A friend of ours once said, “I don’t want to be alive after the last person who lived before there was television is gone.” He’s no Marshall McLuhan, but he gets it—the medium is the message, and the message is not all that great. More of a pollutant. Smart phones, tablets, even computers—they’re all a […]

If you’ve had a personal experience with COVID, it changes how you view it. Having had a very personal experience with it back in March, it’s been maddening and infuriating to watch our country go without a national policy, and to watch so many of my fellow citizens behave in selfish and reckless ways. As […]

Trainers at the Seeing Eye school encourage us to talk to our dogs as they guide us. “Remind them you’re there,” they say. “It keeps them focused.” Since the pandemic hit, I’ve been taking one, and sometimes two, hour long walks with Luna every day. What happens when I run out of things to talk to […]

When I was a child, my mom watched Jeopardy! whenever she could. I can’t remember how often or when it aired; I just know I knew Art Fleming’s and Don Pardo’s voices very well. At first watching was largely aspirational—it seemed like a grownup thing to do. Eventually, it was competitive: every once in a […]

I work for PHIUS (rhymes with Prius), the acronym for Passive House Institute US. PHIUS is a nonprofit that works to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions from buildings. By applying some straightforward principles like airtightness, excellent windows and doors, active ventilation and heat recovery, and lots of insulation. Projects built to our energy standard […]