I’m about to commit a sacrilege. Read on out of sheer, audacious curiosity, or safely avert your eyes. It’s all the same to me. Friends in Alaska, Puget Sound, the Midwest, and the East Coast brace yourselves. Here goes: The winter sun in Colorado stares everyone in the eyes. It’s a cheer monger. A brilliant […]
Celebrating in the Dark Read More »
The Founding Father most responsible for authoring our original economic policies and establishing our central banking system thought federal taxation was not meant to be exempted, cut, lowered, or salvaged. To the contrary, Alexander Hamilton believed federal taxation should increase with increased income. Working-class Americans were supposed to pay taxes within their means, and wealthy
Alexander Hamilton Believed in Taxing and Borrowing Read More »
Trees along the West Coast and in the Rocky Mountains face a foe that is killing them by the millions and yet stands only millimeters tall. Bark beetles have affected tens of millions of acres of forest and show no sign of slowing down. Past outbreaks from these beetles have been brief and controlled by
Invasion of the Bark Beetle Read More »
Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the unsung beetle. We share the planet with over 400,000 species of beetles. (For perspective, there are only 50,000 animals with backbones: fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals combined.) In fact, according to Berkeley entomologist Jerry Powell, beetles make up “almost 25% of all known life-forms.” How many kinds
Consider the Beetle Read More »
To understand Peru is, to a great extent, to understand the Andes Mountains. They’re considerably taller than any of the Rockies in the lower 48, and much steeper. This means that some of them remain snow-capped all year round. They tower above and around many of Peru’s cities and ancient Inca ruins, like a gentle
Peru: A Land Built By Giants Read More »
The Dalai Lama is one of those lucky few whose thoughts are as clear as a mountain stream yet as deep as the ocean. Many of his writings respond to humanity’s plenitude of self-imposed miseries with a complement of practical insights that still serve as a refreshing alternative to some damaging cultural expectations. Although a
The Dalai Lama on Religion and Spirituality Read More »