Recent Work
The Situational Optimist
“Nick took the cork out of the grasshopper bottle and a hopper clung to it. He picked him off, hooked him and tossed him out. He held the rod far out so that the hopper on the water moved into the current flowing into the hollow log. Nick lowered the rod and the hopper floated in. There was a heavy strike. . . .”
Tell Me A Story
Humans are not very logical creatures. The beliefs that we hold usually don’t come from spreadsheets and peer-reviewed science journals, but from the stories we tell each other. This has always been the case. . . .
What’s In A (Place) Name?
A word always has at least some history behind it, rather than a single, simple one-to-one meaning. That history can be long and dynamic, and it continues to evolve, just like language itself. . . .
Some Thoughts on Immigration, Part 2
1. Immigrants have always been feared and scapegoated in America. As Benjamin Franklin wrote in 1753, of German immigrants . . .
Some Thoughts on Immigration, Part 1
“There ain’t no asylum here/King Solomon he never lived ‘round here.” – The Clash, “Straight to Hell”
Wind of Change
As Russian tanks roll across Ukraine, and Putin raises the threat of nuclear war, I wonder (dare I?) if the rise of authoritarianism, Putinism, and Trumpism in the United States is finally reaching its logical limit. . . .
Cliffhangers
There are two types of people in the world: adrenaline junkies and the rest of us. But even among adrenaline junkies, a spectrum of risk tolerance (or rather, risk pursuit) exists. . . .
In Defense of Relentless Positivity
Sometimes at the end of a long day, you just want to turn off your brain, turn on the old idiot box, and veg out. Over the past few years (I’m sure I couldn’t say why) I’ve found myself, more and more, repelled by serious TV fare and drawn towards what I’ll call fluff. . . .
Walk With Me
About a week after 9/11, I went abroad for the first time. I was a junior in college, on exchange for the year. Now, Leicester, England isn’t the first place most people would visit in Europe, much less England, but I really enjoyed my time there, and it turned out to be a pivotal moment in my life.
The first thing that struck me when I got to Europe (maybe apart from being able to legally buy a beer in a pub at 19) was the density and walkability of it. . . .