Food has no educational value, no sex appeal, no ethical significance, and very little connection with underwear. Like us, it just sits there, waiting to be consumed by something greater than itself. The Great Alimentary Canal is part of the Universal Chain of Being, Nature’s Grand Design for recycling everything. But what would Food be […]
When Robert Frost wrote, “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” he was thinking of the difficulty of maintaining barriers. Nature builds much more successful ones, in the form of mountain ranges, oceans, and deserts, which need very little maintenance. Nevertheless, humanity sees every barrier as a challenge. Still, we need borders, to separate […]
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I’m sure you’ve come across the expression, “a place for everything, and everything in its place.” It makes a lot of sense. It sums up the whole idea of neatness and order. You can’t put things away properly, if you don’t know where they go. And you can’t find anything very easily, unless you know […]
I’m sure you’ve come across the expression, “a place for everything, and everything in its place.” It makes a lot of sense. It sums up the whole idea of neatness and order. You can’t put things away properly, if you don’t know where they go. And you can’t find anything very easily, unless you know […]
My closest experience to living a dream come true was being hired to teach on board a cruise ship converted into a “floating university,” and sailing with it twice around the world. I had long fantasized that, one day, travel and education would be combined in ways like this – but to become part of […]
We fall in love. So why don’t we fall in hate? But we all know that “falling” is much more complicated than that. There is, for instance, a big difference between a “fallen soldier,” and a “fallen woman.” Slipping and Falling too is acknowledged to be a major cause of death and injury, especially among […]
Some time ago, somebody at the Guinness Brewery (headquartered in Dublin, Ireland) had a brainwave. People in pubs were always arguing about the most this, or the longest or tallest that – but there was no handy authoritative way of settling these disputes. Why not publish some kind of reference book, to be available in […]
I am thinking of founding a religion in which everything is permitted. It would be the First Church of Anything Goes, and its followers would be known as Any’s. Wouldn’t it be great to have perfect freedom, sanctioned by the Almighty! But I must admit that this idea, attractive as it may seem at first […]
One of the most famous pieces of literature in the English language is about a talking bird. No, it’s not a parrot or a mynah – and I don’t mean Edward Lear’s accomplished Owl who eloped with a Pussy-Cat, and could sing and play the guitar while operating a sailboat. The particular bird I am […]
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You have to wear clothes, at least enough to cover your private parts. It’s generally the law, in most civilized places. In fact, such laws almost define civilization. “Naked savages” populate the lowest level of the social pyramid. But the garb of those on the upper levels, especially (for some reason) the female of the […]
It has always seemed puzzling to me that in some situations we have great respect for the dead, while in others we couldn’t care less. In general, the determining factor seems to be time. The more recently dead you are, the more you can expect to be handled with care, and referred to with some […]
Here and there in your life, you may have come across the expression “A Message to Garcia.” It’s one of those phrases useful in such a wide variety of situations that the original meaning has largely been forgotten. Those words became a cultural icon after appearing as the title of an essay, published in 1899, […]
Why? Why should I do it? Because. Because why? Because They said so. And who are They? They are your Authority Figures, in the shape of your parent, your teacher, employer, minister, officer, judge, ruler – or even your spouse (remember that rash promise to “Love, honor, and obey”?). A powerful bunch, I must say […]
As far as I know, God never bothers about what’s right and what’s wrong. Even so, we’ve always been gifted with self-professed intermediaries, from the days of Moses descending Mount Sinai bearing holy commandments inscribed on tablets of stone, all the way to the “televangelists” of today, telling us in no uncertain terms how God […]
