All Purls. No Swine.
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
An oldie-but-goodie from a September 2nd a couple of years ago, lightly updated for contemporary references: This post is about one of those "rabbit-holey" things we all (or, or at least, those of us who suffer from the Elephant Child's 'satiable curiosity with an added fillip (which that EC didn't quite manage) that we like… Continue reading The Calendar Riots of 1752: “Give us back our eleven days!”
Well, it's not exactly Turtle Soup which is the one prescribed by Lewis Carroll the Mock Turtle in Alice in Wonderland. Beautiful Soup, so rich and green, Waiting in a hot tureen! Who for such dainties would not stoop? Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup! Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup! My particular soup is… Continue reading “Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!”
The term "gerrymander," which has come to mean manipulating the boundaries of electoral districts in order to guarantee the supremacy of one political party or another, is named after Elbridge Gerry (pronounced with a "hard G" as in "game" or "gun." Elbridge Gerry was--believe it or not--an American Founding Father, and the fifth Vice-President of… Continue reading Was There a Real Gerry Mander, and if so, Who Was He?
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject. The above quote is often attributed to Winston Churchill but I like to hedge my bets, so I checked the invaluable quoteinvestigator site for enlightenment. Its conclusion is that Churchill probably did say this, as it is listed in a book… Continue reading On Fanatics
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!
Barely five miles down the back roads from me is "Joe Walker Elementary School," named after hometown hero Joe Walker, who was the first person to fly an airplane to space. Joe was born in Washington, Pennsylvania on February 20, 1921, and graduated from Washington and Jefferson College with a BA in Physics in 1942. … Continue reading July 19, 1963–Joe Walker Reaches Space
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