Much commercial fiction is pure entertainment. That’s ok; we enjoy being entertained. However, fiction offers a marvelous opportunity to be more significant, to explore social issues, leaving the reader changed as well as entertained. Fiction can show a social issue in the setting of the story in the background canvas across which the plot moves. Continue reading
An artistic woman asked me that question. In part, she was asking about the mechanics of drafting a novel. In part, she was asking how you get past the stinging criticism when someone accomplished in the art reads your first draft. One answer is this: don’t show a first draft. Show an edited manuscript that’s as good as you can make it. Maybe the 21st draft. Continue reading
Among other things, life is a conversation. The boundary of your community is the limit beyond which you have no conversation, no connection. We want to feel connected. That’s connectedness. Continue reading
In 1986 I was at a technical conference where an invited speaker was presenting data on a little-known project—measuring atmospheric CO2 concentrations, day after day, year after year. The terms “global warming” and “global climate change” weren’t used—they weren’t in the general vocabulary at that time. Nonetheless, I watched the data on the screen in growing horror. I suspect the other participants had the same feeling, but nobody said so. Continue reading
On June 28, 2013, the U.S. National Research Council (NRC) issued a report saying the White House should establish a national policy on sustainability by executive order. Now how can an order on paper generate sustainability?
Complex systems are collections of many actors interacting by nonlinear rules. In this post, we’ll examine Looking Good and Being Right as two of those rules of interaction among the persons and institutions in the complex system that is society.
I detect a public malaise. When the discussion turns to today’s politics or business or and government, the comments all sound similar. Continue reading
In Blog 20, I described the Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court, which gave corporations the constitutional right to free speech and to make unlimited monetary donations to political advertising and commentary. Reportedly, Senator (and previous presidential candidate) John McCain (R-AZ) said Citizens United is “one of the worst decisions I have ever seen.”