I’ve posted before about the ethical questions surrounding “virtual” pornography, (especially virtual child pornography). That is, artificial representations of people (or animals) having sex. No real person was having sex, or in any way abused or humiliated. I can see arguments on both sides, and I don’t know what the shrinks say (if they say […]
Additions to the Oxford English Dictionary
“Big Whoop” is now defined in the OED. They always have quotes for each word, showing how it was used in a published article. In this case they include a quote from comp.unix.questions, a Usenet group. Nothing interesting about the quote, but it’s very interesting to me that they accept Usenet as a published source.
Smart Men Have Better Sperm
See for yourself.
Zuleika, Clio, and My Lovely Dictionary
Finished Zuleika Dobson, by Max Beerbohm, last night. (My copy was expensive, but you can read it online!) It’s a completely silly story (in a good way) about events that supposedly happened at Oxford University in the early 1900s. It’s got some extremely funny bits, and lots of amusing scenarios and wordplay. Several times, the […]
Top Novels
I’ve only read 20 or so of The Modern Library board’s list of the top 100 novels of the 1900s. (I’ve read about 30 of the Radcliffe Publishing Course list. But who’s ever heard of that?) So I figure I’ll read a few more. I’ve just started Zuleika Dobson, which is apparently a lighthearted romp, […]
Thanksgiving
They didn’t call it Thanksgiving yet, but when fall came and the harvest (corn, squash, beans, barley, and peas) was brought in, the men went hunting. They brought back lots of ducks and geese, and governor William Bradford called for a celebration. From Mayflower: “…the first Thanksgiving soon became an overwhelmingly Native celebration when Massasoit […]
Don't Ruin Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving, right? The Indians and the settlers, in the 1600s, sharing food and hopes for the future. And according to lots of sources (like Mayflower, by Nathaniel Philbrick), most of the people at that celebration did actually live harmoniously together for the rest of their lives. Things did start to break down, of course, as […]
Motion of the Ocean
Every once in a while I imagine myself sitting under a large tree teaching youth about the world around them. Socrates-like. I don’t know why. The last little lesson that popped into my head was about motion. I had kicked a small stone, which had skittered along the pavement for a bit, hopped over the […]
Headlines Now Dumber than Ever!
A headline on the front page of BBC News Online looks as though it came straight from The Onion: “Is Obama black or mixed-race? Both, says a Harvard professor” They also went a little crazy on the quotation marks: — … grant that he is “part” black (by way of his father), but assert that […]
A New World to Explore!
I’m reading The Forsaken, by Tim Tzouliadis. I never knew anything about this before. At the height of the Great Depression, thousands of Americans headed to Soviet Russia looking for a better life. The American system seemed broken and corrupt, and the Soviets were promising a heaven for the working man. Once there, these expats […]