Rayne Today

I've met Ms. Dyson. It's not the first time I've disagreed with her. She's smart, but she has a marked inability to find more than one side to an issue. Books in foreign languages, for example; what a shame there aren't more being translated to English, given the current political climate, she opined. Um, no. The real shame is that Americans are too gawddamned Ameri-centric to learn to speak and read in any other language. Those of you who are fluent in more than one language can attest to the volume of content we miss when movies are dubbed or subtitled; books are not condensed in the same manner, but we miss much in the way of nuance because we cannot be bothered to learn more than American English. That's not political; it's simply ignorance and selfishness that we are so arrogant. But that's only one more perspective...what about technology? Why are there not more and better translation tools available? Why are we not encouraging development o

What a heartbreaking shame, the passing of Dana Reeve of lung cancer. It's almost too much, although these things happen to ordinary people out of the spotlight of celebrity every day. Tragedy follows tragedy and we never hear a thing about it if the tragedies befall a person less fair and less gifted. I think about the son left behind by both of these super parents and a grandparent; who will guide him through this horrible time? He's already deep in the throes of puberty, painful enough for the average American child. Will the super-ness of his parents help? or will he suffer even more for it? I pray for the best. But I pray for others now; with Dana's passing, a niggling question at the back of my mind grows louder. We lost Peter Jennings to lung cancer, and no one thought much of the cause because of his history of smoking. We also lost Don Knotts to lung cancer, and no one thought much of it because he was in his eighties. Memory fails me at this point, but I

The snow was coming fast, really more of a mixture of sleet, hail and chunky snow, laying itself down in globby driftlets over a fresh coating of ice. Hubby only saw the layer of just-setting ice as he left the house at 6:00 a.m. By 7:20 a.m., another inch and half of thickening precipitation had fallen. Ugh, what a mess. The boy was not particularly cooperative, either; he'd not packed his snack, couldn't find his shoes, forgot to brush his teeth, misplaced his gloves, spilled his breakfast. You name it, it was going wrong for him and by extension for me as well. By the time I got out to start the car and scrape off the accumulation, it was already time to pull out of the driveway under normal conditions. The scraper broke as I reefed on the quarter-inch glazing of ice beneath the chunky snow; thankfully there was another scraper in hubby's cruddy utility truck so I could finish the job. The boy whined that he couldn't open the car, the ice having sealed the ope