Mumps is back, in New York City and its environs. About 400 kids have got sick, most of them from an Orthodox Jewish summer camp where one child arrived bearing the virus. It appears that the large majority of infected children had been vaccinated. How can that be, you say? Because the mumps vaccine (according …
Monthly Archives: February 2010
Dad Gadget Fail: Automatic Diaper Changer
Let me begin by stating that this is a device that I wish existed (and worked), not so much for myself–JP is out of diapers–as for the great mass of poop-wiping humanity. Think of it, ladies and gentlemen–a diaper changer that deals with the doo(doo) for you! With that in mind, I present this patent …
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Teenage Suicide, Don’t Do It!
Less than a month ago, in the town of South Hadley, Massachusetts, a 15-year-old Irish girl named Phoebe Prince killed herself. Apparently, she’d been the victim of intense bullying, of both the IRL and cyber varieties, and two days before a big high-school dance, she committed suicide. Pretty miserable. For me, it hits especially close …
Roses Are Red, and So Is the Blood of the Martyrs
Like a lot of Christian holidays, Valentine’s Day was likely a co-opting of a pagan holiday, this one called Lupercalia. How pagan was Lupercalia? It was led by “brothers of the wolves”, who sacrificed not just goats, but also a dog. Then the priests, gathered on the Palatine Hill in Rome–where Romulus and Remus were …
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