Like most families, the nostrums necessary to palliate childhood ills were administered by my mother and grandmother. One, however, came from my father, and until last night, I thought it was his invention.
Winter in Southern California is barely winter. But colds, coughs, and bad dreams can besiege a child in any clime.
I was six. My [...]
According to almost every online source that commented on it, the round disk in the sky on the last day of 2009 was a “blue moon,” a term commonly used for the second full moon in any calendar month.
Commonly—and erroneously.
The internet offers near-instant access to information. It is ironic that in some cases this easy [...]
Pork Included
In a recent blog post, Dan Jurafsky, a San Franciscan who writes The Language of Food, speaks eloquently and intelligently of sweetness, pork products, and cultural differences. It is worth a read taste. Here are a few bites:
…the nearby hipster donut shop, Dynamo, whose most popular item is the Maple Glazed Bacon Apple [...]
photo: New York Times
Most gestures are inherently ambiguous. A wink, for example, can be an invitation or a warning. A wave can mean hello or go away.
Today I was trying to complete this phrase: palms up in a gesture of _____? I was stymied because that gesture seems to have an unusually wide range of [...]
A comment by Lanny on my recent post (Rule Book Racism: Can a Black Athlete Celebrate?) deserves a full response.
You write: “A young, black, athletic man will soon be our president.” Why don’t you call him white? He’s just as much white as black. Is my wife, Karina, yellow or white, Japanese or American? Her [...]
As former chairman of the Summer Science Program (SSP), an academic enrichment program for the very brightest teenagers, I know a bit about astronomy, the focus of SSP’s curriculum. I also know a bit about planetariums ["planetaria" is also accepted, but that sounds like a type of worm to me]. And since SSP once investigated, [...]
Some art, like the 1969 Hopper/Fonda film, Easy Rider, flashes boldly in its moment and ages to insignificance or embarrassment. Some, like the soundtrack of the 1972 reggae film, The Harder They Come, is timeless.
I owned the soundtrack early and played the cassette until it was lost. Almost 35 years later, I bought the CD [...]
“Has she been thoroughly vetted?” they ask. It’s an apt question. But do they know what the word actually means?
She makes a terific argumint.
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The sign in the background reads:
——–Tejas no es una colonia mexicana.
A tip of the hat to Robert Rummel-Hudson’s
Fighting Monsters with Rubber Swords blog.
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Much of the talk about unsettled times ahead looks to oil as a cause: economies will undergo transition and regional conflicts will increase.
Think also about water.
Lake Chad is an exemplar. At one time the world’s sixth largest lake, included in four African countries (Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria), it has, in less than a half-century, [...]
