The celebrity of nothing

I have no Facebook page. I do not post tweets on Twitter. My cell phone number is a secret, and I don’t blog. All this is true despite the fact that I have been in the website development business for 13 years and working with new technology is my daily occupation.

I help my clients with all of the above, and … Read the rest

A note from Mommy

A long time ago when things got too tough, I’d get a note from my mommy. I appreciated my mother’s understanding that I needed a break every once in a while, and that she was on my side. “Please excuse Larry from PE today. He has had a sore throat and needs to avoid getting overheated.” Tormented by my sadistic… Read the rest

Cycles

In New York, where I grew up, the differences between the seasons were dramatic and obvious, each bringing sweeping changes in temperature and color. The whiteness of winter was broken by early spring crocus flowers poking yellow heads through the snow; verdant summer green yielded to fall’s palette… Read the rest

From the mouths of dogs

Possession, so they say, is nine-tenths of the law, and this law is well understood by dogs.

Pedro, my daughter’s gregarious two-year-old black lab retriever, is a full member of the family, but he’s 100 percent dog, which means not only does he claim his space, but also his possessions. As to possessions,… Read the rest

The power of choice

Congratulations!
The earth is hiring, dear one,
And you got the job.

What is the job of being human? The job of being squirrel seems quite straightforward: climb trees, find nuts, bury nuts, and make baby squirrels that can find and bury nuts. Ants seem to have a pretty clear job, too: dig holes, crawl around… Read the rest

This statement is false

Much of the conflict in the world is about who knows the absolute truth. Attachment to a particular truth often leads to disagreement, bloodshed and violence perpetrated in the name of one truth or another. This is not a recent development; the history of human culture is replete with examples from every… Read the rest

A simple weekly column

Scientists at Jonothan Swift’s Grand Academy of Lagado

One of the challenges of writing a 550-word column for general consumption is finding the proper balance between simplicity and depth. The discipline of 550 words imposes a limitation not unlike that of an artist’s canvas, that is to say,… Read the rest

Reflections of a Post-Darwinian

Rutger Hauer as Roy Blatty in “Blade Runner”

I find myself in a bit of an emotional quandary. I am one of the tens of thousands of heart patients walking around with an electronic pacemaker-defibrillator implanted in his chest, yet I can’t help feeling somewhat uneasy about where we Post-Darwinian… Read the rest

The economy of enough

As the financial collapse continues – home prices falling and more job losses announced every day – attention has focused on stimulating the economy. The injection of trillions of dollars by the government into the banking sector and virtually every other segment of the American economy has been viewed… Read the rest

Nice letters and nasty notes

I receive a fair number of reader comments about my columns, mostly appreciative, and occasionally not. While notes of appreciation are a pleasure to receive and easy to respond to, nasty notes are a challenge.

During my twelve years in public office, I learned to roll with the punches. After a few unsettled… Read the rest

The joys of tea

Over the past several years I have become enormously fond of drinking tea. My father used to drink tea each morning, and I remember as a boy joining him at breakfast with a cup. I didn’t really enjoy the tea, but I enjoyed sitting with him sipping Lipton’s and feeling grown up.

My mother discouraged soda … Read the rest

Playing the fool

Wall Street brokers commonly refer to market theory, a high-sounding pseudo-scientific set of investment principles developed to explain and predict how markets work. Between themselves, the brokerage community refers to yet again another valued theory, but this one is called “the bigger fool”… Read the rest

A slice of time saves dimes

It’s said that time is money, but until a recent discussion with an airline seatmate I’d not realized how far this idea has gone.

I’ve been flying back to NYC to visit with my parents fairly often this past year, and about 25 percent of the time, I chat with my seatmates. This last trip was particularly interesting;… Read the rest

Yet another modest proposal

Just as necessity is the mother of invention, so do desperate times demand imaginative solutions. Accordingly, it’s clear that the time has now come to introduce Kibble for People.

The economy is in a shambles, the unemployment rate is growing. Junk and fast food sales increase every year and people… Read the rest

Creating our better self

In mapping brain function, specific areas of the brain have been found to be primarily responsible for particular functions, such as hearing, seeing, feeling, motor coordination, reasoning and so on. Despite this clustering of functional areas, the brain is nonetheless capable of fully integrating… Read the rest