Through the process of raising our boys, Suzie and I were introduced to the concept of “magical thinking,” a phenomenon common in adolescents. In that context, magical thinking is an unconscious belief that merely thinking that an positive outcome will occur is enough, by itself, to make it happen. Magical thinking allows adolescents to dream, to picture themselves as succeeding, without having to engage in any hard work to make success […]
I woke up at 4:15 this morning, panicked, out of a vivid, realistic dream. It took place at a lake that looked much like Donner Lake near Truckee, but with gentler slopes all around it, and with an enormous dam at the east end where the state park is. There were houses all up and down the hills around the lake, a small city really, four or five thousand people, […]
Election day 1980. I was in my second year of law school in Ithaca, New York, and invited about 15 of my fellow classmates/friends over to the attic apartment on College Avenue that I shared with my Sue and Sue to watch the election returns. As the evening went on and it became clearer and clearer that Ronald Reagan was going to become the next President, the sense of disbelief […]
I have a former colleague whose daughter is an outstanding soccer player on one of the best high school teams in the area. The paper today reported that her team had lost in the quarterfinals of the playoffs by a 1-0 score. That made me start thinking of how unfair it is that athletic contests have a binary outcome, and then thinking about how we overvalue the results of arbitrary […]
It’s now almost a certainty that Russia is attempting to influence the U.S. Presidential election by leaking stolen/hacked emails from John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager. And it’s evident who Russia wants to win the election: Donald Trump. Before pulling the lever, or filling in the bubble, or marking an “x” on the ballot for Trump, every Trump supporter ought to take a good long while to ask, “Why?” Why […]
Suzie’s Aunt Ellen is an Episcopal nun. Until I met Suzie and Ellen, I didn’t know there were Episcopal nuns, nor that there was any kind of monastic tradition left in American religious groups. But Ellen is living in a convent, called the Order of St. Helena, which recently relocated to a beautiful, calm piece of property in North Augusta, South Carolina, just across the river from the more famous […]
We had a bizarre airport experience just now in Kalispell, Montana. An experience that makes you wonder about the people running security at our airports. Here’s the story. We met the mother of one of Andrew’s housemates, and the four of us had a nice dinner on Friday. She was slight and shy-seeming, with a soft voice and a gentle laugh. Charming and obviously smart. The 180 degree opposite of […]
About 5:15 p.m., the idea of driving from Santa Rosa to Kalispell didn’t seem nearly as good as it had earlier in the day. Most of the day had been easy and beautiful, especially the drive from Redding to Bend, sunshine and clear blue skies, evergreen forests and stark dry landscapes, all newly seen on a road — US 97 — that I’d never taken. But as the sun fell […]
This report suggests skepticism about skeptics is in order. My main point still stands. It may be a long time before we get an answer.
It’s with some trepidation I dip my toes into this subject. But this recent report from the Earth System Science Center at The University of Alabama in Huntsville, using data from NASA’s Terra satellite, shows why keeping a minimum of skepticism about anything you hear about what conditions on Earth will be like in 20, or 50, or 100 years is probably warranted. The problem is that predictions about future temperatures on Earth […]