Friday Odds & Sods is in Like a Lion

Snow falling in March is something that I, as a son of the Sunny South, have very little experience of.  At any rate, such precipitation is hardly the harbinger of spring that I have been expectantly scanning the horizon for.  Nevertheless, we continue on, if for no reason than for want of a better alternative.  Such thoughts, I am sure, will dissipate with the snow that now lines the sidewalks, but until then, stay warm with some more Odds & Sods.

• For those interested in the mindset behind current events in the Middle East and elsewhere, I recommend these two articles about the attraction of the Caliphate in Muslim thought and the allure of the apocalyptic mindset in general.
• Continuing with the theme of the world's end, an amusing bit of literary archaeology unearths a depiction from 1906 of an abandoned New York in 2015.
• A less cataclysmic story, but one that fits into the category of decline and fall, in this case of the newspaper industry and the barbarian kingdoms arising in their place, such as the Daily Mail Online.
• To close out the week, a song about endings