IF YOU’RE MISERABLE AT YOUR LIFE, DON’T READ ANY FURTHER
THE HISTORY QUIZ WEBSITE recently posted “Get a Purr-fect Score on This History of Cats Quiz.” Being as I am a cat-loving grandfather, I recall the asinine comment made by … Continue reading
NOTES ON HARD TIMES
GEE, WHY EVER SHOULD this title about George Orwell catch my eyes these days? Now you tell one. Remarkable Diaries: The World’s Greatest Diaries, Journals, Notebooks, and Letters, foreward by … Continue reading
TRUMP’S “ALTERNATIVE FACTS”
KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO THE PRESIDENT, famously coined the term “alternative facts” to describe what turned out to be falsehoods uttered by Press Secretary Sean Spicer about the crowd count … Continue reading
PURPOSE-BUILT—AND NOT FOR THE STREET
“COMPETITION CARS,” I ONCE NOTED, “are a hoot to drive, mainly because they make few concessions to anything resembling practicality.” And back in 1955 R&T wrote along similar lines in … Continue reading
THE SHIITAKE LOOKED ESPECIALLY APPETIZING
THE SHIITAKE MUSHROOMS LOOKED BRIGHT and appetizing in the Vons produce department. My freezer already had Wild Argentine Red Shrimp (ha. sounds like one of Trump’s WWE cage pals), so … Continue reading
A FAULTY MODEL FOR CLEAN ENERGY?
CONVENTIONAL THINKING HAS ENERGY EMPLOYMENT being a series of transitions shaping modern history. Quoting Adam Tooze’s “Trouble Transitioning,” London Review of Books, January 23, 2025: “The first was from organic … Continue reading
FRED ASTAIRE AND CAVALIER’S MG TD PART 2
Yesterday, an airborne MG TD popped from a magazine cover as Fred Astaire ambled by, or so it seemed watching part of MGM’s Entertainment trilogy. Today in Part 2 we … Continue reading
FRED ASTAIRE AND CAVALIER’S MG TD PART 1
SO WHAT’S THE LINK BETWEEN FRED ASTAIRE and the car R&T called “As Friendly as a Tail-Wagging Dog”? Image from That’s Entertainment, 1974. Fred is examining magazines in a Santa … Continue reading
BELL AIRACOBRA/KINGCOBRA: INNOVATIVE AIRCRAFT, RUSSIAN FAV, ADVANCED EXPERIMENT, DON’T FORGET PINBALL PART 2
YESTERDAY THE BELL P-39 EXHIBITED advanced features combined with some faults. Today in Part 2 it becomes a Russian fav and has two unorthodox variants. Lend-Lease P-39s. Even with these … Continue reading
BELL AIRACOBRA/KINGCOBRA: INNOVATIVE AIRCRAFT, RUSSIAN FAV, ADVANCED EXPERIMENT, DON’T FORGET PINBALL PART 1
THE BELL AIRACOBRA WAS ADVANCED in several ways and disadvantaged in others. A lot has been written about its virtues and vices. Yet the aircraft and its offspring became one … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 