Cleveland was rocked last year by the revelation that a man had imprisoned three women in his house for a decade, fathering a child by one of them, before they were rescued. It seemed bizarre that this could have happened in a city in a neighborhood where the houses were so close to each other, and triggered a lot of discussion and guilt about how it could be that no one noticed anything untoward. [Read more…]

Sri Lanka is a developing country where there is a class of people who are not only extremely wealthy but determined to flaunt their wealth in the most ridiculously extravagant ways. The latest example of this kind of disgusting ostentation is a wedding that had 126 bridesmaids, 25 best men, 20 page boys and 23 flowers girls. [Read more…]

We may have a solution to the autoplay problem that has been annoying some readers. Thanks to everyone who provided data on whether they had autoplay problems with the embedded videos, the culprits may have been identified. After going through and tabulating all the responses, a pattern emerges and here is what I found. [Read more…]

I am fascinated by the way language evolves and so enjoyed this animation from the British Open University that in just ten minutes gives a flippant but informative history of the main steps in the development of the English language and the origins of many of the words and phrases that we use. [Read more…]

Bill Watterson, the creator of the iconic and much-loved Calvin and Hobbes that was syndicated from 1985 to 1995, walked away from one of the most successful comic strips in US history at the height of its popularity, when he felt that he had said and done all that he could with that particular medium. Thanks to my daughter, who was an even bigger fan of the strip than me, we now own all the C&H anthologies and they remain fresh upon re-reading. [Read more…]

Kentucky senator Rand Paul apparently likes to liven up his speeches with ideas taken from film plots. That’s fine but Rachel Maddow found that he seemed to be lifting the descriptions of the films from Wikipedia without attribution. And it was not just an isolated practice but done several times. When confronted about this practice, Paul reacted initially with bluster and indignation, saying that this was the work of ‘haters’ and an insult to his honor and that he regretted that these days he could not challenge them to a duel, as if he were a character from The Count of Monte Cristo, which as many of you know is an adventure story primarily concerned with themes of hope, justice, vengeance, mercy and forgiveness, it focuses on a man who is wrongfully imprisoned, escapes from jail, acquires a fortune and sets about getting revenge on those responsible for his imprisonment. (Note: I couldn’t resist making a small joke by lifting the rest of the sentence from the word ‘adventure’ straight from the Wikipedia entry.) [Read more…]

The infamous Richie Incognito, who was suspended indefinitely from the Miami Dolphins football team when his racist and violent telephone messages to teammate Jonathan Martin were revealed, has broken his silence and given an interview to Fox News with his side of the story. [Read more…]

Today is Veteran’s Day in the US where the country is encouraged to recognize the members of its armed forces. I have become aware that members of the general public, when they encounter service members in public, will often tell them “Thank you for your service”. [Read more…]

My eye caught this news report headline that said “Incognito sent racist texts”. It sounded odd, like the headline writer had bungled badly. Surely, I thought to myself, it should read “Racist texts sent incognito” or better still “Racist texts sent anonymously”? I was intrigued enough to click the link and the story removed my confusion. [Read more…]

For those who hate seeing ads and/or those who would like to financially support this network of blogs, Jason Thibeault at Lousy Canuck has set up a system that will give you ad-free access by purchasing a subscription. [Read more…]