“For though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me,” Jeremiah 2:22 informs us of the ancient use of ridding out bodies of dirt and smell but not necessarily iniquity. Smelling someone near you, if it is not what we consider a pleasant scent, is [read more]
No one is certain if it was 1529 or 1530 when Giulio Cesare Aranzi was born. The baby’s father, Ottaviano di Jacopo Aranzio, was poor but married to Maria Maggi, the niece of the wealthy and famous surgeon Bartolomeo Maggi, the principal court physician of Pope Julius III. Having a powerful uncle led [read more]
Women are supposed to talk a lot more than men. Is it true? Someone told me once that the Chinese symbol for “noisy” shows more than two women under one roof. I saw some Chinese tourists in Inverness the other day and missed my chance to check that one out. But maybe it’s [read more]
I liked history when I was a kid but in my family education was to get a good job. What could you learn from history to make a living and get out of Brooklyn and the Public Housing Projects? It was not that the kids in my school were exposed to much history [read more]
Science from Away: Getting older
I was in my late-forties when I began to notice the sag, an age still young enough to have that foolish notion that something could be done about it. Exercise - my fountain of youth - that would take care of it. Sweating and huffing and puffing and feeling [read more]