609. Measuring

I once overheard two children arguing. They had just seen a cat, and one of them had lost a cat a few months earlier. She insisted that the one they’d just seen was her cat. I knew it wasn’t, and so did the other child. The argument was becoming quite intense, and I intervened. I…

We don’t like to think we cause problems. We don’t like to think we even contribute to them. When we see problems, we like to solve them. If we’re not successful, we like to find someone to blame. Scapegoating has caused some of the ugliest chapters in history, but it’s also pretty common in everyday…

Children have a variety of ways to tell us that they don’t think they’re able to do what we think they’re able to do. Some come right out and tell us. That makes our job easier. But some pout, and obsess on issues that may have nothing to do with the real problem. Some get…

I wrote 315 articles in about 500 days, rarely pausing for more than two days. But I’ve just finished about two weeks during which I didn’t write any articles, and then 24 hours during which I wrote four. If I were taking my roles as columnist and author more seriously, the two week gap would…

We like to have heroes. When I was in elementary school, George Washington was one of the great people we were supposed to admire. As far as I can remember, one of the most important things he did was confess to a minor misdeed that didn’t seem so bad to me. I never chopped down…

We all know and/or are adults who have lots of trouble reading maps. Of course, there are many maps that are incorrect, but there are also correct maps that are unfairly blamed for people getting lost or ending up taking longer to get where they’re going. I am fascinated by maps. I ask for window…