Tag: Bright

Lost in Excess: Mark Twain’s Short Story, ‘Hunting the Deceitful Turkey’

Temperance is a very undervalued and much ignored virtue. Though we usually associate temperance with food and drink, we should apply it to everything else in our lives for it brings clarity and order. In his short story, “Hunting the Deceitful Turkey,” Mark Twain shows that surfeit, or excess, in anything leads to trouble. When…


Older Wines

“Like fine old wine.” We’ve all heard people use versions of this timeworn saying, which suggests that the aging of any wine improves it. That may be true for about 1 percent of the wines in this world, but it has sad consequences for the other 99 percent. Most of the wines we drink tend…


A Frugal Solution for the Heartbreak of Melted Ice Cream: Cake!

Some people are born frugal. They come into the world with a bent to use it up, wear it out, and do without. Not me. I arrived with an overly developed spendthrift gene. Frugality is a learned behavior and way of life I have chosen. And I learn something new nearly every day. Take melted…


Mozart’s Childhood Opera: ‘Bastien and Bastienne’

Everybody is familiar with Mozart’s most famous operas: “The Magic Flute,” “The Marriage of Figaro,” and “Don Giovanni.” But few are familiar with “Bastien and Bastienne,” a one-act singspiel (a comedic German opera with spoken dialogue), which Mozart composed when he was only 12 years old. It was long considered his first opera, for although…


White Rice Porridge–‘No. 1 Tonic in the World,’ TCM Physician Offers Best Ways to Prepare

The culture of eating porridge in China can be traced to the ancient past. Since the time of the Yellow Emperor, there have been practices of “grains steamed to make rice and cooked to make porridge.” The ancients often praised porridge and rice as “the most nourishing thing in the world.” Whether it is prepared…



The Enemy Within: Jean Raspail’s ‘The Camp of the Saints’ 50 Years Later

From the terrace of his home on the crest of a hill, an old professor peers through a spyglass at the scene unfolding below on the sand and waters of the Riviera. Calgues is his name—his ancestors built this house 300 years earlier—and he is studying the beginning of an extraordinary invasion: 100 ships and…


Different Cultures, Different Backgrounds—But One Message: We All Need to Be True, Good, and Endure

Tens of millions of people with diverse spiritual and cultural backgrounds have embraced the guiding virtues of “to be true, good, and endure.” These people—who are from almost every professional and educational field—believe that this moral philosophy is the foundation of humanity, and if applied in practical life, it can make our world a better…


Medieval-Themed ‘Promposal’ With Teenage Prince and Knights on Horseback Goes Viral

An Ohio teen has gone viral for galloping up to his girlfriend’s house with his three best friends for an epic, medieval-themed “promposal.” Gavin Gillig showed up at his girlfriend, Gianna Masterlasco’s, house near Findlay, Ohio on April 25 with three willing comrades: fellow seniors Ethan Bauer, RJ Coldren, and Damon Gasser. The Liberty-Benton High Schoolers…


Homeowner Finds Rock That Crashed Through Roof Revealed as Ancient Meteorite From Asteroid Belt

The ancient space traveler landed in her house, of all places! While it’s not unusual to see meteors shooting through the night sky, particularly around this time of year, to have one land in one’s house—as it did for one New Jersey homeowner in May—is astronomically rare. Reports of “flight streaks” and loud sounds in…