TALES OF A LADY’S HAT AND ANOTHER LADY’S HANDWRITING
A RECENT BIT OF SATIRE FROM ANDY BOROWITZ REMINDS ME OF A JOKE from more than five decades ago. Background. This brouhaha erupted several days ago when Neil Vigdor reported, … Continue reading
HOW TO SAY “VROOM” IN VULGATE LATIN? PART 2
FASCINATING IMAGES—ONE FEATURING POPE LEO XIV—attracted me to the Ferrari Luce. Today in Part 2, Automotive News’s Luca Ciferri reports on this car’s redefining ultrahigh performancee for the prancing horse. … Continue reading
HOW TO SAY “VROOM” IN VULGATE LATIN? PART 1
AN INTERESTING, IF UNEXPECTED, JUXTAPOSITION OF ARTICLES appeared in my Automotive News recently: One is titled “No V-12 Rumble for Ferrari’s New EV, But the Sounds of 1,050 Electric Horsepower,” … Continue reading
MATHEMATICS, A.I., AND THE LEIDEN DECLARATION PART 2
YESTERDAY IN PART 1, WE FOCUSED ON OpenAI’s achievement in disproving a previous conjecture in combinatorial geometry. Today, we continue Siobhan Roberts’ analysis of the Leiden Declaration, a response by … Continue reading
MATHEMATICS, A.I., AND THE LEIDEN DECLARATION PART 1
MATHEMATICIANS RECENTLY ZOOMED with Siobhan Roberts who writes “As A.I. Makes Strides in Mathematics, Mathematicians Urge Caution,” The New York Times, June 2, 2026. She sets the stage by recounting, … Continue reading
“RADIO CLASSICS” FUN
WHAT’S THE LINK BETWEEN RADIO’S SAM SPADE AND DARTH VADER? Or the Spruce Goose with a guy dressed up like a Roman peasant? What about this same guy linked with … Continue reading
TRUMP REALITY 2.0
AMONG THE MANY DISTURBING TRUMP ACTIONS is his fascistic sense of history. Like Mussolini and others of the ilk, he warps reality—current and past—to fit his own ambitions. Trump’s persistent … Continue reading
PIGEON NAV PART 2
YESTERDAY, WE BEGAN LEARNING ABOUT PIGEON NAVIGATION, thanks to writers and researchers published in AAAS Science, May 28, 2026. Today, the researchers offer details of their methodology. Pigeon Liver … Continue reading
PIGEON NAV PART 1
HOW DO PIGEONS PERFORM THEIR HOMING? “Getting Home in the Dark,” by Simon Spiro and Hal Drakesmith, Science, May 28, 2026, gives key points of the research report “Homing Pigeons … Continue reading
ONE RICH CAT, SORTA
THE SUBHEAD TO CHRIS HEATH’S PIECE “The Richest Cat in the World,” The Atlantic, May 18, 2026, is “Did Karl Lagerfeld really leave millions to his blue-cream Birman, Choupette?” Here … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 