Last week, I believe on Thursday or Friday, something inspired me to read up, as I sometimes do, on German dueling societies and the practise of the MensurThis is a tradition (descended from the times when dueling was common and often fatal in German and other Central and Eastern European countries' universities) of testing the mettle of young men ( Read more... )

Behind our new (since May 2006) house is a little wood, which I have long coveted. My original plan was to claim it through adverse possession by openly, notoriously, and continuously occupying it in a hostile and adverse manner (we have had our tomahawk target on it for a couple of years, and we built a gate in our back fence so we can trespass ( Read more... )

I never thought I would join a union, even a professional union, but after an unpleasant spring at my National School of Excellence, I was strongly encouraged to join the Johnson City Education Association for my own protection ( Read more... )

After putting it down and picking it back up off and on for a couple of months, I finally finished The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson by Michael Les Benedict. It began well enough, but soon became technical and dry. It is probably useful for someone undertaking a scholarly study of the impeachment, but it does not make exciting casual ( Read more... )

A few weeks ago I finished Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World by Dan Koeppel, a book which relates the fascinating, violent history of bananas as well as their vital and uncertain future. It was one of the most engrossing books I have read this year, which is all the more surprising since I do not particularly like bananas (my ( Read more... )

I recently finished The Rediscovery of Man: The Complete Short Science Fiction of Cordwainer Smith (one of many pseudonyms under which Paul Linebarger, soldier, diplomat, spy, linguist, Orientalist, and psychological warfare expert wrote), edited by James A. Mann for the New England Science Fiction Association. I then felt compelled to return to ( Read more... )

I read a lot, and I don't know that it is necessarily a bad thing that I do so, but sometimes I still wonder if I read too much ( Read more... )

I have had the first few presentations in my Honours Modern History course (for those who wonder, Modern History either starts in the 1300s with Petrarch's designation of all previous history as 'Dark Ages,' in 1453 when the Hundred Years' War ends and Constantinople falls to the Turks (on the 29th of May (a Tuesday)), or in 1492 when Spain ( Read more... )

Robin and I bought two water lettuces and two water hyacinths this summer at the Blue Plum Festival to put in our pond. They have grown and grown, and now we have too many. We have considered releasing them in Watauga Lake or the little creek at the bottom of our cliff, but I feel it might be unwise to release a non-native species into the wild ( Read more... )

But pardon, gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that hath dar'd
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object. Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? Or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt? --Henry V, prolougue ( Read more... )