Stories Short and Strange
17 short stories for general audiences ranging from the unusual to the unbelievable to the just plain strange.
Original Poem — On Importance
A poem from my book Some Poems About Life, available on this website. On Importance I saw an old friend yesterday. A high school classmate. We had a lot to catch up on. Her’s doing very well, he says. He has a very responsible position. He makes major decisions all the time. People
Have You Ever Heard of the Easter Panda?
There’s an unusual way to celebrate Easter in the Washington, D.C. area. The National Zoo hosts a major annual event on Easter Monday, which is an unofficial holiday celebrated by African Americans in D.C. since the 1890s. This event is believed to have started because black housekeepers had to work on Easter Sunday, so they
For Anyone Who Loves Science
For anyone out there who loves science, especially astronomy, and is fascinated by the size and diversity of the universe (like I am), Astronomy magazine has released the “27 Best Hubble images on its 27th birthday” (http://astronomy.com/news/2017/04/best-of-hubble-images?spMailingID=28849033&spUserID=NDYyNDk0Mjk0MTgxS0&spJobID=1024146748&spReportId=MTAyNDE0Njc0OAS2). Recall the Hubble space telescope was launched into low Earth orbit on April 24, 1990. With a 2.4-meter
At The Dayton Book Expo
Today was the 2017 Dayton [OH] Book Expo at Sinclair Community College. The publishing business has changed lightyears since I entered it in 1990. Today anyone can get published, so this show was a fascinating assortment of (near as I could tell) about 80 local, self-published authors. There were also seminars on such subjects as
Understanding Pet Behavior — Dog’s Guilty Faces
Dog owners are quite familiar with the look their pet gives when it knows it’s done something wrong — a bowed head and very large, sad eyes. Biologist Nathan Lents, writing in Psychology Today, has a name for that look: the “apology bow.” But it apparently is more than an attempt to gain your sympathy.
Killers of the Flower Moon
History tells a lot of stories that are fascinating, yet illustrate the utter cruelty of our fellow human beings. A new book receiving a lot of attention falls squarely into this category. Its title is Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann. I haven’t read
Happy Birthday, William Shakespeare!
Actually, no one is quite sure when Shakespeare’s birthday was. His life is largely undocumented; he left no personal papers. But we do know he was baptized on April 26, 1564, so his birthday is traditionally celebrated on April 23rd. No one single person has had a greater impact on the English language, so much
An Easy Way To Improve Cooperation
A word for today — onymity. Don’t worry, it’s not an insult. The clue to its meaning is it’s the opposite of anonymity (not being named). Onymity simply means being named. So what? A recent article in the journal Science Advances is entitled “Onymity Promotes Cooperation in Social Dilemma Experiments”. This work reports on a
Happy Earth Day!
April 22 is celebrated around the world as Earth Day. The Earth Day Network ( http://www.earthday.org/) considers this the world’s largest secular holiday, with its celebrants estimated at about a billion people. So who’s idea was this? According to The Writers’ Almanac (http://writersalmanac.org/), it started with a politician. Senator Gaylord Nelson ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaylord_Nelson) was an
Can The Month In Which You Were Born Affect Your Personality?
Your first thought is probably astrology. But astrology (how do I say this nicely?) has no scientific basis. And yet, there appears to be a more fundamental, and very earthbound, answer to this question. According to an article in Time magazine’s daily news brief of April 17, 2017, the key may not be the month