In Plain Engel-ish

In about 2015, I knew there was trouble when we started using an abbreviation — two vowels — to replace the two-word term that had been hovering in the news for at least a dozen years before. The two vowels were our first and third ones: AI. When I first saw that abbreviation, I knew it meant that the scary term “Artificial Intelligence” was so commonplace that just its initials were now enough to send a collective shiver of dread through mankind. I think the nebulousness of the term itself is intimidating. “Artificial Intelligence” is defined as “the simulation of...

The History of Innovation was a particularly interesting study unit for me in one of my junior high school science classes. Our final project was a presentation on our favorite invention.  Most students chose the television, the telephone, or the car. One classmate, Axel, picked fire. Cue our seventh-grade eye rolls. Every classroom has an Axel. I was the only student who selected the invention that I chose. And sixty years later, it still remains my favorite invention. Imagine my shock, while doing my library research, in discovering that my invention could be traced to Ancient Egypt as far back...

What prosecutor wouldn’t want to represent this patient suing his terribly absent-minded surgeon? The over-scheduled doctor had clearly been in the operating room too many hours that day and should never have agreed to one last appendectomy. It was the definition of an open and shut case. Literally. After the patient had been opened and his appendix surgery performed, the surgeon had closed him up, using his no-scar-visible signature stitching. Sure enough, no scar would later be visible. But neither was the surgeon’s scalpel the next day—until an x-ray of that poor patient, now complaining of a severe stomach ache,...

Monarchy. What a simple ruling system. When a king dies, his eldest son then inherits the throne. What could possibly go wrong? How has that royal succession in England held up during the last 500 years? Let’s take a look.  Henry Tudor won the War Of The Roses in 1485 and became Henry VII. Did his eldest son, Arthur, then rule? No, he died as a teenager, so his younger brother, trained for the church, not for kingship, ruled. You know him: Henry The Eighth. But did his eldest son, Edward, rule? No. He was only nine when his father...

He was returning from abroad, where he had gone to enjoy life as a private citizen after leaving the White House. But his return was hardly private. The five-mile parade up Broadway in New York City in his honor brought out over one million fans, lining the streets and hanging out of the fifteen-story-high rises. And this was when our entire country held but ninety million people!  His name was Theodore Roosevelt, and the year was 1910. Newspapers reported that there were countless well-wishers waving toy bears over their heads. They became Roosevelt’s unique and charming symbol. Two years before,...