by Phil Houseal | Sep 18, 2024 | All Articles, Education, History, Philosophy
Sept 18, 2024–Don’t walk under a ladder. Don’t let a black cat cross your path. Knock on wood. Step on a crack; break your mother’s back. We’ve all heard these and other superstitions since we were in grade school. They sound childish and were the source of harmless...
by Phil Houseal | Sep 11, 2024 | All Articles, History, Philosophy
Sept 11, 2024–Have you written your obituary? Believe it or not, that was an assignment I gave to my 6th grade gifted students. The point was to nudge them to think about how they hoped to use the gifts they possessed over their lifetimes, to not take them for...
by Phil Houseal | Sep 4, 2024 | All Articles, Philosophy
Sept 4, 2024–My latest favorite throne tome is Words on Words, a 1980 book by John Bremner that explores words and explains their usage in an irreverent manner. What I like about it is that it presents common words that we think we know, but that we don’t really know,...
by Phil Houseal | Aug 28, 2024 | All Articles, History, Philosophy
Aug 28, 2024–Someone proposed we start a religious sect called the New Amish, emulating those sons of Menno whose followers in America effectively froze all progress at the random date of 1878. Why not do the same 100 years on? I grew up among Amish and Mennonite...
by Phil Houseal | Aug 21, 2024 | All Articles, Education, People of the Hill Country, Philosophy
Aug 21, 2024–Name as many animals as you can, in one minute. Congratulations, you just helped researchers calibrate a digital test for brain health. Recently I set an appointment to help Austin-based BrainCheck conduct such a research study. A polite gentleman...
by Phil Houseal | Aug 14, 2024 | All Articles, History, Philosophy
Aug 14, 2023–I used to wonder why TV’s Jeopardy had a Potpourri column. I now realize it was simply a place for the writing staff to dump all the question/answers that didn’t fit under one heading. Ergo… ### I’m convinced our gardens are more productive when we...
