The Bryce Jordan Center at Penn State is like many modern college basketball arenas.  There’s two levels of bleachers, the ubiquitous banners announcing this victory or that, an American flag (in case we forget where we are) and a massive television screen th… Read full post »

Last week, a young friend was sitting in the car, waiting for her father to return from an errand.  He’d just gotten a fancy new phone and it sat between the seats.   She picked it up and found… Read full post »

So I recently had 17 conversations with people at Verizon.  Most were well intentioned and just trying to do their jobs in a crazy system.  But a few of the conversations were less fruitful.  I've made a 90 second, animated film about one of the conversations:

 http://www.xtranorm… Read full post »

Terry, my wife, and I are on our way to the big box home store.  Last year she gave me a home improvement book.  In the book, people like me cut perfect circular holes in walls with handsaws for duct-work and/… Read full post »

The economy is showing in Central Pennsylvania where I live.  I chair a department in a medical school and it’s a great place to work – but the number of applications we received for an administrative assistant job was disproportionate – there were over fi… Read full post »

For the past month or so I've been working on a 10 minute commencement address for the University of Arizona College of Medicine. 

It's in two parts.  Here's the first five minutes:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXI97QRFUsw

Here's the second five minutes:

http://www.youtube.… Read full post »

An old joke:

An old Jewish man rides his bicycle on his way to work past the Nazis who chase him, yelling slurs against the Jews.   Then one day they knock him off and beat him up.   “Filthy Jew!”  They scream. 

“Oh the bicycles, the damn… Read full post »

Abby, at nine, was playing with her mother’s phone when she said, “hey, look mom, someone sent you a picture of a hamster.” Her mother, still distracted by her day at the hospital and making chili and an NPR’s story about the uninsured said, “that&… Read full post »

A friend of mine,  a brilliant and very public writer, is about to lose her husband to lung cancer.   It’s devastating, of course.  And I thought I would take this… Read full post »

Pot. Herb. Ghanja. Dope. Mary Jane. Rope. Stink Weed. Ditch Weed. Sugar Weed. Wacky Weed. Sweet Lucy. Spliff. Cannabis. Marijiana. Weed.

Let’s talk about weed. A real talk, not one of those weed-is-evil-and-no-one you-know-has-ever-used and if you do it’s only a matter of time befo… Read full post »

Dear Daughters,

You and I know two young women, sisters, who have different approaches to love. The first is deeply in love with a groovy guitar playing underachieving pot smoking intriguing counter culture kid. She loves him with every fiber of her being. She treats him how she hopes to… Read full post »