According to the Food and Drug Administration, the value of a statistical life (VSL) was $9.3 million in 2015. Assigning a dollar value to a human life may seem a bit callous, but it is a necessity. Government agencies are required to conduct a cost-benefit analysis for every regulation expected to cost $100 million or … Continue reading How Much Is a Life Worth? →

Our oldest son, James, is home from Raleigh for the Easter weekend, and as always, it's great to have him around. As he started saying his good nights before retiring for bed, I had a flashback to the day my wife and I brought him home from the hospital, over 33 years ago. While most … Continue reading Sweet Baby James →

I know some bloggers are concerned about allowing readers to post comments, since you never know what a reader might say. But it's never concerned me (perhaps because I get so few comments). In fact, many of the comments I receive make my day, especially when they are like this one I just received: you … Continue reading Who Said Allowing Comments on a Blog Is Risky? →

Finals week at college can be a stressful time for students. And it seems like the stress levels have increased over the years. Back in my college days, I vaguely recall feeling some stress during finals week, but I don't recall the college offering any way to relieve that stress. Things are quite different today. … Continue reading Forget about Giving College Students Laptops or iPads, How about a Dog? →

To paraphrase a recent Huffington Post article, We are Paris. We are Ankara. We are Istanbul. We are Brussels. But above all, WE ARE HUMAN. WE ARE LOVE. WE ARE PEACE. WE ARE ONE. My thoughts and prayers to all the victims of terror and violence; you will not be forgotten.    

I wrote about this back in July of last year, after the Wall Street Journal had a pros vs. cons debate about whether there should be a tax on sugary drinks. I noted back then I was fully in favor of such a tax, and the research seemed to indicate that such taxes are most … Continue reading Soda Taxes Are in the News Again →

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey confirmed that Twitter would keep tweets at 140-characters. If I kept that limit for my blog posts, this would be t

New discoveries about how the brain works always seem to be fascinating, and the one I just read about today is no exception. Witzelsucht (from the German witzeln, meaning to joke or wisecrack, and sucht, meaning addiction or yearning) is a set of rare neurological symptoms characterized by a tendency to make puns, or tell … Continue reading This Condition Is Not That Punny; Well, Actually It Is →

I like to think of myself as a fairly calm, easygoing sort of guy. There's not many things that bother me. Except... Except when I get into a phone conversation with someone who doesn't see things my way (and by my way I mean the right way...) I've had two such instances this week. The … Continue reading Why Is That Some Phone Calls Bring Out My Dark Side? →

We just got back from the Sound of Music play in Philadelphia, and I was fairly confident before we got there that the show was going to be amazing. And somehow, the performance exceeded my expectations. The lead part of Maria was played by Kerstin Anderson, who is only in her junior year of college. … Continue reading How Great Is the Sound of Music? →