History has a delightful habit of repeating itself. It seems like humanity falls into the same traps and creates the same problems. Luckily for us, there are usually people of goodwill and upright character to keep us from collectively toppling into the abyss. For example, our country is currently involved in a cold war, or something that looks an awful lot like a cold war, with Russia. Yes, again. For those of you who aren’t ancient like me, it’s time for a brief history lesson. After the end of World War II in 1945, the majority of our planet was controlled by either the United... Read More

You may have already heard that sitting is the new smoking. Perhaps you’ve wondered what that means?  It simply means that the risk of dying younger and being less healthy that has long been attributed to smoking is now being applied to sitting on your 6 all day. Even if you are a world class exerciser, yet spend the majority of your waking hours sitting on your derriere, you are still at risk for chronic health issues associated with sitting. Recently, several studies published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine suggested that fidgeting may offset the effects of sitting all day.... Read More

The Martian is the movie we need right now. We live in an era of astonishing selfishness and decreasing selflessness. These days, fewer people study science and engineering during their college years. In fact, business is the most popular college major. Lots of us are taught that the proper trajectory in life is to get a well-paying job, get rich, and accumulate as much stuff as possible. Many of us are baffled by the idea of doing something for the common good, coming together for a singular goal. That’s the bad news. The good news is, people are fluid. We can change for the better.* We... Read More

Food is one of my favorite subjects. I love to eat it, smell it, think about it, and talk about it. I’ve noticed that much of the conversation around food revolves around what one should or should not eat to be healthy. Often, I think information about the whys of good eating is far more important than the what. First let me say that the word diet has become a negative word in our lexicon. We use the big-D diet to inform how we restrict our intake, e.g., Atkins, South Beach, Paleo. The little-d diet is a derivation of the Greek word meaning “manner of living”. So, when I talk about diet (notice... Read More

During the construction of the Twin Towers in New York City, many people were less than thrilled with the design. Critic Lewis Mumford wasn’t impressed, writing that the World Trade Center, “…is a characteristic example of the purposeless giantism and technological exhibitionism that are now eviscerating the living tissue of every great city.” Don’t hold back, Lewis, seriously. The Twin Towers were opened April 4, 1973, to much fanfare. New Yorkers sighed and tried to get used to the gigantic monoliths now in their midst. But on August 7, 1974, sometime after 7 AM,... Read More

Remember that one gangster movie? You know the one. It’s the one where the main crook talks about loyalty, but proceeds to screw over everyone to save his own skin? Okay, you need more information. It’s the one where the gangster teaches his adorable child questionable life lessons. How about, it’s the one where the mobster embarks on a flamboyant act of vengeance in order to drive a point home? Pretty much every gangster movie ever made features those tropes. It’s a standard and immediately recognizable cliche. That’s okay, though, because often times cliches are... Read More

There’s a few things that kids know, deep down on a molecular level. Fart jokes are never not funny. When your parents are in a hurry, that’s your cue to go slower. Old people are creepy and weird. Coming from someone who hopes to live long enough to be old, creepy, and weird, I know it’s an unfair generalization. It’s also completely true. Fear of the elderly can be pretty standard with kids, and I can’t blame them. Look at it from their perspective. The elderly can smell funky. They don’t dress in a way that you’re used to. Their behavior, sometimes?... Read More

Screenwriter William Goldman famously said that, “Nobody knows anything,” when it comes to Hollywood. His quote has remained true for numerous reasons. For decades, the idea that a market existed for “faith based*” entertainment was mostly laughable. But two events in the entertainment field took place that proved audiences would come out big time for it. First, in 1995, the novel Left Behind was released. The initial book spawned a series of 16 novels, video games, and film adaptations that failed spectacularly at the box office, but were warmly received on home video.... Read More

Straight Outta Compton is really two movies stitched together. The first movie is intense, angry, joyful, and it’s about a group of friends trying to escape the madness of a racist society through art. There’s a couple of scenes in the beginning that encapsulates that perfectly. First, young Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) sits on a school bus, writing lyrics in a notebook. He’s in South Central Los Angeles, ground zero of America’s failed war on drugs. A few seats up, a group of kids are yelling playfully at a car driven by a gangbanger. The gangbanger does not like... Read More

  Pew Research performed a poll back in January of 2014 that’s simultaneously unsurprising and depressing. They found that the average American adult reads approximately 5 books in 1 year. For the most part, we live in a country that doesn’t truly value the written word, and hasn’t for quite some time. We say we do, because who wants to look like an uneducated troglodyte? But we always complain that we’re too busy to read, yet we make time to binge watch Netflix.* Yet, just because something isn’t popularly known doesn’t mean it has no value. Odds are most... Read More