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This is the site of Mark Schaefer, attorney, author, educator, pastor, language scholar, and wordsmith. This site contains content from Mark’s writings, sermons, articles, and other material.
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Recent Posts
- Shop TalkI recognized my antagonist right away; I didn’t know who he was, but I recognized him. Or her. Too early to tell. He walked in out of the night into the bar, wearing a long woolen winter coat. The locals thought this was cold weather, and to fit in, people like my antagonist and I dressed the part. I sat at the far end of the bar, right near the corner, with a view toward the door for reasons exactly like this. Although, in decades of doing this job, I’ve never once run into my counterpart. Or anyone from the other side, for that matter. But when my antagonist walked in, I knew right away who he was. We can always recognize each other, no matter how good the disguise. If the humans were paying attention, they might have noticed the telltale signs, but they rarely noticed people like us.
- What’s Going on with You and I?It’s hard to see changes in language in realtime. Such things are usually gradual and only after a couple of generations have gone by can you really see the changes that have taken place. However, recently, I’ve noticed an emerging phenomenon regarding the way people use pronouns that suggested to me that I was witnessing
- ImmortalityA 100 Word Story So many slingshot pilots die young looking for immortality. I’d become a celebrity—the first to slingshot past the Oort Cloud using only an assist from Jupiter. This was to be my masterpiece: I’d use the black hole at Cygnus X-1 to propel myself to the next star system. It would take
- What Goes AroundThe Emperor was angry. Sitting in the anteroom to the throne room, waiting to be summoned, Marcus knew that much. It was not like the Emperor to summon a provincial governor unless something had gone wrong. Could it be the number of executions? Marcus’ count was undoubtedly high, but the Emperor wasn’t precisely a squeamish
- The Democracy TreeA neglected tree box on New Hampshire Avenue provided an opportunity over the Fourth of July weekend to save a tree and witness to a community for DC voting rights.
Featured Posts
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