This was not a post I wanted to write. (Picture from here.) The post World War II United States—and to a large extent the world—was built on science. Not just science, mind you. The US was the Big Boss after the war as the only powerful country that wasn’t in one way or another gutted
The End of America as We Know It Read More »
Well, the new garden is planted. The map is shown here. It’s still early days so we haven’t had a lot of seedlings. Radishes, certainly. And the sets we put out are firming up nicely. It’s worth discussing a few entries. We’re putting in corn this year. We haven’t planted corn for some time. We
State of the farm, June 2026 Read More »
Let’s see if I can do this without depressing myself. (Picture from here.) Neanderthals have been prominent in my fiction since the very beginning. In fact, one of my first stories, A Capella, involved Neanderthal and human interaction at the very late end of Neanderthal occupation of Europe. This came from a lecture by a
Cheese Ends, 2026-05-04 Read More »
I haven’t been doing these for a bit because the news is so depressing. I mean, I tried. I must have gone over sixty or seventy articles. One after another, they ranged from this is interesting technology that can have a profound effect on cancer treatment—oh, yeah. It’s been cut by NIH under direction from
Cheese Ends 2026-04-06 Read More »
For Brutus Is an Honorable Man (Repeat 3 Times) Last week we looked at the response of Mark Antony to Caesar’s assassination, and how his central grace and failing –his ability to love—led him to act with trickery and self-abnegation to achieve vengeance. Even in his trickery, however, his words reveal truths. This trick is
Ides of March Part 3: For Brutus Is an Honorable Man (Repeat 3 Times) Read More »
Last week, I discussed how Shakespeare used the Ides of March assassination of Julius Caesar to explore human complexity—moving through skepticism and beyond cynicism to show that it’s in the contradictions that we see the real person. In JC, Shakespeare uses characters’ actions and reactions to reveal their character’s real intent. But more subtly (and
Shakespeare and Caesar and Contradiction: “Elements so mix’d.” Read More »
After the frenzy of the Seahawks Super Bowl win, I ponder the proliferation of “team” identification for everything from rabid sports fans to polarizing politics. And now (sigh) yet another horrific war against the other “team.” (“12” photo credit: OmegaMantis, Wikimedia Commons) Sometimes it seems like everyone else in my native Washington State goes Seahawks
The Rambling Writer Confesses: Not a Team Fan Read More »
An immersive tour through the complex history of the American Revolution. I do not pretend to be a historian, so these are my impressions as simply an American viewing this documentary. I welcome any feedback from those with more knowledge of history. That said, I strongly recommend watching this series for a real understanding of
The Rambling Writer Review: “The American Revolution” a Ken Burns documentary Read More »
Remember that old game we used to play in grade school—”Telephone”? The teacher lines the students up and whispers a sentence into the ear of the first one who whispers it to the next and so on, until the sentence has passed from lips to ear down a line of school kids and come out
Lost in Translation: A Game of Telephone Read More »
My son just graduated and was pinned as an RN. We are, of course, extremely proud. (Picture from here.) He worked very hard to do this in a nursing intensive program. He did not have a strong background in the sciences—his degree was in psychology. But he took many prep courses. Aced them. Aced his
Bidding goodbye to beautiful Thailand, Thor and I flew into the coils of the year 2020 that most of us are eager to flush down the drain of history. NOTE: Due to health issues, Thor and I haven’t been able to do much travel the past few years, so here’s our Thailand trip from 2020.
We’re going north to our cabin to do some work. It’s time to get out the blog entry early. And I think it’s time for Cheese Ends. (Picture from here.) The Most Ancient Boomerang Scientists have uncovered an ancient boomerang made from a mammoth tusk. The age is still indeterminate but it appears to be
Cheese Ends 2025-07-02 Read More »
The Radishes are coming! The Radishes are coming! It looks like a cold and wet spring. There are several days in the coming week (just before Memorial Day) that in the forties and one day that NOAA says will be 39F. Of course, with all the cuts at NOAA, who knows if that’s reliable? It’s
State of the Farm: May, 2025 Read More »
