Neal's Musings (Hardly Political)


THIS IS THE DEFAULT CATEGORY on this blog and was pre­vi­ously the Gen­eral Ob­ser­va­tions cat­e­gory. Here you’ll find ar­ti­cles about my wife and my cat, anec­dotes and jokes—basically any­thing that doesn’t fit into any of the other, more spec­i­fied categories.

Most of the pieces here are rea­son­ably gentle—those es­says or ar­ti­cles that con­tain any vit­riol will be found in the Neal’s Rants (Re­ally Po­lit­ical) category.

↓

Popeye 1

do you think that popeye and olive oyl drank earl grey at tea time?

by

I DON’T KNOW WHY, but for the past forty or so years I have had my self con­vinced that I did not like Earl Grey tea! Was it de­nial? Some form of cog­ni­tive dis­so­nance? Just plain stub­born­ness? Now, the slightly oily, slightly tangy taste beckons me ’round the clock—not that I need con­stant dosing with caffeine. [Continue reading]

Jurassic Insects Sex

jurassic sex: fossil catches ancient bugs in the act

by

THE TITLE OF THIS POST, “Fossil Catches An­cient Bugs in the Act,” was the head­line for a piece in to­day’s Seattle Times (No­vember 7, 2013). Ac­cording to the paper, “Sci­en­tists say a fossil re­cov­ered in south­eastern China de­picts two in­sects locked in sexual con­gress roughly 165 mil­lion years ago, the oldest such relic ever discovered.” [Continue reading]

my bhl petitions on facebook (bleeding heart liberal petitions)

by

I SUBSCRIBE TO SEVERAL NEWSLETTERS that are ac­cu­rately re­ferred to by my less-enlightened brothers and sisters—you know them as “conservatives”—as being of the “bleeding heart lib­eral” (BHL) ilk. You know: things like global cli­mate change, en­dan­gered species, women’s/gay/minority rights (no­tably any steps to­ward equality for any or all groups who do not cur­rently enjoy that status), let­ters to the Pres­i­dent, Con­gress, large cor­po­ra­tions, etc., [Continue reading]