May 25 – 29, 2015 Ann’s Uncle Bundy had the kind of raw competence that solves problems with elegant ingenuity. We revisit him on Memorial Day. Helen sings songs about songbirds in Washington, D.C. and in so doing brings a piece of the English countryside to America. LWON alumnus Heather says the slave trade has […]
Month: May 2015
Sometimes friends will be over, everybody talking, and one of the little kids will get antsy so I’ll pick up a book and start reading, quietly so as not to disturb conversation. But pretty soon nobody is talking any more, everybody’s listening to Winnie the Pooh and Piglet track the Heffalump. I’ll bet you can […]
Early the other morning, I woke up to a strange humming noise. My first thought was the ceiling fan motor was petering out, but it turned out the sound was coming from outside. So I stepped out onto my little balcony for a look, and listen. The hum hummed louder. It took a minute before […]
Nearly a year ago last May, the mercurial leader of Boko Haram announced the fate of 276 schoolgirls that he and his men kidnapped from a secondary school in Chibok, Nigeria. Standing in front of a video camera and tugging at a red hat, Abubakar Shekau laughed as he read from a prepared statement. “I […]
I walked along the edge of a cliff. Under my feet, grass. To my right, a hundred-foot drop to the waters of the English Channel. A strong wind blew off the water and over the cliff, blowing the loose ends of hair in my face, obnoxiously. To my left was a field, planted with something […]
This post first ran May 28, 2012. Uncle Bundy has since died — at a nice old age with his family around him, but still — and when I think about soldiers and Memorial Day I always think about him, I’m not sure why: he didn’t talk about the war, maybe because he stood so […]
May 18 – 22, 2015 Erik started the week off by offending bee scientists with a wasp scientist whose object of study is solitary and sleek, definitely not just an ant with wings. The scientist has some issues, don’t we all. LWON turned five this week and in joyous celebration, alumnus Thomas Hayden lists the […]
On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being “not at all” and 10 being “very much”, how much has the sight of this question made you die inside? You’re not alone. Surveys are dreadful; often badly-worded, usually tedious, always demanding more of your time than they deserve. Yet they’re a pillar on which a […]