Sholeh Patrick
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Reining in AI, top-down
Technology is always a mixed blessing. Develop it unchecked by a sense of ethics, and we’ve learned it costs too m…
Can you outthink a goldfish?
We all know it by now: The average person today reads less and has a much shorter attention span. Taken together, that doesn’t bode well for man’s ability to t…
Could quiet hours make us smarter?
“Noise” so pervades modern life that it’s become inescapable. We hardly know what it’s like anymore without a cacophony of noise, chatter, and moving images — …
Anastrophe, it is
Pleased, she is, when your Mrs. Language Person notes the anastrophe so rare. Delights, she does, when our language so diminished may delight in its creativity…
Want to see 100? Get blue
In case you missed the Oct. 12 column by Geoff Emry, Coeur d’Alene’s self-styled “exercise explorer M.D.,” let me tell you about blue zones.
Honor the hallowed witch
I have mixed feelings as I write this. Our family thrives at Halloween, at the best time of year. Spirits and magic evoke the season’s beautiful mysteries: Of …
The rules of war
As the world watches two high-profile wars unfold, heartbreaking civilian costs are mounting. Sadly this is nothing new in the human experience, but today’s mo…
Best public schools? The DOD
As the U.S. continues to lag behind other developed nations in the measurable quality of its public education system — currently at 16th according to U.S. News…
Iranian wins Nobel Peace Prize
I happily admit to being a lifelong nerd. Big names in film and music elicit no thrill for me. The Academy and Grammys pass unnoticed. But when the Nobel Prize…
Home sweet — moon?
The year is 2040. You’re looking for a new home, and you want something a bit different. Maybe very different. Like that new subdivision on the moon.
Warts and all, the U.N. has purpose
Like the humans who compose them, no institution is without flaws. In both cases we can only hope that, on balance, the good outweighs the rest.
When libraries weren’t free
In this American culture war over books, Ground Zero is the public library. It’s interesting, to say the least, watching from the sidelines as free access to i…
Do I know you?
When prescient science fiction and reality start to blend, it really makes you think.
Don't say it again, MLP
Your ever-so-humble Mrs. Language Person was a stellar typist on those lovely old click-and-stick machines, yet now her arthritic old fingers slip on accursed …
Is knowledge as we know it fading?
Never before has critical thinking been more necessary.