If you are running a business, you would want to closely track your assets. How can you improve productivity? How can you increase an asset’s value? At what point does the cost of maintenance exceed the return? These are all important questions. Now, what if these assets you are tracking are people? Or, more accurately,
In my lifetime I can never remember having three crises at once — Covid-19, a stumbling economy, and nationwide protests against police brutality. Put those before an electorate that’s already deeply divided and you have a perfect situation for spawning all types of conspiracy theories. It reminds me of that old saying “You’d be paranoid
From The-Best-Man-For-The-Job-Might-Be-A-Woman Department : Archaeologists had always thought they had found the ideal Viking male warrior’s grave in southeastern Sweden. There were swords, arrowheads, and two sacrificed horses, so the interred must be a man, right? Then Stockholm University bioarchaeologist Anna Kjellström closely examined the warrior’s pelvic bones and mandible. To her, they seemed feminine. When none
We hear a lot about languages that are disappearing. For example, some Native American languages are down to a handful of speakers. So it may surprise you to learn that languages are still being created. Where? Australia. At one time, as many as 300 languages were spoken on the continent. Then Europeans arrived and the
I know Mother’s Day is over for this year, but… I’ve been catching up on some favorite podcasts recently, and happened to hear about a tremendous feat of mothering. We all know that octopuses are remarkable animals. But in 2007, a robot submarine stumbled across an octopus settling in to brood her eggs at the
Just before school ended, one of the permanent teachers asked if I’d ever seen anything like this pandemic before in my lifetime. At first I was a bit taken aback, but when I realized I was (by far) the oldest person in the room, I said no, I hadn’t. This crisis is going to upend
Here’s something to think about during this Memorial Day weekend. In 1877, the first black man graduated the United States Military Academy at West Point. In 1940, the Army promoted a black to the rank of general. But the U.S. Navy was more bound to tradition. At the beginning of World War II, African Americans
What have I been doing at home these past weeks? I realized I’ve written 19 short stories over the past several years, seven of which have been published on the Bewildering Stories website (http://bewilderingstories.com/). So I put them all together into a book that’s now available on Amazon.com. The book comes in two flavors —
My first memory of my uncle’s workshop was a dirt floor. It was tacked onto the side of his dairy barn, so it was no big deal. I think it stuck in my memory because it was my first natural floor that wasn’t intended for animals. Such floors are fine for barns, but problematic for
We have a lot of slang sayings in English. How they originate, and how they change over time, can lead to some interesting stories. First, have you heard of the expression “parting shot” ? The modern definition is “a final critical comment.” But its genesis is distinctly ancient. It origin is probably the adjective Parthian, which