My 21-year-old daughter went to an Orlando party hosted by a work friend this summer, and the rebel flag was a hot topic, or as hot as a topic can get when multiple beers precede conversation. Many partiers, to my daughter’s dismay, made points that boiled down to black blame. Things are fine the way […]
Read More →My adult daughter, a child of divorce, wants to know the secret of lifelong wedded bliss. How, she wonders, can she avoid divorce and have “I do” last until one spouse dies of very old age. As one half of the divorce that impacted my daughter, I don’t feel qualified to give advice. But […]
Read More →In an earlier post, I created an hypothesis: That some people can almost literally feel what you feel; that the ability to empathize exists in a wide range, and people at the top are bombarded with emotions sucked off other people. (See Could biology impact political views?) I think I’m one of these emotional […]
Read More →This story originally appeared in The Orlando Sentinel on Tuesday, Aug. 11, 2015 Should Confederate monuments be destroyed? No – and yes – and that’s not really the question. The focus shouldn’t be on granite, iron or art. It should be on the people who view the monuments. In a convoluted way, many people’s […]
Read More →The world is a polarized place. Our differences, however, may be biological as much as ideological. Fact No. 1: People with autism have trouble empathizing with other people. They simply don’t identify tricky non-verbal cues and, as a result, can’t share in someone else’s happiness or sadness. (An overly simple explanation.) Fact No. 2: […]
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