When civilizations fall into barbarism, the arising culture fetishizes strength. So it has always been. It can feel as if the weak and sensitive have no place and no voice in a time when throwing one’s weight around is the done thing. This was the world in which Cai Yan, a Chinese noblewoman at the […]
Author: Penny Wednesday
It was a warm July evening, and we left the living room window open so the cats could lounge in the screened in porch. As usual, my teenage son went to bed around midnight, hours after I had turned in. At 1:30am I heard a frantic chittering noise from behind his closed door. He was […]
In 1925, teacher Wilfred Eitzman found a cobble—a rock slightly bigger than a pebble, the weight of a small rat—in a cave in Northern Province, South Africa. It was reddish brown with an unmistakable, prominent face etched into it. Two deep and perfectly round eyes, a shallow divet for a nose, and grimacing, toothy mouth. […]
An unsung advantage of partnership is not having to be quite so on top of things all the time. Liberated from the relentless need to be competent, you can think more interesting thoughts. This post was originally written a few months into the pandemic, and my own thinking was so discombobulated I have very little […]
Did you see the stars come out during the eclipse? Did the colors change in a Magic Hour kind of way? Did darkness fall without long shadows, and do you miss the experience already? I’m here to tell you there’s another way to see that, and you get Tom Hiddleston in with the bargain. Growing […]
Disclaimer: If you come here for the science, you can skip this post. I feel like writing about resource allocation today. If you ever visit a financial planner or investment advisor, they will likely ask about your job. That’s because much of your wealth, especially if you are young, is invisible. It’s in your ‘human […]
Whenever someone ‘swears by’ an obscure vegetable or exercise practice for longevity or [shudder] ‘wellness’, I assume it occupies a ritualistic place in their lives. Magical thinking is a powerful phenomenon, and just as placebo effects are stronger when the ‘treatment’ involves something invasive like a sham surgery (as opposed to a sugar pill), health […]
Recently I had cause to doubt someone’s credentials in a situation where credibility was key. Not to worry, I thought, That’s what university registrars are for. You simply call them up and verify that said person is a graduate, right? Not right. It turns out—and maybe everyone else already knew this—you can’t verify a job […]