Good customer service from the Memory Store

I dread making any changes to my computer because I usually create a problem with even the most insignificant bit of tinkering. For example, I recently added memory to my ancient Hewlett Packard LaserJet 4. (You cannot wear those machines out. Mine has about 56,000 copies under its belt, and it’s doing fine.)
The guy on [...]

Read Full Post »

How shopping resembles the running of the bulls

The Los Angeles Times reports today on two deadly incidents in places where you would normally feel safe. A temporary worker at a Wal-Mart in New York was crushed to death as customers stampeded to enter the store at 5:30 a.m. on so-called Black Friday. I mean no disrespect when I remark on the similarity of this scene [...]

Read Full Post »

The happiness vendor takes checks

Patricia Leigh Brown, writing in The New York Times today, tells the story of a convention of happiness merchants in San Francisco. As she says, you can’t buy happiness, but you can pay plenty for advice on how to get it. It’s a story of, “I don’t actually have it on me, but for $500 [...]

Read Full Post »

Whistling while you work–or look for work

After friends and family depart from a joyful Thanksgiving celebration one’s thoughts might turn from the great feast to the more mundane matter of one’s daily bread. Or more specifically, how to pay for it.
Many parts of the economy are collapsing in the wake of the assault on the treasury by the super rich. In addition [...]

Read Full Post »

As if yoga doesn’t have enough twists…

Yoga has many kinds of twists in its reportoire, and in case they are not enough, the world keeps inventing more.
The Houston Chronicle reports today on a lady who rides shuttles to the Houston airport and encourages passengers to do yoga-style stretches on the way. The Chronicle posted a short video of the lady in action on their front page.
The [...]

Read Full Post »

Pentagon cheats wounded veterans to save a buck

An article in the Los Angeles Times today tells how the Pentagon is denying medical care to wounded veterans to save a few bucks. The juxtaposition of the big bank executives feeding at the public trough only makes this heinous behavior all the more outrageous and painful to watch.
The Pentagon hides behind language like this: [...]

Read Full Post »

Is algae our new best friend?

If you are an evolutionist you know that life started out as single-cell beings that clung together in sheets as we floated around the ocean trying to thing what we might do next. We were, in a poetic sense, pond scum.
Now pond scum may come to our rescue as we try to avoid aggravating the global warming [...]

Read Full Post »

How to know you’re in a small town, or not

If memory serves me correctly, Roger Welsch once recited on Sunday Morning a list of ways a person would know he was living in a small town. I only remember two of them, and these are paraphrases, not quotes.
You know you’re living in a small town when you can greet every dog you meet by name.
You [...]

Read Full Post »

Why science is not VERSUS religion

The confusion around the words we use to talk about science and religion make these subjects difficult to discuss. Religion is often confused with dogma.  The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines dogma as:
1 a: something held as an established opinion ; especially : a definite authoritative tenet b: a code of such tenets <pedagogical dogma> c: [...]

Read Full Post »

Republicans draft “marry within your party” policy

Arizona republicans, apparently flush with enthusiasm over the recent success of state Proposition 102 placing a ban on gay and lesbian marriage into the state constitution, are now discussing a future extension to the ban.
Discussions have begun on a proposition to limit marriage to members of the same political party. This would apply to independents as well as [...]

Read Full Post »