how to share

    If you want to share something between two people without any complaining, let person one divide the goods, but let person two choose first which half he or she would like.

a reality check, sort of

     More on the subject of how to tell if what you see in a movie is real or pretend--visit a museum. If you can't go in person, visit online, where you can look at things in  museums all over the country and the world. All of the things in the museum are real. Most of them are old. Here in Philadelphia, there is a "Hall of Weapons" in the art museum, with swords, halberds, and armor, among other things. There is an authentic Tudor period room, and a medieval cloister--straight out of Doctor Who, but real. The science museum has a train in the basement that will be 200 years old soon, but it still takes visitors for ( short ) rides. If you don't live near a museum, try typing "museum" in your search box and see what you get.

we'd all like to know

   Here's a suggestion on the subject of construction projects. Can we have a sign that tells us why someone is digging up the street? I actually don't know, and an informative sign might make yet another street dig ( they dig up our neighborhood regularly ) easier to bear. Thanks for listening.

a very small town

     The smallest town I have ever visited had three businesses--a gas station ( with a refrigerator stocked with milk and a rack of bread ), a luncheonette ( with a refrigerator stocked with milk and a rack of bread ), and a tavern ( with a refrigerator stocked with milk and a rack of bread).  The nearest town with a supermarket was another 2 1/2 hours away. A city must look like wonderland to anyone raised in a place like this--it certainly did to me when we got back.

cogito, ergo sum

     "Cogito ergo sum" is Latin for " I think, therefore I am". The quotation was supposedly in response to the question: "How do you know that you exist?"  Descartes replied, in part, that he thought, so he knew that he existed. One of the things he thought, was to wonder if he actually existed.
      To prove one's own existence is something of a classical philosophical exercise. Can you do it? Prove, logically, that you exist?

what happened to the UN?

     If you meet someone who proclaims himself a "citizen of the world" , waiting for the "one world government" to "evolve", and ask him about the United Nations, the response may very well be "huh?"

the world court

     Perhaps the next time the United States catches an international criminal, we'll actually turn him over to the World Court for trial--the same way we expect everyone else to do.  The most famous recent trials in the World Court were those of the war criminals from Eastern Europe, but all kinds of international disputes are settled there. A court has the authority that people grant it, one way and another, and the United States has persistently refused to grant the World Court any jurisdiction over itself, although it has conceded that it might be useful to other people. We can and should do better.