace” on the Black Sea.

(Reuters, approx 24  minutes reading time, 4901 words)

Russia has been renowned for graft since the Soviet Union fell a generation ago. Under the first post-Soviet leader, Boris Yeltsin, “oligarchs” gained control of state-owned industries and grew fabulously wealthy. Those wild days are long over. Yeltsin’s successor, Putin, has restored much of the nation’s most lucrative industries, such as oil and gas, to state control.

3. Losing my sister

A woman writes about her experience of losing her sister after a driver drove down the wrong side of the motorway. She says their family will never be the same after the incident.

(TheJournal.ie, approx 4 minutes reading time, 737 words)

The next few words that came out of the Garda’s mouth made me speechless, I couldn’t grasp what he had just said – the words that my sister Delia was hit by a driver who drove 8km on the wrong side of the motorway and that she was critically injured. I looked at my father and all I could think about was how I was going to tell my mother, who had just flown over to America to visit her terminally ill brother who was dying from cancer.

Want some more longreads? Then check out Sitdown Sunday>

Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article. Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.

Close
Comments
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Mick Jordan
    Favourite Mick Jordan
    Report
    May 21st 2014, 10:24 PM

    When Putin was in St Petersburg’s mayors office he was accused of missaproprating 70 million Dollars. There was an investigation and the conclusion was Putin was to be sacked. But before he could be sacked he was given a job in the Yeltsin administration and moved to Moscow. From there he was appointed head of the FSB then Yeltsin’s successor.
    Now the question is how did mere Ex KGB Colonel with zero political experience jump from a minor functionary in the St Petersburg’s mayors office on they way to getting the sack for corruption to the President of Russia? He owes some people and he owes them big time. Then we come to his own personal fortune estimated to be in the tens of billions. Where did it come from? Not from the presidential salary.

    13
    Install the app to use these features.
    Mute Stefan Epure
    Favourite Stefan Epure
    Report
    May 22nd 2014, 12:33 AM

    That’s something TheJournal should look into

    4
Submit a report
Please help us understand how this comment violates our community guidelines.
Thank you for the feedback
Your feedback has been sent to our team for review.
JournalTv
News in 60 seconds