Under the Assads, Kurds were forbidden from learning their own language at school, or even from speaking it in the military. The result is a generation of Syrian Kurds, many now in late middle age, who can't write their own language.

My journalistic mission was straightforward: to await the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Nobody knew quite when this would be. But the diplomacy - the meetings in the U.N. security council, the allegations about weapons of mass destruction, the martial language of Tony Blair and George W. Bush - all suggested a war was brewing.

Two decades after communism and the alleged end of the Cold War, Russia is still a cash economy. The preferred currency is dollars, though euros are also acceptable.

The FSB's invisible presence continued; the agency became an intangible part of my Moscow life - sometimes loudly, sometimes quietly, with someone in a back room clearly turning the volume of minor persecution up and down.

I'm thrilled to be joining Gap Inc., a company that understands the importance of integrating technology and retail in ways that improve the lives of its customers.

Digital currencies present a chance for money to truly become information, and for the creation of a global financial system that is truly frictionless, open, and uncensored - the vision we once had for the Internet.

I think people see the social media numbers, and the assumption is made that we're running a campaign that is just social media, but I think we're running a very old-school campaign.

I know there's a certain love and affection for the homemade on the Internet, and I'm all for that, too, and I appreciate it in alternative music, and I appreciate it in B-movies and in Sundance, independent films.