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 School of Athens. Print by Giorgio Ghisi, of painting by Raphael, via Wikimedia Commons What most people call “debate” really is not. I found the Wikipedia article quite amusing. My favourite bit was where it says: “...debates emphasize logical consistency, factual accuracy, and emotional appeal to an audience.” I guess one out of three isn’t bad? Even so-called “formal” debate, where there are rules, judges, and guidelines for acceptable conduct, are more about competit

Cover of "Living Next Door to Alice" single by Smokie, via Wikipedia Living with the name “Alice” was not always easy in the 1970s and...

Recently-calibrated reference dog “Consciousness consists of morphogenetic fields of quantum energy. ‘Quantum’ means a redefining of the...

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...

Marcia Gay Harden as Mrs. Carmody, Mist (2007) Sometimes, it’s hard to see what is true, when everything is shrouded in fog. Fog? You...

Louis Raemaekers – To your health, civilization, 1916 The subversion of expectations is an interesting tool, used by artists of all...

Jason Zhang, CC BY-SA 4.0 < https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0 >, via Wikimedia Commons Many years ago, I was sitting in an...

Karunakar Rayker, CC BY 2.0 < https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 >, via Wikimedia Commons Seashells  are really quite amazing,...

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...

Artificial Intelligence, via Wikimedia Commons “People grow through experiences, if they meet life honestly and courageously. That is how...

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...

Bring out your dead! Via YouTube In the classic scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail , Eric Idle is moving down the road with a...

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

Ferrari 166 S, via Wikipedia I was trying to think of a song about a car, and bounced around a bit before realizing the truth. Red...

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...

Is Religion Like a Drug? | Rev | BBC Comedy Greats, via YouTube “You’ll feel that God reached out to you with his love.” “What does that...

Emo Philips, Opening for Weird Al Yankovic at the Apollo Theatre Today I learned the word “ paraprosdokian ”. According to Wikipedia, the...