When big geopolitical summits take place it is sometimes hard to tell who has the power stroke and who is coming off as the groveler. Sometimes there’s a strong meeting of the minds and a palpable sense that great things were accomplished. Other times it appears that the two sides are talking at cross purposes and things only get more rather than less at odds at the end. And then there is a third type…
Ever since 2016 and especially since 2024, I, like many like-minded, liberally-inclined Americans that have worried about the political drift of out nation and its impact on the world have tried to find ways to do our part to move towards a solution to our concerns and our state of play. I start by declaring quite frankly that for most of my adult life I have lived in a benign neglect for the political machinations.…
The “China Syndrome” refers to a hypothetical nuclear reactor meltdown scenario where the reactor core melts through the containment vessel and, theoretically, continues melting downward through the Earth. The darkly humorous idea being that it would melt all the way to China (from the US perspective). I wonder if that was intended to be a reaction to the “Butterfly Effect”? The actual physics involve in the former is a reactor core losing cooling, causing fuel…
On Sunday, Kim and I went to go see the new Michael Jackson biopic called, with no surprises, Michael. The film was released April 24, 2026, so we were now opening-nighters. I had heard from my son Roger that it was a good movie that very much resonated with him since Jackson’s dominance of the music scene in the 1980s coincided with Roger’s youth and it left a big impression on him. I was less…
Back in 1981 when I was 27 years old and living in the quaint suburban Metro NYC town of Rockville Centre on Long Island, I came home from work from yet another long day in the NY banking world and thought I was having a heart attack. My wife wasn’t home so I drove myself the mile to Mercy Hospital to the ER, where they put me on a EKG machine. Within the hour, a…
I just returned from a five-day 1,500 mile motorcycle ride surrounded by mountains, canyons and desert, all at speeds averaging 85-90 mph. I started doing these rides, especially like this one to Southern Utah, 32 years ago. It was then that I came up with the five-day format that I have tended to follow ever since. Of course, I was 40 years old then where I’m 72 now…minor difference, right? I have been quite anxious…
The typical discussion I have with millennials regarding AI usually involves some reference to the fact that they grew up with movies about AI domination run amok. The great films on that theme start with 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) when HAL 9000 locks the crew out. Of the spaceship to save the mission. It’s the first real machine over man movie moment. The classic is the whole.Terminator line-up starting with The Terminator (1984), then…
In 1975 when I started in business school, directly following my undergraduate years, I think I owned one blue blazer and a pair of blue/grey/cranberry plaid pants. I recall having to wear those as a senior since I was the President of a large student organization and was called on to speak several times before groups of corporate recruiters and alumni. No one expects an Arts & Sciences student majoring in economics and government to…
If I had to pick one spot on earth that brings back the very best of my memories, it might well be here in Torrey, Utah. I first came through Torrey in 1994, so 32 years ago. The small relatively obscure town is primarily a farming community that happens to sit in between some of the most interesting topography of this red rock Canyonland that is so very unique to southern Utah. I know there…
I’m in Lake Las Vegas for my first night of our Cinco de Mayo ride from San Diego to Utah. Given my love for the topography of Utah, it has always struck me that the universe wants me to pay a handsome price for getting to and from there. When I lived in New York, that involved a four hour flight back-and-forth. Now that I live in San Diego that price has to do with…