“Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus” was a best seller in the nineties by John Gray that sold over 7 million copies. It essentially sought to highlight the differences between men and women in dealing with problems and issues and how it affects relationships, etc. To segue from this to the focus of […]
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“The young perish and the old linger …………….. no parent should have to bury their child” Theoden in “Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” When my mother was terminally ill with cancer in 1964, her mother who was then in her late sixties would tell me that she (my grandmother) would like to die. […]
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What are the odds of someone being born in the 18th century having grandchildren – yes, GRANDCHILDREN – who are alive in the 21st century? Pretty infinitesimal most people would say and they would be right. But a confluence of factors resulted in just such a thing happening with none other than the tenth president […]
Continue reading about More presidential trivia – but a truly remarkable fact
Some interesting facts and trivia about US presidents: Eight presidents were born before the founding of the nation Every president was born in one of only nineteen (arguably twenty) of the fifty states: these states are Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, […]
I am not an Anglophile …….. in fact, I probably have something of a bias against things one associates with the English. My attitude is largely because of the time I spent in the the UK as a student in the sixties when discrimination against anyone who was not white was rife in just about […]
Continue reading about The Tudors, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn
The attack on 9/11 is one of those events similar to the assassination of JFK, the Challenger explosion and other significant events ………. it is one of those occasions that one remembers exactly where one was when the event occurred. I was at home when my step-daughter, Anu, who was then staying with us called […]
We got back earlier tonight from a celebration of Independence Day with the usual fireworks display. The longer I have lived in the US, the more I have come to appreciate the greatness of the country and its people. Sure, we make our share of mistakes but there is no other country in the world […]
Continue reading about July 4, 2011: Reflections about my adopted country
My cousin, Bobby Abraham, recently sent me a very interesting article called “Coming of Age in the Milky Way”. It made for fascinating reading because it was both educational and also offered some context as to where the earth and life on earth fits into the scheme of things. In 1967, two scientists Arno Penzias […]
My final entry for this year as 2009 draws to an end – and what a year it has been. These are some random thoughts – mostly personal – about the year that will pass into history in just over a couple of hours. We saw the inauguration of the first African American president of […]
I recently posted that Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday of the year. We are now into the Christmas holiday season and I would have to say it ranks low on my list of favored holidays. This is all the more surprising because when I was growing up in Kenya, Christmas was a holiday that I […]
We are off on a 12 night Caribbean cruise starting tomorrow so this will likely be the last entry on this blog until our return. We both love cruises and now that we are retired we have the flexibility, within reason, to go for one as and when we please. This flexibility gives us the […]
Thanksgiving is, without a doubt, my favorite holiday of the year. It has all of the elements that I find most desirable – a time to gather with family and extended family, lots of good food and fun. Most importantly from my standpoint, it has not been commercialized the way Christmas has in much of […]
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I watched the “balloon boy” live and was glued to the TV, like many others, while the balloon that the world thought was carrying an endangered six year old drifted several thousand feet in the air. The balloon floated around Colorado, at a height of up to 7000 feet, for over two hours and finally […]
Continue reading about Before “Balloon Boy” there was “Lawnchair Larry”
One of the most effective ways to deal with an adversary or to make a point, is with a quick-witted response or come-back. Some people are exceptionally talented when it comes to such rejoinders or retorts. The best of these involve brevity and pointedness and it is this combination that makes for their effectiveness. Here […]
I was talking to a couple of people this week and the subject came up about aging and how the topics of our conversation changes as we get older. We seem to emphasize certain areas that were never a subject for discussion in years gone by. One conversation was with my sister, Fifi, who lives […]
I first heard of “The Big Texan” when I first arrived in the US and was working for Blue Cross/ Blue Shield in Chicago. I was 25 years old and one of the “old-timers” told me of a restaurant in Texas which served a humongous steak – and the best part of it was that […]
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Jobs, Hitchens, faith and near death experiences
I have always been fascinated by the phenomenon of the “near death experience” – known by the acronym NDE. Perhaps it is my belief in an after-life – even though I am not sure what form it takes – which accounts for this interest. After all, for someone who believes in an after life the […]
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