I have previously railed against the practice of tipping, seeing it as something that encourages servile behavior and is demeaning. It seems to me to be a relic of the feudal system in which the nobility acted patronizingly towards the peasantry by giving them gifts in exchange for acting obsequiously towards them. So I was pleased to see that some restaurants are adopting a no-tipping policy and paying their employees a living wage, by either raising their menu prices and/or adding a service charge automatically. [Read more…]

So the Cleveland Indians baseball team got knocked out of the playoffs last night, losing to the Tampa Bay Rays by a score of 4-0. And there was much sorrow in the land of Cuyahoga. [Read more…]

I have written before about the dangerous consequences of American exceptionalism, the belief that the country and its people are imbued with some special undefined quality that makes them and their cultural and political values better than those of others. This attitude can and does lead the US to think that it can impose its will on other nations and peoples, by force if necessary. [Read more…]

So I returned to the US from Canada via the Peace Bridge without any incident.

Thankful as I was that I was not treated the awful way that Sarah Abdurrahman and her traveling companions were, it struck me when I was crossing the border each way how brusque and surly the immigration officers are. There was no greeting when we drove up to the booth, no smile, no word of thanks when you hand them your passport, no “Welcome to the US/Canada”, nothing. This is even though I smile and am polite as is my custom when dealing with people. The questions they asked were curt and monosyllabic. When my wife answered the Canadian immigration guy from the passenger seat, he said in an aggressive tone of voice “I can’t hear you!” without even looking at her. Would it have killed him to say, as I do when someone speaks softly, “Could you please speak a little louder?” [Read more…]

As I mentioned before, I will be driving to Toronto this weekend to visit with cousins whom I have not seen in many years and so blogging will likely be a little light until my return. Normal blogging will resume early next week unless I am detained at the border for the crime of looking like a Muslim.

Neetzan Zimmerman has unearthed a video in which apparently you can hear the people taking part in professional wrestling talking to each other and giving and responding to cues. [Read more…]

I was disturbed by this news story about people using fake therapy dogs in order to be able to take them places that they might otherwise not be allowed to go. And they actually brag about doing so, as if it is clever to abuse this aid given to people with disabilities. [Read more…]

In a recent comment, CaitieCat said something that really surprised me. She pointed out that in English, whenever a noun is prefaced by multiple adjectives, those adjectives follow a specific order. We all instinctively use that order though, as far as I can tell, no one is ever actually taught to do so but pick it up as they learn language. [Read more…]

Yesterday was his eighth birthday.

People of my generation will remember Billie Jean King well. Not only was she a terrific tennis player, winning a bucket load of titles and dominating the sport for a decade, she was also a tireless fighter for women’s equality in sports and elsewhere and was instrumental in getting the major tennis tournaments to give equal prize money for both the men’s and women’s contests. She was one of the most colorful players in the game. [Read more…]