Bringing up the Google site this morning I noticed different colors and a couple of pictures in the Google logo. This, of course, signifies that some important event occurred on this date. Looking at the logo it wasn't hard to guess what was being commemorated this day. The cute little rabbit in a blue jacket with a carrot in each hand by the second "g" in Google and the angry farmer with rake held high while running past the "o" could only be Peter Rabbit and Mr. McGregor which must mean that today is the birthday of Beatrix Potter, author of the Peter Rabbit story. Sure enough, as soon as I moved my mouse over the image and clicked up came search results on Beatrix Potter who was born on July 28, 1866.

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Yesterday, I faced one of those consumer buying moments when circumstances forced me to go out to buy a little utility item for my digital camera. Not only had I previously had no need for the item in question, but when I got to the store was faced with a rack full of these gadgets, all doing essentially the same thing but each model being different in both functionality and price.

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Well, I finally finished teaching my summer course and, for the the next few weeks will have some time off from my part-time teaching job. However, right after Labor Day I will begin teaching my two Fall economics classes – Introduction to Microeconomics and Introduction to Macroeconomics. These are self-paced courses with the content available on the web and the students working on their own with access to me in person on Monday evenings and anytime via email and voice mail (they can contact me at any time but I have 24 – 48 hours to get back to them via email).

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Everybody has heard of Murphy's Law which states that Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. This has become a mantra of sorts for pessimists who always assume the worst.

Anyone searching for the origins of Murphy's Law will come across various stories of its origin along with various versions, all centered on the same theme, of the law. Most agree that this law originated with a statement by one Edward A. Murphy Jr. Many claim that Murphy's statement was not really original but simply a re-statement of an observation that has been around for eons. Further, depending upon your source, there are different variations of the law such as If there’s more than one way to do a job and one of those ways will end in disaster, then somebody will do it that way or If there are two or more ways to do something,and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, someone will do it. Do a search on the Internet and you will find dozens of other variations. But, regardless, Murphy uttered something along these lines that was both memorable and frequently repeated in the years that followed, with the result that, for now, this observation has come to be known as Murphy's Law.

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Have you ever opened an old photo album or box of old pictures from your grandparent's generation and wondered who the people in the pictures were? Unfortunately, our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc. were as careless as we are about labeling the pictures we take. After all, I know who the people are in the photo. So, why bother?

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Most people don't think about the Irish when they think about the American Revolution. After all, the big migration of Irish was during the Irish Potato Famine in the mid-19th century. The Irish were major participants in the Civil War, with numerous Irish fighting on each side. But the Revolution?

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This is Clint Eastwood's companion to his film Flags of Our Fathers which was the story of the battle for Iwo Jima and the men who raised the American flag over Mount Suribachi.

Like Flags of Our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima tells the story of the battle through the eyes of the soldiers who fought there. Although this is an American production, almost all of the dialog is in Japanese with English subtitles. The only time when English is spoken in the film is in the few scenes in which Americans are present. Watching both films, one finds themselves gasping at the horror that each side had to endure. Unlike Joyeux Noel, which told the story of the unofficial World War I Christmas truce in which Scot, French and German soldiers crossed the lines and celebrated Christmas with each other, there is very little feeling of goodwill toward the other side in either film. This is war most brutal.

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Distance does not have to be a barrier in working relationships. Thanks to our ability to communicate with co-workers in distant places, it is possible to develop office friendships with co-workers we have never met in person. Years ago I read the condensed version of Helene Hanff's 84 Charing Cross Road, the book in which she describes her twenty year relationship as a customer of Frank Doel the manager of the Marks & Company bookstore located at 84 Charing Cross Rd. in London. Hanff, an avid book lover, first wrote from her home in New York City in 1949 seeking inexpensive copies of out of print British books. This was the start of a regular correspondence between Hanff and Dole in which Hanff wrote letters, with checks enclosed, describing the types of books she currently wanted and Dole responded back with his choices for her along with comments and recommendations for others she might enjoy or suggestions for alternatives when the ones she wanted were unavailable. Gradually, personal comments were included, interspersed with the business portions of their letters – the usual personal chit chat that that is exchanged between co-workers or merchants and customers who have come to know each other. Both the book and 1986 movie of the same name (now available on DVD) make for a very entertaining and heartwarming story.

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We have all seen websites that require us to type the odd shaped letters and numbers in a box with a patterned background of some sort in order to gain access to a website or account on the web.

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As I am sitting at my computer this morning writing my articles and catching up on correspondence I keep hearing the ongoing news reports about the attack at the Glasgow, Scotland airport. From what the TV audio that I have been hearing from the other room and the reports on Yahoo News, no one seems to have been hurt.

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