I'm going to stick to the happy news today, so all you gloom-and-doom types are going to have look elsewhere for your daily fix of bitter. The new Library of Alexandria (Bibliotheca Alexandrina) will open its doors to the public on October 20th, more than 1500 years after the ancient library ceased to exist. This is a wonderful thing. Sure, there's no chance in Hell that new library will rival her ancient counterpart in the size of its collection or its reputation among scholars, but it is a start, especially for the city of Alexandria, which after enjoying many a moment in the sun has fallen upon hard times of late. It is also an encouraging sign that even if the Egyptians are becoming ever more radicalized as a whole, there are segments of the population that are now willing to look back upon the pagan past of their nation and find something worth celebrating, emulating, even resurrecting. Best of luck of them. I know that the director of The Greek Institute (where I work in the evenings) has been in contact with UNESCO and the Greeks involved with the new library, and has offered gratis the works on CD-ROM that the Treasury of the Greek Language has compiled from ancient, medieval, and modern Greek authors to date. It should be remembered that the original library started with far less, and even had to resort to theft to make their collection the envy of the Mediterranean - the Librarians borrowed the complete works of Euripides from the official archive of Athens, only never to return them, and the Ptolemies made it a standing order for customs officers to seize all incoming books from visitors to Alexandria and add them to the Library's permanent collection (giving the hapless traveler a mere copy in return!). So at least in one regard, the replica is off to a better start than its model.