In January 1905, South African miners unearthed the largest rough gem diamond ever discovered. Uncut, it weighed over one pound. Today, the total value of the gems cut from the stone exceeds two billion dollars. But it’s the story of it’s transportation to Europe which has the most value for us. Shortly after its discovery,…
No, not the chicken recipe– I’m talking about what Sanders did with his life. Harland David Sanders was born in 1890 to a poor farmer in Kentucky. When Harland was five, his daddy died, and as the oldest child, he was left to look after his siblings and keep house while his mother got what…
No, this isn’t about the Great Orange Braying One and his obscene war against the rule of law, or even Bojo the Clown ranting about his ignominiousous smackdown by eleven of the world’s best legal minds. Rather, it’s a lighthearted look at some of the oddities of our language. In formal legal English, all the…
It’s no accident that Wetherspoons, the 900-plus tavern chain in the UK, is a staunch and generous supporter of Brexit. Nor was it coincidental that Hitler’s first attempted power grab was the Beer Hall Putsch. And we see Boris and Nigel more often than not hoisting a glass, not so much because of thirst as…
A funny thing is happening to the word “couple”– it’s changing species! Until very recently, “couple” was invariably a noun, but now it is increasingly being used as an adjective. To language purists like me, that’s jarring, but it seems the trend is unstoppable. First of all, a quick grammar review. A noun is a…
At our house, out here in the countryside, we heat primarily with wood. Although we have a furnace, our preference, as long as we are around the house, is our air-tight wood stove which keeps the entire house nice and toasty. And you just can’t beat the smell of maple smoke on the crisp winter…
Today, advertising in the telephone directory seems anachronistic and quaint. But when I began to practice law many decades ago, it was considered essential. Because my last name begins with a “B”, I was advantaged over all the lawyers whose names started with “C” or later. Nevertheless, I never found the Yellow Pages to be…
Abraham Maslow explained The Law of the Instrument this way: “I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.” The Law of the Instrument, also known as the Hammer Rule, describes over-reliance on a single device. Individuals stuck in this rut…
How can it be that two boats, powered only by the wind, travel in very different directions– one sailing easterly and the other clipping along westerly? Same winds, same currents, different courses. Clearly, neither boat is drifting aimlessly along. One is under the control of a skipper who is triangulating the prevailing wind against the…
In his October 4, 2019 statement to the House Republicans, the Donald established a new low for presidential leadership. A week later he took it deeper with his betrayal of the Kurds. But for now, let’s study the October 4 event. When confronted about his July 25th phone call with the Ukrainian president, Trump shrugged…