Writing about books, hiking, the Battle of Tarawa and more
Twenty years ago, a freshman legislator from Boulder County named Peggy Lamm thought independent-minded Colorado was ready to join Oregon, which in 1994 had passed its Death with Dignity Act, a law allowing terminally-ill patients to voluntarily … [Continue reading]
More than two decades ago, while I was working for a newspaper in Santa Fe, I got a call from a beefy-sounding guy named George J. "Doc" Thompson, a former police officer with black belts in both Judo and Taekwondo. Thompson, who had spent much … [Continue reading]
Though now dated, Isaac Asimov's 1940s "Foundation" stories remain a cornerstone of golden-era science fiction. At the center of the early tales was the "Encyclopedia Galactica," a vast compendium of all human knowledge intended to jump-start … [Continue reading]
NBC news anchor Brian Williams has been suspended for six months without pay, after falsely claiming that a helicopter he was riding in over Iraq on March 24, 2003 was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade. The public has been savage in practically … [Continue reading]
At the end of 2014, American movie screens lit up with soaring tales of mythical heroes. No, not “The Hobbit” or “Exodus,” but two “true stories,” Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-nominated “American Sniper” and Angelina Jolie’s thudding adaptation of Laura … [Continue reading]