My last post (Designing a Better Map to Guide Us) spoke of a hopeful future and a unified US. But I have to confess that the current election has tested my optimism. What gives me hope, however, is record numbers of early voters! Because the more active our voting population, the more our country will reflect who we truly are. So I was happy to find The Brennan Center for Justice — a top-rated nonprofit dedicated to defending democracy from many angles, and ensuring every American can vote.
Every now and then my petulant 14-year-old daughter will extract herself from the latest viral TikTok video and declare her thoughts about a real-world issue. This week she surprised me…
Never again will I take fresh, breathable air for granted. The relentless fires along America’s West Coast serve as another reminder of how interwoven we are on this planet. When…
Earlier this week, an intense windstorm knocked out our power for several hours. Today is the third day of an orange sky casting an eerie pall over Portland, as wildfire…
The Black Lives Matter protests in Portland are nearing 80 nights of activism. And as described in last week’s post, Hogwarts Meets Portland, the protests have been relatively peaceful since…
Funny how fiction and reality often merge. Each reflects the other, no matter how much time passes between when a story was written and when a person interprets it. Such…
Last week’s post referred to a discussion from my college days about the plausibility of world peace. While utopian ideals might seem laughable given the current state of the world,…
“Do you think it’s possible that humans will ever evolve beyond war?” I asked, casually sprawled on the dorm lobby sofa. Mike’s response was a swift, flat-out “No.” “Not even…
As evidenced in The Illusion of Progress, one thing that gets me through these ongoing moments of collective stress is to zoom out and view them as history in action.…
Do you ever have dreams so visceral that it takes a while to get grounded in reality once you wake up? When I was about 13 years old, one particular…