To the Best of My Knowledge
The Nature of the Mundane Part 3. Darwin and I Take a Walk
I recently took a walk alongside a herd of big-horned sheep in the Rio Grande valley north of Santa Fe, where I couldn’t help but notice tiny fecal pellets scattered all along the trail. How could such an enormous animal produce such diminutive scat, so different from the messy pies of their ungulate cousins, horses…
Read MoreOpen Letter to Stephen Hawking
There is one thing humans have relied on, well beyond the standard cliché of death and taxes. It is the universal standard of a second as an enduring constant across cultures and time. Some extremist with a jittery trigger finger can do us all in, but the clock will still tick and the earth will…
Read MorePlaying Catch-Up with the Bible
The other evening Nick and I were half-watching a Stanley Cup playoff game involving the Boston Bruins. At one point the camera panned the rafters displaying the banners honoring Bobby Orr, and Nick commented, “Wow, Bobby Orr only played for 10 years.” And then I responded with a nugget from the deep recesses of my…
Read MoreTruth, Dissembling and Lying and the Wisdom to Know the Difference
Truth, Dissembling, Lying and the Wisdom to Know the Difference Ever since I put my first shiny nickel into my pocket, walked into Woolworth’s and bought my first bag of M&Ms, I have been comfortably ensconced in the predictable world of a fixed-priced economy – an even playing field for consumer goods and services, based…
Read MoreThings That I Have Given Up Trying to Understand
Rattling around in the back of my mind, organized into two categories, are lists of things that I just don’t understand. One list consists of diverse items that I have accepted as enduring mysteries beyond my comprehension. Electricity, for example – can’t seem to understand it, but that doesn’t stop me from turning the lights…
Read MoreEmma and I Share a Few Moments
I am a member of the baby boomer generation where TV has been a steady presence since Day 1. Thousands of black and white images must have flickered across my retina in the early sixties, imparting who knows what subliminal messages to my impressionable mind. In 1961 speech, Newton Minnow, the Federal Communications Commissioner, memorably…
Read MoreA Horse of Course
I have a pretty clear memory of when I first heard the story. It was about 40 years ago, and I was sitting in the college dining hall. Since it was the beginning of my freshman year, I was joined by a group of classmates whom I did not know well. One of the guys…
Read MoreGrokking It
Grok: to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed—to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science. ——– Last year’s experience of retaking the SATs reminded me of a mathematical mystery left over from high school, namely why…
Read MoreShoo Fly
My summer vacations have always been spent hiking in the north woods of Michigan. Both the days and Lake Superior’s waters are crisp and clear, and the only fly in the ointment are literally the flies that occasionally arrive in hordes. Horse flies are generally a minor annoyance, since they do not arrive in droves,…
Read MoreRendering Judgment
I recently heard a friend describe her declining atheletic prowess as like “a horse who should be sent to the glue factory,” which set me to pondering about the fate of loyal farm animals when they make the inevitable transition from livestock to deadstock. And I had always wondered whether glue of my childhood, good…
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