The Tragedies of X, Y, and Z

With mathematical precision, the detective narrows down the list of potential suspects, placing each into a Venn diagram of motive, means, and opportunity, ultimately revealing the culprit.           The notorious escape artist, famous for  telling...

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War and Peace by Lee O'Tolstoy

I now understand why Russia is such a large country: the Russians need a lot of room to store their novels. Being a practical people, they also use their novels as furniture, stack them up as steps to make staircases, and employ them as barricades for whenever Cossack pirates attack. When I was young...

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The War of the Sexes and the Blindness to Sexual Violence.

The recent appearance of Dr. Ford before the U.S. Senate inspired this mix of thoughts which I've been churning in the cement barrel of my brain. Part One. General Psychological Mutterings. #1. Individuals tend to see themselves and their actions as reasonable. This is due to the fact that they know...

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Dial M for Murder, Wait Until Dark, and. . .

Frederick Knott wrote three plays during his career. These were clever mysteries, carefully plotted, with whiplash twists. Two, his first and his last, became all-time classic films: Dial M for Murder and Wait Until Dark. This left me with the question: what about the one in the middle? Write Me a...

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The Low Degree of Violence in U.S. - Mexican Border Cities

U.S.-Mexican border cities have been experiencing a historically low rate of violent crimes, at least through 2016, the most recent year with statistics available from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports. In my previous analyses, I looked at the recent rate of violent crimes versus the peak year. In that...

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The Low Crime Rates in U.S. Cities along the Mexican Border.

In a previous post, I looked at the rates of violent crimes in border states. Those states bordering Mexico have had a huge drop in violent crime over the past 20-some years, from the time at which violent crime peaked in the United States in 1992 through 2013, the latter year being the latest...

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New York Times Fiction List, Male Versus Female Authors.

The Number of Weeks Atop the New York Times Best-selling Fiction Novel List, Males Versus Females. Above shows the domination of male authors in the period 1979 through 2010 with the red (male author bars) often having more than 40 weeks. In 1993, male authors had 52 weeks. This contrasts to the...

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