Stories Short and Strange
17 short stories for general audiences ranging from the unusual to the unbelievable to the just plain strange.
Be Like Eisenhower
Dwight Eisenhower was a five-star general and 34th President of the United States. He helped win, then stop, hot wars (World War II and Korea), and navigated the country through eight years of the Cold War. He is also know for his domestic accomplishments, like the Interstate Highway System. One poll I found rates him
But What Did Einstein Actually Say?
From the “I’m Sorry I Asked” Department — All of my life I’m been hearing about Albert Einstein and his Theory of Relativity. He has had such a huge impact on our lives in general and science in particular. In high school, when I was asked to report on the most consequential figure of the
How Spiders Fly
If you’re afraid of spiders, you should stop reading now. Scientists have long known that spiders can travel by air. In a technique called ballooning, they simply raise their abdomens, extrude some silk, and float away. They have been found a thousand miles out at sea. Neat! But the mystery is spiders only seem to
Lynching — More Insidious Than You Realized
As a history nerd, I’ve always claimed that so much never makes it into the school history books. I have another example. Recently, I ran across a book entitled Black Newspapers & America’s War For Democracy 1914-1920 by William G. Jordan (University of North Carolina Press, 2001). On page 42, I ran across a paragraph
Original Poem — On Squash
The nice people on The Pangolin Review website have published one of my poems — Issue 4, 8 July (https://thepangolinreview.wixsite.com/mypoetrysite/current-issue )! Unfortunately, you have to scroll down and hunt for it, so I’ll copy it here to save you the trouble. On Squash How did the vegetable squash get its name? For something you
In Praise of National Parks
It’s been awhile since I’ve been in a national park. But on a recent trip with family, I visited three — Rocky Mountain, Yellowstone, and Badlands. Over the years, I’ve visited every major park except one — Yellowstone. I’d heard so much about this park, and I was eager to see for myself. I wasn’t
The Importance of Sleep
So many people I know complain about not getting enough sleep, yet it is essential to good health. If you fall into that category, you’ll be interested in a new book Nodding Off: The Science of Sleep from Cradle to Grave by sleep researcher Alice Gregory of Goldsmiths, University of London. I discovered this work
What If We Had to Eat Insects?
The world’s population is continuing to grow; we could have as many as 11.2 billion people by 2100 ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projections_of_population_growth ). If that projection comes true, how will we feed everyone? One solution may be to eat insects. That’s not as far-fetched as it sounds. This is what early mammals ate, and this ability has been
Predicting the Future
I know how tough it is to predict the future; I’ve watched Disneyland go through multiple incarnations of Tomorrowland. Yet we keep trying. Like in the AARP Bulletin of June 2018 with its cover article “What’s Next: How Your Life Will Get Better in the Coming Years.” Five areas of our lives are examined, and
Is There a Link Between Crying and Airplanes?
You learn something new every day — I’ve flown on a lot of airplanes, but except for screaming kids, I’ve never thought about crying. And yet, I’ve just found an article entitled “This Is Why You’re More Likely to Cry on an Airplane, According to a Psychologist” by Mahita Gajanan (http://time.com/5274209/airplane-cry- emotion/?, the photo is