Despite FDR’s famous dictum, that “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” we do have plenty of other things to be afraid of. But what matters is how we deal with them. The ones really worth fearing are those we can’t prevent and can’t adequately insure against. Crossing a street is a […]
On December 9, 2013, I celebrated my 80th birthday at a hilltop park overlooking Santa Barbara. Inviting everybody, on a pot-luck basis, I announced, somewhat facetiously, that this would enable me to assume the role of a “Wise Old Man of the Mountain.” To my surprise, the City took this seriously, to the extent of […]
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One of the best gifts I ever received was a “Rapidograph” pen, from a friend who knew I was starting to illustrate my epigrams. This pen was extremely useful, because it could draw very fine lines of a single steady width. But, like the many others which I have bought since then, it also proved […]
Some people are instantly likeable, some just the opposite. We hear much about “born leaders,” but most of us are probably born followers. And why not, so long as we’re being led in the right direction? That is the trouble. This quality called “charisma” (an expression relatively new to our modern vocabulary, though its roots […]
At Christmas 1914, when World War I had already been raging for several months, an odd phenomenon occurred along the Western Front. Men from both sides briefly stopped fighting and fraternized. This “Christmas truce” is remembered as a freak occurrence. Some were punished for having engaged in it. Fighting resumed, and the war went on […]
It may be uplifting to think in terms of constant and inevitable progress – but it’s not very realistic. In many ways, our society seems to be stuck, or even sliding backward. As one example, consider this anachronism: in an era of streamlined electronic cyber-finance, we are still accepting as “legal tender” little round pieces […]
To me, the word “Forever” has always had a certain sanctity. There were only two ways in which I commonly heard it used. One was in prayers and hymns, particularly in what Christians refer to as The Lord’s Prayer (though it is not perfectly clear from the title whether “The Lord” is “Our Father,” to […]
In the fall of 1785, a young Scottish farmer was working in one of his fields, when his plow happened to overturn the nest of a field mouse. The victim scampered away – but the perpetrator felt sadly about his inadvertently cruel act – and eventually wrote a poem about it. The poet was Robert […]
Nobody ever made up his or her mind to be lucky. Chance and intention are at opposite ends of the spectrum of probability. Yet there are all sorts of superstitions about ways to influence your luck. But even the people who acknowledge the sheer randomness of happenstance rationalize their chances. Otherwise, lotteries would hardly be […]
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One of the illustrated epigrams on which my strange career has been built shows a little cherub hovering in the air, holding a large volume, while an unseen speaker demands, “BRING ME A DICTIONARY – I WANT TO KNOW THE MEANING OF LIFE.” Well, after all, if you can’t find meaning in a dictionary, where […]
