Renowned Author Caught Lying

Even before historian Joseph Ellis became a best-selling author, he was famous for his vivid lectures. In his popular courses at the exclusive Mount Holyoke ...

Never Do It Alone

In his fictional short story, Top Man, mountaineer James Ramsey Ullman writes of a three-man mountain-climbing team in the Himalayas that pitches camp—really ...

God's Junk Mail

The other twenty million finalists might as well give up. One of the gold-sticker-laden sweepstakes entry forms and magazine sales pitches that show up ...

Satan's Best Trick

The Devil's most beautiful ruse is to convince us that he does not exist.

Pay Attention to the Instrument Panel

An airplane pilot is not to trust his own instincts in a storm, but to trust the instrument panel. Instincts can be wrong if he experiences vertigo. Just ...

Forgetting the Point of It All

Max De Pree tells a wonderful story, and he swears that it's true, about those wonderful tomato growers in central California. More successful at ...

Bad First Assessment

From the things-we-wish-we'd-never-said category:

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."

Who said it? A bigwig at the Decca Recording ...

Computer Ignorance

OK, I'll admit it: I'm no computer whiz. I hardly know a gigabyte from a mosquito bite.

And it looks like I'm not alone. Just ask any technical support ...

Bad Facts

These responses actually appeared on real science tests:

"The pistol of a flower is its only protection against insects."

"Mushrooms always grow in damp ...

Absence Excuses

Ever stay home from school because of a hurting fish?

Ralph did.

Yep, some guy named Ralph missed school one day, and came in the next morning with this ...