by david allan van nostrand | May 29, 2023 | Americana, The Wayback Machine, The world around us
At the peak of its popularity in the USA, the classic station wagon was a four-door sedan-style automobile with an interior passenger compartment that held nine people. Three rows of bench seats went all the way to the back of the car, as did the roof, so there was no...
by david allan van nostrand | May 22, 2023 | Americana, Items in the News, The world around us
“Find a penny, pick it up; all day long you’ll have good luck.” Some say the origin of this superstition comes from long, long ago when metals were believed to protect against harmful spirits. Others say when metal coins were first used as currency, only the very...
by david allan van nostrand | May 15, 2023 | Americana, Anthropology, Case Study, Human Behavior
After living among them for many years, University of Michigan anthropologist Horace Miner wrote about the exotic habits and magical rituals of a tribe called the Nacirema. His ethnography “Body Ritual Among the Nacirema” was first published in 1956 and was such a...
by david allan van nostrand | May 8, 2023 | Anthropology, Human Behavior, The world around us
Beginning in the 15th century and for the next 200 years, European explorers and traders roamed the world in search of peoples to conquer and resources to wrongfully take by force and/or guile. In doing so, the Westerners came into contact with people who looked,...
by david allan van nostrand | May 1, 2023 | Fads, Misinformation traps, The world around us
Most dictionaries agree that to bamboozle someone is to deceive, defraud and hoodwink them. No one knows for sure where the word comes from. Some say it began with a Scottish word meaning to confound. Others say it’s from the French word for baboon, which means to...
