FirstPunch

When I was around three years old, I remember my mother showing me a picture in one of our family photo albums, which we occasionally perused together while curled up on the couch. It was a new picture, one that I hadn't seen before. "Look," mom said, pointing to the chubby baby in a stroller wearing a blue onesie and a red baseball cap that had two triangular white patches on the front that made it look like my favorite car, a Jaguar XKE. He also had a pair of oversized adult sunglasses perched stylishly on his nose. One cool dude. "Who is this cute little guy?" mom asked. Tracing my tiny finger around the face in the picture I immediately lit up with recognition and proclaimed, with a but-of-course look on my face, "it's me!" My mother chuckled and shook her blonde head in amusement, "no, honey, that's not you, that's Harold." My little brow immediately furrowed. Completely perplexed, I continued to star...

In the early 1980s, my father, who was a career U.S. military officer, was stationed at the Royal School of Military Engineering in Chattenden Kent, located in the rural south of England. During those two years of discovery and new experiences abroad, my family lived in a small British military community surrounded by picturesque villages-a far cry from the more insular US Army bases where military families in Europe were typically posted. Officers from around the world, like my father, came to Chattenden to teach engineering to British troops and apparently drink and raucously party together like it was New Year's Eve year round. One of those military officers was from West Germany-I forget his name after so many years-but he had a sweet, introverted son named Marcus, whom I befriended. One afternoon Marcus came home from his first week in British middle school upset and confused. His classmates had harassed him nonstop, calling him a Nazi and goose stepping and shouting, ...

By jettisoning science and reason in favor of superstition and medieval storytelling, Donald Trump is leading the West, like a combination ransacking American Visigoth and Christian monk, into a new dark age. And many Americans, especially the MAGA crowd, either are oblivious to it or willingly embrace the descending veil of ignorance. During the early Middle Ages, as the decline in knowledge of Greek cut off the western world from Classical knowledge and science, theology was elevated to the status of 'queen of the sciences', and science as we now understand it was demoted to theology’s servant or handmaiden. Contemplations on and investigations into nature and the world in general were less concerned with applying observation and the scientific method to understanding it, than uncovering the mysterious Christian truths and symbolism embedded like a cryptographic message within world around them. One of my favorite examples revolves around medieval contemplations on t...

I just returned from a weeklong trip with my father to his home town of Lewistown, Montana. It is a small bump in the road along the Big Spring Creek, a scenic agricultural town of around six thousand snuggled between the Judith Mountains to the northeast and the Big Snowy Mountains to the south. And it is, in fact, smack dab in the middle of the Big Sky state with the official marker designating the exact spot located in the basement of a local cowboy saloon. And before you ask, no we didn't go hunting and fishing like a superannuated Andy and Opie, though the weather was perfect for it. We instead spent most of my limited vacation away from Silicon Valley in a twenty by twenty, overheated senior center apartment trying to convince an eighty-five pound, ninety-six year old, stubborn as hell old lady, also known as my grandmother, to move to an assisted living center in California near my parents. Think of the old lady in American Gothic but with less of a sense of humor and a...

Last week, I did something that my better judgement, which I typically heed, usually screams at me to avoid. I took an online detour through the Twitter feeds of Donald Trump Sr. and Jr., clicked on the user responses, posted a few clever, if snarky comments, and quickly ended up tumbling down the rabbit hole into Alt-Wonderland.  Beyond the rampant bigotry, misogyny, homophobia, and poor language and critical thinking skills I have come to expect from the Twitter-dees and Twitter-dums that lurk in the darker recesses of that particular form of social media, I noticed a loud and consistent refrain echoing throughout Alt-Wonderland, as loud and crazed as the Mad Hatter's tea party, "the alpha males are back!"  You know the type-the overt ones the hyper macho guys with profile pictures posing defiantly with an assault weapon slung over the shoulder, an image in the background of a waving flag or Washington crossing the Delaware. These real men list their pas...

It is high time we sat down and had "the talk." Ok, here it goes, I won't sugar coat it or tap dance around it any longer. Your job is doomed. There, I finally said it.  I know it is a hard pill to swallow, and you may be tempted to dismiss me as an alarmist, but hear me out--virtually every non-technical career from taxi driver, to salesperson, to factory worker, to plumber is at high risk of near-term automation. This is true whether you live in the US, Europe, or even, believe it or not, China which is fast becoming a leader in Artificial Intelligence (AI).  If your job isn't based on personal touch, think personal grooming, massage therapy or surgery, or if it doesn't require creativity, think musician or author, or isn't technical, think engineer or doctor, then your days at work are numbered. And unless you are on the brink of a comfortable retirement, you should be worried. By mid century we will be looking at, conservatively, 40% unemp...

Those of you who know me, know that I am a quiet but unabashed atheist. So you may be surprised to hear that my wife and I, as we occasionally do, attended Sunday Mass with our closest friends. When we go, it is typically because our goddaughter is singing a solo in the choir. She is turning 12 and has only been singing for a little over a year, but already has a resonant and very disciplined voice. But it was not just her singing that was remarkable this Pentecost, but her unwavering strength throughout her solo, as I shall relate. The priest was a somewhat frail older man, pushing 80, who had recently undergone knee surgery. He began his sermon exhorting his congregation to remain fearless in the face of adversity, much as the disciples did after Jesus was said to have appeared to them, which gave them the strength to go out and evangelize. This seemed only appropriate given that it was Pentecost and that several terrorist acts had struck Europe in the last few weeks. But I did...