The ferry bobbed in the six-foot waves like a match stick caught in a wash cycle. While the storm outside raged, inside, passengers huddled in the middle rows of the vessel’s viewing area, away from wind gusts that could break the glass. Together, the people, white-lipped

To read the news is to wonder if the world has gone mad. Autocracy is on the rise, while democracies seem to be stumbling. To be honest, some democracies no longer look like democracies. India and Turkey come to mind.  Russia holds elections, but no one would describe Vladimir Putin

A former NATO commander has advised the United States that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a signal that our country should gear up for war.  Naturally, someone my age who lived through World War II is likely to greet this statement with horror. Worse, the means of fighting a war h

  Joe Biden and Diane Feinstein are being attacked in the media because they are old. Critics question their fitness to hold office.  As both are in the last decades of their lives, no doubt they’ve slowed down.  If they were attempting to run a triathlon, that might matter.

  George  Gascón is in for the fight of his political life. The Los Angeles District Attorney is facing a recall because he wants to reform the justice system in his county.  He’s working to end life sentences without the hope of parole and trying juveniles in adult court am

The article I was reading posed the question, “Can we prove the world isn’t a simulation?”  (by David J. Chalmers, Nautilus, Issue 42, pgs. 47.)  It’s a tech version of a long-established philosophical conundrum, “Can you prove you’re not asleep?” After finishing the a

Unfortunately, the threat of nuclear war looms as possible today as it did when I was a child. I no longer practice hiding under my desk whenever a siren goes off, but I shudder to read Vladimir Putin’s cavalier talk about using nuclear weapons against Ukraine in his stalemated war.

The Flynn effect is over. That’s the trend whereby human intelligence increases by about 3 points a decade. Recent research reveals the trend is in reverse. Humans are getting dumber.  Scientists speculate the reasons are varied:  changes in our education systems, nutrition, the c

While Russia persists in its ambitions for world dominance, I wonder if Putin notices technology is inventing other realities. First, there was the worldwide net. Next came virtual reality. Now there is the metaverse.   According to Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, the metaverse

  Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” lists the attributes of a rational human being. Paramount is to keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…  That’s a tall order these days.  Robert Reich, famed economist and liberal commentator, lost his head recently. Furious