Speaking Truth to Power: The once and future speech

On the wall of my office is a framed piece of paper that I often think of removing because it may just seem too ostentatious. I keep it there for me – not for anyone else no matter what they may think. It is a just a flattened out table name-card like you get at a con, but the name, on it is Senator...

When life gives you s***, find the manure fork

TL;DR version – Will join me Friday in writing & calling our legislatures to argue for science and science education? There are days that are rotten, and weeks that need a reset button. Sometimes moments of too much wrongness extend across months or even years. From health issues to job problems,...

My best friend

A few months ago on Twitter (or maybe it was only weeks?) I remember reading about Neil Gaiman losing his beloved dog. A few days ago, JC Hutchins spoke of the death of Lap Kitteh. I haven’t lost a pet in many years, but when my first horse died in 2003 the anguish was crippling, and I still have to...

Boston, Terrorism, and racial profiling of motive

I am a child of Massachusetts. My high school weekends were spent roaming MIT, taking classes with their Educational Studies Program. My summer days were punctuated with afternoons running around the Boston Museum of Science as my friends and I escaped the summer heat. We’d walk from MIT to the Museum,...

Fighting Funding Cuts & Sequestration

Disclaimer: I am writing this post as a private individual. The views in this post are strictly my own, and no approval of an outside entity should be assumed. I have spent the past several weeks trying to figure out how to write this post. Sometimes emotions are so raw that they don’t readily shape...