The brief look at the dark side of ancient Babylon. — The ancient city of Babylon was roughly 50 miles south of Baghdad along the Euphrates River in modern-day Iraq. The ancient Akkadian-speaking inhabitants of southern Mesopotamia founded it at approximately 2300 B.C. Under the Amorite monarch Hammurabi, who reigned from 1792 to 1750 B.C., Babylon became a prominent military force…

What cultural, technological and economic conditions allowed Europeans to develop the printing press first? — Why didn’t the printing press get developed in China when it had such a major technological lead over the West? From the time the Chinese mastered paper-making, it took over 1300 years before Europeans acquired the same skill. As discussed in one of my other stories, movable type already existed…

And the prisoners of war caught out by the oldest trick in the book — Cultybraggan Camp has an interesting history It’s near the historic conservation village of Comrie in Scotland. The camp was used during WW2 as a maximum-security Prisoner of War camp and incarcerated some of the most dangerous Nazis ever captured. Cultybraggan was known as a black camp housing the SS diehards…

Democrats are giving up on red states. — My dad used to tell this joke. It went like this: Union troops were marching past Stone Mountain, in Georgia, when they saw a confederate soldier. He was standing at the top, shouting down all kinds of nasty insults. The general sent his third-best men after the confederate soldier. They…

So what should I do now? — There is a body buried at my childhood home. I know that because I saw the gravestone, but there is more to the story than that. Summer, Early 1950’s I can’t put an exact date on this. I might have been as young as four, perhaps as old as six. It’s hard to…

The Heroes on Both Side Deserve No Less — As a native Texan, I cannot remember a time when I didn’t know about the Alamo; it is a unique part of our identity as Texans. When I was growing up in the 1970s our history teachers hammered three key things into us: we were the only state that was…

At least the songs were catchy — If you were a kid in America in the 1970s and 1980s, one of the staples of your Saturday morning cartoon viewing was Schoolhouse Rock! Starting in 1973, the animated musical series successfully snuck in educational programming by taking things like grammar (with Grammar Rock) and math (with Multiplication Rock)…

With a closing mystery concerning the only actor credited as “Itself” — Renaissance painters of Italy were big on lines, paticularly outlines. Just look at the collar and facial features in the portrait of the young man above. But lines are often meant to be blurred. A brief look at hands in the Renaissance Leonardo da Vinci is one of the most famous Italian Renaissance artists, and his Mona Lisa…

The truth about an animation star who refused to be erased — Because my fiction books include illustrations of my chickens, they don’t understand drawn characters are not always real, particularly drawn animated characters. This information is written from a chicken’s perspective where animated cartoon characters are real, just as my chickens are real. …

Maybe they think if they don’t get their treasure back now, they might not get it at all — The loan of art from one country to another for display in museum exhibitions is a common practice. After all, what country doesn’t want to put its best foot forward in the cultural marketplace? That’s just what Russia wanted to do back in late 2021 when four museums — the…

Part 1: The 1930’s-50’s (Your grandparents’ generation was cooler than you think) — Musical parodies, like satire in general, are often directed at individuals or ideas that the parodist considers pompous or out of touch. …

How limitations encouraged innovation and design in early color cartoons — Most mornings before work, I watch a few Tune In with Me cartoons on MeTV. Even as a grown-up, cartoons get my day off to a good start. Recently they showed a color cartoon that reminded me of the sun-bleached, color posters often hanging in a thrift store window —…

More gaps to fill — While it was tempting to spend more time on the aborted trip, the story is about Anna, not Charlotte or Lewis. We don’t know how Charlotte felt about staying in Madison. It could have been her idea, her wish. Anna may have been sickly, Charlotte may have been ill herself…

A baby to hold and love — Chapter two of the life of Anna Raymond Beardsley. The bed was not fine, the room quite small, and it was not a hotel. The birthing was attended to by the widow who rented her rooms to Westward travelers, and the birth struggles were already fading from Charlotte’s mind. …

How do I answer these questions? — I am hoping to write a fictional version of my great-grandmother’s life. As I’ve related elsewhere, her life has all the makings of a good story: born en route to California by covered wagon, her father left her and her mother behind, went on to California and died there. …

A well told story has similarities to my family — Have you been watching The Gilded Age on HBO? We have been watching, including all the “Inside this Episode” bits that I usually ignore. I also have been watching the podcast which covers the episodes but also the real people who are mentioned in the tale. Mark Twain You may not know…

The truth about stars and the power of one 15-year-old girl — Chickens are unable to see in the dark. As soon as evening comes, they head up to their roosting spots to protect themselves from unseen dangers. Because of this, chickens are not very advanced in the field of astronomy. …

The Library of Congress cheered me up some — I subscribe to Apple’s Premier Apple One. That gives me a bundle of services that costs less than all the services would together. One of those services is Apple Music. Within Apple Music, Apple Music Replay makes a playlist of your favorite songs — the ones you’ve listened to this…

Martin Couney was a fraud, but he couldn’t close his heart to the infants he was pretending to save — “Doctor” Martin A. Couney had changed his name so many times this man’s life is shrouded in myth and speculation. But one thing we do know is that his medical degree had been forged. Martin Couney was a carnival showman. While working at the Great Industrial Exposition of Berlin, this…

A midlife career change can be a daunting prospect, but going into comedy? — John Bishop stopped selling drugs and launched himself into a new career. It was an enormous change. He didn’t know what he was going to earn; he didn’t know where it would take him, but it felt right. John didn’t wake up with a feeling and hand in his resignation…