Data dumps aren’t the sole province of whistle blowers like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden.  In the name of transparency, our government unloads reams of data on a regular basis, so much so, that the search for specific information is like a forced to march though the dessert i

Encryption, which makes our electronic communications secure, is only as good as three things:  human nature, human nature, and human nature.  After Edward Snowden leaked information about government surveillance on our citizenry, Congress amended the USA Freedom Act to end NSA’s

Fracking is a dirty word in my circle of friends and I admit, I am as eager as they are to see this country decouple from fossil fuels.  But when Hillary Clinton was criticized for taking money from the fracking industry, a  donation amounting to less than 1% of total contributions,

Strategy, strategy, strategy.  To reach our goals we need to have one or several.  Unfortunately, planning is a lesson we don’t learn early.  The young have little sense of time.  They live in the moment like the hedonistic cricket in Aesop’s fable.  The ant’s wisdom usuall

A poet in China complains her country has weaker communications skills than Americans and therefore is less able to promote its core values.  Students in China, she says, are taught by rote rather than encouraged to use creativity and imagination.  (“Shall We Teach Creativity?”

Guilt and shame seem to describe the same human condition. Both reactions arise from having done something wrong.  According to the experts, however, the two are different.  Guilt is a response to a specific action, an event external to an individual.  Stealing a cookie from a shop

Thoughts of immortality enter most people’s minds before they cross the final threshold.  Presidents think of their legacy.  Actors imagine their hand prints cemented into a square on Hollywood Boulevard, and no tyrant ever failed to strike a heroic pose for a statue.  On the que

Surveillance tools are everywhere.  Another device is coming soon to a store near you: software that identifies individual faces in a crowd.  Walk through Macy’s one afternoon and you may hear a message telling you your favorite cologne is on sale.  And those greeters with their

Literature makes a great contribution to our culture, but should it be taught in high school? That question is the genesis for a new book, Lit Up by David Denby.  (“Saved by the Bell,” by William Giraldi, New Republic, March 2016, pgs. 66-68.)  As a former high school English te

Coloring books for adults are all the rage.  One retired acquaintance admitted she’d recently bought a book, attracted by the elaborate patterns.  She insisted a high degree of concentration was necessary to stay within the lines, a comment which made me think of the earnestness o