Decorative blue and white ceramic tiles commonly found in Dutch households were originally made in the city of Delft They often depict familiar scenes of the Netherlands beautiful landscapes ubiquitous windmills and people working and playing In the nineteenth century Charles Dickens wrote in his book A Christmas Carol how these tiles were used to illustrate the Scriptures He described an old fireplace built by a Dutchman paved with these quaint Delft tiles ldquo There were Cains and Abels Pharaohs rsquo daughters Queens of Sheba and Apostles putting off to sea rdquo Many households used these tiles as a teaching [... more]

The Line of Fire Radio Broadcast for [... more]

Frank Borman commanded the first space mission that circled the moon He wasn rsquo t impressed The trip took two days both ways Frank got motion sickness and threw up He said being weightless was cool mdash for thirty seconds Then he got used to it Up close he found the moon drab and pockmarked with craters His crew took pictures of the gray wasteland then became bored Frank went where no one had gone before It wasn rsquo t enough If he quickly tired of an experience that was out of this world perhaps we should lower our expectations [... more]