Tag: 21st Century

“Did You Save It?” Words to Remember from a Lifetime of California Wildfires

I WANTED TO WRITE something lighthearted about the New Year in my first post of 2025, but it’s hard to be lighthearted if you live in Southern California, as I do. So much for a Happy New Year. You’ve surely seen or heard about the fires that have decimated several SoCal communities, and the hardest

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10 Insights Into the American Character … from a Interesting Non-American Observer

THERE’S A WRITER in Finland that I occasionally do a little editing for who I haven’t heard from in a while. He sent me an email last week and he led off with this: “How are you? The election is done and the next president has been chosen. How does that feel?” I’ve gotten similar

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This is No Big Surprise, But It’s Finally Time to Kiss the Office Christmas Party Goodbye

Editor’s Note: I’m occasionally republishing some of my most popular posts. Here’s one from back in December 2017. THE HEADLINE ON A STORY in The Wall Street Journal pretty much said it all: Welcome to the Post-Weinstein Holiday Party. What followed was 1,400 depressing words that basically said, without actually saying it, something that you probably already know

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Sometimes You Need a Change, and it Even Happens Here at The Skeptical Guy

LOYAL READERS of this blog — I think there are a couple of you out there — may have wondered why I haven’t published for the last few weeks. My apologies for that, but there are a number of reasons for me going radio silent. The big one is that my family has been struggling

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Only in California: This $1.5 million home is a fixer — because of the the meth lab inside

HOUSING IS A BIG PROBLEM here in the People’s Republic of California. There are many reasons why, but as the website CalMatters explains, “it’s complicated.” Years and years of regulations and restrictions have made building new housing a lot more expensive. The result? As Cal Matters reports, “the median price of an existing single family

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Funeral for a Friend: What do you say when you have to toast a dear friend goodbye?

ONE OF MY FAVORITE Elton John songs is Funeral for a Friend. It kicks off Sir Elton’s 1973 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album that has sold more than 20 million copies and “is widely regarded as John’s magnum opus,” according to Wikipedia. The interesting thing about Funeral for a Friend is that it is an “instrumental

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Deloitte’s Gen Z/Millennial Survey: Young Workers Feel How Older Ones Once Did

EVER WONDER ABOUT the impact the last few years have had on the younger generations? Well, here’s new research with some intriguing insights. Deloitte’s 2023 Gen Z and Millennial Survey explores how the disruptive events of the last three years have shaped respondents’ lives and views. As the COVID-19 pandemic recedes (despite attempts to bring it back),

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Social Media’s saving grace: Preserving people you knew long after they’re gone

Editor’s Note: I’ve been republishing some classic Skeptical Guy posts throughout the summer. This one is my original Skeptical Guy post from July 2017. SOMETIMES WHEN I’M ON social media, I see dead people. Just yesterday, when I was scrolling through my LinkedIn contacts, I was struck by two things: one, that these contacts represent the

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Even if you know this famous author, his best book is one very few have heard of

Editor’s Note: I’m occasionally republishing some classic Skeptical Guy posts throughout the summer. This one is from August 2018. EVERYBODY SEEMS TO HAVE their favorite book by the late, great Dr. Seuss.  But picking the “best” Dr. Seuss book isn’t easy. According to The Washington Post, Dr. Seuss’s books have been translated into 17 languages

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Attending the wedding? Make sure you make time to dodge all the protests

Editor’s Note: I’m occasionally republishing some classic Skeptical Guy posts throughout the summer. This one is from September 2017. I WAS IN OUR NATION’S CAPITAL this past weekend to attend the wedding of a good friend and former colleague who got married for the first time at the ripe old age of 48. Just that one

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