Stories Short and Strange
17 short stories for general audiences ranging from the unusual to the unbelievable to the just plain strange.
Are You Bored?
This is an obvious question with what seems to be an obvious answer — why do we get bored? Actually, it’s not that simple. Researchers are studying how and why people get bored, and what the implications are. For example, our economy would be much better off if everyone were fully engaged in their work.
How a Man’s Unborn Twin Fathered His Child
This is one of those stories you check multiple times to make sure you’ve seen it right. I read this on Time magazine’s daily news brief awhile back, and I didn’t believe it either. Basically, here’s what happened — After fertility treatments had produced a son, the couple had a paternity test. Imagine their surprise when
A Tasteful Way to Help Syrian Refugees
If you’re concerned about the state of the world and are looking for a worthwhile charity to support in 2016, I’d like to introduce you to someone who feels the same way. Her name is Barbara Abdeni Massaad and she’s from Beirut, Lebanon. Less than an hour’s drive from her home were Syrian refugees in
“Some Poems About Life” a Reader’s Favorite
The website Reader’s Favorite has just reviewed Some Poems About Life. Some Poems About Life by Bob Welbaum is an enjoyable and easy-to-read selection of thirty poems that examine ordinary life and its significance. Most of the verses rhyme and others are a mixture of line length and non-rhyming thoughts. The poet covers a variety
How Big Can Black Holes Grow?
If I were smart, I’d stay away from this one, because it gets complicated, but I just ran across this topic on the EarthSky News. The short answer to how big a black hole can get is 50 billion suns before the food that powers them crumbles into stars. (Like I said, it’s complicated.) The
Happy Winter Solstice
It’s all downhill from here. The winter solstice — officially the first day of winter, although I have my own definition — is the shortest day and the longest night of the year. Of course that’s in the Northern Hemisphere; in the Southern Hemisphere it’s just the reverse. Depending upon your time zone, the
Happy Birthday, Ludwig van Beethoven
Actually, no one is postive when Beethoven was born. He was baptized on December 17, 1770 in Bonn, in what is now Germany, and his birthday is thought to be December 16, 1770. Beethoven was a bonafide musical genius who gave us some of our best-known classical music and who ironically went deaf later in
The Little Woman Who Made the Great War
Upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862, Abraham Lincoln supposedly said “Is this the little woman who made this great war?” I found a secondhand paperback edition of Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin awhile back and decided to read it since it is one of the key books in U.S. history. It’s actually pretty short, 180
“It Was the Best of Times…”
In this, the last half of the last month of 2015, people are beginning to pass judgment on the past year. Was it like the opening of Charles Dicken’s A Tale of Two Cities, both the best of time and the worst of times? Perhaps it depends on whether or not you’re a Republican
Who Really Did Write Shakespeare?
I was surprised to learn recently that the debate about who wrote the plays and verse attributed to William Shakespeare is still alive. My question “Who wrote Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets?” got 259,000 hits on Google. The main problem seem to be the lack of recordkeeping. We simply don’t know that much about the man,