MERRY CHRISTMAS! HAPPY (EARLY?) ALREADY HANUKKAH! HAPPY KWANZAA!
WHEN I WAS A KID, MY PARENTS GIFTED ME WITH “The World’s Great Religions,” a Time-Life set of six volumes, devoted to Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism. There’s … Continue reading
RFK JR., SCIENCE, AND THE ATLANTIC PART 1
I WAS DISTURBED TO SEE THE ATLANTIC’S JANUARY 2026 COVER BLURB “The Most Powerful Man in Science” accompanying a beatified image of a bead-fondling Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Is this … Continue reading
FROM BIRD DROPPINGS TO HOLIDAY KISSES
WHAT A GREAT HEADLINE FROM NPR to Scott Neuman’s“How We Ended Up Under the Mistletoe,”December 17, 2025. Here are tidbits gleaned from this appealing etymological essay. Origins. Scott Neuman describes, … Continue reading
MAINTAINING BALANCE—AND MEMORY
TWO RECENT EVENTS—ONE A NEWSPAPER GUEST ESSAY, THE OTHER PURELY PERSONAL, resonate with “An Uneven Pendulum,” SimanaitisSays, December 7, 2025. E.J. Dionne Jr. offers “Trump Confronts a Backlash of the … Continue reading
AND NOW FONTGATE!?!
WHAT WITH TRUMP SEEMINGLY COMMITTING WAR CRIMES in the Caribbean, Putin elbowing his way into Western Europe, unease still exising in Gaza and the West Bank, not to say health … Continue reading
TRUMP THE RACIST?
WHO ELSE BUT A RACIST WOULD remove Juneteenth and Martin Luther King’s birthday from previously free days of admittance to National Parks?? What else but an ideologically perverse Interior Department … Continue reading
QUICK ’N’ EASY STIR FRY
STIR FRY IS CULINARILY SATISFYING, being as it is highly participatory: Cut some stuff up, have saucing handy, heat the oil (don’t forget the garlic), and stir until tasty and … Continue reading
THANKS, PANTONE: THE WORLD NEEDS 11-4201!
IVY BUCK AND ALINA EDWARDS REPORT (wittingly) “You Read That Write: Pantone’s 2026 Color of the Year is ‘Cloud Dancer,’ ” NPR, December 4, 2025: “The company describes it as … Continue reading
AN UNEVEN PENDULUM
I HAVE LONG THOUGHT OF POLITICS being modeled by the swing of a pendulum. There are always extremists, I concede, though most of us are generally centrists on many matters. … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 
RFK JR., THE ATLANTIC, AND SCIENCE PART 2
HERE IN PART 2 WE CONTINUE TIDBITS BEGUN YESTERDAY gleaned from The Atlantic magazine’s Profile and Summary of “The Most Powerful Man in Science,” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. RFK Jr. … Continue reading →