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As someone, who, when young and in their prime, was blessed with extremely good eyesight, it is most vexing to experience, as a consequence of advancing years, the deterioration in visual acuity that more than half a century of looking at things seems to have engendered. No more crystal clarity and optical precision for Hawky, at least not without glasses. Distance viewing is less problematic for me, although there is an improvement when using mildly corrective lenses, but these days, close work ...

Here's something to lower your level of fear.


These days, governments and some institutions decide what the truth is, and their decisions have nothing to do with actual facts. For some reason the story about high serum cholesterol levels causing arteriosclerosis came to mind this morning. Although arteriosclerosis plaque is formed of cholesterol, there is no known causative link between serum cholesterol and arteriosclerosis formation. There are several candidates for ...

1955 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (Russia)
1955 The Emperor of Ice Cream by Wallace Stevens (USA)
1955 Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo (Mexico)
1954 Sunstone by Octavio Paz (Mexico)
1954 Lord of the Flies by William Golding (Britain)
1953 Gimpel, the Fool by Isaac Bashevis Singer (Poland)
1953 Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett (Ireland)
1952 The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway (USA)
1952 The Shield of Achilles by W.H. Auden (Britain)
1952 ...

Last week the children’s book author, Maurice Sendak, passed away. May he rest in peace. The New York Times had a fine obituary.

Maurice Sendak, widely considered the most important children’s book artist of the 20th century, who wrenched the picture book out of the safe, sanitized world of the nursery and plunged it into the dark, terrifying and hauntingly beautiful recesses of the human psyche, died on Tuesday in Danbury, Conn. He was 83.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/09/bo...pagewanted=all ...

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Equality Before ...