I remember a cartoon from when I was a kid about two guys on a train. One of them is very clumsy and always gets into trouble, while the other one is smart, analytical, and bureaucratic. As the clumsy guy is sleeping the smart guy notices the emergency brake. Having...
“Indiana Jones is irrelevant to the story.” “What?!” I gasped with fearful indignation. “Yeah, If you remove Indiana Jones from the story’s plot, the Nazis would have found the ark, taken it to the island, opened the lid, and all died. Just how the movie ended. He’s...
My oldest daughter is about to graduate from UC Davis. She is a beautiful artist despite the economics degree she will receive in June. As a very young girl, the artistic process dogged her a bit. A particular dragon she had repeatedly been drawing saw iteration...
The fall of the Berlin Wall, which occurred in 1989, is one of the most important moments of the 20th century. It also happened by accident, because of a faulty decision. Guenter Schabowski, a spokesman for the East German Politburo, was hosting a press conference...
If you believe the experts, we’re are in the worst crisis in the history of crises. That sounds gloomy — and it is. Your thumbs push story after story through your feeds of the world doing its best to hop into the flaming dumpster behind a taco bell. You long to curl...
On a rainy Sunday afternoon last week, we turned on a YouTube fireplace and enjoyed the digital crackling fire here in Southern California (that’s how we do fires here). During a commercial break, I watched an ad for a dating app called Hinge. Their...
