Today I Learned

Charlie Chaplin, in The Great Dictator, 1940, via Wikimedia Commons Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about fascism. While I already had a fair degree of familiarity and understanding of the big picture, I’ve been picking up (and often blogging about) items which are new to me. Predictably, most are disturbing, but I occasionally come across something wonderful. Charlie Chaplin  was an immensely influential figure in the history of cinema, and his “Tramp” character has been an

The Knife performing at Melt! Festival in 2013 Connections are fun, and humans are very good at making them. Let’s start at the end, and...

Stg Schultz, Hogan’s Heroes, via YouTube For those who don’t immediately hear the words “I know nothing. NOTHING!”, this is Sgt Schultz ,...

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, via Wikimedia Commons Am I being too harsh in what I say about Robert F Kennedy Jr ? I’ve mentioned him several...

Tux, the Linux Mascot, via Wikipedia This is Tux . He is a penguin. He’s also the official mascot of the Linux kernel , which is the...

Hitler’s “Memorandum Authorizing Involuntary Euthanasia”, 1-Sep-1939, via Wikipedia World War II is generally considered to have begun...

Cover art for Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording), via Genius.com The musical Hair opened on...

Generated by RG, via Microsoft Designer, 2025 “Trust everybody, but cut the cards.” Finley Peter Dunne Trust is a strange thing. I knew I...

Mark Carney & Mike Myers, via YouTube Canadians are an odd breed. While I think most of us love our country, we do not brag about it, or...

Survivorman Logo, via YouTube The TV show Survivor is described as a “ reality-competition ”, but it never struck me as realistic, and I...

Tuwiuwok Bluff, via Haven, Maine fan wiki When I thought about the TV series Haven , I remembered vague details, and thought it must have...

So, it’s HER fault! :) I recently wrote about why Y2K was such a big deal. To summarize, one major reason was the cost of computer...

“Give me a place to stand on, and I will move the Earth” “δῶς μοι πᾶ στῶ καὶ τὰν γᾶν κινάσω” Archimedes is described as a...

Who’d have thought that music could be political? Or that musicians might have political views? Let’s take the song Killing in the Name ...

“Why can’t we all just get along?” This was the question asked by the incomparable Jack Nicholson in Mars Attacks! Nicholson’s...

M. C. Escher has always been one of my favourite artists. From the moment I first saw his work (I think it might have been Waterfall ),...

When I write, I sometimes have a topic in mind, and look for an interesting way to introduce it. This time, I ended up going down an...

Recently, I was listening to an old episode of The Skeptics Guide to the Universe , (actually, episode 803, dated 28-Nov-2020 ), in which...

In the late 1980’s I liked to collect “taglines” to include in my interactions with people. While these included many “pithy” statements...

I’ve heard a number of people say that they “don’t like X”, only to discover that their only exposure has been some “pop culture” version...