Embarrassment comes in many shapes and sizes – but what we all find particularly interesting are other people’s “most embarrassing moments.” I’m going to tell you mine – but first, some peripheral observations. Such stories usually seem to involve unexpected revelations of things we normally try to keep “private” – particularly if they have to […]
There are many ways to acknowledge defeat. Besides simply putting your hands in the air, probably the most universally recognized symbol is the white flag – which can also indicate a desire to parlay. You may remember a true episode in the movie Battleground, in which a representative from the Germans comes, under a white […]
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Some of you may know the 1946 hit song, based on the idea of a farmer who, thinking there may be a thief in the hen-house, goes out with his shotgun, and shouts, “Who’s there?” – only to receive this reply – presumably from the culprit: “There ain’t nobody here but us chickens!” Now that […]
My wife, Dorothy, died peacefully in her sleep on May 24, 2018. She was 86 and had for some time been a victim of Parkinson’s Disease, which progressively robbed her of all normal abilities to function. (Fortunately, she had some truly devoted caregivers.) We had been together for 51 years, living in Santa Barbara since […]
Probably one of the most famous of all motivational slogans was first thought up in 1911 by Thomas J. Watson, the man who became head of IBM: His brain-wave was the single word: “Think.” But now that we have machines so “smart” that their ability to think is a matter for philosophical debate, we also […]
One idea that keeps cropping up in literature is the notion that our land – whichever land it happens to be – is at least in some way as holy as those far-off Biblical places we have been taught about since childhood. Here are two fine examples: First, we have the mystical William Blake, whose […]
On April 4 1940, during an early stage of World War II, which American journalists dubbed “The Phoney War,” because not much actual fighting was going on, prime minister Neville Chamberlain, who had led Britain into the war, addressed his Conservative Party with a speech in which he used a common metaphor in a rather […]
I went through much of my life without being aware of this simple fact: One major problem faced by people all over the world is that of getting bitten in the night. And among the chief culprits, besides insects, or even vampires, are ordinary humans. And the humans are ourselves. Biting and grinding our teeth […]
Here is a question for you: What is the southernmost point of Africa? If you answered “The Cape of Good Hope,” I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. The correct answer is Cape Agulhas, which is 150 km farther south. The “Good Hope” Cape was not even given that name originally. Its first European discoverer, Bartolomeu Dias, […]
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Do you ever long for the good old days, when the sun went around the Earth, and we were really the center of everything? Science keeps discovering new ways in which we are less and less significant, and the world more and more strange. Not many eras ago, if I were to quip, “They told […]
Sometimes, staying alive seems too high a price to pay for the privilege of not being dead. Nevertheless, people find ways to cope, including comforting mantras such as “This too shall pass.” One ubiquitous expression advises us to “Take one day at a time.” I satirized this earnest injunction with an epigram which became the […]
Here is a little quiz for you: What country is represented by (a) a part of a tree? (b) a whole tree? The part of a tree is a leaf, and the maple leaf has been the symbol of Canada for centuries, though it did not get onto the national flag until 1965. A key […]
No doubt you’ve heard of the usher who said, “May I sew you to your sheets?” And you probably know that such slips of the tongue are called Spoonerisms. William Archibald Spooner, the honoree of this eponym, lived much of his long life (1844-1930) at Oxford University, where he was for many years a loved […]
My mother had a favorite joke on the subject of superstition: “Well, I’m not superstitious,” she‘d say. “But I’ll tell you one thing: I would never sleep thirteen in a bed.” Nevertheless, it’s a fact that for several people to share a bed was once much more common in our culture than it has since […]
