2010 nobel peace prize

Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo has been awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China." The announcement was immediately met with a rebuke by the Chinese government, which said in a statement that "Liu Xiaobo is a criminal who has been sentenced by Chinese judicial departments for violating Chinese law," and that awarding him the prize ran "completely counter to the principle of the prize and is also a blasphemy to the peace prize." Liu is currently serving an eleven-year prison sentence for "inciting subversion of state power" through his writing and activism.

russia wants you... to read books.

so russia was alarmed at the tendency for people to read less these days so they have decided to create an ad campaign to have people read more. the moscow writers union have place 100 thematic billboards saying 'read books', 'discover new things', 'be guided by knowledge' and 'fill in the gaps!' on the city streets. young people are the target of the campaign for they are the ones more likely to read the internet but not a book. Alexander Gerasimov, a spokesman for the moscow writers union said, "Such indifference can lead to erosion of entire cultural layers, to depletion of knowledge about literature, to the loss of national self-identification." gerasimov and the writers union plan to make this a russian wide campaign and not just in moscow.

i find this funny but awesome at the same time. good for russia to create an add campaign to get people to read. whatever gets people to read more, do it!  i found an old communist poster to get people to read and i just had to share that. the poster is from the 1920's.

the poster says: Literacy is the road to communism.