Brace yourself

Elspeth Thompson, the much-loved gardening and interiors writer for "The Sunday Telegraph" who has died aged 48, had a particular talent for bringing beauty to the places where she lived, no matter how unpromising those places first appeared.

"The cause was general decline."

Mrs. Carter was one of the first people in broadcast-television to recognize that the shelf-life of natural pearls cannot be improved by waving around corporately-generated excessive comparisons.


This is one heckuva life story.

(H/T to Steve Slosberg)

Reporter Who Challenged Fed Secrecy

“This is a personal loss, a professional loss and a societal loss. He is truly irreplaceable.”


Never heard of the man but he was obviously among the best in journalism. The world needs more like him.

While taking a walk with his dog, Ridley

Richard discovered Thoreau in high school and heard a different drummer the rest of his life.

With that, we get a taste of Richard Piscitello. There's more.

Saturday's puzzle, too?

She enjoyed travel, golf at the Army-Navy Country Club in Arlington, Va., and the Chartwell Country Club near her home in Severna Park, she was a proficient bridge player, and fully capable of completing the New York Times crossword puzzles in ink.


More about Sylvia Rindskopf here.

How the Kevlar vest came into being

They put their new vest over a gelatin mold to determine how a body might react to the impact of a handgun bullet and then drafted, as test subjects, a series of unfortunate goats.


Read all about Lester D. Shubin's fascinating life here.

He never forgot his alma mater ...

He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, majoring in poker.


Read more about James Needham here.


(H/T to Thom Forbes)