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
We have been misled by the people of the time themselves who, in looking back across the gulf of the War, see that earlier half of their lives misted over by a lovely sunset haze of peace and security. It did not seem so golden when they were in the midst of it. Their memories … Read more
The ankle wallet answered a need. It spoke directly to a personal concern. It made me feel there were people out there in the world of product development and merchandising and gift cataloguing who understood the nature of my little nagging needs. Don Delillo
The extraordinary thing was the way in which everyone took it for granted that this oozing, bulging wealth of the English upper and upper-middle classes would last for ever, and was part of the order of things. After 1918 it was never quite the same again. Snobbishness and expensive habits came back, certainly, but they … Read more
The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is a once-in-ten-generations kind of project. It will be remembered either for saving the human race or for being the most colossal waste of effort in human history. All the wealthy countries are pouring cash into this giant energy-donut, and its acronym (ITER) has an “I-love-sci-fi-but-the-kind-that-stars-Bruce-Willis” Latin translation: “the way.” … Read more