Every year I write about May the Fourth, and every year, it seems, I explain why I cannot ignore the day. So this year, I won’t. 🙂 Instead, I’m bringing forward the most interesting post from previous years. You can also find other May the Fourth posts here and here. Have an interstellar day! t. […]
May the Fourth Be With You… Read More »
No, I’m not referring to bedroom games. Really! In the continuing series on things we don’t have to do anymore, providing medical care for our families is on that list. I remember reading Little Women by Louisa M. Alcott when I was very young. I was too young to appreciate the setting and time period, so
I’ve been doing some mind-blowing research on sailing ships lately (that I might put together in another post someday). We usually consider steel-hulled steam or diesel turbine ships to be better and faster than the sailing ships of old. However, the only way that the world could have been discovered, mapped and settled was with sailing
A Cup of Tea…Anything but Simple. Read More »
This post ran seven years ago, so it has drifted deep into the archives. I thought I’d refresh it and bring it forward. –t. I’m almost afraid to mention Shakespeare. There is a whole generation of readers out there, including my kids, who had Shakespeare in Love shoved down their throats in English class at
Shakespearean Sonnets Revisited. Read More »
I’ve seen many pictures of women in third world countries carrying water. Buckets and jugs on their heads, or jerry cans in both hands, sometimes with babies strapped to their backs. I’m sure you’ve seen them, too. Thing is, not so long ago, everyone had to carry water from the nearest source, back to their
Authors can go to extraordinary lengths to build their fictional worlds. They have travelled the world, and spent decades in research. James Cameron has gone where few men have gone before–in ocean depths that few have ever seen. Based on his research he wrote The Abyss (one of my favourite movies ever) and Titanic. J.R.R. Tolkien invented
The Lengths Authors Will Go To Read More »
I wrote this post almost exactly two years ago. I thought I’d bring it forward, because it has a lot of the information in it and all the far more interesting asides (like Oded Fehr). I’m digging back into the history of the Legion once more, this time not just because my curiousity bump was
Héros de la Légion étrangère française, oh mon dieu! Read More »
In the first part of this long post, I described the long process involved in turning any type of fiber (wool, flax, silk, cashmere, cotton) into strands for weaving, to produce cloth, and how labour intensive it was in the past, when machines didn’t do all the work for us. All That Was A Woman’s
Making Cloth – Part 2 Read More »
Look Around You In a second, I’m going to ask you to lift your head up and look around your current location. I want you to take a quick tally of everything you can see that has a textile component. That is, any fabric, anything woven. Okay, take thirty seconds and have a look. …
Making Cloth – Part 1 Read More »
Igor OvsyannykovOn this day in 1169, Salah ad-Din or Saladin became the emir of Egypt. He was a Kurdish Fatimid and highly educated. He preferred studying and religion to military affairs, but he would go on to conquer Syria and take the Kingdom of Jerusalem from the Levant Christians, effectively making him the leader of one of the greatest Muslim dynasties.
The Most Well-Known Muslim Leader in Western History? Read More »