John Parker Oughton's Blog

• A real flu pandemic

  November 1, 2009

  • The current media hyperbole around the H1N1 flu virus has a lot of people worried.  I don't intend to belittle the suffering of those who have died from it, or lost friends and family.  But so far this "pandemic" is a long way from being as serious as the Spanish flu 90 years ago  which rode with troops returning from World War I. It is suprising how little this pandemic forebear is ...
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• Bargains

  October 25, 2009

  • Westerners who take their cultural assumptions to other parts of the world are sometimes surprised by the social necessity of bargaining.  They've been conditioned to check the price label on an item and either pay what it says, or leave it on the shelf.  But buying even a small trinket from most shopkeepers abroad is not so simple.  You're expected to make an offer, hear the vendor's ...
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• Why October is the eighth month

  October 3, 2009

  • Because, of course, its name comes from the Latin for eight, which also gave us octopus and -plex, octagon, octuplets.  In fact, our months include an odd little series that begins with September (seventh in the Roman calendar) and ends with December, the tenth. I won't bore you with the intricacies of how we ended up with the calendar and month and day names we have, other than to observe how ...
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