I have lived long enough to see what I never thought I would see: professional cornhole players. If I can keep hanging on, perhaps I will eventually see professional axe throwers.

When the game is between two American soccer teams, should the American announcer use the American zero, or is it ok, or merely pretentious, for him to say that the score is “two to nil”?

I read that trees and other vegetation are connected below the ground by fungi. I liked the term used to describe the phenomenon: Wood wide web.

          There is always a loin cloth in the depiction as if nakedness would be a greater indignity and affront to us than being nailed to a cross, but perhaps without this modesty protection there is concern that someone, seeing what had been hidden, would shout, “Oh my God!!!”

          I learned from Richard W. Fox, Jesus in America: Personal Savior, Cultural Hero, National Obsession that many Protestant churches early in America’s history did not publicly display the cross because it was seen as a mere emblem that substituted for the doctrine of Christ crucified and, therefore, was a form of idolatry akin to Catholic practices. However, by the end of the nineteenth century, most Protestant churches had abandoned strictures on the representations of Christ, and crosses and “portraits” of Jesus began appearing in the churches.

“We are commanded to forgive our enemies; but you never read that we are commanded to forgive our friends.” Sir Francis Bacon.

On a streaming show, when it was asked if a character was involved in the crime, Miranda uttered the cliché, “Oh no, Alex is a Boy Scout.” Are there any data on whether present or past Boy Scouts are more morally and ethically upright than others?

Was it a step on the road to perdition for me that I felt a spark of gladness when I saw the BMW being towed off for illegal parking?

          From her church “she learned that while there was only one road to heaven, there were a great many to hell.” Michael Lewis, The Premonition: A Pandemic Story.

          New York City has primary elections for mayor next month. We will use ranked choice voting for the first time. Somewhere, I am sure, there is someone who understands what that means, but that ballot process is only one part of the confusion. There are many candidates, and I’m guessing that most of the electorate could not name them all, much less state what their credentials or policies are. Nevertheless, this election does have what now seems a standard feature—an allegation of sexual harassment that included the claim of abuse of power because the candidate suggested that the woman would get coveted political positions if the two had sex. That made me wonder if we will ever see this: A woman is running for office when an older man comes forward and says, “She and I had sex twenty years ago. I helped her become [pick a position]. But once she got in office, she dumped me. She was just using me to move up. She abused me by using her sexual power over me.”