Stories Short and Strange
17 short stories for general audiences ranging from the unusual to the unbelievable to the just plain strange.
Richard Nixon on Leadership
Awhile back I found the book Leaders by Richard Nixon in a second-hand bookstore (Warner Books). I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s turning into an interesting read. I always wonder about celebrity books — did the celebrity really do the writing? There are other names in the Author’s Note, but there are enough personal
High School Students and the Importance of Planning Ahead
We’ve started the fourth quarter of the school year, so one would expect all the seniors would have plans. Early this week I was talking to a senior I had first worked with in middle school, and unfortunately he doesn’t know what he’s going to do after graduation. Some kids just seem to be clueless
A Poem For Spring
My Rite of Spring I consider myself a peaceable soul. I value all manner of livable things. Insects and mice, spiders and voles. Just about anything Mom Nature brings. But I do have my standards. I will draw the line. I have to set limits someday and sometime. Weeds in the yard — a depressing
What is a Benefit Corporation?
Today I found a term I’d never seen before — benefit corporation. There’s an interesting article about them in Briefing: Small Business in Time magazine, March 21, 2015. And it has to be important, because there’s also a Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation). Yes, a benefit corporation is out to make a profit, but is also trying
My Nemesis: The Touchscreen
Does anyone else have trouble with touchscreens? I’m finding they’re pretty much everywhere — my phone, my iPod, my netbook computer… I once got a notebook computer and had to take it back; either I would touch it and nothing would happen (multiple times!) or it would open windows when my finger was still a
Lightening Strikes Again!
“The Joy in Forgotten Objects” The good folks at Bewildering Stories have posted another of my stories. Usually they want multiple rewrites or reject them outright, but this one went right to the publication schedule. http://www.bewilderingstories.com/is…/forgotten_objects.html
Death of the Universe?
Which scientific ideas should die? Science is always investigating new ideas and disproving old ones. If we are to continue to move forward, which of the current scientific ideas about our world are obsolete and should be discarded? How about the universe as we know it? That’s the premise of a Science Friday program, which was broadcast
Happy Pi Day!
March 14 is always a special day for math geeks. The numeric date — the third month, 14th day, matches pi to two decimal places: 3.14. (The Greek letter pi being the symbol for the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle). This year’s pi day is very special. If you add
Happy Friday the 13th
This is an unfortunate year for people who suffer from triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13). We have two Friday the 13ths this year. Recently I found an interesting book, An Uncommon History of Common Things. It claims up to $900 million is lost every Friday the 13th because of people who refuse to fly
Why Many Disney Characters Don’t Have Moms
Two essential ingredients of any good movie are a tightly written, compelling story and believable, empathetic characters. Many of the Disney animated classics are perfect examples. But one glaring omission in many of these is the lack of one or both parents, usually the mother. How could this be? Creative arts don’t normally beget statistical