What in the World?
From 1957 through 1974, a Hartford, CT television station aired a most extraordinary weekly program called What in the World. The...
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- May 7
- 9 min
Guest Toteboard: Baseball and the 'Sweet Nuthin'
Herman's Toteboard is pleased to feature its very first guest column. The author, Aiden Downey, is a Georgia-based writer, Renaissance...
- Apr 1
- 2 min
More Diamond News: A Team By Any Other Name . . .
Many of you may be familiar with Stanford University’s Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative (EHLI), a multi-year project directed...
- Mar 4
- 5 min
The Monsters are Still on Maple Street
Sixty-three years ago today, CBS first aired the classic Twilight Zone episode, “The Monsters are Due on Maple Street,” one of Rod...
- Mar 1
- 6 min
The More Things Change . . .
On a mild summer night a little more than forty-five years ago, five teenage friends were driving around their suburban New England...
- Sep 19, 2022
- 9 min
Linguistic Landmines, Part II: Is the Toteboard Anti- Pronoun? Or Pro- Antinoun?
Note: This is the first of the occasional sequel to Linguistic Landmines, Part I. It is clear that any kind of name is nothing but a sign...
- Jul 26, 2022
- 8 min
Post-Dobbs Fallout: This One Goes to Eleven
A friend was recently recalling the time three years ago, when she was bit by a rattlesnake while jogging in a marginally accessible part...
- Jun 16, 2022
- 12 min
She Says Gazpacho, We Say Gestapo: The Toteboard's Take on Marjorie Taylor Greene
Politicians, especially republican politicians, often say stupid things. Sometimes, they say really stupid things. And sometimes, they...
- Apr 3, 2022
- 11 min
Supreme Court Press: No More Clearance, Clarence!
Such a capacity for growth, as a Justice develops his or her own constitutional philosophy, is essential if a person is to become a truly...
- Mar 7, 2022
- 16 min
Field of Bad Dreams: Ownership's Assault on Major League Baseball
During the dog days of the summer of 1966, that venerable Connecticut journalistic warhorse, the Hartford Courant, provided a valuable...
- Jul 1, 2021
- 6 min
If it Quacks like a Racist . . .
Now that MLB’s decision to pull the All-Star Game out of Georgia has inextricably linked baseball and voting rights, the Toteboard has...
- May 5, 2021
- 15 min
Linguistic Landmines: In Defense of the Offensive
Note: This installment of the Toteboard addresses some very sensitive issues, and in so doing quotes sources that employ offensive and...
- Jan 25, 2021
- 10 min
The Sorry Legacy of the Trump Era
With the inauguration of Joe Biden, the swearing in of three ethnically iconic democratic senators, the expulsion of Trump from the White...
- Jan 13, 2021
- 4 min
Once Upon a Time in Georgia
At an educational institution in GA a couple of months ago, the full faculty voted on whether or not to change an important policy, one...
- Jan 9, 2021
- 2 min
Burnt Bridges
When Saddam Hussein realized that his defeat was imminent in the first Gulf War, he ordered his troops to ignite hundreds of Kuwaiti oil...
- Jan 7, 2021
- 8 min
Karma is a Bitch!
Buddhist mythology depicts an elaborate network of colorful realms where beings may go in their next life, as the result of the...
- Nov 14, 2020
- 7 min
Election Reflection, Part I: Omens of Chaos
Note: this is the first of a series of Toteboard post-election reflections. Some thirty years ago, a friend was speaking candidly about...
- Oct 20, 2020
- 6 min
Two Weeks to Midnight: Reflections on a House Divided
In honor of the college students who are taking midterm exams on campuses all over the country (thanks to their morally compromised...
- Oct 6, 2020
- 8 min
Senate Update (four weeks to go)
The election is exactly four weeks away, the vice-presidential debate is coming tomorrow, and it’s time for an update on the state of the...
- Sep 30, 2020
- 3 min
Biden Comes to Debate, Trump Comes to Debase . . . Himself, and the Country
As people of sound mind try to shake off the shell-shock of last night’s “debate” and process what this all means for the election, and for
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