In the last few days, the approach of the big storm elicited lots of references to that massive snowfall eighteen years ago. But I have waited in vain, wondering if anyone would mention the historical event that took place thousands of miles away, as the snow fell here in 2003...
Here’s the problem. Litmus tests are useless for assessing people, even though they work fine for water samples. Let’s say you are an unusually self-aware and articulate water sample, and you have been withdrawn from a mountain stream for testing. And let’s say that the investigators who are testing you...
Months ago, the phrase “herd immunity” became the most common answer to the question, “How will this pandemic ever end?” For the recovery of the economy and the revitalization of civic life, the immune systems of millions of people must develop a resistance to Covid-19. Reaching that goal will require...
Even though I started college as a philosophy major, I am of no use at all when it comes to figuring out why existentia l is so often put to work to characterize the troubles of our time. As a college student, before I could take the course where I...
The San Francisco School Board recently endorsed a proposal to remove the names of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln from schools in that district. And you did not have to be President to end up on the chopping block: Paul Revere, John Muir, and the writer Robert Louis...
Every year, The Daily Camera opens the door for local folks to vote in a “Best of Boulder” poll. Most of the categories involve a variety of commercial enterprises, from restaurants to gyms. But, in days of yore, the Camera had a category called “Best CU Personality.” Usually, the voters...
I once held preeminence as a complainer and whiner about these perilous conditions. When classes were changing and the young people were (rightly, understandably, and justifiably) racing from one side of our big campus to the other, those of us—who have evolved into the status of people of advanced age—winced...
In 2020, when an inability to understand each other seems omnipresent among Americans, an upsurge in the capacity to speak clearly and audibly would be a wonderful way to add consequence to the First Amendment. Here is a sound generalization about human nature: everyone wants to be heard and being...
Unlike the nation’s oscillations in political orientation, an actual pendulum moves regularly and predictably along an established and consistent trajectory. It can never swing too far, since the rope or chain on which it hangs has a defined length. A pendulum cannot swing wildly since it moves from one knowable...
In 2020, the folks on the left flank of the Democratic Party are called “progressives.” For the progressives of 2020, racial justice is an urgent priority. In the years around 1900, the Progressive Movement rearranged many aspects of American governance and life. New laws regulated many aspects of the economy,...