After paying a call on Miss Carrie Lee, who in her day had been what once was unself-consciously (and respectfully) known as an “old maid schoolteacher,” and who was, moreover, a dear old friend of my late grandmother’s (Nanny was partial to schoolteachers and clergymen), I received a gift in the mail from Miss Carrie Lee: Wee Wisdom, “a magazine for boys and girls.”
continue reading >There are three kinds of fools: Real Fools, Professional Fools, and Unsuspecting Fools. The professional, a staple of Shakespeare’s plays, is, in reality, nobody’s fool.
continue reading >Is the crowd really smarter than the lonely genius? It depends ...
continue reading >The Greek goddess of wisdom was Athena, famous in mythology for having sprung full-grown from the head of her father, Zeus, instead of making her earthly debut in the usual way, and for remaining a virgin. There were only three virgin goddesses in the entire Greek pantheon, and Athena (sometimes called Pallas Athena) was one of the three.
continue reading >Mother Teresa, the tiny woman in the white-and-blue sari, was — and remains — well known to the world not for her looks or her wealth, but for simply tending to the poorest of the poor.
continue reading >A hobo wearing a beaten-up farmer’s hat lounges uneasily on a dusty Old West main street outside the saloon. He’s out of place. Two hard-faced cowboys ride up to the saloon.
continue reading >The worldwide web. Just don't forget what the word really means.
continue reading >Biography subjects behaving badly can drive biographers crazy.
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