Meandering Thoughts #28
It's inevitable that plane travel includes overhearing neighboring conversations how hard you try to ignore them....at least until you switch on your noise canceling headphones! Most are mundane, innocuous, unimportant,…
Random Learnings #35
How To Overthrow Democracy Alfred Hugenberg was a German industrialist and politician whom, between the world wars, hoped to overthrow the Weimar Republic by influencing public opinion, rather than constitutionally…
Random Learnings #34
Imperial is the ubiquitous Costa Rican beer, its logo adorning signs at roadside bars and restaurants and for sale in every grocery store and gas station. There is no way…
Random Learnings #33
Crimea has been a major area of conflict and disagreement between Russia and Ukraine since the breakup of the Soviet Union. The 2014 Ukraine Crisis say Russia essentially invade Crimea…
Random Learnings #32
On my way to Chicagoland for my nephew's college graduation, I stopped at the Illinois Railway Museum - highly recommended, I'll write up my visit soon - and picked up…
Random Learnings #31
Unlike Woodrow Wilson, a Princeton professor with a PhD in political science, Truman had no abstract theories about the office. (In fact, he was the last occupant of the White…
Random Learnings #30
I have read many - too many - books, articles, scholarly papers, etc., about the anti-Semitism faced by Holocaust survivors faced returning home, especially in Eastern Europe. By a large…
Random Learnings #29
The last Shah of Iran, Shah Reza Pahlavi, was a huge Rangers fan: The diplomats pressed for yet more royal visits, ideally with the shah comping to Britain again. The…
Random Learnings #28
Bring sunblock to a solar event. My wife and I went to Carbondale, IL to see the 2024 solar eclipse at Southern Illinois University. Our very first eclipse, so we…
Random Learnings #27
My wife and I ate at Brasa this evening and saw this on the menu: How refreshing to see a restaurant actually treat their employees like .... um ... employees?…