All Purls. No Swine.
Really, righteous people. If what you want to do is endanger yourselves (you keep on saying that you feel endangered, because--what else--Trump!) by bravely stepping up to the line and perhaps even crossing it, I should have thought by now you'd have noticed that you've felt no consequences--ever--for doing so. Just like Meryl Streep at… Continue reading No Kings? Grow Up Already!
Honestly, there are days when the tsunami of news is so overwhelming that I can’t but do other than reflect on the words of the late Mr. Right's Aunt Sophie, who served as a real-life Rosie the Riveter in one of Pittsburgh’s munitions factories during World War II, and who was well known in the… Continue reading On Cotton Bolls and Dancing Queens
https://youtu.be/3t0Gk0nffXA I think I know. There are lots of noncombatants in the current wars. Fair enough. They get a pass, for now, or at least until things heat up some more. And then there are those who pretend to be already engaged. Those who imagine they are "standing" because of some good work they may… Continue reading What is the Difference Between “Fighting” and “Standing”? Advice to a Former Friend
A little poem from my childhood: Yesterday, upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there He wasn't there again today I wish, I wish he'd go away... When I came home last night at three The man was waiting there for me But when I looked around the hall I couldn't see him… Continue reading “I wish, I wish, he’d go away”: Trump and the escalator wishcasting from the Left
Over the past eight or nine days, I’ve repeatedly heard those on the Right use the phrase, “They just can’t help themselves.” Most often, its use follows the telling of yet another story about those on the Left, those who seem able, with extraordinary precision and clarity, to identify and cull from the sea of… Continue reading Please, Do Help Yourselves!
Jo Rowling weighs in on the subject of free speech and a person's reaction to it. You can find the original here. Many of the comments are enlightening and and many are depressing. Quite are few are both at once. I don't believe there's anyone else on earth, with the singular exception of Donald Trump,… Continue reading Rowling’s Rules of Order
He was a staple of my childhood, an awful lot of which depended on audio rather than video, and which was marinated in a culture of literate, clever, often funny, but always appropriate, language. When I was three or four years old, it was exemplified by the likes of Beatrix Potter. And I was never… Continue reading Tom Lehrer, R.I.P.
Well, here's something I didn't know about this day in history: It seems that 124 years ago, on July 24, 1901, one William Sydney Porter was released early from his five-year prison term at the Ohio Penitentiary, where he'd been sent down for embezzlement. To his credit, Porter--who'd been charged in 1895 and had fled… Continue reading Oh, Henry!
There’s a lot of buzz over in Old Blighty at the moment over the news that the French have agreed to “loan” the Bayeux Tapestry (which most scholars believe was embroidered somewhere near Cambridge, England) to the British Museum for display during the 960th anniversary of the Battle of Hastings. The conclusion as to its provenance is… Continue reading The Great Norman Stitch Up
In 1885, Louis Pasteur (not a doctor) was convinced by Jacques Joseph Grancher, (who was a doctor), to administer his then-experimental rabies vaccine to a young French boy, Joesph Meister, who had been bitten numerous times by a rabid dog. Pasteur and his team were reluctant, as the vaccine was--at the time--still in the experimental… Continue reading A Useful and Effective Vaccine: For Rabies