The Nation Image

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The Nation Photo

The Nation Photo

The Nation Image

The Nation Pic

You are thinking of a distinctive gift to buy a alien friend of yours, but you don’t know what to get them.

You could get them a gift from the tourist center of your hometown, which they may take to their home country, but that reeks of self promotion so it is not the best idea. Instead, why not get them a gemstone that represents their country.

The Opal is the gemstone of Australia and considered a good luck charm for the country. In fact, the country’s women’s national basketball team is nicknamed The Opals. The Opal is likewise the state gem of Nevada. While the Australians may see the Opal as lucky, for centuries the Russians saw it as bad luck and the representation of the evil eye.

Canada’s national gemstone is the labradorite, which is ordinarily seen in an array of colors. Not surprisingly, the stone is mined on Paul’s Island, near the town of Nain in the province of Labrador.

Alexanderite is the gemstone of Russia, where it was encountered in the emerald mines near the Tokovaya River in the Ural Mountains in the 1800s. The gemstone is similar to emerald but described as harder than emerald. It is named in honour of Alexander II, who took his thrown the same day the gemstone was came upon in 1834.

The national gemstone of Ireland is Connemara Marble, which has been mined in the country for centuries along the west coast. The gemstone, is not surprisingly, green in colour, reflecting Ireland’s love for all things green. Connemara originated over seven million years ago and is considered very rare.

Amber is the national gemstone of Spain. We all know what amber is, it is fossilized sap from millions of years ago that is often found in digs for dinosaurs. Amber has also been found with insects inside, imprisoned for millions of years in a yellowish prison.

The national gemstone of Iran is turquoise, which is a blue green gem of that is seldom a single colour. Obviously, since it is their national gemstone, turquoise is found in Iran and has been mined there for millions of years.

There are a lot of dissimilar gemstones out there for each country in the world, and this just touches the surface, so if you are going to buy somebody the gift of their national gemstone, do some exploration and find out the right one for them. No sense giving the faulty one and looking stupid.

The Nation

America’s oldest and most widely read on a weekly basis diary of progressive political and cultural news, sentiment and analysis, The Nation will not be the organ of any party, sect, or body. It will, on the contrary, make an earnest effort to fetch to the discussion of political and social questions a genuinely critical spirit, and to wage war upon the vices of violence, exaggeration, and misrepresentation by which so much of the political writing of the day is marred.

The Kindle Edition of The Nation holds most articles found in the print edition, but will not include all images. For your convenience, issues are auto-delivered wirelessly to your Kindle at the same time the print edition hits the newsstand.

• Amazon Sales Rank: #213 in Digital Text Feeds
• Format: Magazine Subscription

226 of 228 people found the following review helpful.
A good magazine for a Kindle at a good price.
By Noel S. Selegzi
The Nation is the National Review of the left, so don’t subscribe if you’re not interested in what the American left has to say. My assumption that anyone considering subscribing to the Kindle edition of the Nation already knows what the editorial policies of the magazine are and are wondering about the Kindle edition.

The print edition of the Nation is not a glossy magazine and does not rely heavily on graphics, so it’s well suited to the Kindle format. Even though Kindle does support jpegs and could handle far more graphical content that is supplied with other magazines and newspaper Kindle subscriptions, this isn’t as problematic with the Nation as it, say, with the New York Times, where very few pictures or charts are included with articles, even in cases where the articles make reference to charts that aren’t produced.

Further, the price is right here. You’re paying less for four issues the Nation than you are for several of the monthly magazines that they’re offering Kindle subscriptions for.

Of course, why they take out the advertisements, graphics, etc, in the Kindle editions of these magazine continues to amaze me. The Nation’s classifieds, which could easily be included in the Kindle are almost always a fun read.

89 of 90 people found the following review helpful.
Indepth articles and reviews, interesting content
By Diane Kistner
Because there really are very few good liberal/progressive publications available for the Kindle (or anywhere, for that matter), I subscribe to/support two “political” Kindle periodicals, The Nation and DailyKos. (For the more right-wing fare, I go read it free online.)

The Nation’s issues are well organized, sometimes thematically linked, and the articles well written with ample depth. I find myself learning about global issues that normally are not even touched on in the usual “lowest common denominator” fare on TV. Happenings in the arts and sciences are also covered.

The Nation comes out once a week, which I find to be a good rate of publication for a magazine of this type. You don’t get the breathless “breaking news” type of reporting (a la Wolf Blitzer) in The Nation, which I find refreshing, but the issues are current and usually of considerable importance. The editors have time to be editors and the writers have time to do their homework. It’s a more measured, intelligent approach to the world than we’ve gotten used to with cable news and screaming-head blogs.

I do not find The Nation to be all that left-wing. On the contrary, I find a balance of perspectives from left (mostly left-of-center) to center-right. Importantly, there are no “Screaming of the Extremists” portions. There are well-articulated viewpoints and the occasional intelligent debate. I’d like to see more of that tone in our general discourse.

The Nation works great on the Kindle, and I find it very easy to get around each issue. So far, I have not encountered any typos either! I appreciate the work that goes into each issue.

85 of 86 people found the following review helpful.
Perfect fit for the Kindle
By Jon Folkers
If you’re not familiar with the content of The Nation, that’s for you to discover via the free 2-week trial, or on their website.

The Nation is a perfect fit for the Kindle format.

- It’s all text (making Kindle formatting a snap)
- It’s serious (articles are of decent length and depth)
- It’s a weekly, so there’s no need to leave your wireless on all the time
- It’s cheap, and would be good deal even if it weren’t — the Kindle subscription costs exactly half of the dead-tree edition.

To me, it makes a lot more sense to get this slim little pamphlet electronically than on paper. It’s still portable, but much more green and mess-free on the Kindle. The 150-year-old magazine is a wonderful complement to the Washington Post.

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