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While you were sleeping

WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING

Eight days ago at 10:11 a.m. GMT, an asteroid the size of a twenty-story building passed very close to our planet. Six days ago astronomers first learned about it. Most people in the U.S. were asleep as it silently zipped by. It happened while you were sleeping. This asteroid, named belatedly 2023 NT1 was roughly 200-foot-wide (60 meters) and it was freakingly close to colliding with Earth at an estimated 53,000 mph or 86,000 km/hr. The closest approach distance to...

A PLANET IN PERILE

Certainly many of the 8,048,881,700 people on the planet at the moment would agree that this summer has been uncomfortably hot. Welcome to a planet in perile. As I write this, it is 41 degrees Fahrenheit in Thule Greenland. Thule is 700 miles north of the Arctic Circle, just less than half the distance from the Arctic Circle to the North Pole. In Las Vegas, it is 103 degrees, with a high of 111 degrees predicted for today. In Beijing it...

Россия стоит перед новой угрозой

РОССИЯ СТАЛКИВАЕТСЯ С НОВОЙ УГРОЗОЙ

Россия стоит перед новой угрозой. Россия может оказаться на грани гражданской войны, поскольку Евгений Пригожин идет маршем на Ростов, российский город вблизи Украины, в котором проживает более 32 000 человек. [Пожалуйста, имейте в виду, что все эти новостные сообщения следует считать ненадежными, поскольку интенсивность этой истории растет с каждой минутой. Но я собрал их как можно лучше из газет, доступных в Интернете. Я не могу лично поручиться за все, что написано ниже”.] В конце пятницы западные СМИ сообщили о поисках...

Empty barrels make the most noise.

EMPTY BARRELS MAKE THE MOST NOISE

I grew up on a resort in the mountains, and we’d have a dozen barrel-sized trash cans filled with kitchen waste behind the dining hall building. There were always a few empty cans as well. We’d also be visited regularly by black bears in the middle of the night. When the bears tipped over the cans that were full, you would not be able to hear them because the contents of the can would muffle the sound. But when they...

Currents of war

THE CURRENTS OF WAR

One of my most popular posts, called “The Point of No Return,” speaks in depth about the currents of the Niagara River as one approaches the famous falls. Let me share a bit of information from that post: You cannot break free at this point. Many of us who have lived even moderately active lives have been in situations at the beach, in swollen creeks and tempestuous rivers, even if only low-lying areas in our town during rain drenched downpours...

Lamentations

LAMENTATIONS

This past week, my wife and I watched almost every vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.  I’m a political scientist by training and she is an equally concerned and informed citizen. And, we are both educators.  Both of us love our country.  We each unselfishly gave more than twenty years of our lives in service to America during our careers.  The spectacle that we saw unfold in the House of Representatives last week, and the changes to the House Rules, concern us both,...

2023: What will the new year bring?

2023: WHAT WILL THE NEW YEAR BRING?!!

The first time January 1 marked the beginning of a year was in 45 B.C. as the Julian calendar took effect. January was named for the Roman god Janus who represented, in part, new beginnings and the end to old ways. Prior to that, March was the first month of the new year for Romans, named after the Roman god of war. So, it appeared more seemly to begin a year without a reference to war. Janus is represented as...

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