I was grateful to my neighbor for helping me with a technical problem. He’s the resident guru on computers at the retirement center and far too modest about himself. Aware that I might need his advice in the future, I asked if he’d care to adopt me despite my advanced age. A s
A month before leaving public life, I published a critique on the media. At a retirement gathering soon after, a reporter asked why I’d waited until leaving office to share my views. Previously, I’d written other papers –one on property taxes and the other on Grand Jurie
Watching a reporter interview historian Timothy Snyder one evening, I sat up in my chair when he laid out his thoughts about Donald Trump’s strategy for the current 2024 Presidential election. Snyder presumed the former president knew he would lose the contest and was taking unp
I know him. When he was a teenager, I crawled around in his head as his English Teacher. Sadly, months ago, his wife of many years died unexpectedly. A man in his 70s, he fell into a well of grief so deep he considered joining her. I held my breath as he struggled to find his
The mother sitting across from me at the lunch table sighed when I asked about her daughter. “She’s thinking about moving to Pennsylvania. Since she works from home, she can live anywhere. Rural Pennsylvania seems to be the one place where houses are affordable. “ The dile
If life feels frustrating, there’s a reason. Frustration is a condition throughout the universe. Even electrons are vulnerable. Because an imbalance exists between the places for them in one layer of the quantum soup and another, each time the layers interact, the quantum particle
Scientists have discovered a way to extract small electrical currents from humid air. They hadn’t meant to do it. A student failed to unplug one of their machines at the end of the day. The next morning, researchers found a spray of microscopic tubes, one-thousandth the diamet
When a high-speed train is barrelling down the track, a person who knows the trestle ahead has been washed away has one obligation–to run in the direction of the impending disaster in the hope of assisting survivors. Those of us who sense our country is nearing a failed state
Surrounded by books in a well-trafficked bookstore, I sat down to coffee with a former student. We’ve been meeting this way for many years. By now, he is in his early 70s while I am staring down at 87. Happily, we are both in robust health, and I always look forward to our con
“I think my mind just exploded.” Those were a subscriber’s words after reading my blog, The Time Travelers. I knew the compliment didn’t refer to my writing skills. It was a response to the content. The topic was about advances in science and Artificial Intelligence. (AI). I