Two things I learned viewing Madrid's museums

1. If Christianity, like Islam and much of Judaism, had proscribed human images, most of the walls of most of museums would have been bare, with no Nativity scenes, crucifixions, disciples, etc.

2. Women's breasts in the past were much smaller than those of today, if the statues and paintings are any indication. Even Reuben's women, albeit more fleshy than some others, were comparatively small-breasted.

Anti-Social Media

Unlike The Atlantic, I do not believe Facebook and other social media are making us more lonely. However, I strongly believe they are making us more rude.

Go to a meeting. Any meeting. The first thing everyone does (or mostly everyone) is put their phones on the table. Them, rather than listening to the presenter and paying attention, almost everyone is texting, checking email, posting to Facebook or simply just ignoring everyone else.

Go to a restaurant. Are people interacting with their lunch or dinner companions? Nope. They are, instead, focused on their phone or tablet.

I think it started with the telephone. At a store or dinner table, a ringing telephone trumped live people. Now, even silent iPhones trump everything else.

To use an old argument, at your hospital bed or your deathbed, will your phone be there? Or will it be your real friends and family?

What's the matter with proofreading?

Thanks to a generous gift from my daughter, I am now reading my escape fiction on a Kindle, rather than going to the library. While this is certainly more ecological, as I don't burn gas, and probably as frugal, as I rarely "buy"books, it is driving me crazy.

In the last books I read, there was a guilt-edged mirror and every fifth word was hy-phenated. It gets a little ob-noxious when e-very other word is hy-phenated and some-times the main characters' names are mis-spelled, too. Or two, to be even more in-correct.

I realize that nobody proofreads anymore, but -- really -- a fast run through spell-checker would have caught at least half of those hy-phens. I am as gilty (or my earrings are) as most of making typos, but really, now...

A tidal wave of surges

I snickered when I read the headline, "Santorum surges from behind" a few weeks ago. However, since then, I've read a tidal wave of surging headlines -- Gingrich surges in SC, Romney fights Gingrich's surge, etc.

OK, headline writers -- find a new verb/noun for surge. How about upswing, rush, groundswell? Rise, grow, escalate, leap? Or any of the others found in any thesaurus? It would take a little bit of thought, but isn't that what a free press should be about?