This year marks the centenary of the birth of Balto. Who is Balto? He was a sled dog who, in 1925 when he was six years old, played a key role in a heroic rescue effort. Laura DeMarco recounts the events.
We are used to envisaging Abraham Lincoln as an older, bearded man, formally attired, the way he is presented in the memorial to him in Washington, DC. Pretty much all official representations of Lincoln adopt that basic look. Hence I was startled to come across this image of an 8-foot tall statue of a young Abraham Lincoln situated in a Los Angeles federal courthouse where he looks like he was posing for a Ralph Lauren ad, though the statue was commissioned eighty years ago.
My return from visiting my grandson took much longer than anticipated. After arriving at the airport at 2:30 pm yesterday for my 4:40pm flight, the flight kept getting delayed and delayed until finally they cancelled it, after I had been at the airport for seven hours. Fortunately, they were able to book me on a flight early the next day and they gave me hotel accommodation for the night. But staying in a strange hotel room knowing that one must get up early usually results in poor sleep and that was the case with me. But then the next day, after arriving at the airport at 6:30 am, that flight was delayed another three hours so I came home pretty exhausted and crashed for a few hours.
But now I feel refreshed.
One thing I have noticed is that long delays and cancellations makes people at the airport much more sociable, with mutual tales of woe being a good conversation starter. I had enjoyable chats with many people who happened to be either sitting next to me or when we were standing in line to reschedule our flights, which confirms my view that people are in general nice and we miss out by not interacting more. I had a particularly long chat with a couple who, when they found out I was a physicist, asked me a ton of questions about physics involving dark matter and energy and cosmology in general. I essentially conducted an hour long tutorial.
Why is it that it seems like it is only adversity and problems that break down the barriers between people?
Shannon Gabriel, the West Indian fast bowler who was suspended from the next four international games, has issued a statement where he apologized for the behavior that led up to the suspension. What he had said was not picked up by the microphone embedded in the stumps, only the response by England captain Joe Root who told him that it was unacceptable, Gabriel gave a good apology where he described what he said, what had led up to him saying it, acknowledged that it was wrong, and apologized.
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You may recall my post from a couple of weeks ago about people who deliberately use their First Amendment rights to taunt and provoke police officers in the hope that they will react against them, giving them fodder for their YouTube audiences. They claim that they are protecting the right of free speech by using it legally. I said that this was a dangerous practice since the police are armed.
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Winky won rave reviews at the Westminster Dog Show for deciding that she was going to do it her way, and not be controlled by the show’s demands for speed and accuracy and ignored the time to beat of 40 seconds.
R. Eric Thomas says that Winky’a performance showed us that trying to conform to other people’s criteria is not the most important thing in life. We also need to be true to ourselves and savor the moment.
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I will be going away for a few days to visit my grandson and so blogging will be sporadic until next week, since I am pretty sure that has toys that he wants to show me and that will keep me busy.
In international Test cricket matches, there are microphones embedded in the wickets at each end. The primary purpose is to detect any contact between bat and ball when it is too slight to be heard by the umpires who need to know to make judgments as to whether a batter touched the ball or not. But the microphones also pick up conversations between players and that resulted in an incident that took place yesterday in the Test match between West Indies and England.
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Airline ticket pricing nowadays depends on so any factors that it would be quite a coincidence if you met someone on the same flight who had paid the same amount for the ticket as you did. But the most surprising thing is when it costs less to go further along the same route.
For instance, someone flying from New York to San Francisco could book a cheaper trip from New York to Lake Tahoe with a layover in San Francisco and get off there, without bothering to take the last leg of the flight.
We are having an epidemic of politicians, corporations, and celebrities from all spheres of activity having information revealed about their bad behavior. When the evidence is incontrovertible, there arises the question of what kind of apology is required and what amends should be made. Lisa Leopold suggests some guidelines and says that in order to be effective, the apology should consist of three elements.
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