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Like many, I love Shakespeare too, but I find his comedies (Midsummer Nights excepted) hard to take. It's not that he's a bad writer of comedy, but that the idea of what is comic has changed so much that these comedies seem simply abusive, as with Merry Wives. Of course I have the same problems...

It has been pointed out that it is more environmentally sound to keep your old high emissions clunker than it is to buy a new, efficient car due to the impacts of manufacturing a new product, starting with mining the raw materials . . .

And the environmental impacts of battery construction and eventual disposal.

I think, however, this was why paleolithic humans were so mobile. When few fruits or tubers could be found, or when prey animals became depleted, humans picked up their few belongings and found new land to exploit. With time, and intelligence, humans worked out a cycle, hunting and gathering in...

You may be right, but don't assume that people who think differently than you do so because they're stupid.

This reminds me of the early history of Roman and Athenian democracy; first the tribes had to be broken up into separate voting blocs that cut across tribal lines.

I had always assumed that for hunter-gatherers, the men hunted animals and the women gathered fruit, nuts and roots, including tubers, like potatoes.

I'm getting back to this discussion late, but to bicicleur's comments/questions . . . First, my point was that the US is still a nation of immigrants, not that we've solved all the problems of integration. And to another of your points, that this is no longer the land of opportunity. I believe...

Just so. I and my sons got their height from my mother's side; great big Germans (my uncles were 6'3" and 6'4"). She's K1a4a1h.

The US is still very much a nation of immigrants. In southern California it's hard to pass a day without hearing someone speak in a different language (and I don't refer to Spanish). In my neighborhood, while taking a walk, I can see Sikhs in turbans and Indians in saris, Oriental couples with...

Immigrants are special people and, I believe, the best of the nation they left. They obviously have initiative and 'guts', believe they can make a better life, and most often are the ones who will work hard to achieve it (even if in the end they fail). The US has been lucky to have received so...

I was surprised, and heartened, by how recent immigrants to the US tried to become as 'American' as they could be, as quickly as possible. Friends of ours from Ireland wanted, to our regret, to drop their accents as quickly as they could. And they succeeded. Also, I was a Boy Scout leader for a...

Joey, I support your last comment. In San Diego it's raining and we're crazy bad drivers, so it's best to stay home and enjoy that tree (my non-German fraction grovels in shame at the cultural appropriation) with friends and family. Merry Christmas!

Duarte, thank you. Your comments are on point, as usual. Merry Christmas to all from San Diego!

The last two comments remind me, some how, of the Twilight Zone. And really, a biturbo, what are you thinking (drinking, smoking) ?

I find it hard to accept Clark's findings and, while I don't want to be one of those people who refuse to accept findings they don't like, I want to wait for some confirmation. There have been too many studies that cannot be replicated. And, like this study, they tended to support the most...

My wife has corrected me (when has that ever happened before?). Tonight, instead of A Christmas Story, we watch Christmas in Connecticutt. This is really one of the best; a great turn by Barbara Stanwyck as well as by Sidney Greenstreet. Both of them are a joy to watch; true professionals who...

If paganism means eating and drinking to excess surrounded by family and friends, then I'm all in! But, despite being a non-believer, I say Merry Christmas to all!

Now that is well said. It was the static nature of society (of technological progress) that allowed the land-owning class to rule for so long. This may be hard to see from today's perspective because with change now occurring constantly, we can't imagine stasis. So, in a way, chaos is a...

Family fortunes have their ups and down, but the persistence of wealth can be amazing. Early members of my male-line family (that is, I believe they are though I haven't been able to prove it) were reasonably wealthy as early as c1300 (wealthy enough to be mayor of Lancaster, England, a job...