The Ocotillo (Fouquieria Splendens) is one of the most distinctive and fascinating desert plants of the American Southwest. Kim and I (especially Kim) have been very fond of the plant for a dozen years, since we started exploring our desert surroundings. Our friend Natasha is crazy about the Joshua Tree (Yucca Brevifolia) a native Agave that grows in the Mojave Desert just east of here and is both the state plant of Nevada and is…
The “man in the moon” concept has ancient origins that span multiple cultures, arising from humans’ natural tendency to see faces and familiar shapes in random patterns (called pareidolia). The most widely recognized Western tradition comes from European folklore, where the dark patches on the moon’s surface were interpreted as facial features – typically two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. Different cultures developed their own explanations for how this “man” ended up there. One…
The world’s major deserts span across different continents and climate zones, each with distinct characteristics. There are hot deserts. The Sahara in North Africa is the largest hot desert, covering much of the northern third of the continent. The Arabian Desert stretches across the Middle East, while the Thar Desert lies between India and Pakistan. In North America, the Sonoran, Chihuahuan, and Mojave deserts cover parts of the southwestern United States and Mexico. Australia’s Great…
Like half of the people in America (and perhaps the world), I am somewhat systematically reprising the movies of Robert Redford in the wake of his sad, but not so untimely death at age 89. According to IMDb, Redford has 82 acting credits to his name and 10 directorial credits. Of those acting credits, 50 were movies in which he acted (as opposed to narrated or for a series episode or two). I shouldn’t really…
Since I was young, I have always been against capital punishment. This is one of those beliefs that I can genuinely say was not adopted from others, but was, rather, something I very specifically and very memorably pondered while I was taking my high school courses in ethics. I learned all about situational ethics and still I concluded that man simply does not have the right to inflict a punishment with such finality and profound…
For the longest time, I have found that my poor posture has made it so that walking or standing around for any length of time makes my back hurt and fatigues me to the point of wanting to sit down and thereby greatly reduce my step accumulation that we all so carefully monitor these days. Do I have a bad back…not really. I have no vertebrae or disc issues per se that I know of.…
We just spent three days in the Gold Country of Northern California. We’ve passed through the area several times, but this time we spent a leisurely few days going through most of the local towns up and down Rt.49 (Get its? 49 as in the 49ers…). We stayed in Jackson at the National Hotel, which is a period boutique hotel with all the Nineteenth Century Victorian charm you expect in this part of the world.…
A week ago, as part of my process of capturing title ideas on which to write stories, I heard someone reference the best days of their lives and I wrote it down as a title for a story, not really thinking at the time, exactly what it was that I would be writing about. That is just one of the many quirky things about the way I write and how I manage to do what…
At what point is dialogue more harmful than helpful? Dialogue is fundamental to healthy political discourse, though it faces significant challenges in practice. Here’s why it matters and what makes it difficult. Political dialogue serves as the primary mechanism for peaceful conflict resolution in democratic societies. When people with different viewpoints can engage constructively, they can find common ground, develop nuanced solutions, and maintain social cohesion despite disagreements. Dialogue also helps prevent the kind of…
Today, Kim and I are flying north to join our friend Frank for a birthday celebration by going with him into the California Gold country for a few days. This feels like an appropriate way to celebrate his 88th birthday because, as a Marshall Scholar, Frank is not only a font of knowledge about California history but also one of the most brilliant global macro economists I know. Given the importance of gold to both…