Columns

I might not be the right person to teach my 15-year-old how to drive. It turns out, she doesn’t like my tone.

Some wise man once said that the trouble with history is that you have to live through it.

In lieu of this week’s column, I thought I would submit this story told to me by a close friend who lived for a short period in one of my all-time favorite hotels, the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City, Quebec. This is according to him.

I briefly touched on ChatGPT in my column from Jan. 3, 2023. It’s been in the news a lot recently so I thought I’d revisit the topic with and discuss what it can and can’t do in a bit more detail.

The U.S. Labor Department reported that the nation’s jobs surged by 467,000 in the month of January. Pretty incredible, yet some say it’s possible that the U.S. might slip into a slight recession. Who knows anymore what’s economically promising and what isn’t. Machine trading on Wall Street isn’t always very rational.

“The worst thing,” I told my mother, “was when you made us eat venison sausages for lunch. That sausage lasted forever!”

“What is past is prologue.” Those words are engraved on the National Archives building in Washington, D.C., just a few minutes’ walk from the Martin Luther King, Jr. Monument and the National Museum of African American History and Culture on the National Mall. Each of these landmarks reminds us of the decisive role that history plays in shaping our lives today, tomorrow and well into the future.

In Greek mythology, the “Sirens” were three enchanting sisters who lured men with their songs to their death. An interesting preface to this story is that the god Zeus created these friendly Sirens to be playmates for his daughter. But as the myth narrative advances and Hades kidnaps Zeus’s daughter the Sirens eventually become evil; the progression from promise to fear.

It was snowing hard, the way it almost never does anymore, and I decided I needed to go for my walk, heedless of the weather.

I was having lunch with a friend and she asked me why I moved back to Hillsboro after living all around the world. I hesitated, since we’d been talking about various dog breeds before she suddenly threw out that query, and in that hesitant moment she went on, “What’s your favorite place that you’ve lived?”