UTOPIA REVISITED
“UTOPIA IN TEXAS” by Glen Newey in the London Review of Books, January 19, 2017, provides counterpoint to my recent review of four dystopian novels here at SimanaitisSays. Not that … Continue reading
THE ETYMOLOGIST WILL SEE YOU NOW…
RECENT BROUHAHAS of executive orders bring to mind the terms “slapdash,” “going off half-cocked” and their cousins “haphazard” and “slipshod. In the interest of keeping myself etymologically hep, I arranged … Continue reading
A FINE-LOOKING STRUT, THAT
TWO COMMITTEES of the British Parliament have recently challenged a London firm’s dress code that had required women to wear heels from two to four inches high. Women at PwC, … Continue reading
A QUARTET OF ALTERNATIVE-FACT BOOKS
AMAZON RECENTLY noted a spike in sales of Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell’s 1949 novel of a dystopian (as opposed to utopian) future. This brings to mind three other works about … Continue reading
THE PERIL TO EARTHBOUND ASTRONOMY
PITY POOR Earthbound astronomers. Their telescopes have to gaze through more than haze. Other perils include L.E.D. street lighting, the Internet and then there is the prospect of autonomous cars. … Continue reading
CROWD-COUNT CROWING
IN THESE DAYS OF alternative facts, I realize that anything scientific may be a hard sell to some. However, recent brouhahas over counting people make this an irresistible topic of … Continue reading
MAKING AMERICA GREAT—AND TASTY TOO!
FOR THE FIRST time in its 15th biennial existence, the Bocuse d’Or, the Olympics of international chefdom, has been won by an American team. Head Chef Mathew Peters and his … Continue reading
A MOCKING APOLOGY
RECENTLY I mentioned the Wizard of Oz in an item On Satire, Self-Inflicted and Otherwise. In retrospect, after more research, I owe an apology to the Wizard. True, the Wizard … Continue reading
EXPLORING RATIONALITY, PART 2
IN MY CONTINUING exploration of rationality, I offer the completed Decimal Exploration table of rational numbers 1/2 through 1/17 expressed in decimal form. Sorry about 1/17. I cannot speak for … Continue reading