Where have all the children gone?
Approximately 7 million dependents—mostly children—vanished from U.S. income tax returns filed for the 1987 tax year. This massive disappearance occurred because the IRS began requiring taxpayers to list Social Security numbers for any dependents over age 5, making it impossible to continue claiming “phantom” dependents. The Cause: The Tax Reform Act of 1986 introduced the requirement for Social Security […]
The Path Between The Seas
Another great history by David McCullough about the creation of the Panama Canal. There’s only one of his books that I haven’t liked and out of courtesy to him I will not name it. Without getting into a whole lot of history about the Panama Canal at one point the US was arguing over whether […]
Probability Zero
Thirteen years ago I wrote my one and only effort at fiction. Analog, the science fiction magazine, had a feature of very short stories called “Probability Zero”. I do not know WHY I never submitted it, but I have just come across it among my old papers and have decided to publish it myself here. […]
Why wasn’t Newfoundland part of the Canadian Federation until 1949?
Canadian Confederation was the process by which three British North American provinces—the Province of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick—were united into one federation called the Dominion of Canada, on July 1, 1867. On March 31, 1949, it became the 10th and most recent province to join the Canadian Confederation as “Newfoundland”. How’s this for […]
Phi Kappa Phi
Phi Beta Kappa
The Adaptive Paradigm in Cultural Ecology
Cultural Ecology
Having been on a scientific research team actually studying ecology, my main interest during my brief career as an anthropologist was a field called Cultural Ecology. It was the study of the feedback loop from our changing the environment which then forces our culture to adapt to its new environment! Yep, going on today at […]
John’s Papal Blessing
My father-in-law, John O’Hara, was a devout Catholic. He was born in 1918. His mother Mabel and his father had just gotten off the boat from Ireland when Mabel was widowed by the Flu Pandemic with a newborn. John eventually had the good fortune to have a well-off person in New Port Richey become his […]
Phil’s Favorite Song Two
The Foggy Dew My wife Janis O’Hara is from an Irish family. In school I once wrote a paper on Eamon de Valera, one of the leaders of the Easter Rebellion. He was next in line to be executed when a new British officer was put in charge who stopped the executions. So again, another […]