Reading the Daily Me at the End of the Century of Self

September 24, 2010

The Yellow Kid, a popular 1890’s cartoon character in the Hogan’s Alley comic strip, lampooning the Spanish-American War and how irresponsible journalism fanned the flames by appealing to popular prejudice.                   (click on image for larger version) Who will edit our future? In the late ‘70’s, Nicholas […]

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Projecting Inequality

September 8, 2010

Street Art by Alec/Pacific Coast Highway and Sunset Blvd. Modeling Economic Inequality under Democratic and Republican Administrations: Trends and Consequences (Author’s note:  this document has become somewhat historic, as the model, now named the Cambiant model, has been significantly more developed thanks to a small, but very useful grant.  The name is from the Latin […]

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Save the Wild e-coli

July 3, 2010

The poor old microbes have been taking a beating in the popular press.  Current articles reported on ravening hoards of Mycobacterium leaping from our shower heads, drug resistant Staphylococcus lurking in our beach sands, and great pandemics threatening to sweep away big chunks of the human population.  And many of those who live along the […]

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Carbon Conversations

July 3, 2010

Carbon Conversations.  Somewhat Logically @ John Hulls 2009 For over a year I’ve been talking with John Wick about global warming, agricultural practices and carbon sequestration—he and his wife Peggy Rathmann, on behalf of the Rathmann Family Foundation, provide seed funding for some very innovative science and technology here in West Marin, including the agricultural […]

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Reindeer Really Know How to Fly

December 3, 2009

People often believe supposedly scientifically based “facts” that are simply not true.  Yet, if you trace things back far enough, you can usually find the grain of truth that started people down the wrong track.   The point came up in discussions with a friend who said that my position on the actual risks of cell […]

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America Back on Track, an Electrifying Idea

March 3, 2009

What with the response to the Gulf oil spill, politicized near-gridlock in Congress and the crippling expenditures from the Afghan and Iraq wars along with bailing out Wall Street, our leadership seems incapable of coming up with an idea that will capture the imagination of the public and lead us into a more sustainable future.  […]

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Will Rogers, Dead Mules, Scandinavian Banks

February 3, 2009

America has produced great humorists and social commentators. During the Great Depression, none was more loved than Will Rogers, cowboy, movie actor and star of stage and radio. Part Indian, he claimed that his ancestors didn’t come on the Mayflower, they met the boat. He said he wouldn’t join an organized political party, so he […]

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Assume A Cabinet Position

February 3, 2009

I have not submitted my resume to Obama’s transition team. I like what I’m doing and don’t want to work in Washington. But the administration could still create the post most likely to tempt me: the Cabinet position of Secretary of History. The Secretary would protect American History from the abuse, misuse and ignorance rampant […]

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Muddle for the Common Man

November 15, 2008

This Christmas season is becoming downright Dickensian, haunted by the spirits of Depressions past and present, while the sound-bitten mongrels of political punditry howl dogmatically about the spirit of Depressions yet to come. In the midst of these depressing thoughts, I’ve had to surrender my now obsolete high-powered analog cell phone (it worked fine in […]

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From Too Big to Fail to Too Large to Care

November 3, 2008

Financial numbers matter, whether local, (like paying teachers), national (the $700 billion bailout) or the global debt crisis,( which Washington is not discussing). Solving the larger problem will require open, honest leadership that doesn’t seem to exist in Washington. The current bailout mentality will collapse most of the American financial markets into a few massive […]

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