Slaveholders, rapists and serial killers are evil. No, they're not. In his book The Gift of Fear, Gavin de Becker argues that defining people as evil is not only unproductive, it's dangerous. It's dangerous because we conceptualize evil as being so pervasive that you...
Last night I noticed that Amazon Prime now offers the movie Hotel Rwanda. It's based on the true story of a hotel manager who shielded 1,268 people from certain slaughter during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. I couldn't resist watching it (for the fourth time). What I'm...
My sister recently saw a production of the musical Oliver and emailed me that it reminded her of when I was in our high school production of the same musical. "Oh yeah," I mused. "Oliver. That was so much fun! My god, that was a hundred years ago. I was 17 and so...
Now that I'm an entrepreneur, I do a lot of networking and meet brand new people every single week. Last week I met a woman whose book is about to come out called The Gray Rhino: How to Recognize and Act on the Obvious Dangers We Ignore. Michele Wucker has intrigued...
During a recent interview with The Huffington Post, Jon Krakauer said his 1996 climbing of Mount Everest was a mistake. This is startling because in his 1997 book Into Thin Air, he explains that reaching that summit was a dream he'd had all his life. In many ways, it...
If I'm known for nothing else, I'd like to be known for this original statement: You can't cure families; you can only prevent them. Thank you.
This is a pre-post because I'm hoping to blog more extensively on this later. I'm in Toastmasters International, an organization that helps people become better public speakers. I'll be doing a speech called "The Art of Being Disliked." My point is that we burn up way...
Actually, there are atheists in foxholes: http://militaryatheists.org/atheists-in-foxholes. And I'm an atheist, too.
Here's part one of my discussion of the word "lady." Maybe read that first. Since that post last September, I've become more vocal about not wanting to be called a lady, but my female Midwestern friends (and male friends) continue to do it. "Hello, ladies." "Have any...
There's an expression that "there are no atheists in foxholes." I don't like this expression because I'm an atheist and I'd like to think I wouldn't capitulate like that, but who knows. I also once read a piece by an atheist soldier who claimed from personal...
Guess what, everybody? There's an upside to having bipolar disorder and depression! Dr. Nassir Ghaemi runs the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts USA. His book, A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and...
Want to see if you have face blindness or prosopagnosia? Go here and take a test. It won't definitively tell you, but might give you an idea. I need lots of extra time to memorize just one face (like weeks or months). Until I finally get a face down, I rely heavily on...
Dear Jennifer, It was nice to meet you the other day. Again, welcome to your new job. I like working here a lot. I’ve been here four years and hope to be here for about 15 more. Please keep in mind that I have a condition called prosopagnosia which means I don’t...
I envy non-Latino-looking Americans who learn Spanish and receive congratulations for it.
Get ready for International No Diet Day on Sunday the 6th! How about it? You might wonder if a day of eating everything in sight really better than watching what you eat. I think the day isn't about going off your diet, but about trusting yourself to eat in...