How they can teach many lessons, including benefits of diversity and cooperation — About 40 years ago, when my sons were young, I made a set of the squares shown in the picture above. …

Stories and poems are best when spoken to each other With my grandson I have recently rediscovered the joys of reading stories to each other — not our own stories (that could come later), but classics that have stood the test of time. There are several benefits to that practice. …

Historical inertia has both its drawbacks and its benefits Here in Canada it seems anachronistic to still have an English monarch as our head of state. Yet it is also very difficult to change that circumstance. However much many Canadians, especially in Quebec, may want to ditch the English crown…

What that question reveals about ourselves Most of us humans have just celebrated a New Year, and as usual our global media enjoyed reporting how it “arrived” in different time zones around the world. But, of course, 2023 is only a shared psychological construct, its physical reality existing primarily in…

An almost perfect balance of physical, mental, and social exercise English Country Dancing is a social activity that too few people know about. It has a history of several hundred years. (People knew how to enjoy themselves in groups even hundreds of years ago!) It is fairly easy to learn…

Yes, but they are not self-aware With Hurricane Ian in the news these days, it provides an interesting, albeit devastating, example of the differences between what we generally mean by “sentient”, “self-aware”, “conscious”, and “living”. It also illustrates what we consider to be an event or process that is worth…

What we look like and how we talk has as much effect as what we say — We humans are very unusual social animals. In addition to having extraordinary ability to communicate with language, we have abilities to alter our physical appearance — mainly with clothing, but also by applying colors to our skins and colors and shapes to our hair — in ways that no other…