March 31, 2019 The phenomenon of post-truth has been known for ages. Here is how it is represented by Dostoyevsky:
All society — both the inhabitants of the place and those who came down of an evening for the music — had got hold of one and the same story, in a thousand varieties of detail — as to how a certain young prince had raised a terrible scandal in a most respectable household, had thrown over a daughter of the family, to whom he was engaged, and had been captured by a woman of shady reputation whom he was determined to marry at once — breaking off all old ties for the satisfaction of his insane idea; and, in spite of the public indignation roused by his action, the marriage was to take place in Pavlofsk openly and publicly, and the prince had announced his intention of going through with it with head erect and looking the whole world in the face. The story was so artfully adorned with scandalous details, and persons of so great eminence and importance were apparently mixed up in it, while, at the same time, the evidence was so circumstantial, that it was no wonder the matter gave food for plenty of curiosity and gossip.
(Dostoyevsky. The Idiot. Part 4, chapter 9)

27.03.19 Nowadays you are highly likely to run across a reference to "post-truth". Here is one of them:

When snipers massacred dozens of protesters on the streets of Kiev in 2014, Ukraine’s government said Surkov was giving the orders.

Was he really behind all of these events, and more? Most likely not. But the truth was less important than the fact that everyone believed he was. People saw the hand of Surkov directing everything that happened.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/25/russian-meddling-vladimir-putin-vladislav-surkov

23.03.19 One of the Australian languages on the brink of extinction is a language called Guugu Yimithirr, spoken in the north of Queensland, which gave the world the word "kangaroo". It’s also made remarkable by the fact that unlike languages like English, it does not make use of ego-centric positioning systems such as "left" and "right". Instead, all speakers of Guugu Yimithirr have an in-built compass in their brain that allows them to always know where is north, south, east and west. Therefore, they have no need to talk about the "left tap" or the "right tap". Instead, they just refer to the "north tap" or the "south tap".

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190320-the-man-bringing-dead-languages-back-to-life

21.03.19 The correspondences in bold type are the least probable ones in terms of establishing equivalence in the experiment with back-translation that is helpful in identifying “naturalness”:

Turgenev Dissed Russia but Is Still Lionized as Literary Star by Touchy Kremlin

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/11/world/europe/russia-turgenev.html

The New York Times (США): Тургенев оскорблял Россию, но до сих пор щепетильный Кремль превозносит его как звезду русской литературы

17.03.19 In the studies of culture drinking habits have always been regarded as an important factor to take into consideration. Drinking is seen as a sign of masculinity in Kiev. People don’t understand how a grown man could be sober in the evenings or on holiday – they would wonder what was wrong with them.” https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/mar/07/where-is-the-worlds-hardest-drinking-city

13.03.19 What counts is the pathetic “if”:

"if it can retain its democracy…if Ukraine succeeds in creating a viable, inclusive, and well-functioning democratic state…if the Russian people witness the creation of a successful Slavic nation in a country which many of them view as part of Russia…If it succeeds in this endeavor…If the largest country in the world with a huge arsenal of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons crumbles into pieces…"  Bla-bla-bla...

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/ukraine-needs-political-support-not-war-46437

11.03.19 For years, Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority had vied for control of the region against Serbs, who, despite only making up 10% of the population, viewed Kosovo as the cradle of their cultural identity. Kosovars declared their independence from Serbia in February 2008.

http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20190305-is-kosovos-capital-city-the-ugliest-in-europe

The inviolability of frontiers or self-determination? No referendum was required by Western countries for the so called "independence" that can't help triggering off the domino effect...

7.03.19 The battle of Agincourt  ['ædʒɪnˌkɔːt; French aʒɛ̃kur] in 1415 was immortalised in Shakespeare's Henry V as a miraculous underdog English victory over the French.

So why is France investing millions of euros to upgrade the museum near the battlefield in the village of Azincourt in northern France?

The new centre will tell the story of the battle, the weaponry deployed and life in medieval France - and the museum's director, Christophe Gilliot, says it will be a big improvement on the existing exhibition. Perhaps the most striking change is to the statistics used by the centre about the number of troops at the battle.

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-47427608

3.03.19 The North Korean leader won’t buy into the exorbitant compliments Trump lavished upon him:
Kim reportedly was glued to his television as Cohen’s testimony was beamed live to Hanoi, and his “jaw dropped” at the lawyer’s revelations about Trump’s mendacity and unethical business practices, according to the sources.

“Dear Leader became increasingly alarmed about the picture Cohen was painting of Trump,” one source said. “At one point, he turned to the rest of us and said, ‘What kind of lowlife am I dealing with?’ ”

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/cohen-testimony-leaves-kim-jong-un-doubting-whether-trump-can-be-trusted?fbclid=IwAR0e_hzT_B852BaUUd23AXpr8qtYZx5YQdpAftbVI2bKO-acFKWU8-GqoUU

1.03.19 The Académie française, whose members are known as "immortals", has said it has no obstacle in principle to such a "natural evolution" of French. Feminine forms for jobs like prosecutor or firefighter are already often used.

But until recently the academy objected to such changes as "barbaric".

In its report it said "the academy considers that all developments aiming at recognising in language the place of women in today's society can be foreseen, as long as they do not contravene the elementary and fundamental rules of language".

It will now accept, for example, professeure for a woman teacher instead of the masculine professeur.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ggcb1j9O53Q