Someone I knew told me that someone HE knew used to look around ATMs for receipts that people would throw on the ground (instead of in the trash can exactly 1 foot from the machine). He’d find one with a big number in the account, then use it as “scratch paper” next time he wanted […]
Archive | Humanity
Making Crime Pay Less
If morality wasn’t an issue, what do you think would be the best way to stop crime while maintaining freedom for non-criminals? Breaking arms for breaking windows? Death for every crime? Handouts to everyone? Public ridicule? (That’s three sticks and one carrot.) I’m planning to do write about bad guys at NANOWRIMO this year and […]
Zoophilia
Zoophilia means the love of animals. This can mean someone who hates animal cruelty or someone who has sex with his horse. Let’s talk about that second one. I recently read something somewhere about a guy who claims to have a loving, caring, “marital” relationship with a dog. Sounds ridiculous to me, since I think […]
The Ex (with a spoiler)
Last night I rented “The Ex,” which got a rockin’ 20% on Rotten Tomatoes. In other words, it was supposed to be terrible. It wasn’t actually terrible. But that’s it for the movie review. I just wanted to mention something that I think they did really wrong. The movie is more or less an extended […]
Spoil the Child
Let’s say you had fifty billion in the bank. You have a son and you plan to leave everything to him. What’s the reason not to give him everything he wants? Of course, I don’t mean that you buy him a company and let him fire or humiliate the employees. Let’s say that you don’t […]
Lines in the Face
So I woke up at about 7:00 this morning and had a big fat pillowcase-induced line on the right side of my face. Went back to bed for an hour, making sure to lie on the left side of my face. Woke up about 8:30, and now, at 9:15, there’s still a line on my […]
Memory Lane
So, I already posted some stuff from my travel journal (about lots of non-travel stuff). This blog was definitely NOT going to be a place for my nostalgia about traveling. Not. And it still won’t be. But, as I said in that other post, I was skimming through some of the old stuff recently, and […]
Mixed Bag of Diversity
Apparently, while diversity in neighborhoods and cities can drive creative and economic forces, it can also lead to civic disengagement. People in diverse communities are more likely to: “… distrust their neighbors, regardless of the color of their skin, to withdraw even from close friends, to expect the worst from their community and its leaders, […]
The Entitled
Today, and other days this week, the name Michael Vick has played upon the lips of many of my Atlanta co-inhabitants. Everyone either knows or can find out easily why, so I won’t go into details except these two: 1. He’s an extremely talented and famous athlete. 2. He’s been accused of being deeply involved […]
I'm too sexy for your brain
Seed Magazine points to a round-up of discussion of studies showing that intelligent people have less sex than their average-brained buddies. As if we didn’t already know that. I like looking at all the possibilities behind a finding and the article does a good job at stating them, so I won’t bother here. But there’s […]