Some leaders rise to the occasion of a crisis. Others sink. And then others add a whole new category of chaos.
For the last two weeks, much of the nation — make that much of the media — has been gripped by a Category 5 hurricane that leveled parts of the Bahamas before churning toward the East Coast of the United States. Hurricane season has not been President Donald J. Trump’s forte, as the Hurricane Maria-Puerto Rico debacle two years ago can attest. That salient point has been underscored in recent days by Dorian, the latest in a series of Cat. 5 storms that are becoming a yearly event.
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Read MoreThe word “intellectual” has become a dirty one in our culture, and scientists, artists and academics suspect. But there is no greatness in this world without great thinking.
Stephen Hawking – the transcendent English theoretical physicist, cosmologist and mathematician, who died Wednesday, March 14 at age 76 after battling motor neuron disease his entire adult life – had, of course, a great mind, one that bridged Einstein and quantum theory...
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Read MoreThere are few more intriguing themes in journalism and literature than that of the brilliant loser – the superb racer who for a variety of reasons fails to meet expectations, be it runners Zola Budd and Mary Decker, speed skater Dan Jansen or Thoroughbreds Spectacular Bid, California Chrome and, most recently, Nyquist; the juggernaut so dominant in the regular season and so vulnerable in the playoffs (the Stephen Curry-led Golden State Warriors battling the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA playoffs); and, most heartbreaking of all, the “perfect” performer who finds that perfection elusive when needed most (Serena Williams against Roberta Vinci in the semifinals of the US Open last year; Novak Djokovic against Stan Wawrinka in the finals of the French Open last year; and, my favorite ...
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Read MoreThe Pluto flyby has shown us how well the little planet that could is served by its name. Pluto was the Roman god of the underworld (Hades in Greek), whose queen, Proserpina (Persephone) spent spring and summer with her mother, the earth goddess Demeter, in the upper world, and fall and winter with her gloomily handsome hubby, the lord of the dead. Indeed, this arrangement was the reason we have spring and summer, when the earth is recalled to life and warmth, and fall and winter, when the earth dies coldly to itself.
Pluto the planet has icy mountains and geological activity, suggesting heat somewhere at some point:
“That leaves rethinking how thermodynamics apply at the dwarf planet,” Mika McKinnon writes. ...
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Read MoreWell, we have been to Pluto, so to speak, and it turns out to exceed the expectations even of us Plutonians. How could it not?
Pluto is no dull little rock but a world filled with texture characterized by icy mountains and geological activity. It’s Switzerland without the Lindt chocolates, the chalets, the cuckoo clocks, the secret bank accounts and, of course, the Roger Federer ...
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Read MoreOn July 14, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft will fly by the former planet known as Pluto. Already, the spacecraft is sending back pictures that have scientists “drooling,” which is a bit like calling Marilyn Monroe a dumb blonde and then collecting every MM photo you can.
You see, back in 2006, a fraction of the members of the IAU (International Astronomical Union) voted to demote Pluto to dwarf status. (Something about size and crossed orbits and not owning its Kuiper Belt neighborhood, etc.) So even though tiny Pluto has five moons, it was out.
This did not sit well with the kind of Earthlings who champion the oppressed or are tiny themselves (card-writing schoolchildren, especially those who had to memorize “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles,” or some such to remember Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.) ...
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Read MoreA new German study on brain activity during creative writing has got me thinking about one of the great intellectual mysteries: How do you write? How do I write?
It’s something that’s difficult to teach – one of the many reasons I’m not a teacher – and impossible to portray. Think about it: Movies about writers (“All The President’s Men,” “The End of the Affair”) always depict them in the throws of action or passion – which leaves very little time for writing.
In the study, Martin Lotze and his University of Greifswald team conducted brain scans while reclining subjects wrote on a propped-up writing desk. (The scanner’s magnetic field would’ve sent a computer flying.)
The novice writers showed more activity in the visual centers of the brain, while the experienced writers – who were also asked to copy some text and then riff on a short story – demonstrated more action in the speech areas. This led Lotze to conclude that the novice writers were watching their stories play out like movies while the experience writers were narrating them as if hearing an inner voice.
OK, that stopped me cold, because one of the great pleasures I’ve had since childhood is watching my stories on my brain’s big screen, and I’ve been writing fiction since I was 9...
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