Just returned after four days in Sequoia National Park. We hiked out of Mineral King over Franklin Pass, to Forester Lake. Then we turned around and came back.It’s beautiful out there and being around all those peaks and clear cold … Continue reading →

Just finished reading 1491, by Charles Mann which has been on my bookshelf for a long time. I was most interested in the third section – on ecology. Mann proposes that the fabled abundance of wildlife that early setters saw … Continue reading →

For a couple months now I’ve been sitting on what I think is a huge story, trying to figure out a way that I could frame it for a national magazine. Other journalists are catching on now (there will probably … Continue reading →

Today I had a fascinating talk with someone who spends a lot of time thinking about how to get technology to the poor that will actually be useful to them (she’s on the board of a fairly prestigious institution and … Continue reading →

I just can’t get enough of him. I know it’s incredibly nerdy to get all gushy over a guy who specializes in health care systems analysis and improvement. But think for a second – here’s a guy buried to the … Continue reading →

A lot of people don’t like hospitals. They are sterile, unbeautiful, they are a place where you might die. Most of all they are radically abstracted from the natural world in which the individual has agency. They are a kind … Continue reading →

Psychologist Paul Bloom had a piece in the New York Times Magazine that neatly captures the essence of what I’m trying to get at with this blog. He gives the argument against the Heidi Hypothesis: No sane person would give … Continue reading →