Many US citizens who want to join the Armed Services are too overweight or too poorly educated to qualify. (Eighth-grade level math and reading skills are required.) To meet its recruiting goals, in 2022 the…
Posts published in “Essays”
In American academic institutions it is now common practice, though by no means universal, to begin conferences, convocations, and even the occasional concert—though not yet, in my experience, sporting events—with land acknowledgements. These lay out…
It’s not easy being you and me, especially when we look around and see what a breeze of a bowl of cherries life is for rich cats and poor dudes. And their wives and old…
It might have been the very first issue. Someone with no experience was trying to set type using a Macintosh and was being taught over the phone, by someone in New York, how to paste…
In California ‘foodies’ are snooty sorts who browse their tiny plates of wild-sourced, shade grown servings of French herbs with Peruvian potatoes on the side and a delicate sauce applied with an eyedropper. They sip…
Armed with a backpack filled with clean socks and underwear and my Eurail Pass I boarded a cheap charter at SFO bound for Heathrow on my 18th birthday. The plan was to hitchhike around Europe…
Inscribed on the nameboard of an ottavino spinet (a small tabletop, or even laptop, harpsichord) dated 1710 and now in the Russell Collection of musical instruments at the University of Edinburgh, runs the motto: “Dum…