LOSING A $50 BILLION BET—OR JUST MORE TRUMP CHAOS? PART 2
YESTERDAY, LINDSAY VANHULLE DESCRIBED “Automakers Regroup As Market Shifts After $50 Billion EV Debacle,” Automotive News, February 13, 2026. This, of course, is a fair piece of change, but implications … Continue reading
LOSING A $50 BILLION BET—OR JUST MORE TRUMP CHAOS? PART 1
“IT’S A BILLION HERE, A BILLION THERE, PRETTY SOON IT BEGINS TO ADD UP TO REAL MONEY.” So recounted The New York Times in 1938. And a variation of the … Continue reading
BOUBA-KIKI: EVEN CHICKS CAN PLAY PART 2
YESTERDAY IN PART 1, WE LEARNED ABOUT ASSOCIATING shapes with made-up words, briefly spiky ones linked to “kiki,” blobby ones to “bouba.” Surprisingly enough, people around the world speaking different … Continue reading
BOUBA-KIKI: EVEN CHICKS CAN PLAY PART 1
BEFORE YOU BEGIN, PAIR THE MADE-UP WORDS “BOUBA” AND “KIKI” with these pictured shapes. Which is which? Images from science friday. As noted by the sciencefriday.com website, “The Bouba-Kiki Effect … Continue reading
CELEBRATING TWO TEENAGERS, THE BECHDEL TEST—AND MAYBE A NEW PARLOR GAME PART 2
YESTERDAY, TWO TEENAGE GIRLS ENCOURAGED their Illinois state legislators to include climate change in public education. Today in Part 2, Good Energy applies a test devised by cartoonist/memoirist Alison Bechdel … Continue reading
CELEBRATING TWO TEENAGERS, THE BECHDEL TEST—AND MAYBE A NEW PARLOR GAME PART 1
THE GOODGOODGOOD WEBSITE POSTS TWO FASCINATING ITEMS: Kamrin Baker’s “A New Law Requires Illinois High Schoolers to Learn About Climate Change. It Was Written by Two Local Teens,” and Meghan … Continue reading
LIGHTING OPERA
GIVEN THAT IT WAS A TEENAGE AMBITION OF MINE, I read with interest Anthony Freud’s “Illuminating the Stage,” Opera With Opera News, February 2026. In this article, he speaks with … Continue reading
THE KNOW NOTHING PARTY PART 2
HERE IN PART 2, WE CONTINUE WITH Wikipedia’s most informative history of this 19th-century political aberration. Or is it only of the 19th century? An 1855 Ohio Know Nothing Party … Continue reading
THE KNOW NOTHING PARTY PART 1
NO, PERHAPS NOT WHAT YOU THINK. This is an historical essay, not a collection of today’s headlines. Sorta and mainly, even as it expands into Parts 1 and 2 today … Continue reading
CNUT REDUX
BACK NEAR THE CLOSE OF TRUMP 1.0, SimanaitisSays recounted “King Cnut’s Bad Rap,” September 11, 2020. As noted back then, Wikipedia recounts, “He is popularly invoked in the context of … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 