Meir Javedanfar, writing days later in The Guardian, asserted that Persian Jews referred to their shawls by the Hebrew word tzitzit; that Sabourjian was not a Jewish surname; that Ahmadinejad’s father was an observant Shia Muslim who once worked as a teacher of Koran; and that his mother was a Seyyede, one of a priestly caste descended directly from the Prophet Muhammad. Apparently, the family only changed their name to advance their class: Who wants to be “Mr. Weaver-and-dyer-of-carpets”—“painted thread” being the more accurate translation of sabour—when you could be called the scion of Ahmad, one of the many names of the polyonymous Prophet (also, Ahmad was the name of Ahmadinejad’s father). All of which is a terrible shame...

n+1, Joshua Cohen, Famous Infamous Jews, kleines großes Stück über eine Infamie des Daily Telegraph

This Sunday, 160 years almost to the day since his sorry passing, Poe will finally be given the send off that his multitude of fans passionately believe he deserved. At 11.30am, a life-size recreation of his body will be carried in a horse-drawn carriage from his Baltimore home in Amity Street, to the Westminster Burying Ground where not one, but two full-length ceremonies will be held in front of up to 700 admirers, some of whom will have travelled from as far away as Vietnam.

Sehr seltsame Geschichte im Guardian: An diesem Sonntag wird in Baltimore Edgar Allan Poe begraben.

Dear bloggers and websites who are trying to type "Herta Müller" now but instead it shows up in my browser as "Herta Müller" or "Herta Muller": It is perfectly acceptable to use the an "ue" as a substitute for "ü" when you're not using a German QWERTZ keyboard. It's better than reading about the Nobel Prize and thinking the winner has a series of obscene words in the middle of her last name.

bookslut