As the financial collapse continues – home prices falling and more job losses announced every day – attention has focused on stimulating the economy. The injection of trillions of dollars by the government into the banking sector and virtually every other segment of the American... Continue

I receive a fair number of reader comments about my columns, mostly appreciative, and occasionally not. While notes of appreciation are a pleasure to receive and easy to respond to, nasty notes are a challenge. During my twelve years in public office, I learned to... Continue

Over the past several years I have become enormously fond of drinking tea. My father used to drink tea each morning, and I remember as a boy joining him at breakfast with a cup. I didn’t really enjoy the tea, but I enjoyed sitting with... Continue

Wall Street brokers commonly refer to market theory, a high-sounding pseudo-scientific set of investment principles developed to explain and predict how markets work. Between themselves, the brokerage community refers to yet again another valued theory, but this one is called “the bigger fool” theory. Simply... Continue

It’s said that time is money, but until a recent discussion with an airline seatmate I’d not realized how far this idea has gone. I’ve been flying back to NYC to visit with my parents fairly often this past year, and about 25 percent of... Continue

Just as necessity is the mother of invention, so do desperate times demand imaginative solutions. Accordingly, it’s clear that the time has now come to introduce Kibble for People. The economy is in a shambles, the unemployment rate is growing. Junk and fast food sales... Continue

In mapping brain function, specific areas of the brain have been found to be primarily responsible for particular functions, such as hearing, seeing, feeling, motor coordination, reasoning and so on. Despite this clustering of functional areas, the brain is nonetheless capable of fully integrating input... Continue

In comparison to ancient stone-age cultures, we consider our modern culture an advanced civilization. In actuality, all that has really advanced is technology and information; our silly and superstitious emotional selves have not changed a bit, as so amply evidenced by “Reality TV.” An accurate... Continue

At one time people’s names were a reflection of their role within society and culture, not simply historical surnames passed on by tradition and birth. Accordingly, the Colliers were the makers of charcoal, the Coopers were the makers of barrels, the Smiths were the forgers... Continue