Okay, maybe not right, right, but…it may turn out that, while all the torture and stuff isn’t exactly science, she was less wrong than it may have seemed. Don’t know who she is? Here it is, in a nutshell, straight from Wikipedia: Báthory and four of her servants were accused of torturing and killing hundreds … Read more
Poirot: Makes pies? Hastings: Yes, pies. Hastings: Miss Lemon says he (Benedict Farley, British Meat Pie Tycoon) makes pies. Poirot: Hastings, to say that Benedict Farley makes pies is like saying that Wagner wrote semiquavers. Hastings: They’re good pies, are they? Poirot: No, horrible. But there are a great many of them. Not sure if … Read more
I’ve been chatting with quite a few people recently who have had it up to here with the content marketing popup bullshit that is today’s internet. Even when there’s a decent article out there to read, actually reading it is nearly impossible, what with the chat-video-javascript terror. I’m not alone in having solved this problem … Read more
Even in American cities, which seem so much alike, where people seem all to be living the same lives, striving for the same things, thinking the same thoughts, there are still individuals a little out of tune with the times — there are still survivals of a past more loosely woven, there are disconcerting beginnings … Read more
Politics has its virtues, all too many of them—it would not rank with baseball as a topic of conversation if it did not satisfy a great many things—but one can suspect that its secret appeal is close to nicotine. Smoking cigarettes insulates one from one’s life, one does not feel as much, often happily so, … Read more
As workplaces demand that their employees hustle harder in a more precarious world, mindfulness has emerged as a means to manage stress and increase productivity. Since its import to America, it has been oddly well-suited at making the individual citizen responsible for mitigating the suffering and loss that our necrotic social structures have induced. So … Read more
On January 1, 2019, original works from 1923 will move into the public domain. This batch will be the first new public domain works in over 20 years. Mickey Mouse was born via Steamboat Willie in 1928. That means that, barring further Disney intervention, in 2024, the Mouse can become…anything. I, for one, am keen … Read more
Shame is now both global and permanent, to a degree unprecedented in human history. No more moving to the next town to escape your bad name. However far you go and however long you wait, your disgrace is only ever a Google search away. Getting a humiliating story into the papers used to require convincing … Read more
It may surprise some Catholics to learn just how literally the modern Church interprets Satan and his army of demons. While many people today understand the devil as a metaphor for sin, temptation, and unresolvable evil in the world, the pope consistently repudiates such allegorical readings. In sermons, interviews, and occasionally in tweets, Pope Francis … Read more