Stories Short and Strange
17 short stories for general audiences ranging from the unusual to the unbelievable to the just plain strange.
Promises You Shouldn’t Keep
There are certain rules we are taught to live by, like “Always keep your promises.” But what if you shouldn’t? Google this and you get “Promises you shouldn’t keep are vows or commitments that require you to do something harmful, illegal, unethical, or unsafe.” Okay, I get the “harmful, illegal, unethical, or unsafe” part, but
Can Crops & Solar Coexist?
If you frequent social media, you’ve probably seen discussions about converting land into solar farms. Often these involve taking prime farmland out of production. I have a unique perspective on this, because our family farm is within a few miles of a utility substation and we have gotten multiple lucrative offers to lease our land
Announcing This Year’s Ig Nobel Prizes
Have you ever heard of the Ig Nobel Prizes? Yes, they are satirical, having been established in 1991 by Marc Abrahams and the science humor magazine Annals of Improbable Research, but they are real and taken very seriously in some quarters. According to the Improbable Research website, “The Ig Nobel Prizes honor achievements so surprising
Are We In Crisis Overload?
Following politics can be very depressing these days because we seem to be suffering one crisis after another. I’m old enough to remember when approximately a third of the savings and loan associations failed between 1986 and 1995. Then there was terrorism and 9/11, a major economic downturn, and COVID, all against a backdrop of fentanyl
America: What’s in a Name?
In my second year of college (at the USAF Academy), I decided to declare Latin American Studies as my major to capitalize on my high school Spanish. It was a unique opportunity to learn about a part of the world that was both exotic and close to home. The faculty was excellent. In addition to
Can Animals Name Names?
Recently I saw a headline that really got my attention: Do any animals call each other by name? It’s quite possible. Scientists have discovered that young bottlenose dolphins create signature whistles that are individually distinctive. They use the whistles to find each other and can recognize other dolphins from the frequency and “shape” of the whistle. Also, researchers
Available Again — Sunny and Victor
Bears and rabbits are not supposed to be friends, but the story of how Sunny Bunny and Victor Bear became “best friends forever” is a tale of friendship, cooperation, and overcoming stereotypes. Sunny and Victor: Best Friends Forever, the children’s book that started my writing career, is available again on Amazon Kindle. https://www.amazon.com/Sunny-Victor-Best-Friends-Forever-ebook/dp/B0HCMP2JT6/ref=sr_1_1?
Your Next Job Won’t Be Any of These
When I substitute teach, I like to tell the kids that during their lifetimes they will probably have more than one career, and at least one of those careers will be a job that hasn’t been invented yet (solar-collector repair on Mars?). The converse of this is the professions that do not have much of
The Hidden Toll of Mass Shootings
The sad fact is mass shootings are all too common in this country. Each one takes a horrific toll on the victims, their families, and anyone close by. But is the impact even broader than that? I recently ran across an article that explores this in more detail: “The Death Toll of a Mass Shooting
What Are Your Favorite Weird Words?
Slang: a type of language that consists of words and phrases that are regarded as very informal, are more common in speech than writing, and are typically restricted to a particular context or group of people. — Yahoo We’ve all used informal words that sound nonsensical. And yet they really are words that can be