Global Village People

I first heard the term ‘global village‘ a long time ago. Marshall McLuhan coined it in the 1960s, imagining an interconnected humanity all coming to...

Don’t Worry About College Majors

I’ve heard a lot recently about ‘picking the right college major’. It’s normal to worry about such things. I remember. But I think obses...

Page Count

Today I was organizing my collection of book reading notes, and wondered: how many books have I read in my lifetime? I made a wild (and probably generous) guess...

Gentrification’s Wheel

Gentrification is complex. Many say it’s better than the alternative. In many American cities, “blighted” areas are redeveloped or otherwise t...

Water We Waiting For?

Note: This first appeared in The Oregonian newspaper on June 18, 2007. One of Portland’s best opportunities to be “green” is going down the dr...

Just Like They Did In Key Largo

  A long-ago encounter with celebrity: In the 80s, one of my college jobs was driving a cab. One night at about 3am, I get a call to a bar downtown called ...

Book Notes: Tools of Titans

By Tim Ferris. 736 pages. NOTE: Whenever I read a nonfiction book, I like to summarize the ‘meat’ of it, the parts that really had value to me (I co...

Book Notes: Atomic Habits

By James Clear. 306 pages. NOTE: Whenever I read a nonfiction book, I like to summarize the ‘meat’ of it, the parts that really had value to me (I c...