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
When I opened my email today and saw this, I thought it might be a come-on for a self-improvement course. But the source is “The Brief” daily news summary from Time magazine for July 29, 2016 and it sounds worth repeating. The Five-Hour Rule is credited to Benjamin Franklin’s practice of investing about an hour
There are many things in this world I don’t understand. How women can walk in high-heeled shoes, for example. Now I can add tree communication to the list. Recently I ran across a TED Talk by a forest ecologist named Suzanne Simard. She has been researching Canadian forests for thirty years, and she’s concluded that
Have you ever thought about egg production? Only female chickens — hens — can lay eggs. So if you are breeding chickens for egg production, what do you do with the males, or roosters? The sad fact is that the roosters have no use, so they are usually put to death very quickly after hatching.
There are all kinds of video games. Yet normally they are pretty devoid of emotion. But there is a new genre of games that tries to tap into our most primal feelings. The best example is That Dragon, Cancer, created by Ryan & Amy Green and Josh Larson, and published by Numinous Games. (The cover