We live in an era of false equivalence. One person’s uninformed opinion is supposed to be as respected and valid as another person’s researched and studied opinion. In a just argument, you will represent all sides of an issue fairly, accept your burden of proof, and reason correctly. This means looking at both sides of a situation, such as invalidating ...
Scarlett Johansson, aka Black Widow, may be one of the highest-paid actresses and a striking beauty, but she is also a Mom. In filing for divorce from husband Romain Dauriac on March 7, 2017, Johansson now contends1 with a custody battle over her daughter, Rose. This is the first lesson of custody fights: you may be somebody’s superhero, but in ...
What did Virginians do more of in 2016, get married or get divorced? Because divorce is usually amplified and advertised as some sort of scourge of the Commonwealth, most folks would say Virginians got divorced more. They’d be wrong. In fact, Virginians married at a rate more than twice the state divorce rate, 7 percent versus 3.4 percent, according to ...
Something you own is valuable when a person is standing in front of you, peeling off the Benjamins. That is the most accurate appraisal you will ever get. Even appraisers get fooled, as with Antiques Roadshow's $50,000 appraisal1 of a 19th century "grotesque face mug" that turned out to be a kid's high school art project from the 1970s. Accurate ...
John Washington, aged 25, sailed on a ship from England to Virginia in 1656, serving as second officer. Though the ship wrecked in the Potomac River, it was repaired and could have taken John back to England. He did not return. What he did instead, for which we are all immensely grateful, was father Lawrence Washington, who fathered Augustine Washington, ...
Harry Eastlack, through nothing he did, through no fault of his own, was born with a body he would not retain throughout his life. Eastlack donated his skeletons — yes, skeletons, plural — to Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum1, where it is on permanent display. His normal skeleton betrayed him, transforming his connective tissue into bone as well; a skeleton over a ...
Comedian Ben Bailey has a routine on odd expressions, including “Have your cake and eat it too.” You can either have your cake or you can eat it. Why would you have cake if you were not going to eat it? Getting a separation from your wife and having a girlfriend at the same time, though, is a bit like ...
Some of us of a certain age may recall the As Seen on TV world of K-Tel1. The company that brought you the Veg-O-Matic and the Miracle Grill is still in business, and its nostalgic line of fast and cheap products still has a place in our hearts and minds. One product K-Tel never produced was a “Fast and Cheap” ...
The word “quiz” has often been claimed to be a purpose-built word to win a bet. Yet we have evidence from the Online Etymology Dictionary1 that this is not the case. Quiz was once used as a noun to describe a person who was a little … off, let’s say. Anyway, we thought you might like to brush up on ...