Consider a typical cancer patient: we will call her Val. She is in her mid-50’s, a bit overweight, and hasn’t been feeling well for a few months. She goes to her doctor, gets some tests, and learns she has advanced cancer. She is told she should start chemotherapy...
The United States-Mexico border has become very porous. Millions of migrants have come across, immediately requested asylum, and melded into the U.S. landscape. But they are not all that is coming across the border: black market products and deadly drugs are also...
Lee Zeldin was running for governor of New York when his life almost ended. While delivering a public outdoor campaign speech and surrounded by a large audience, a man walked up to him onstage. Lee attempted to continue his speech until the man reached out towards...
A new technology is making the news. It is literally making the news, because it is writing the news. Fading away are the days when news articles, documentaries, and even educational curricula are written by humans. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has advanced to a level...
If you are like most Americans, you have an investment account. At least some of your nest egg is in the stock market, bond market, or maybe real estate. And if you are successful in growing your nest egg, you are investing with a long-term perspective: the average...
Do you have a modern home with the latest gadgets — home security system with cameras, heating and cooling controls through your phone, remote garage opener and remote car starting, and of course internet and TV? Without moving more than a few fingers, you can control...
One of the greatest storytellers of all time was Paul Harvey. He was known for teasing the audience with a short narrative, pausing, and then telling “the rest of the story” which veered into an unexpected conclusion. He did this constantly, so listeners would wait...
“Good as new” — that’s what we say when something is repaired so well that we can’t even tell that a repair was needed. Yet, if you look closely enough, a repair rarely as good as new: a sewed piece of clothing has stitches, a rust patch on the body of a car has seems...
When you use a mapping app on your phone, you may see multiple routes to get to a certain destination. One is the estimated fastest route, another may avoid tollways, and a third may show less turns. Your app may work a bit differently, but yours will likely give you...
Football is America’s most popular spectator sport. We get irrationally passionate about this game. Football has plenty of competing sports vying for our attention, yet it wins. Why? Is it strategy? No doubt there is a lot of strategy in the game, but that is true of...
Do your own reactions ever surprise you? Do you get angry at some offhand silly comment, obsess over finding some little item you lost that you really don’t even want, or get in a down mood when everything around you is going great? Do you ever wonder at your thoughts...
In this modern world of instant messaging and rapid communication, actually getting a message across to another person is harder than ever. In more primitive times, a face-to-face contact was the prime way of communicating with another person. In that interaction,...
In the early days of video games, when players didn’t have cell phones or powerful computers, to get the best play experience they often went to arcades, which were public places that housed pay-for-play machines. Arcades could only house a few machines, and the...
In today’s hectic world, we may long for a simpler life. With the accelerating advance of technology, we may find life overwhelming and just too complicated. Henry David Thoreau’s famous quote, now nearly a couple of centuries old, of “simplify, simplify” still...
“There is no such thing as a free lunch.” While no one knows who started this saying, it was apparently coined at a time when saloon owners were advertising free lunches, with the catch that the patrons had to buy drinks at a high cost. The saying caught on, and now...
In past U.S. election cycles, allegations have been flying furiously about cheating and election integrity. Both sides have alternately claimed that the other side cheated while their side was guiltless. The result has been a lot of confusion over whether close...
When you see vehicles on the road, you just think of normal transportation, but in a kid’s imagination, they are powerful robots in disguise — that’s because Transformers have been a major cultural phenomenon, capturing the minds of generations of kids ever since the...
Homelessness has been a problem in America throughout its history, but modern homeless tent cities are becoming particularly common. These cities are increasingly accepted in certain cities which have decided that they have no other option. A tent city may actually be...
If you have pets, you don’t appreciate the “presents” that they may leave. Cats have instincts to use soft ground or sand which you can simulate with litter, and that saves your house, but it’s also frustrating to have to clean the litterbox frequently. Still, that...
Have you ever owned a fish tank / aquarium? If you did, or do, have one, you know how much work is involved to keep it looking the way it does when you first set it up. You start with the right mix of fish so they won’t eat each other or spawn out of control, you get...
The concern over the environmental impact of fossil fuels has caused a rapid, though largely unsuccessful, shift towards wind and solar options. It is unsuccessful in that fossil fuels still are the majority energy production source, by far. We are discovering that it...
In what now seems like ancient history, people would record TV Shows and family movies on a VCR (Video Cassette Recorder). In the first years of the VCR era, there were two competing cassette tape formats: Betamax and VHS. Although Betamax was available almost two...
What type of music do you prefer? Although musical tastes vary widely, odds are that you gravitate towards music similar to what you grew up with. Often we get used to a particular style, and new styles are less attractive than those we heard in our young years. It’s...
If you have a lawn, you probably have dandelions. The common dandelion is well suited to compete with grass, and can easily take over your lawn. Its seed-spreading technique is very efficient and far-reaching, its tap-roots make it a hardy perennial, and it is quite...
When you are buying or selling a house, how do you know what the fair value of that house is? The way the real estate agents do it is to look at “comparables” in the neighborhood — what are similar houses in the area selling for? This assumes that your house will be...
‘ J.K. Rowling is almost a household name these days. She has reached the ranks of the most well-known authors of our time, and writing the Harry Potter series launched her writing career. But she would not have been voted “most likely to succeed” when growing...
If you live in an urban area, broadband service companies are tripping over each other to compete for your business, offering you “faster internet speeds” than the others and/or unlimited data. But if you are in a rural area, you may find it much harder to get high...
Released around the turn of the century, The Matrix is still a hit movie with a mind-bending premise, which calls into question what we call “reality.” In what appears to be normal life in our modern world, a computer programmer finds a recurring program code which...
We have advanced far in medical research — so far that we think we’ve got biology mostly figured out. Certainly we know a lot more than previous generations, and the medicine of a century ago is considered the dark ages. With all this knowledge, our average lifespan...
Leonard is driving to work along a familiar route. He is in the right lane, and sees a traffic light at a modest distance ahead just turning yellow, then red, and cars ahead of him are braking. While he is still moments away from reaching the light, it is obvious that...
Joe leaned back in his recliner chair, reminiscing on his retirement party. His co-workers told him how much they appreciated his hard work over the years, and wished they could also leave the daily grind and retire. Joe told them of his plans to travel and just enjoy...
I had a patient in yesterday and he asked me is there anything he can do with the diet? He has been doing it for three years and he wants to change it up a bit. He said he is strict and says he does not cheat but is there a way he can change it somehow? My response to...
I had a patient in recently and he was telling me how hard the food was. He was saying he so misses eating his cooked food, carbs and animal products and he keeps eating them just trying to eat less. He was significantly deviating from the diet recommended which is...
If you are assembling a jigsaw puzzle, but you are not looking at the picture on the box top to see how the final puzzle will look, you will find a number of pieces that don’t seem to fit anywhere. They don’t appear to belong to the portions you’ve assembled so far,...
Let’s start off with a simple truth: you are not getting any younger, which is a nice way of saying that you are aging. Not only that, but you are on a collision course where your body will eventually fail — no matter what you do, your declining body will eventually...
Genetic testing is becoming a vital part of medical science. For medicine, it takes much of the guesswork out of medical care. Specific genetic combinations stored in your DNA cause you to react somewhat differently to the environment around you than any other person...
When you talk with someone, how much of your communication comes from the actual words spoken? Social scientists agree that somewhere between 7% and 30% is communicated through the words themselves. A larger percentage is communicated by the tone of voice and the way...
Traffic has changed forever, thanks to communication. In the past, you would start on a road trip, not knowing what traffic jams you might encounter along the way. You might get some idea from local radio as to the state of the major arteries — traffic reports on the...
There could hardly be greater differences between two U.S. presidents than we’ve seen with President Trump and President Biden. Their policies are almost polar opposites. They don’t appear to agree on any issue. Yet, there is one thing they both agree on with a lot of...
Children are a true gift from God. As with any gift it’s not always as things appear. This divine blessing is sent for one primary reason: to enable you to let go of self and lay your life down for another. Any gift from God needs to be seen as extremely precious to...
