January 2021
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My mother: "Stop slouching." "Stop moping." "Don't be a melamed." (A melamed is a pedant.) My father: "If you lose your man, go directly to the front of the rim." "Keep your hand on the man you're guarding. Keep your eye on the ball." "Never be embarrassed to accept a favor from a friend. Never…
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Most animals, mammals included, sport tails. As well they should. Tails are truly excellent appendages — essential equipment for survival in many cases. Most primates have tails, but alas, the apes, our most immediate cousins, lack these useful "limbs." Some random mutation, way back when, and zap, no more tails. As a result, we humans…
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The coronavirus has been sorely inhibiting. It's no fun for me to keep a distance from members of my family with whom I'm not podded up. But there's a benefit, because for a year now I haven't had a single anxiety attack over what a European acquaintance calls "the dreaded American hug." My needs for…
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I've given over the last week or ten days to Lewis Grassic Gibbon's A Scots Quair and I'm very pleased to have done so. And I'm embarrassed that I've only now read this strange brooding wondrous series of novels. How could I not have known? For those equally as ignorant as I, the Quair is…
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For two days, I kept track of the initials that I needed to know to make sense of the world. Here they are, all familiar, no doubt: HOA,, MRI, IED, CNN, EPA, FDA, DNA, OMB, ED, NBA, COVID, GPS, AWOL, PTSD, TCM, WTF, BPL, TIA, ETA, MST. Just two days. IK that there's a part…