Category: Forum

This is not a commentary about false news, fake news, misinformation, or disinformation. That’s for another day. This is about how television news alerts have changed over the years—mostly thanks to cable TV—even if the content is accurate. A Google search for “TV breaking news definition” yields the Wikipedia result first, which reads, in part: …

The subject line of the email read “[So-and-so] said I should talk to you,” but the so-and-so was not a name I recognized. Nonetheless, I opened the email and discovered it was an invitation to record an audio course. I had never done anything like that before, but I ultimately agreed to do it. I …

President Trump barely attended a U.N. climate summit. Tom Brady and the New England Patriots look ready to win another Super Bowl. It’s a good time to talk about the quarterback’s pajamas. Yep, Brady sells pajamas. Well, no, sorry. Brady sells “Athlete Recovery Sleepwear” (ARS). Brady’s ARS is advertised with the slogan, “When we wake …

Do you remember January 18, 2012? That was the day many websites protested the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), which were proposed laws in the U.S. Congress. Wikipedia for a whole day blacked out their site, instead displaying the message “Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge” and asking people to …

Allow me to set the record straight. First off, Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that is trying to be the repository of all knowledge; it is not Tumbler or Reddit or some other social network. Wikipedia has rules. Some of them are open to interpretation a bit, but for the most part the rules are discussed within the community of editors and usually enforced evenly.

The rational part of my mind recognized almost immediately thereafter that the identification I had come up with was nonsensical. But was it?

While the evidence they provide is scientifically debated, some tools such as audio recorders have become popular mainstays of the paranormal investigator.

Miracles are pretty rare events. Except on television’s Dr. Oz Show, where they appear with astonishing frequency.

What do you do when your heart says one thing and the data says another? When science conflicts with values, which wins the battle for your soul? Which, for that matter, gets your vote?

What a privilege to be living through a time of such miracles. These are not literal miracles, of course, in the sense of divine intervention, and so miracles is not the correct word.

The archaeological record shows clearly that our human ancestors were enormously intelligent and resourceful. They were more than capable of developing sophisticated technologies on their own.