It's rather funny sometimes the things we each notice (and others largely ignore) based upon our interests. I was recently watching Burt Wolf's Travels and Traditions (an episode on Rome) wherein he talked at one point about the Galleria Colonna and showed a famous painting therein called Mangiafagioli ("The Bean Eater"), created by the Italian Baroque painter Annibale Carracci. The painting, Wolf stressed, is known for it realism. Yet, while the importance of its style was notable, I was particularly struck by the beans the subject was depicted eating. Being a Southerner, I grew up eating black-eyed peas and thus with the folk tradition that it is especially good luck to eat them on New Year's Day. more »

Why do we have a domesticated animal that colloquially is referred to by the name we use for the female of the species? Cows, females of beef and milk cattle, and their male counterparts, bulls, are indeed livestock but obviously not horses, not pigs, not sheep, not goats---so, what are they (more precisely, what are they correctly called)? more »

A right not exercised is still a right. more »