Well, my main e-mail is on the fritz.  It seems, in spite of my elaborate protections, my e-mail addy has been hi-jacked by somebody who's sending out spam in great numbers with it.  For some strange reason, now my e-mail won't send (except for the spam) - it acts like it does, but nothing arrives at the receiving addy.  The tech support goons ( ( Read more... )

I'm starting to feel like I should request hazard pay, teaching at a university.  Just had the latest campus shooting yesterday at Northern Illinois University, five students killed plus the shooter (killed himself), 16 injured (some critical).  Supposedly the shooter, a fine, upstanding citizen, grad student without a police record, had gone off ( Read more... )

The news this week were depressing from a human rights perspective.  Yes, I know this stuff's been going on for forever, but maybe, as I get older, I get more upset with it as a woman and as a human being.  I know the fact that about 5 1/2 million people have been killed during the Kongo's long civil war (the news folks compare it to the casualty ( Read more... )

 In the mood to muse a bit about new projects for 2008.  I'm not one for New Year's resolutions, but 2008 seems to start with steps in new directions that should prove interesting.

First, something I find kind of hard - I've decided to part from my beloved "Roadrunner," my '89 Cadillac Brougham, a monster boat with a huge 8 cylinder engine that ( Read more... )

Been doing some research on pets in ancient Rome and beyond.  Now dogs were pets for a long time, and so were cats.  As a cat lover myself, I got curiouser and curioser :-)  I knew about the affinity of the Egyptians with cats, but learned that the Romans associated them with liberty, loved them around for their mouse/rat catching skills (cats ( Read more... )

I've noticed something interesting as I'm working on my historical novel set in the 6th century AD in the Italy of the Ostrogoths.  The immigration/assimilation questions the Ostrogroths faced are frighteningly similar to the ones our various illegal/legal immigrants face now in the United States ( Read more... )

Been doing some research on the Ostrogoths and the Gothic War with Justinian, lasting, all in all, 25 years.  Here was another guy (Justinian, the East Roman Emperor) who thought he could waltz into a country with his superior army, a quick in and out, and be done with it (similarities to current conflicts scream out at you).  25 years of all-out ( Read more... )

Well, may as well admit it, I'm a newshound, and I do pay attention to what's going on in the world ( Read more... )