A space for mostly short form stuff and responses to things I see elsewhere.
Sad to learn that James Randi, magician and stage artist devoted to debunking the paranormal, dies at 92 - The Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/james-randi-magician-and-stage-artist-devoted-to-deb...
I had the honour to know and work with the Amazing Randi for a while in the 1970s and 1980s, and it was always fun.
I read both of the pieces Chris Aldrich linked to, and my main response was to feel underwhelmed. Maybe that's because I don't have the baggage of caring one whit about George Washington's teeth. And of the other discussion, on "open" I am too ignorant to form an opinion.
Maybe it is because I had already noted a Washington Post piece about "real" food people ignoring the Magnolia cookbook, but I found Grant McCracken's piece about Martha Stewart doing the same so trenchant and also so sad. http://web.archive.org/web/20190514114829/https://medium.com/@grant27/martha-stewart-the-old-guard-d...