An old joke of P.G. Wodehouse novels1 is the costly indulgence of sending a telegram. In the stodgy old days of vintage telegram communications, stage stars received opening-night accolades via telegram, hearts broke from pithy little memoranda, and everyone was impressed that the sender spent so much money on something billed by the word. American Telegram nowadays charges $34.95 plus ...
Sometimes we’re not even sure whether we are proudly strutting our Latin or simply flashing back to Mrs. McPamashamspam’s high school geometry class, but the phrase “quod erat demonstrandum” has been floating around in our heads for days now. This is probably because some legal concepts require a sort of orderly proof, a multi-step system, to explain. One example of ...
What color is a zebra? You think that’s a (you can choose: cutesy, smart-ass, or trick) question, but it is not. Grevy’s zebra1, for example, is actually dark with white stripes, and the young foals emerge with brown, not black, stripes. Why do you care about zebras? Because sometimes things that seem confusing actually are remarkably clear. Like the perennial ...
In 2016, the world had 50.442 percent males and 49.558 percent females, according to The World Bank1. That (rather neatly) adds to 100 percent and shows a slight edge (0.884 percent) toward men. You would think marketers would notice that slightly more than half the world is men, and significant number of those men are fathers. Yet, judging by some ...
Lewis Carroll was an inventive writer who gave the world the concept of plunging down a rabbit hole, and in the 21st century this has come to mean following a path to extreme distraction. If you take a moment to plunge down the rabbit hole of “courtroom fights” on YouTube, you can find some mighty angry people there. To be ...
Ice baths help bring down fever in children. Babies can sleep on their stomachs. Toddlers can sleep with stuffed animals. These are all examples of horrendously bad but common parenting 30 or so years ago. For the record, these are all exactly what NOT to do with young children; we used them here for dramatic effect. We do not condone any ...
The Pony Express only existed for 19 months. Its outsized stamp on our imaginations is due, probably, to the audacity of the idea — delivering important documents in a wholly original way that beat all other ways, like railroads, ship, stagecoaches, and freight wagons. Today we have even more methods for getting an important letter into someone’s hands. One of ...
If you are at all embarrassed to ask your doctor for help with ... er ... bedroom issues, imagine strapping on Pulvermacher’s Galvano-Electric Chain Belt1. Weighing in at 2.2 pounds, it was a collection of needlessly complex nonsense once used to treat ED, promote digestion, and relieve rheumatism. The chain belt was hardly a discrete item for manly men of ...
Even in the age of the internet, ancient wisdom still resonates. Heraclitus of Ephesus1 tells us that the only thing permanent in life is change. If, bracing yourself for a divorce, you educated yourself on family law a just a few years ago, you may be surprised at how the legal landscape has changed since then. Just this past May, ...