Assistant Village Idiot

I shared an office at one point with a gentleman just a little older than me, who had grown up in Chelmsford and Lowell, MA and gone to Fitc...

 It's not actually a 1940's Earl Scruggs or Bill Monroe bluegrass tune, but late-60s Manfred Mann. One of my favorites for years.

In looking up logos , ethos , and pathos , Aristotle's modes of persuasion for use in a possible post*, in order to get them quite righ...

When Christians are asked to provide a proof of the existence of God, or of the resurrection, it is a common response to use some version of...

Based on a conversation over at Grim's I am reminded of a joke.  I should tell more, really. Fred Fernald came home to find that his wif...

I judged the type of event I participated in in high school, and did reasonably well at then. So I had seen, however many years ago, childre...

I am off to judge Christian home-school high school speech contests today, the Regional championships in Chelmsford, MA. I have done it once...

From "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" Would ya look at that coffered ceiling, Look at that chandelier. Excuse me but how I'm feelin...

Writing about depression, I recalled a case from around 1987. It doesn't illustrate anything I just wrote about particularly, it's j...

The crusade was a late, limited, and unsuccessful imitation of the jihad . Bernard Lewis

Ben used to work with a Methodist pastor who thought it would be good if the Christian Church could add to the scriptures over time. As his ...

It has been a long time since I posted an ABBA video. The current audience may not have heard the background: Disco came in just as I was le...

I find that my standards are uneven on these repostings.  Sometimes I think nearly all should be reposted in full, at other times I just thi...

From The Studies Show* again, which provides good material episode after episode, Does Depression Exist? (Transcript available) I usually a...

I can see how this would definitely be true for some people. The Signal-burying Game.   Abstract:  People sometimes make their admirable dee...

The Genetic Origin of Indo-Europeans I don't want you to think I understand this stuff much.  I read through and my eye lights upon par...

 Earl Wajenberg recommends her video about algorithms as well. Her voice is a bit like bskings.

Reposted from 2007 We have used the analogy of firefly blinks at our house for many years now… Fireflies blink in simple patterns to identif...

A cartoon from 35 years ago has stuck in my head. I knew I liked it, and suspected that as I aged, I would agree with it more. An old man...

"Reality Is Coming" is the ESPN headline about what a lot of WNBA stars are saying about Caitlin Clark coming into the league. I d...