For the past twelve years, I’ve made 12th Night the most important holiday on my personal calendar. It’s a night when I raise a glass in toast and remember all of the people who have, in one way or another, touched my life.
I spent most of my childhood very sick, and I never thought that I [...]

A friend of mine, Tim Sanders, offers the following insight about gossip:
Gossip, especially about personal tragedies, is a social form of pornography. It can only poison your psyche and drag down your spirit.
What is “social pornography?” I’m not going to define pornography directly, because it’s a slippery slope. For example, Justice Potter Stewart’s  maxim on pornography–”I [...]

Social learning appears in more than human beings. Many animals, including0 stickleback fish display the behavior. Now, scientists believe that fruit flies are capable of social learning. Yes, fruit flies.
According Sachin Sarin and Reuven Dukas at McMaster University, inexperienced female fruit flies follow the lead of mated female fruit flies when selecting which fruit to lay their [...]

Today, Elinor Ostrom was named one of the recipients of the Nobel Prize in Economics. In my office, I have a 1/4 shelf of her books and journal articles. I first discovered her work in 2008, and I was absolutely amazed. Her work blends theory and real-world analysis. She’s not just a theoretician, she’s actively [...]