Many years ago, I ran an art gallery, part time.  I knew I’d never make enough to live off the profits, if there were any, but I wanted to  open a venue for local artists who were talented but didn’t have an “in” with established galleries.  For 5 years, I launched gifted

At the retirement center, there is a “lightly used” shop where the prices can’t be beat.  For a song, a buyer can find anything from a couch to a hat. Profits from the shop help residents who have fallen upon hard times, mainly because they’ve outlived their assets.  The ca

Another of our western allies has given Edward Snowden an award, honoring him as a whistleblower of courage.  This time he’s been given the Bjornson Prize for freedom of expression from the Norwegian Academy of Literature and Freedom of Expression.  (Click)  The accolades he’s

A short while ago, Samantha Elauf won a religious discrimination case against clothier Abercrombie & Fitch.  A Muslim woman, she argued she was denied employment because her religion requires her to wear a headscarf, a look the company felt was contrary to their fashion image. 

A man, while digging in a basement in Calgary, Canada found a fish fossil he thought was unusual, so he sent it off to some experts.  When they reported he’d found evidence of a  60-million-year-old species, he refused to believe it.  As a Creationist, he knew the world was only

I’ve written endlessly about the burden of college tuition for students.  (Blog 6/16/15)   I’ll say it once more.  The cost of higher education is an outrage.  We’re a nation blighting the future of our country by impoverishing our young.  What I hadn’t considered until

A blog I wrote over a year ago was about Craig Mundie’s solution to all the data mining going on in the world.  He advised that the practice was so pervasive, we’d be wise to create rules for how data can be used rather than attempt to prevent its collection. (Blog 4/4/14)   An

Recently, a blog reader emailed an article from the Wall Street Journal that got my juices flowing. (Click) Columnist Peggy Noonan was taking some Columbia University students to task for their editorial in the college newspaper, Spectator. (Click)  In sum, the article was a response

“What makes aerial drones so different from manned aircraft is not their efficiency as hunters or killers but their ability to linger.”  So writes William M. Arkin, a former army intelligence analyst.  (“Loitering With Intent,” by William M. Arkin, Harper’s, June 2015 pg.

No question about it, technology is taking us into brave new worlds, worlds that until now were the purview of science fiction. One example is a recent article by James Surowiecki who warns about the problems we can create when we use robots as stockbrokers, allowing them to respond t