Archive: December 17, 2006 - December 23, 2006
Mom Goes Off-Message
My Mom and step-dad are in town and last night my childhood buddy Mike came over and after dinner we all gathered in the living room to watch "A Charlie Brown Christmas." We were re-enacting a beloved childhood ritual....
By | December 22, 2006; 8:47 AM ET | Comments (143)
Feeling Solstitial
I just came from outside and it's getting VERY solstitial out there. It's gloomy, drab, shadowless, with a tight lid of clouds. But you can't help but dance a jig at the thought that we're turning things around tonight,...
By | December 21, 2006; 2:33 PM ET | Comments (93)
Remembering Carl Sagan
[Carl Sagan died 10 years ago today. Here's an excerpt from the appreciation I wrote that day for the Style section.] Carl Sagan warmed the universe. His cosmos was not cold and dark and impenetrable. He believed the universe...
By | December 20, 2006; 9:08 AM ET | Comments (246)
The Holiday Frenzy
The post office was scheduled to open at 8:30 and I showed up a few minutes early, taking my spot at the back of a line on the sidewalk. A cursory survey indicated that this was an orderly bunch...
By | December 19, 2006; 9:27 AM ET | Comments (170)
The Seven Years' British, French & Indian War
[My article in Style about an exhibit at the Smithsonian.] For most people, the French and Indian War is one of those distant, foggy, inscrutable, eye-crossing wars that seem to exist primarily as fodder for history textbooks written to bore...
By | December 18, 2006; 10:08 AM ET | Comments (129)
Are We Living in a Simulation?
[My column in the Sunday magazine.] Back when I was a kid, the future was so much simpler, because we knew we were going to be space travelers. We'd live on orbiting space stations, rocket around the galaxy, but remain...
By | December 17, 2006; 8:27 AM ET | Comments (78)
