Politics
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Big Questions: Spaceflight
In one of my earliest memories, I’m about four years old, at nursery school, sitting on the floor looking up at what must have been a small black and white television sitting on a table. The teachers were all terribly excited, and we little kids were always happy to watch television. But this wasn’t Sesame…
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Healthcare for profit and for good
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OK, if you are bored with my occasional forays into politics or religion, I apologize for this post on a subject about which I know even less. I was preparing a long post on my expatriate view of the US healthcare system versus the UK NHS (and I’ve even had a few years under the…
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Dyson disturbs
In school, Freeman Dyson became one of my heroes when I read his first memoir, Disturbing the Universe. It was an incredibly honor to meet him when he came to speak at my school — one of the advantages to growing up in New Jersey. He wrote and talked movingly of war, peace, science, books,…
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Ada Lovelace Day — Henrietta Leavitt
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Today is Ada Lovelace Day, “an international day of blogging to draw attention to women excelling in technology.” I — along with more than a thousand other people — have pledged to write about a female role model in technology. Ada Lovelace was Byron’s daughter and worked with computer pioneer Charles Babbage on his “Computing…
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Inauguration Day
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“President Barack Obama.” What a wonderful thing to be able to write. (Left: The Official Portrait; right: Courtesy Shepard Fairey and Obey Giant) Not to mention the sound of “Former President Bush”, which we’ve been waiting most of a decade for. Now we just have to learn or remember how to shake off the constant…
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Science 2008
Out of the blue last weekend, I was invited to participate in a review of the year’s science stories on PressTV, which I subsequently learned was an Iranian-oriented news channel; according to my Teheran-raised grad student, “the Iranian government doesn’t have much control over them, so they are sort of free of sides”. Media whore…
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Health Care at Home and Abroad
By far the best article I’ve read about the British healthcare system, appeared this morning… in the New York Times. It discussed the NHS‘s National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), the organization that rations pharmaceuticals in the UK (although you’ll rarely hear the word “ration” used). When NICE’s decisions are discussed in the…
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Change
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It is disconcerting to be moved by a website. Might we really get openness, sunlight, transparency?
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The First Family
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This is an even nicer picture: (Courtesy The Guardian) And a stirring speech. “Democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.”
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History, County by County
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What a joy to be able to show this map today: So much better than last time. I wept with joy and relief, and pride. (Courtesy The NY Times. Lots more very cool maps here.)