Archive
Writings by Ronald Bruce Meyer
The Archive is where I park my writings -- some old, some new; some published, some unpublished -- that I think may be of interest. I approach many subjects, since I'm interested in many things, and I use a variety of styles. These are all completed essays, rather than rants. Below is a list of some of my best.
Verbal Slouchery
If language is like currency, then pronunciation is its denomination. When we pronounce words differently from one another, one of us, or both of us, gets short-changed.
The Subversive Purpose of Bettie Page Uncensored
It's a sneaky, subversive thing to do to an audience: promise them a little spice, then hit them with the thesis that women matter, and that the 1950s were brutal to women who believed that.
Signs of the Times
To Champollion, 
and 
meant something. The symbols hadn't lost their meanings over time. What happened was a breakdown in any agreement on what the symbols meant.
Check Your Brain, Then Your Grammar!
And what do I have to do to stay on "politically correct" ground? In "The Drive Home," which began with a description of how the men were dressed at the celebration I was attending, I was accused of using "sexist" language for describing the scene using that particular plural noun.
Icon Fever
Language itself is symbolic, as my college students have learned from me, but the new hieroglyphics were a good idea only when they were truly intuitive. Nowadays you need a short course to decode this shortcut. It's enough to give you a fever.
There Will Always Be Books
I'm not one of those who looks forward to the day when any book can be had for the reading on a home computer. Computers are simply not a technology for the masses. Books are and always will be.
Animal Rights -- and Wrongs
The detractors of Western civilization, both liberal and conservative, would like to deny it, but some progress in ethics has been made since the Middle Age. As much as we have romanticized the Amish way of life, they could learn something from the "English."
The Mystery of Flight 19
Five airplanes and fourteen experienced airmen, we are told, could not have vanished without a trace in such a small area -- unless some strange forces were at play. What are the facts?
Galileo
It was because of Galileo's discoveries, and his failure to keep silent about them, that the 67-years-dead Copernicus was brought back into public discussion, and a "war on Galileo" was begun.
Tour Scandinavia
Norway. Sweden. Denmark. What the glaciers uncovered a mere 13,000 years ago, you can discover... in eleven days. During Magruder Simpson's 11-day cruise, Scandinavia With Silversea, travelers will explore, in comfort the Vikings never imagined, the most striking sites and cities of the Baltic north.
Creationism
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UFOs: High-Flying Folly
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