Category Archives: superstitions

Cotton Mather’s Last Words

July 11, 2023 – 9:57 am

On his death bed the famed Puritan preacher Cotton Mathers said his last words, “. “Is this dying? Is this all? Is this all I feared, when I prayed against a hard death? O! I can bear this! I can bear it! I can bear it!” As his wife wiped his eyes, he concluded, “I […]

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Thai No Nos

August 4, 2022 – 1:08 pm

Last night I left Chinatown and surveyed the skyline shimmering under a clear sky dotted by the few stars strong enough to pierce New York’s light umbrella. It was hot and sweat dripped from my hair and I thought that my last hair-cut had been in Thailand. Three months ago. I could trim my scalp […]

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Dtik Ang – Stuttering in Thai

December 20, 2021 – 7:25 am

My speech problems were many in my youth across the harbor from Portland, Maine. A stutter coupled with a lisp and stammer forced the school authorities of Falmouth Foresides to test my mental competence. The teachers were surprised to discover through a battery of intelligence exams that I was the smartest child within the school […]

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Sell-Out At The NY Times

October 11, 2021 – 6:52 pm

The New York Times was a great newspaper in my youth. Their reporters helped publish the Pentagon Papers for Daniel Ellsburg, Neil Sheehan ripped off the government’s cloak of invisibility over the Viet-Nam Invasion, and I loved their motto ‘All the news that is fit to print.’ Times have changed since the 70s. The Drug […]

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Friday The 13th

August 13, 2021 – 8:43 am

The number 12 symbolizes completeness for numerologists and 13 has a reputation of a prime number steeped with irregularity. Thirteen is further tarnished by being the number of people at the Last Supper of Jesus. The Turks went so far as to ban the number from their language and the Vikings feared that if thirteen […]

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