Empathy for the devil (snake)

Something about the perennial bed did not look right as I gazed out the kitchen window getting ready to make dinner for my soon-to-be-returning crowd of young filmmakers, son included. It looked like someone had tossed a broken baguette onto the patio near the deer-chewed hostas. I stepped outside to get a better look, and saw that the baguette was really a yellow-bellied snake caught up in the bird-netting I was using to deter deer. When I lifted the netting, it writhed, confirming there was still hope for this hapless creature. Then I realized its hope was me.

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Memories

Lighting “the corners of my mind,” the memories washed over me last week as I had lunch with the gang at the Forestburgh Playhouse ( FBplayhouse.com ) and shared stories about what it was like to be one of the original “Kids from Fame” in the 1980s.

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True measures of real wealth

“Nope, sorry, kiddo, you’re not running a temp. Off to school with you.” That ever happen to you? Your stomach might have been squirming, your head wobbly, your nose running like a faucet, but if the thermometer didn’t suggest the actual presence of a deadly infection, you weren’t sick, no matter how bad you felt.

The search for new ways of thinking about the economy begins with an understanding that our existing models are no longer sufficient (if indeed they ever were), and a big part of those models is how we measure our health as a society, and our progress over time.

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