Anachronism — [second definition] a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other (Example: “By the time I reached my teens, the housewife was an anachronism, replaced on television by the perky, glamorous, character of That Girl, Marlo Thomas, who kept her boyfriend at bay in the interest of pursuing her acting career.” […]

“[I]n this world, with great power there must also come — great responsibility.” S. Lee and S Ditko, Amazing Fantasy No. 15: “Spider-Man,” p. 13 (1962) In 2015, the Supreme Court quoted this line in a patent dispute case involving a Marvel-related product. The Supreme Court said: Patents endow their holders with certain superpowers, but […]

I found an interesting quote in a Japanese magazine. “During history, ‘justice’ killed way more people than ‘evil.’ Justice is a drug. It gives you a high and blinds you. Once infected, you can kill countless people.” This quote was written before the current riots and bears no relation to what is going on in […]

“For if you suffer your people to be ill-educated, and their manners to be corrupted from their infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded from this, but that you first make thieves and then punish them.” St. Thomas More, Utopia St. […]

It has become popular in the USA to cite a 99% survival rate for COVID-19. However, this survival rate fits into the saying popularized by Mark Twain that “there are lies, there are damn lies, and then there are statistics.” The 99% figure is only possible through an absolutely true statistic that leads to a […]

I enjoy reading fantasy and science fiction. The last few years I have become a fan of urban fantasy. Much urban fantasy is dystopian. One definition goes: “Utopian describes a society that’s conceived to be perfect. Dystopian is the exact opposite — it describes an imaginary society that is as dehumanizing and as unpleasant as […]