The Dark Triad The psychology of leadership is an important issue generally, but it seems especially so today. Leadership in good times is challenging, but leadership in difficult times is imperative. We are in some of the most difficult times the world may ever have seen. I know we are all prone to a degree of hyperbole in thinking that our problems are greater than all others, but the truth is that as cyclical as…
Stack & Roll When I was twelve years old we moved from Wisconsin to Maine. There were many things about that move that were milestones. My mother was going from being a graduate and post-graduate student to again being a gainfully employed professional, earning 7X the income that we had lived on for the past four years. We were moving from an enlightened urban center in the Midwest where we drank “pop” to the deep…
Trimming the Palm Tree The Mexican Fan Palm is a native palm tree that comes from Baja California and the Sonoran Desert. That means it is an indigenous plant more or less and not something that was imported from Madagascar or some such exotic place. Things grow so well in this 9-10-rated climate zone that it is not surprising that the Mexican Fan Palm thrives just a few miles north of its native habitat. It…
Fly Me To the Moon I must admit that I haven’t spent a lot of time focused on the space race since that was the race between Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson to be the first billionaire in space. So, I wasn’t so very aware that both Russia and India were rushing to beat one another to land an unmanned ship at the South Pole of the moon. I’m not sure that is…
Why Now? Getting enough exercise is a pretty universal challenge for everyone at every stage of life, but I think I would get broad agreement that it is especially important when you get to a certain age. This is not rocket science, everyone understands that you should moderate what and how much you eat and drink and how much physical activity you get. Naturally, this is a game that gets played less in the conception…
The 4% Do the math. I have finally done it and it makes me more curious rather than satisfy my curiosity. The latest Times/Siena poll says very clearly that the Trump MAGA base represents 37% of the Republican Party. That is the core that gives Trump his dominant lead in the Republican Primary discussions (it’s barely an official campaign yet since there hasn’t even been a debate yet…not that he will likely partake of such…
The Political Spectrum When we were growing up, did the spectrum exist? I think if you had asked middle-school me that question I would have said, “Sure, there’s VIBYGOR, the spectrum of white light, right?” But now, I can’t seem to go a day without hearing about, talking about, reading about or extrapolating about the other spectrum. That would be the autism spectrum disorder (ASD) that I recently wrote about. It is not so much…
The Eye of the Storm In Latin, it goes that Omne trium perfectum, which means either that good things come in threes or that things that come in threes are more likely to be perfect. So, I’ve decided to release a third story in the series of my hilltop’s history of coping with Hurricane Hilary. It’s Sunday and I have had occasion to hear from and communicate with countless family and friends who are using…
The Calm I just sent my kids a picture from the weather.com hurricane tracker that’s projecting the path of Hurricane Hilary as it works its way up the Baja, slightly faster than expected, it turns out. The picture I sent was the Midnight projection and the way the weather.com app works, it pegs your cell phone location on its maps. The hurricane path, in fuscia, is about 100 miles wide, just shy of the width…
Here Comes Hilary You just can’t make this stuff up. What are the odds that while the news cycle is filled with nothing but news of Trump’s turbulent criminal indictment predicament, something that is repeatedly said to be unprecedented, another unprecedented natural event should occur like a hurricane in the Pacific that decides to sweep up along the Baja to deposit itself on the doorstep of Southern California. There it is expected to batter the…