Many years ago, in junior high school and high school, I studied Latin. My reasoning at the time was water-tight, to me. It was my hope to become the world’s leading herpetologist. The most daunting obstacle, I thought, was the memorization of scientific names. But if I knew Latin, I’d just translate the common names of snakes, turtles, and lizards into that language and I wouldn’t have to memorize anything. It is funny the things that make sense when you’re 13.
A close friend of mine — we’ve never met nor heard each other’s voices, but hey, this is the twenty-first century — is devoted to cats. She has spent hundreds and hundreds of hours over the last seven years seeking the availability of a drug that would save millions of her feline friends from painful almost-certain death. We’ll talk more about that in a bit.
It’s beginning to crumble. Everything that was peddled as official fact about the “miracle” messenger RNA vaccines administered with such wild abandon all across the world, in some cases made mandatory, is being proved false.
As I write this, there is no news about the missing miniature submarine that was launched Sunday in hope of visiting the wreckage of HMS Titanic without itself adding to the rubble.
New technology and discoveries have improved our lives in many ways, but I wonder if we’ve paid for them in the things we’ve lost. The question was raised through a bit of study disguised as entertainment — how it should be — I’ve undertaken lately. The issue is why it is that when I think of New York City, my first mental image entirely contradicts my years of living and working there.
Last week I saw a short video that demonstrated an amazing new fabric. Controlled by a small “smartphone” application, this fabric changes color. It is very expensive, so the only people who will have garments made from it are teenagers.
If you’re of a certain age, when you hear the phrase “the silent majority” you probably think of Richard Nixon. He used the phrase in the sense that while the loudest and weirdest voices make up the majority of the news broadcasts, they do not make up the majority of the people, who go quietly about their business, saving their opinions for when they matter.
When I was a WOR Radio in the early 1980s everyone smiled when Bruce Eliot came into the newsroom to get a cup of our superior coffee. He was an amiable guy, always with a good joke.
It’s a little mortifying to learn that the Temptations’ hit song, “Ball of Confusion” was a hit 53 years ago. The worrying part is how long ago it was released. And how it came a half century too early.