ON MATHEMATICAL PHILOSOPHIES
A CENTURY AGO, MATHEMATICIANS DEBATED THE EXISTENCE of numbers. “You’d think, after millenniums, we’d have gotten that straight,” writes Jordan Ellenberg in The New York Times Book Review, November 23, … Continue reading
THANKSGIVING DINNER WITH AN ADDLED UNCLE
HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO YOU AND YOURS. And, alas, my heart goes out to those of you having to put up with an addled uncle during these family festivities. You recognize … Continue reading
COUNTERING A CURRENT BIGHEAD
AN INSCRIPTION READS THAT I BOUGHT William Cole’s The Bedside Book of Bigheads back when it was new, long before our Narcissist-in-Chief came down that escalator on June 15, 2015, … Continue reading
A TRIP BACK TO NASCAR—1982
“BEFORE OUR TRIP TO CHARLOTTE, I probably couldn’t have challenged one of that city’s average 10-year-olds with my NASCAR knowledge.” Indeed, it’s even less so for me today 43 years … Continue reading
TRUMP, THE BBC, AND MY EYES AND EARS PART 2
YESTERDAY, WE CITED TRUMP’S PLAN to sue BBC over its documentary “Panorama—Trump a Second Chance.” Today in Part 2 we continue with tidbits gleaned from Wikipedia’s Timeline of January 6, … Continue reading
TRUMP, THE BBC, AND MY EYES AND EARS PART 1
I REMEMBER JANUARY 6, 2020, ALL TOO WELL. Wikipedia describes it in a “Timeline of the January 6 United States Capitol Attack.” Here, in Parts 1 and 2 today and … Continue reading
LET’S CELEBRATE WILLIAM VINCENT WALLACE’S LURLINE
WILLIAM VINCENT WALLACE’S OPERA LURLINE is about the Lorelei, and his life is every bit as adventurous as this legend of the Rhine seductress. I learned about Wallace from Una … Continue reading
WILLIAM DAVENANT—SHAKESPEARE’S SON?? PART 2
YESTERDAY WE INTRODUCED WILLIAM DAVENANT, English playwright spanning a particularly complex period of that country’s history encompassing regicide, civil war, and a real piece of work in Lord Protector Cromwell. … Continue reading
SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT—SHAKESPEARE’S SON?? PART 1
ROMANTIC THEORIES HAVE SPICED UP HISTORY: Caesar and Mark Anthony both slept with Cleopatra (true, albeit separately). Sir William Davenant was William Shakespeare’s illegitimate son (might this explain Anne Hathaway’s … Continue reading
FAKE IT TILL IT MAKES IT
HALLUCINATIONS MADE BY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE are rooted in the adage above. Celina Zhao recounts, “A.I. Hallucinates Because It’s Trained to Fake Answers It Doesn’t Know,” AAAS Science, October 28, 2025. … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 