All Purls. No Swine.
I quite like Jordan Peterson. I don’t agree with everything he says. Occasionally, as do many of his critics, I find him a bit glib and superficial. But if a generation of young men (and even some of their fathers and grandfathers) are going to listen to a social media muse on matters of culture,… Continue reading Jordan and Camille’s Excellent Adventure
I'm not generally given to quoting, or even slightly misquoting, Friedrich Nietzsche, but I know the interplay between struggle and resiliency is true in my case. And perhaps, as we go forward in the coming months, figuring out what to do about "school" and "kids" and Covid-19, we'll puzzle our way through to something better… Continue reading School: What Doesn’t Kill You, Makes You Stronger
My father was a remarkable man. Over the course of his long life, he met very few men whose will was stronger than his own. Here’s the story of one of them: Shortly after World War II, Dad was ordered to the ancient Northern Nigerian city of Sokoto to serve as the Assistant District Officer (that… Continue reading Occasional Quote of the Day: “O day and night but this is wondrous strange!”
The events recounted below are true, and took place in Sokoto, Northern Nigeria, in the Summer of 1947. The author was a young, newly arrived, civil servant in the British Colonial Service, recently separated from active duty in Italy and North Africa as a Major in the British Army. The gentleman in the photo to… Continue reading The King’s Shilling: One Colonial Officer’s Experience with West-African Slavery
Ever since I was a small child, I’ve had difficulty finding my way. I don’t mean in spiritual, philosophical, or political matters. I think I’m pretty well grounded in all those things, and Lord knows, I have pretty firm beliefs about them too. I was lucky to be raised in a family of smart people… Continue reading Little Girl Lost
Happy 83rd Birthday, Spam! This much maligned loved product, from the Hormel Company, was first introduced to the world on July 5, 1937. Its name was based on two words (neither of whose products is actually in thing itself): SPiced and hAM. Thus, SP-AM. (The ingredients in Spam, as announced in early days were “pork, salt,… Continue reading Occasional Quote of the Day: Everybody’s Saying SPAM!
Oh, I don’t mean that in what’s now become the commonly-accepted sense of the word, as is regularly on display these days, or as described in The Oxford Dictionary: “A person who is blamed for the wrongdoings, mistakes, or faults of others, especially for reasons of expediency.” I mean it in the more complex and… Continue reading In Praise of Scapegoats
This post fulfills a promise I made in July of 2018 to a lovely lady, Ms. Suwanee Kwan Cheablam, that I would write a public review of her cooking school in Chiang Rai, Thailand. I'm sorry it's taken me such a long time. However, as Allen Saunders said (in a quote which is frequently mis-attributed… Continue reading Suwanee’s Cooking School In Chiang Rai, Thailand