Yes, I do get correspondence about my writing. Awhile back, a dear friend shared with me one of her favorite bible verses. This seems like a really good time to share it with you — “…whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely,
Consider the ubiquity of plastics. If present trends continue, we will be producing a billion tons a year by 2050. And since 1950, we’ve produced more than 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic in total. It gets worse. By 2015, three quarters of those 8 billion+ metric tons were discarded, and only 9% has been recycled.
On August 20, 2007, a 12-year-old girl spotted a blue-and-white running shoe on a beach of British Columbia’s Jedediah Island. Inside was a sock, and inside the sock was a foot. No other body parts, just one foot. Over the next 12 years, a total of 15 feet were found ashore in the area around
Song of the Witches — from Shakespeare’s Macbeth Double, double toil and trouble;Fire burn and caldron bubble.Fillet of a fenny snake,In the caldron boil and bake;Eye of newt and toe of frog,Wool of bat and tongue of dog,Adder’s fork and blind-worm’s sting,Lizard’s leg and howlet’s wing,For a charm of powerful trouble,Like a hell-broth boil and
March 13 is the birthday of everyone’s favorite uncle, Uncle Sam. This moniker had been used to refer to the USA since around 1810, but it wasn’t until 1852 that he was given a human form when Frank Henry Bellew first depicted him in a cartoon in the New York Lantern. Of course, it’s not
No one knows for sure when Harriet Tubman was born; it was probably around 1820. But we do know two facts for sure — she had a remarkable life, and she died on March 10, 1913. In remembrance, The Writer’s Almanac published the following tribute on March 10, 2021 — A woman known as “Moses” died on
If you don’t like your body, how would you like to regenerate a new one? It can be done, at least in slugs. Researchers have discovered two species of Japanese sea slugs that can shed their bodies and regrow new ones within three weeks. I can understand why some humans would want to regrow their
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” — George Santayana During the Great Depression, the Federal Government instituted a number of programs to provide employment and boost the economy. Perhaps best remembered were the public-works projects like building roads, dams, and bridges that created desperately-needed blue-collar jobs. However, white-collar workers needed jobs, too.
Are you tired of hearing about the evils of plastic? I hope not, because there is some new research (and it’s not very good news). When large plastic items like food containers break down, they tend to form microplastics: Small pieces less than five millimeters long. These pieces are so minute they end up everywhere. Consequently,
Do you believe in ghosts? Recall the nuclear disaster at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant in 2011 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_nuclear_disaster). Particularly hard-hit was the city of Ishinomaki, with 3,097 deaths and 2,770 residents missing. In 2016, Yuka Kudo, a graduate student in sociology at Tohoku Gakuin University, traveled to Ishinomaki and began asking taxi drivers, “Did you