A generation ago (well, almost 20 years go), I developed a driving passion around the potential of connective tissue for the web to usher in an age of elevated human discourse. The thinking at the time was that given an engaged population of citizen publishers, conversing on their blogs by…

A guide to making an impact, while you still can Mid-term elections generally don’t feel terribly consequential but 2022 is different. Rights are being withdrawn; Mitch McConnell’s decades-long project to put anti-abortion justices on the Supreme Court has resulted in the Dobbs decision overturning Roe. And democracy itself is under…

Shiny New Thing I initially registered interest in the Solar Roof after the product was announced in 2016. I knew I was going to need a new roof and wanted solar power, so even though the product wasn’t available yet I put down a $1000 deposit late in 2017. Several months later in…

I was really excited to pursue the Tesla Solar Roof for my house. I’ve been wanting solar energy and storage; since my roof is old anyway, this seemed like a great fit. I priced out options for a conventional roof with conventional solar panels with storage, the Solar Roof and…

There is some good news and some bad news surrounding the COVID-19 situation in the U.S. The bad news is that the trends around the virus are truly frightening, we’re approaching a rolling 7-day average of sustained 9/11-level deaths every day. While the mortality rate rate is dropping vs. the…

It’s OK be skeptical of the experts. Epidemiologists have been struggling to complete their understanding of COVID-19, it is indeed a “novel” coronavirus so as with all things new, the knowledge of it evolves. Regardless of what we have learned (and are still learning) about transmissibility, therapeutics and immunity, we…

The Soviet empire’s internal rot was exposed by its failure to advance the standard of living of its citizens (or even to feed them adequately), its overreach in foreign wars and the dissolution of trust in institutions. This is beginning to look a lot like where the United States is. …

Why does anyone want four more years of the chaos and division under Trump? I occasionally tune into Fox as well as read Breitbart, Redstate, Federalist and Gateway Pundit to try understanding if there’s a narrative where Trumpism isn’t just racist, xenophobic, misogynistic and homo/trans-phobic. …

The COVID-19 virus will go down in history as Trump’s Virus. Not just because he got infected but because of the way he’s bungled this from the onset. Trump got off to a bad start with his effort to put public relations over public health. …