Less than six months before the outbreak of the Second World War, the German ocean liner MS St. Louis left the port of Hamburg for Cuba. Nearly all 937 passengers on board were Jewish, literally fleeing for their lives in the face of Hitler’s Holocaust. The plan was that they would land in Cuba as…
In Schrödinger’s famous but not always accurately reported thought experiment, a cat is sealed in a box with a radioactive atom, a flask of poison, and a hammer poised to break the flask. If the atom decays, a Geiger counter detects it and trips the hammer which breaks the flask, releasing the poison to kill…
Back in the day when I was still doing some matrimonial trials, I had a case which should have lasted, at most, one-day. In fact, it should never have gone to trial at all, it was so eminently settleable. The kids in this farm family were nearly grown up and custody and access were not…
As most readers will have discerned, I was raised Evangelical, many decades ago when evangelicalism was consistent with the merciful and joyous “good news” of a “Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild”. Those days are long gone, but memories of them remain. A standby of growing up evangelical was the Saturday edition of the Radio Bible…
“Vous savez que ces deux nations sont en guerre pour quelques arpents de neige vers le Canada, et qu’elles dépensent pour cette belle guerre beaucoup plus que tout le Canada ne vaut.” – Voltaire If only Voltaire could see us now! So much for his “few acres of snow”! Yet in many ways it has…
It was a fine English June day, over eight hundred years ago, that the barons of England confronted King John in the meadows of Runnymede, a green paradise on the banks of the River Thames. There were pomp and panoply and circumstances, but at base it was all business. The almost unanaimous barons were fed…
In many ways, my book is complete. In fact, it’s been written about five times already. This time, once it’s packaged up, it’s out the door. I hate this thing which has taken over my life! For about a month now, I’ve been stuck on a re-write of Chapter Six, and I have many good…
Not everyone is a fan of Elon Musk, but you can’t can deny his many achievements. SpaceX, neurotechnology, tunnelling, hyper-loops, and of course, Tesla … And he’s not quite done, yet. Not everyone is aware that Musk was born in South Africa and that his mother was Canadian. Thus, when Elon wanted to spread his…
Those of us with rural roots have learned the hard way the truth of the expression: “It’s too late to close the door when the horse has left the barn.” Same applies to cows, pigs, sheep, chickens….. There are similar expressions involving umbrellas and leaky roofs. You know them, I know them. All of these…
Recently my trusty old keyboard became too wonky for my level of patience, so off it went to electronics heaven. Too many cookie crumbs, too many coffee spills, I suspect. I dug around my “bits and pieces” bin and found one I had forgotten about, set it up, and before long was using it to…