In this very unusual political year, the electorate seems as polarized as it’s been since the Civil War. Many people feel dire things will happen if their candidate is not elected president. Which brings up the question, how much difference does a president make anyway? Remember our Founding Fathers distrusted government at least as much
Whenever I teach in middle school, it’s not unusual to see girls with babies. Not real babies (thankfully), but realistic dolls that mimic a child’s needs. Their job is to care for this doll as if it was alive, including middle-of-the-night demands. I don’t know how long the assignment lasts, but it’s a mandatory part
We have come a long way in this country from our founding when we were being led by an exclusive group of white male landowners. There has been so much progress that accounts of how social conditions used to be can be quite jarring. In just my lifetime, we’ve gone from racism being an integral
There’s a lot about this world we still don’t understand. That includes theoretical physics (especially for me). Scientists recognize four fundamental natural forces. They are gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces found inside atoms. Could there be a fifth? Basically, maybe. On August 14, 2016, physicists at University of California, Irvine (UCI)
I’ve always been interested in the origins of some of our most common expressions. One explanation for “the whole nine yards” came from some World War II fighters carrying 27 feet (nine yards) of machine-gun ammunition. When they came back empty, the ground crew would exclaim “He gave them the whole nine yards.” I’ve just
Have you seen this week’s Time magazine? The cover story has the provocative title of “Why We’re Losing the Internet to the Culture of Hate” by Joel Stein. Stein usually writes more humorous pieces as “The Awesome Column”. Sometimes his less-serious writing style doesn’t match well with the length of a cover story, but not
If you’ve been watching the Olympics, you may have noticed some athletes engage in certain pre-competition rituals. For example, sprinter Usain Bolt always points to the sky. Why? An article on the Quartz website written by Olivia Goldhill (http://qz.com/757757/athletes-who-wear-lucky-socks-arent-wrong-psychologists-say-superstitions-yield-real-advantages/) tries to answer that question. So much of what athletes undergo is beyond their control, like
As hot as this summer has been, I through it would be appropriate to page homage to the refrigerator. According to The Writer’s Almanac, the first refrigerator was patented in the United States on August 8, 1899. Not that the idea of keeping food cold to preserve it was anything new. Before the ‘fridge, food
If you haven’t heard, we’re in the peak period for the Perseid meteor shower. The shower was predicted to peak this morning, August 12th, but is continuing on Saturday morning, August 13th. Meteors are visible anywhere on Earth, but came best be seen in the Northern Hemisphere. For more information, visit EarthSky.org at http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/everything-you-need-to-know-perseid-meteor-shower#outburst
It’s called “The Promise”. Any high school graduate in Kalamazoo, Michigan gets to go to college for free. The website Kalamazoo Promise lays it out clearly — 1. The Kalamazoo Promise is for ALL students of the Kalamazoo Public Schools (KPS). 2. You must reside within the boundaries of KPS. 3. You must have at
