I'm starting to realize why soundbites are popular. It's because the modern world has eaten time with trivia, and the endless chasing of the machines... Hmm, I'm sounding like Countess Auralia of Chaillot ( Read more... )

Sometime on Thanksgiving I became aware of something I couldn't quite put my finger on. Something was different...something that felt familiar yet strange. And by the next morning, I had the answer ( Read more... )

I tend not to read historical novels of various types, but occasionally will read some that seem well written and researched. Harry Turtledove and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro do a good job, even in dabbling in alternative history. There are others whom I forgive for slight irregularities in history. It also works better if I don't know a lot about the ( Read more... )

Installment 3 of "The Ills Flesh is Heir To," my series on 19th Century popular medicine, is written. Installment 2 came out in The Citizen's Companion this week ( Read more... )

Lately I've been thinking. The problem with talking about evil corporations and the 99% and all of that is that in a very real sense, we have met the enemy, and he is us, to quote an old Pogo strip. These are things that WE have created. Oh, maybe we didn't intend it that way, but it was our actions, nonetheless ( Read more... )

If ever there was a name that fit... Strange had been rumored to have died so many times that it almost seems an anti-climax that he has finally done it for real. His is an interesting tale, told in brief ( Read more... )

I needed to explore, this lunch, get out and get into the air, etc. So I did something I'd been considering for a while, since I see them on the way to work every day. I took a walk by the percolation ponds, the ones in Campbell that recharge the water table ( Read more... )

I am noticing that I am undergoing a re-radicalization similar to the way I turned into a feminist and environmentalist as a teenager. It's this growing awareness that there are people who want to keep you in subjugation, simply because you are inconvenient to their agenda. It's nothing personal, usually, you are simply a threat to their goals or ( Read more... )

Carl, the neighbor I always picture shaking his fist and saying "Curse you, Addams!" came over to discuss our remodeling the screen room. All the stuff formerly in the screen room has been in the driveway, while the room gets water-sealed, linoleum, and painted. I've also been sorting through boxes and tossing out a lot of stuff, consolidating, ( Read more... )

Yesterday, Andrew and I went to History Park, down at Kelly Park, where the Santa Clara Valley Model T Club was holding a car show. It was much more than Model T's! Not only did we start out viewing all the wonderful devices of the Early Engine Society, who were running everything from antique washing machines to band saws off early engines with ( Read more... )