Here’s something I’m sure you’ve been wondering about for a long time. If you see a lot of movies, you may have noticed many villains have British accents, even when no one else in the cast is British. These range from Peter Ustinov’s Prince John in Disney’s animated Robin Hood (pictured) to Anthony Hopkins in
Cats are among our closest animal companions. There are about 100 million cats in the U.S., a number that continues to grow. Yet there is a distinct downside in this relationship. Some consider them an environmental disaster; our feline friends kill an estimated 1.4 to 3.7 billion birds each year, and they’ve been blamed for
From the “Something You Normally Don’t Think About” department — I was skimming through an informational email from the Smithsonian magazine and came across the following question — “Do people who were born without sight have visual elements in their dreams?” It’s an interesting question I’ve never thought about. This is how the Smithsonian experts
I am old enough to have been fooled many times by many things in my lifetime. But it’s not always my fault. Sometimes it’s the limits of our senses. This was demonstrated to me yet again by a clever video on the EarthSky website entitled “How Your Brain Plays Tricks On You”. Rather than try
When it comes to college athletics, I’ve always thought the tail tends to wag the dog. Many schools have become known more for athletes than academics, at least to the general public. So maybe a reality check is in order. On January 2nd, Time.com published a list of top football universities ranked by academic achievement
It’s one of those things we take for granted — why the New Year begins on January 1st. It would seem more logical to begin a year at the winter solstice, the shortest day in the Northern Hemisphere, the perfect time to begin anew. But no seasonal or natural event occurs on January 1. So
“Show me your cemeteries, and I will tell you what kind of people you have.” –Benjamin Franklin If you’d like to start the new year in a light-hearted way, today I heard of a cemetery in Key West, Florida that’s famous for funny and quirky epitaphs. There is the oft-quoted “I told You I was
When I was in high school, I remember reading a short story entitled “Clothes Make the Man” by Henri Duvernois. (It can be found at http://www.valorchristian.org/devnet/data/databases/valorteachweb_01/widgets/class_resource_documents/00/00/01/65/pdf/original.pdf .) The story relates how a gang of thieves is burglarizing a house, and they put their muscle man in a policeman’s uniform to patrol the sidewalk so as
I can’t resist bring this up again this year. The fun part of the internet is when the creative meets the whimsical. An excellent example is the website “Is it Christmas?” at https://isitchristmas.com/. I’ve known about this site for several years now, and it is still active. Be sure to check it tomorrow (although you
Looking for an unusual gift, especially if money is no object? There are plenty of them around. Here are some ideas. The Neiman Marcus department store has always been famous for luxury gifts. Their website has a “Fantasy Gifts” section, http://www.neimanmarcus.com/Gifts/Fantasy-Gifts/cat48140738_cat000672_cat000000/c.cat, which includes — For the fantasy thespian, there’s walk-on role in the Broadway musical Waitress
