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The Korean alphabet, hangul, is “the most scientific writing system.” One often hears that in South Korea, a society that has taken to heart Asia scholar Edwin O. Reischauer’s description of hangul as “perhaps the most scientific system of writing in general use in any country.” But whatever their scientific credentials, all the other writing systems in use (and indeed out of use) have fascinating qualities of their own, a range of which are explained in the UsefulCharts video above on the writing systems of the world — not just the alphabets of the world, mind you, but also the...

A wooden tablet discovered on Easter Island may pre-date European colonization of the region, researchers revealed in early February. Less than 30 wooden tablets containing an undeciphered script called “Rongorongo” were found on the island of Rapa Nui (Easter Island), four of which were removed in 1869 by Catholic Missionaries, according to a study published in the journal Nature. Those wooden tablets were analyzed using radiocarbon dating, and one of them was found to pre-date European settlement on the island, the study said. Easter Island was “discovered” by Europeans in the 1720s, and absolutely decimated in the years following, the...

Joe Biden on Tuesday held a joint presser with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after the two met in the Oval Office. Joe Biden announced another $200 million in additional military aid for Ukraine during Zelensky’s visit.

Caught handing out canned questions for audience members to ask the candidate and feeding the answers to him over a teleprompter, Biden spokesman TJ Ducklo defended these strategies calling them “a new innovation in how every candidate will campaign in the future. Trump is just jealous because he didn’t think of this first. Now watch and see him copy us.” Ducklo explained that “handing out pre-screened questions and feeding the answers to the candidate via teleprompter is so perfect that we’re surprised no one else had done it before we did. Allowing audience members or the press to ask whatever...

"I was told to go off this paper but I can't. You need the truth."

by Sam Rostock We know that the Biden events are all staged and we now have more evidence. Today in Kenosha, Wisconsin at a Biden event a woman admitted on camera that she was given a piece of paper telling her what to say. “My name in Porsche Bennett,” the woman said. “I’m just going to be honest, Mr. Biden, I was told to go off this paper, but I can’t. You need the truth and I’m part of the truth.” She then criticized those who came to Kenosha to riot vs. actual protesters, clearly not what the Biden...

Syracuse TV anchor Michael Benny has broken his silence on the controversy surrounding a script he read on CNY Central for station owner Sinclair Broadcast Group. Benny and Allison Bybee appear in a video compilation showing TV anchors at Sinclair-owned stations across the country in a promo echoing President Donald Trump's constant attacks on "fake news" media. Critics say it reflects the company's right-wing agenda without disclosing a political bias.... For days, CNY Central declined to comment, but Benny finally spoke out in a lengthy Facebook post on Wednesday night. "Recently, my boss came to me with a script for...

Louisiana's public school classrooms will be required to teach cursive writing to students starting with the new school year. That mandate, approved by lawmakers in 2016 but delayed a year so schools could prepare, is among more than two dozen new laws that take effect Saturday (July 1).

One hears a great deal these days about the universal nature of story. It's a gratifying conceit that deep down we all share the same fundamental narrative. But what about the more factional, political nature of story? I don't mean the depiction of torture in Zero Dark Thirty or corporate cunning in Promised Land. I mean the intrinsically political nature of how character is portrayed and plot structured. Stories stage conflict. And the strongest conflict always dictates inseparable, irreconcilable opposites. If Henry Adams was right, that politics in practice is always "the systematic organization of hatreds," then what better place...

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — A writer desperate to get a movie script read suffered the ultimate rejection Thursday when police blew up a briefcase he said contained the screenplay after an agent refused to read it, police said. The bizarre story was set in Beverly Hills, where a man visited the office of a literary agent and left behind a briefcase that he said contained a computer, police Sgt. Brad Cornelius said. The man left instructions for it to be delivered to someone at the business, who told another person in the office, "This guy's been kind of pestering me...

Critics have called Margalit Fox's new book, The Riddle of the Labyrinth, a paleographic detective procedural. It follows the story of the laborious quest to crack a mysterious script, unearthed in Crete in 1900, known by the sterile-sounding name Linear B. Fox, an obituary writer for The New York Times, is good at bringing the departed to life. In The Riddle of the Labyrinth, she tells the story of Alice Kober, a classics professor at Brooklyn College, who worked alone over decades and discovered the essential grammar of Linear B, only to die in 1950 before she could complete her...

Whenever you remake a revered Hollywood film, there’s bound to be controversy, but going right to the original material is certainly an interesting approach. Warner Bros is in early talks with Robert Zemeckis to direct a live-action remake of the The Wizard of Oz and plans to use the original script from the 1939 classic. Warner Bros owns the screenplay because Ted Turner bought it along with the MGM library before Warner Bros bought Turner’s empire. This latest Oz twist comes as Disney is trying very hard to mount The Great And Powerful Oz. Sam Raimi is developing that film...

America’s welfare state has grown into an unwieldy hodgepodge of programs that provide various forms of assistance to tens of millions of Americans. It costs taxpayers nearly a trillion dollars annually and experts predict that, absent reform, it will keep growing in the years ahead. The welfare state acquired its girth by following a familiar script — over and over again. The latest performance came at a recent hearing of the House Education and Labor Committee, which is pondering yet another proposed expansion of government: the “Improving Nutrition for America’s Children Act,” an $8 billion add-on to the nation’s school-lunch...

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – John McClane's string of bad luck may not yet be over. "Hitman" screenwriter Skip Woods is in negotiations with 20th Century Fox to take a crack at a new "Die Hard" script. The New York cop known for consistently being in the wrong place at the right time has already survived four run-ins with terrorists, traitors and psychotic loose cannons of one stripe or another. In his last outing, "Live Free or Die Hard," written by Mark Bomback and directed by Len Wiseman in 2007, McClane battled Web terrorists to $378 million in worldwide grosses...

Heroic Hollywood: Thinking Inside the Box by Russ Dvonch In this post, I want to give some advice to beginning screenwriters who are having difficulty finishing — or even starting — their first screenplay. I’ve been mulling over what to say for several weeks now, trying to come up with some inspirational words of advice to motivate you into achieving your goal. After much thought and deep-dish contemplation, I’ve boiled my advice down to this: If you want to write for Hollywood, think like a hack writer and stick to the Hollywood Formula. How’s that for inspiring rhetoric? Now, most...

WRITING is one of the greatest inventions in human history. Perhaps the greatest, since it made history possible. Without writing, there could be no accumulation of knowledge, no historical record, no science - and of course no books, newspapers or internet.The first true writing we know of is Sumerian cuneiform - consisting mainly of wedge-shaped impressions on clay tablets - which was used more than 5000 years ago in Mesopotamia. Soon afterwards writing appeared in Egypt, and much later in Europe, China and Central America. Civilisations have invented hundreds of different writing systems. Some, such as the one you are...

Youtube embedded in Freerepublic? Not possible, right? Now it's possible! If you install a firefox extension Greasemonkey, you can install my script and it will detect the youtube link a user makes as its article source, and display the youtube video right on the article's body. No need to leave freerepublic! Step One:Greasemonkey Addon for Firefox Step Two:smith288's Youtube embed script I wont provide much support but it's really easy to use. Freepmail me if it all together stops working though.

“The problem that progressives have on the gun issue has far less to do with the typical policies they espouse than the rhetoric they employ.” - The Third Way “It’s critical that progressives recognize that only an aggressive outreach strategy to gun owners will ensure that your opponent’s message about your gun record does not define your candidacy.” - The Third Way Those two instructions to so-called “progressive” political candidates explain Barack Obama’s camouflage of lies and deceptions that hide his consistent history as an aggressive proponent of virtually every aspect of gun control -- from gun-owner licensing and universal...

Ringer Deej found this article on EW.Com: It’s now official: The Lord of the Rings screenwriting team of Peter Jackson (pictured), Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens will join The Hobbit director Guillermo del Toro to pen the screenplay for the two planned Hobbit movies. Sources tell EW.com that the scribes’ deals are all complete and they will commence writing shortly. (With shooting scheduled to begin in Fall 2009 in New Zealand, the quartet better get busy!) The Hobbit will center on Frodo’s uncle, Bilbo Baggins, and his initial discovery of the immensely-powerful ring. New Line and MGM plan to release...

Tamil Brahmi script in Egypt Special Correspondent Exciting archaeological discovery with implications of import — Photo: Dr. Roberta Tomber, British Museum significant pointer: Potsherd with Tamil Brahmi inscription, circa first century B.C., found in Egypt. CHENNAI: A broken storage jar with inscriptions in Tamil Brahmi script has been excavated at Quseir-al-Qadim, an ancient port with a Roman settlement on the Red Sea coast of Egypt. This Tamil Brahmi script has been dated to first century B.C. One expert described this as an “exciting discovery.” The same inscription is incised twice on the opposite sides of the jar. The inscription reads...