FUN INTERLUDE
I thought these two, true, stories would provide a fun interlude in my normal run of blogs. They make me smile and they take us …
THREE TESTED WAYS
There are three tested ways to undermine an autocrat according to Gene Sharp, the author of a playbook for combating dictators and all autocrats. “I …
KILL A WITCH
A new book “How to Kill a Witch” brings a dark period of history back to grisly life – and an official tartan is being …
FUN MEMORIES
I came across the following two groups of what I am calling “Fun Memories”. Both require a certain age to be directly funny, and the …
SOUNDBITE WORLD
We all know that we are in a soundbite world. It doesn’t matter if you spend your life on the phone, just read news feeds, …
CHESTNUT TREES
The chestnut trees of Europe tell a hidden story, charting the fortunes of ancient Rome and the legacy it left in the continent’s forests. …
PUFFIN PARADISE
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) site at Bempton Cliffs welcomes about 3,000 puffins to Puffin Paradise every summer. From April to …
A GOOD STATUS REPORT
A good status report: On May 8, political scientists Steven Levitsky, Lucan Way, and Daniel Ziblatt published an op-ed in the New York Times reminding readers that …
SONGKRAN
For three days every year, Thailand transforms into a wet and wild party, the Songkran Festival. But this ancient festival is far more than just …
AMERICAN ILLITERACY
Forty-eight million adults in the U.S. read at or below the third-grade level, to use the blog’s title here, American illiteracy. Many of these adults struggle …