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30 articles

Jones Point Virginia: where two states diverge in a wood. Take the retrocession less traveled.

Many years ago, I met up with a friend in Belgium who took me to the nearby Dreiländerpunkt, where Belgium, Netherlands, and Germany converge, with boundaries lines vaguely resembling the logo for Mercedes-Benz.  How appropriately German.  The glories of the Schengen Agreement have, since 1995, eliminated the fortified boundaries that straitjacketed these small countries for

Clandestine kitchens: restaurants that showcase their greatness by being obscure.

“Don’t be so humble.  You’re not that great.” ~Golda Meir Ever come across a business that seemed to go out of its way to hide its presence?  One that didn’t announce itself prominently from its front entrance, but instead seemed to downplay its own name, its logo, its fundamental identity?  It’s hard to understand why

Whitestone apartments: when low-lying land is for the dogs…and that’s a good thing.

As evidence mounts that the prime child-raising generations at the moment seem to prefer raising pets over children, it should come as no surprise that a growing number of residential developments host dog parks as a predictable amenity.  I’ve covered the topic numerous times before: from a forest clearing in a tucked away corner of

“STUDENT DRIVER” strikes again…or do we expect hired drivers to be amateurs?

As I fine-tune and finish up a much longer blog post, I wanted to fill this dry spell with some amusing content that serves as a follow-up to an unexpectedly popular blog post from about a year ago.  I noted last spring the strange, recent proliferation of bumper stickers (magnets in actuality) alerting passers-by of

Yes, we still have no bananas: worm’s-eye assessments of corona after two years.

We have now reached, almost to the day, the point when the majority of US states, taking the lead from a national disaster declaration, began issuing safety precautions in an attempt to prevent the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), better known as COVID-19, the number attributing the year in which epidemiologists

Analog Memes, Part II: a memorable trip down Christmas Card Lane.

As a successor to my post on a bumper sticker bedecked guardrail in Wilmington, I offer a second example of what I must at least partly attribute to meme culture, for which the World Wide Web exerted little to no influence.  This second example of memetic behavior that is anti-digital is probably a bit more

Are balconies an intrinsic value?

Even as a child, I can recall the family trips down to Florida or South Carolina, witnessing all those high-rise apartment and condo buildings, each one of which had its own balcony.  Sometimes two.  And I remember noticing how there never seemed to be anyone out using them.  Needless to say, I didn’t understand real

Are balconies an intrinsic value?

Even as a child, I can recall the family trips down to Florida or South Carolina, witnessing all those high-rise apartment and condo buildings, each one of which had its own balcony.  Sometimes