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CURIOUSMINDS
A weekly serving of great articles we curate, and original content we produce. So, all you have to do is pick, read, watch and listen. |
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Issue #200 - October 2025
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Stories from Around the World that Affect Us |
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Chinese Communist Party expels top generals
The Chinese Communist Party has expelled nine top generals in one of its largest public crackdowns on the military in decades. Nine men were suspected of serious financial crimes, a statement released by China's defence ministry said. Most of them were three-star generals and part of the party's decision-making Central Committee. They have also been expelled from the military.
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 Fears over US banks cause stock market jitters
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 Zelensky guarded on Tomahawk missile talks with Trump
BBC (War/Human Rights/Politics)
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Post-literate Society
Literature/Education
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book because there would be no one who wanted to read one. It was one of the most important revolutions in modern history. It took place quietly in armchairs, in libraries, in coffee houses and in clubs. In the eighteenth century huge numbers of ordinary people began to read. Now, we are living through the counter-revolution. 300 years after the reading revolution ushered in a new era of human knowledge, books are dying. Image by Dream Studio
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Russian Drones in Poland and Low Literacy in Schools Yascha Mounk Human Rights/Literature |
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In this week’s episode of The Good Fight Club, Yascha Mounk, Ivan Krastev, Amanda Ripley, and Mike Pesca discuss what the Russian drones shot down in Poland mean for NATO, the impact of the Supreme Court’s recent decision on immigration, how the Democrats can hold Donald Trump to account, and declining reading rates in U.S. schools.
Image by Leonardo |
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Quote of The Week
- James King -
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Top Stories from our favourite publications to stimulate your curious mind, |
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What Japan Taught Me About American Trains
Everyone hates air travel - So, Amtrak made an airplane without wings! The Tokyo metro area has more than 280 subway stations and around a thousand train stations. In Central Tokyo, you are nearly always a short walk from several different metro and train lines. At peak times, trains show up every 150 SECONDS!
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The Three Elements of the Good Life
THE MARGINALIAN (Literature/Psychology)
To be a true person is to be entirely oneself in every circumstance, with all the courage and vulnerability this requires. And yet because a person is a confederacy of parts often at odds and sometimes at war with each other, being true is not a pledge to be a paragon of cohesion, predictable and perfectly self-consistent — the impossibility of that is the price of our complex consciousness — but a promise to own every part of yourself, even those that challenge your preferred self-image and falsify the story you tell yourself about who you are. |
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This is Fascism
THE NEW REPUBLIC (Politics)
" So far, the ICE gang has shot & killed an unarmed man & lied about the circumstances; shot a woman 5 times for obstructing their vehicle; roughed up elderly women and zip-tied small children; shot a clergyman in the face with a pepper ball; marched through downtown Chicago, masked and armed. And they’re not going after the ‘worst of the worse,’ [sic] as promised. Most of the people they’re snagging have clean records. Some are citizens. To be clear: This is NOT making Chicago safer. It’s state-sponsored mayhem; dangerous political theater calculated to provoke." David Axelrod |
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Mariners at the Dawn of History
Archaeological finds hundreds of thousands of years old have shown human settlement of many of the world’s remote islands, challenging our assumptions of a primitive prehistory. How far did the horizons of our first ancestors extend? In the furthest past, even the nearest ridge of hills might then have disclosed a sight no human eyes had ever seen, and every river crossed was a ford into the unknown. The Palaeolithic and Mesolithic were eras when all was a great trek, all an act of discovery and endurance. Yet there is one frontier we do not so often associate with the distant past today, one even greater, and more imposing, than the primordial steppes and forests: that of the oceans. |
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Israel Must Not Turn Into Sparta
PERSUASION (Politics/Human Rights)
For anybody who’s visited Israel, submerged themselves in the thousands of years of history there, of every form of triumph and transcendence and brutality that you can imagine, there’s one site that stands out from all the others. It’s a flat promontory on the top of an astonishingly steep precipice located at the eastern edge of the Dead Sea. It’s called Masada and it is as close as anything that nature could design to an impregnable fortress. The Roman-Jewish historian Josephus described it In a vivid passage.... |
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Murder or madness: What really killed Edgar Allan Poe?
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC (Literature)
“Edgar Allan Poe is dead,” the New-York Daily Tribune declared. “This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it.” The 40-year-old poet and author—best known for his macabre detective stories and poems like “The Raven”—had died in Baltimore on October 7, 1849. Poe’s stature as a great American writer was clear even at the time of his death. But the circumstances surrounding his dramatic demise are still rife with unsolved mysteries. |
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UPGRADE to PAID
CURIOUSMINDS content and opinions contain important information curated from reliable sources. We rely on reader support to keep it FREE. We want it to reach as many people as possible. If you value what we do and would like to help us sustain it, please consider a small monthly or annual contribution. Contributing subscribers get full access to all James King Publications including archives of CURIOUSMINDS, and a valuable BONUS: FREE ebook versions of all James King’s published books.Click - View them at Amazon · Donate via the - Choose a subscription plan - page. If you are not a subscriber already - Go to the Welcome page |
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James King Blog offers valuable resources for students of Arts and Humanities. Particularly those interested in Environments, Literature, Performing Arts, Visual Art, Philosophy, Travel, and Human Rights. The articles provide insights into complex interactions between humans and their environments, and the ethical and moral dimensions of environmental issues. The Blog is relevant to students of all ages and those who are just fascinated by the Arts and Humanities. |
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 Cyrus the Great of Persia – His Reign and Legacy
Cyrus the Great of Persia, also known as Cyrus II, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. He ruled as the king of Persia from approximately 600-530 BC. His conquests and unification of the region laid the foundation for the First Persian Empire – one of the largest. |
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FREE BOOKS125 Mystery, Thriller, & Suspense FreebiesThis Promo Closes between 31 October and 17 November Thriller authors join forces in joint promotion campaigns to introduce themselves to readers. You can download as many books as you like.
I hope you find plenty to entertain you. CLICK THE BANNER BELOW TO VIEW THE PROMO - AND GRAB AS MANY BOOKS AS YOU WANT |
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KINDLE UNLIMITED PROMOTION176 Thriller Books - Mystery, and Suspense This Promo Closes 31 October Thriller authors join forces in joint promotion campaigns to introduce themselves to readers. You can download as many books as you like.
I hope you find plenty to entertain you. CLICK THE BANNER BELOW TO VIEW THE PROMO - AND GRAB AS MANY BOOKS AS YOU WANT |
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ALFIE GOES TO THAILAND - SERIES
If you like thought-provoking drama, romantic tragedies, and damaged characters, then you’ll love the tropical sauna and wry humour of POST- IT NOTES and the other books in this Psychological Thriller series. The Series is a story of human challenge, manipulation, rejection, abuse, and a search for peace. |
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THE KENRIGHT CHRONICLES - SERIES
The Kenright Chronicles is a psychological thriller series. Jack Kenright, a young investment banker gets involved in an international art swindle. which cripples his business and threatens his life and his family. He ends up a recluse, working for the FBI undercover and exposes massive corruption in the gambling world. |
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DetectiveBy Arthur Hailey
A death row confession sparks an investigation that will tear Miami apart in this "engrossing thriller" from the #1 New York Times–bestselling author (Booklist).
Detective-Sergeant Malcolm Ainslie, a former Catholic priest, is about to start his vacation when a call comes in from death row. Before serial killer Elroy Doil is taken to the electric chair, he wants to make a full confession to the cop who put him away. To close the books on additional murder cases in which Doil is a suspect, Ainslie drives four hundred miles to Florida State Prison.
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One Lost SoulBy J M Dalgleish
Set within the mysterious beauty of coastal Norfolk, this fast-paced British detective novel is a dark murder mystery with a little humour, one that will keep you guessing until the very end when the final shocking twist is revealed. One Lost Soul is the explosive debut in a new series of crime thrillers from the million selling British author, JM Dalgliesh, the author of the Dark Yorkshire books, perfect for fans of LJ Ross, JD Kirk, Angela Marsons, Joy Ellis and Damien Boyd.
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Substack - Creative Xellence -
Join us at Creative Xellence where we are building a home for James King's Poetry, Short Stories and serialised Novels. Subscribe for Free and you will be notified of new content and recieve the Newsletter.
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Medium
At Medium we curate high value informative articles related to A&H from major publishers and authoratative sources. And we publish a smattering of selected articles from James King Blog and articles written by James King for Medium Publications.
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