The Parkland school shooting raises questions that have so far not gotten into the public discussion of American gun violence. In particular, it is widely known but largely ignored that most gun related deaths do not occur during school shootings. Such concentrated killings, especially of the young, naturally draw our attention. The less spectacular gun … More Gun Violence: Theirs and Ours
~ ~ ~ Another in the Mad Jubilado series ~ ~ ~ I keep finding myself in conversations of health and illness, as I grow older. The Mad Jubilado experiences by the very course of nature and time more health related situations and conversations than in previous stages of life. In such conversations I have … More The Heart of the Matter: It’s More than Your Doctor May Know
~ ~ ~ Another in the Mad Jubilado series ~ ~ ~ It seems a lot of retired men take up woodworking. At Santa Fe Community College (SFCC) I have met quite a few. Some are immensely talented and/or just have a huge storehouse of knowledge and experience. As with many fields of endeavor, only … More Craftsmanship for Creative Productivity
~ ~ ~ Another in the Mad Jubilado series ~ ~ ~ I can’t remember not working with wood. My father was an amateur woodworker. He built some really nice furniture for our house – a hallway entry table, a coffee table, and end tables in the “early American” style – with little more than … More Some Words on Wood and Wings
It is so easy to ridicule a buffoon. I have done so more than once in various blog posts on this site. I referred to Trump as an empty clown suit because of the vacuous nature of his essentially false and tragically comic-book persona. He could easily pass for Batman’s “The Joker.” But really, isn’t … More Why Trump Does Not Matter, and Why He Does
It seems that little effort to understand fully the costs and benefits of the transition from fossil fuel to PV energy production has accompanied the rush to install utility scale solar and wind farms. However, it is very important to examine the environmental costs of achieving the environmental benefits of low carbon emissions energy production, … More Hidden Costs Constrain the Benefits of Transitioning to Renewable Energy
Someone quoted Jeff Bezos as saying that the biggest mistake is not to evolve. But what exactly does it mean to evolve? In the case of Amazon.com, it has always meant to grow Amazon by growing sales above all else, including profit. Well, the entire history of the industrial era has focused on growth as … More How to Evolve
As I watch the seemingly endless cable news video recap of the Parkland Florida high school shooting, I watched the fully swat-outfitted police move toward the danger of an “active shooter” who had set off the fire alarm to bring out his victims for execution—17 dead, 14 wounded at last count. These officers were willing … More Running Toward Danger
A power outage is not that uncommon on the high plains of New Mexico near the City of Santa Fe. In a rural or “rural residential” area, the redundancy of the power grid is reduced to nothing in some spots. In more densely populated areas, if a transformer blows out, alternate routes for electricity to … More Power Out, Pause, Power Up
Oh my! Seventy-five! Seems like it happened just yesterday. Actually, it was two and a half years ago. Copper is no longer a puppy. Yet, full-grown now, she still has quite a lot of that puppy playfulness. I have not changed much. When I turned seventy-five years of AGE, three quarters of a century seemed … More Seventy-Five and One
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 