Tag: building community
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Why Be Kind to Robots?
Rich is dancing on air this week, and it’s easy to understand why. After months of frustrating delays, countless hours online, endless more hours on the phone, and a mind-numbing five-hour paperwork marathon, he has completed a series of welcome purchases. In the words immortalized by the poet Byron, “On with the dance! let joy…
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Surprised by Joy
I’ve been back in the US four months now, and I’m still struggling with sticker shock. Going to the store for a small bag of groceries: $100. Movie tickets: $16. And gasoline: don’t get me started. Ordinarily, gas prices are like the old joke about the weather: everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything…
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Two Weeks Without a Car: Heaven or Hell?
Is it me, or has modern life become eerily similar to an Addams Family episode? Our days are a dizzying mix of horror (“AI Goes Rogue!”), slapstick comedy (“Raccoon Rescued from Mayonnaise Jar”), and mystery (“Where did I park my car?”). As for the Addamses themselves, they were always good company. “Bizarre as we appeared…
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Look On the Bright Side
I like to think of this blog as the place I get to mix entertaining stories with a dash of travel advice, a few uplifting quotes, and a sprinkling of ideas about navigating these challenging times with grace and humor. But ever since I got back to California, I find myself wallowing in harrowing disaster…
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These two goats walk into a barn…
This week, shocking animal shenanigans left barnyard creatures reeling and caused humans to question their eyesight … and their sanity. “I thought I was crazy,” said farmer Joe Johnson. Kindhearted Joe and his wife, Bridget, live on a small Ohio farm and take in strays: aging livestock, abandoned horses, homeless dogs, feral cats, random chickens.…
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Don’t Panic!
When I first heard a humanoid AI robot had become a monk in a Buddhist monastery, I was aghast. If AI was taking over the work of spiritual heavyweights who had devoted their lives to advancing the human race toward enlightenment, how can the rest of us hope to hold on to our paltry jobs? “At…
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The Power of Book Clubs
They say you never forget your first time. I was a newlywed, newly arrived in Ohio, and felt enormously flattered when a kind acquaintance invited me to join a prestigious book club that had been meeting for more than a century. That month’s selection was Madame Bovary, in which a bored 19th century housewife has…