Room for Adjustment
A Personal Narrative
By Mark Ellis
Did I mention that I’m a grandfather? Yes, I’m that older guy who fumbles with his iPhone and produces a photo of his offspring’s offspring in about three minutes. It’s great, but recent events involving my extended family illustrate how being an agreeable and somewhat smitten grandparent can send you down the proverbial primrose path and run you ragged.
PreTeena: December 24 – December 30, 2018
Sunday Comics!
By Allison Barrows
You won’t want to miss these hilarious cartoons depicting the ups and downs of adolescence. Now each week’s strips will debut on Sundays as the lead strip of Liberty Island’s Sunday Comics feature. If you draw a comic and would like to have your work featured on Sundays, please contact us: [email protected] Check out Allison Barrows’ new PreTeena blog here.
M21: The Greatest Wolf Pack Leader Ever Known
By David Churchill Barrow
Along with his mate F42, with whom he shared authority, M21 presided over the Halcyon days of the monitored Yellowstone wolf pack known as the Druids. He died peacefully of natural causes under a tree of his own choosing; undefeated in battle yet never having killed an opponent.
How Moore’s Law Made ‘Beggars in Spain’ Obsolete
By Tamara Wilhite
Moore’s Law is the law that computing power will double every 18 months. In recent years, we’ve actually seen computing power accelerate such that we’re doing better than Moore’s Law. The real-world ramifications of this are seen in cell phones that contain more features and intelligence every year. Its impact on genetic engineering is both more and less obvious.
When the Reign of Terror Is Part of Your DNA
Great Moments in Chaos and Order, Part III: These Guys Deserve Each Other
By Fred Tribuzzo
The European Social Survey–a science group and past winners of The Descartes Prize, Europe’s annual science award—showed in 2018 that 96% of the French population believed climate change was occurring. The same survey also said that the French weren’t losing much sleep over the notion of cataclysmic global warming. But the citizens forgot about nervous elites like President Macron, who not only believed in the bad science of media-hyped manmade planet warming, but was terrified for France and, most importantly, for the world. Macron’s one of many church-going elitists rushing across our “burning planet” scaring everyone to abandon fossil fuels through policies like the Paris Climate Accords.
“He took the shark head, the carving knife, the scalpel, and the bucket of hydrogen peroxide up to his room.”
Check out this extended excerpt from the beginning of chapter 15…
By Howard Butcher
Experience the thrilling underwater adventure of Jonah: A Novel of Men and the Sea by Howard Butcher. Pick it up today at Amazon.
The 50 Top Liberty Island Posts & Stories from 2018
By David M. Swindle
Check out this list featuring some of the year’s most popular and thoughtful contributions to Liberty Island.
Mordecai Richler, Montreal, And Gritty Realism
Deconstructing Canadian Culture, Part 9: Avoiding the Serious
By Josh Lieblein
I have hinted at it before, but I have not said it in so many words until now: Canadian culture is characterized by a deliberate attempt to avoid dark and serious topics.
You might think it is mere coincidence that Stephen Leacock’s lighter fare made him the Canadian culture maker, or that Montgomery excised the harrowing circumstances of her life from her work. But when we come to Mordecai Richler (1931-2001) – a man who pulled no punches when depicting the rougher side of Canadian life – and we see that he is less remembered for his darkly funny and poignant novels, or his incendiary journalism, but a series of children’s books that he wrote to entertain his family, it becomes harder to chalk that up to mere happenstance.
If Leacock is Canada’s Twain, Richler is Canada’s Phillip Roth. Aggressive and mercurial Jewish protagonists with mommy issues and attendant intimacy issues populate the interconnected worlds of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, Joshua Then And Now, and Solomon Gursky Was Here.
PreTeena: December 17 – December 23, 2018
Sunday Comics!
By Allison Barrows
You won’t want to miss these hilarious cartoons depicting the ups and downs of adolescence. Now each week’s strips will debut on Sundays as the lead strip of Liberty Island’s Sunday Comics feature. If you draw a comic and would like to have your work featured on Sundays, please contact us: [email protected] Check out Allison Barrows’ new PreTeena blog here.
5 Shots of the Best Sunset in Months
Friday, December 14, 2018 offered Southern California a magnificent conclusion to the work week…
By David M. Swindle
*Submit your photographs of nature and the outdoor life to [email protected] to participate in this weekly feature exploring the natural world.*
