“Science fiction’s appeal lies in combination of the rational, the believable, with the miraculous. It is an appeal to the sense of wonder.” – David Hartwell per Wikipedia I’m a sci-fi fan and have been aware that there are two types of sci-fi: hard science fiction and speculative fiction. According to Wikipedia, it seems that […]
Idle hands are the devil’s workshop ~ Proverbs 16:27 The pandemic seems to have exacerbated a whole raft of social and economic problems. Personally, as a retiree, I find myself limited in the things I normally would do, such as shopping, travel, eating out, visiting friends, and even my volunteer activities. I can’t imagine being […]
“So, what’s it like working in a uranium mine?” I asked my neighbor. The neighborhood block party thirty-five years ago was in full swing, square dance music blaring, and the beer from the local craft brewery keeping things lubricated. “Well,” he replied, It’s kinda spooky sometimes. There are some areas where you can feel the […]
At the same time that we’re solving for climate change, we’re going to be building cities for three billion people … If we don’t get that right, I’m not sure all the climate solutions in the world will save mankind, because so much depends on how we shape our cities: not just environmental impacts, but […]
For generations, we have spent the first third of our lives acquiring the college degrees we need to find jobs. These degrees are the stamps on our professional passports that paved the way for the remaining two-thirds of our journey. ~ Ravi Kumar and Steve George “Don’t use force; get a bigger hammer.” […]
This garden has taught us that if we have the courage to plant a seed … We never know what might grow. ~ Michelle Obama While much of the reporting about the Trump Administration shows major danger to the country, journalism about the damage Melania did to the White House Rose Garden and the […]
To see a world in a grain of sandAnd a heaven in a wild flower,Hold infinity in the palm of your handAnd eternity in an hour. ~ William Blake, Auguries of Innocence When I was young, my mother was not a tidy person. She claimed to have started smoking when she was twelve, and chain-smoked […]
“They say I’m old-fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast!” ~ The Lorax by Dr. Seuss When I first started a garden, I rented a rototiller to break up the stiff soil, made neat rows and added fertilizer with every seed. It worked out reasonably well, but […]
… It is not a sentimental but a grimly literal fact that unless we share this terrestrial globe with creatures other than ourselves, we shall not be able to live on it for long. ~ Joseph Wood Krutch “The truth is that we need invertebrates, but they don’t need us. If human beings were […]
The greater the circle of understanding becomes, the greater is the circumference of surrounding ignorance. ~ Edwin Chargoff As an adult, I’ve pretty much always read the newspaper daily. I’ve never been much for the evening news, but over the past few years, my wife and I have routinely watched Rachel on MSNBC. I […]
