About random things…

…June 4, which just so happens to be my birthday, is also the date when one of the most amazing accomplishments in sports came to an end. On that day, in 1987, Edwin Moses clipped the final hurdle in his 400-meter race and fellow American Danny Harris crossed the finish line just ahead of him.  Moses had won 122 straight races over almost 10 years.

…According to nature writer Pieter van Dokkum, there are something like 5,500 species of dragonflies and damsel flies...

Good fortune enabled me to visit Ireland with my father back in the ‘70s and then to revisit the land of my ancestors some 40 years later with my two sons. One of the links between those two trips was a visit to the gravesite of William Butler Yeats, arguably Ireland’s and the 20th century’s greatest poet.

Today, June 13, marks the 150th anniversary of Yeats’ birth. He died in 1939, in France, a few months shy of 74. He was buried in France but it wasn’t until 1948 when his body was...

Many people attribute the fall of newspapers to the rise of the Internet. I know better. For proof, travel back with me, if you will, to a small, red-shingled home in Norwalk, Conn., in the mid-1980s. Take a sharp right upon entering, then four steps through a wood-paneled den and turn left into my parents’ bedroom.

You’ll see two beds and two chests of drawers, but what will immediately grab your attention are the newspapers, newspapers stacked halfway to the ceiling, newspapers stuffed...

I just finished a book by Dave Goulson titled A Sting in the Tale, and so was more than a little interested when two BBC broadcasters discussed a recent story indicating that bumblebees provided more value to the British economy than the royal family.

The BBC broadcasters lightly scoffed at that idea, noting that if someone wanted to they could play the comparison game in any number of ways and arrive at whatever conclusion they so desired. They didn’t actually come out and say it but...