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Tokaj, Hungary

Coordinates: 48 8 N 21 27 E

Population: 5,028 (2007 est.)

Eastern Europe isn’t likely to be the first place most people think of when they hear “wine country,” but red and white grapes have in fact been grown on the slopes of the Carpathians for centuries. Perhaps the best-known region is Tokaj in northwestern Hungary, where the Bodrog and Tisza Rivers converge near the village that lends its name to this part of the country. (more…)

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Someone has come up with the perfect solution to making sure unwanted ideas and viewpoints are supressed. If one doesn't agree with a book, there is always the option of stealing it, so that others are not exposed to whatever it is one disagrees with. At least that seems to be the sentiment of JoAn Karkos of Lewiston, Maine among others, according to a recent story in the Morning Sentinel.

Three books which deal with human sexuality are missing in action. The Kama Sutra has disappeared from the public library in Mt. Vernon. Missing from the Lincoln Middle School library in Portland is a copy of It's Perfectly Normal, a children's book on the body's development and What's Happening to my Body?, a similar book, has vanished from Penquis Valley Middle and High School library in Milo. JoAn Karkos, Lewiston, Maine checked out copies of It's Perfectly Normal, from the Lewiston and Auburn public libraries. While she has refused to return the book, which she considers pornographic, she has sent a $20 check to cover the loss to each library. In Lewiston, she is looking at a court fine while she has lost her library privileges in Auburn.

But don't worry, the rest of the readers are now "safe" due to this woman's actions.

We received a great tip this week from Crooked Timber about The Martians of Science: Five Physicists Who Changed the Twentieth Century by István Hargittai. Apparently, Charlie Munger, recommended it at the Wesco Annual Meeting. Hargittai’s book tells the story of five brilliant men born at the turn of the twentieth century in Budapest: Theodore von Kármán, Leo Szilard, Eugene Wigner, John von Neumann, and Edward Teller. Below is an excerpt from the introduction to the book.

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