Assistant Village Idiot

Update below Everyone can see at a glance what this is, right? If you look more closely you can identify the individual units as well. S...

I am willing to believe that most college professors are merely liberal, and not flat-out dangerous crazies. I do wonder where the point com...

This is a fun thing people are tweeting out, and both my older sons have done it, for 1979 and 1983, to humorous effect. One was from the Mu...

Unconstitutional!

One of the lessons I learned in an acute involuntary psychiatric facility is that the patient's intent is usually the opposite of the be...

I had noted that there must be near-elite gymnasts from the last decade whose heads must be swimming these past two weeks, realising what th...

We don't know if these specific accusations are true.  However, we have heard stories like this for decades - it's one of the centra...

Big stories that somehow dropped out of the news cycle very quickly. Donna Brazile.  Debbie Wasserman Schultz.  John Podesta. What are the o...

In 1970, ten Israeli prisoners in Egypt translated JRR Tolkien's first novel into Hebrew.   A quibble: the article says it was his first...

According to an article by J D Flynn over at First Things, Down's Syndrome Ireland has condemned the use of photos of children with Dow...

When we don't acknowledge the enormous genetic influence on student outcomes at the group level, we end up blaming schools, and teachers...

Hard to believe now, but the special effects were much of the point in early physical comedy in the movies, as here.

My first reaction to the hijab-and-uncovered-yoga-pants combo at the fitness room was that this was hypocritical and irritating.  My second ...

Saw this in Glenn Reynolds's background and recognised it as the Emmet Kelly paint-by-number that hung in my childhood home.  I assumed ...

I grew up on the Kingston Trio, because my mother loved them. When I came to buying my own records in 1965 - California Dreamin' - I alr...

I am using a twelve-day guest membership at the Y. I keep it simple, walking on the treadmill at a severe incline. I have never watched spor...

My wife gave me the book by Monmonier for Christmas - she likes to try and find things not on my list if she can. It's a solid book, one...

Most holidays turn into something else. Memorial Day becomes a day for all the dead. Hallowe'en is about costumes, plus candy for childr...

James linked to this. Fun for those of us about my age, who knew only the Mary Hopkins version.  I had thought until now that the song wa...

That is, "the thing speaks for itself."  Something that is so obvious that it needs no further explanation. A tactic that is bec...