CELEBRATING BEN FRANKLIN, SCIENTIST
LET US COUNTER THESE DAYS OF LAMENTABLY UNDERACHIEVING POLITICIANS by celebrating Benjamin Franklin, a statesman—and scientist—of the highest order. Ferdinand Mount’s “His Very Variousness,” London Review of Books, December 4, … Continue reading
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
SMART DUMMIES PART 2
YESTERDAY, WE DISCUSSED THE HISTORY OF AUTOMOTIVE TEST DUMMIES. Today in Part 2, NPR’s Camila Domonoske tours Humanetics, a major supplier of ATDs. Video from YouTube via NPR. A Humanetics … Continue reading
SMART DUMMIES PART 1
AUTOMOTIVE CRASH TEST DUMMIES ARE SMARTER than their real-life counterparts. Unlike humans, their memories retain scads of data from sensors throughout their bodies. Their materials and contours are engineered to … 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
ON AUTOMOTIVE PRICES (AND, ALAS, LOAN DELINQUENCIES)—PITY GEN Z
A RECENT AUTOMOTIVE NEWS ARTICLE by Paige Hodder describes, “Gen Z Car Buyers Use Research, Digital Tools to Make F&I Deals,” December 1, 2025. (F&I, by the way, is auto … Continue reading
A NEW INAMORATA PART 2
YESTERDAY WE BEGAN MY APPRECIATION of Margaret Atwood, her memoir Book of Lives, and its two articles in The New York Times “100 Notable Books of 2025.” Today in Part … 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 →